Eligibility for Funding

The following groups and individuals may request funding for events through the JD Grants Committee:

• Co-curricular activities for JD degree students: law journals, Mock Trial, Moot Court
• Registered Student Organizations for JD degree students. More information on how to register an organization »
• Individual students currently enrolled in the JD degree program

Funding Criteria

The JD Grants Committee's goal is to provide fair, considered, and equitable disbursement of the available funds. Because the committee considers funding requests for many types of events, the criteria are somewhat broad, and a number of the following factors may influence a decision to grant or deny a given request. Not all of the criteria may apply to every event.

• The educational value of the event or travel to the Law School community, the student organization, the co-curricular activity, or the student participants (e.g., hosting speakers, organizing law conferences, representing the Law School at moot court or mock trial competitions);
• Any additional value of the event or travel to the larger Law School, academic, or legal community (e.g., pro bono service, public outreach or public relations, events related to diversity, equity, inclusion);
• The logistics of the event or travel, such as cost, location, size of audience, number of students who benefit;
• The efforts by the applicants to secure—and the availability of—alternative funding for the event or travel (within any constraints set by the University and Law School);
• The quality of the application (e.g., complete, accurate, timely) and adherence to the required application process;
• The amount of funding already received by the student group or individual in the current academic year for other events or travel; and
• The history of good stewardship and accountability by the group or individual over previous Law School funding.

The committee does not fund expenses prohibited by State, University, or Law School rules or policies. Depending on the available funds, not all qualifying requests may receive funding, and some events or travel may receive only partial funding. Additionally, funding in one year does not guarantee future funding or funding amounts, even for the same type of event or travel.

Consistent with the criteria above, the committee rarely, if ever, funds:

• Primarily social events
• Primarily networking events
• Attendance at seminars or conferences that benefit only individual students
• Interview trips for individual students