Skadden Foundation Fellowship Grant

Skadden Foundation Fellowship Grant

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: Skadden Foundation
Last Updated: February 23, 2026

Summary

The Skadden Fellowship Foundation, established in 1988, offers two-year fellowships for law graduates to engage in public interest law. With a focus on serving the legal needs of impoverished communities, the program has funded over 900 fellows who contribute significantly to public service. The fellowship covers salaries and benefits, ensuring dedicated legal talent addresses critical issues. Skadden fosters ongoing support through newsletters and reunions, solidifying its commitment to improving legal services across the United States.

Overview

NOTE: September 19, 2025, 11:59 p.m. of your time zone. About the Foundation The Skadden Fellowship Foundation launched in 1988 to commemorate Skadden's 40th anniversary and has since become the largest public interest law firm in the United States. The program provides two-year Fellowships to recent law graduates to pursue the practice of public interest law on a full time basis. Our guiding principle is to improve legal services for the poor and encourage economic independence. To date, the Foundation has funded over 900 fellowships. Ninety percent of former Fellows remain in public service, and almost all of them continue working on the same issues they addressed in their original Fellowship projects. Fellowships are awarded for two years. Skadden provides each Fellow with a salary and pays all fringe benefits to which an employee of the sponsoring organization would be entitled. For those Fellows not covered by a law school low-income protection plan, the firm will pay a Fellow's law school debt service for the tuition part of the loan for the duration of the Fellowship. The 2023 class of Fellows brings to 962 the number of academically outstanding law school graduates and judicial clerks the foundation has funded to work full-time for legal and advocacy organizations. In its 2010 "US Innovative Lawyers" report, the Financial Times ranked our firm in the top tier in the Responsible Business category in connection with the Fellowship Program, highlighting that it "ensures some of the brightest legal talent goes into public life." The Los Angeles Times described the Fellowship Foundation as "a legal Peace Corps." It is the Foundation's hope that, through their efforts and their example, Skadden Fellows will increase and improve the legal services available to the less fortunate in our society. Indeed, there is the expectation that the members of this cadre of new public interest lawyers will, individually and collectively over the course of their careers, have a profound effect on the quality and delivery of legal services. Our commitment does not stop when Fellowship funding ends — the Fellowship is just the beginning. We have undertaken a series of regional reunion symposia for former Fellows and extend to all Fellows a monthly newsletter and webinars. Application Process The foundation will award two-year fellowships for 2024 law school graduates, outgoing judicial law clerks, and LL.M. candidates who want to work in the public interest. Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have additional questions or would like to discuss your specific project proposal. What types of work does the Skadden Foundation fund? Skadden Fellowships address the civil legal needs of people living in poverty in the US. Your project must be legal in nature, and serve poor clients, though we do not have a strict test of poverty.

Eligibility

You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website. You may apply during the fall of your final year of law school (generally 3L year), an LL.M. program, a clerkship, or the final year of a graduate program in which you were enrolled concurrently with your law degree. Law students graduating in the winter or attending law school part-time should apply in their final year, which may be their 4th year. You may still apply during an LL.M. or a clerkship even if you worked as an attorney between graduating from law school and starting the LL.M. or clerkship. A Fellow’s project must be located in the United States, its territories, or an American Indian, Alaska Native, or Native Hawaiian community.You do not have to be a U.S. citizen or attend a U.S. law school to apply.But in connection with your employment with your host organization, you will be required to verify your identity and eligibility to work in the United States, as required by applicable law. You must have taken or plan to take a bar exam in the United States.

Ineligibility

Skadden fellows, once awarded a fellowship, cannot receive any other fellowship funds or prize monies for the two-year duration of the Skadden fellowship.Types of work the Skadden Foundation does not fundWe do not fund criminal representation, nor do we fund projects that are civil in nature but serve a client population that is detained in the adult carceral system (either jails or prisons).