The NCPL currently offers the Ford Foundation Fellowship in Nonprofit Law at the Ford Foundation.  NCPL Fellowship in Nonprofit Law at Lawyers Alliance for New York.  These Fellowship programs provide law school graduates with exposure to an unusually wide variety of legal and organizational issues encountered by nonprofit organizations. 

The NCPL’s Fellowships has attracted the attention of the most impressive graduates from the nation’s premiere law schools, serving as a defining introduction to the work of both of the sponsoring organizations for which the fellowships are named and the nonprofit organizations where the Fellows are placed.

Other Fellowship Opportunities

To learn about additional fellowship programs in the nonprofit sector, please consult the NYU Law School Public Interest Law Center.

Fellowships are awarded to recent graduates of an accredited U.S. law school to spend a year in residence at a nonprofit organization. Fellows are selected for their scholarship, leadership, and commitment to practicing in the field of nonprofit law.

• graduate

• US Citizen
• Permanent Resident
• International or Other Visa Status
• Undocumented

A completed application consists of the following items:

• Fellowship Application
• Official Law School Transcript
• Resume
• Two Letters of Recommendation, sent directly from:
  • Law School Professor, or
  • Former or Current Employer
    • At least one reference should be from a Law School Professor.

Online applications available at: http://ncpl.law.nyu.edu/ 

The National Center on Philanthropy and the Law was established at New York University School of Law in 1988 to explore a broad range of legal issues affecting the nation’s nonprofit sector, the largest voluntary sector in the world. Participating in this program are legal scholars, practicing attorneys, judges, law students, executives, and other professionals engaged in this field.

The Center promotes free intellectual inquiry that concentrates on the legal aspects of the organization and operation of charitable and social welfare entities. Conferences, research projects, a growing library, and the creation of a bibliography on nonprofit law, as well as law school courses, all are being used by the Center to produce and disseminate scholarship and to educate the legal and charitable communities about the many important issues of law affecting this large and vital sector.

Lawyers Alliance for New York (Lawyers Alliance) is the leading provider of business and transactional legal services for nonprofit organizations that are improving the quality of life in New York City’s low-income neighborhoods. It was founded in 1969 by dedicated attorneys who believed that improving the quality of life for all New Yorkers was a personal and professional responsibility.

Last fiscal year, Lawyers Alliance represented 668 nonprofits on 1,212 legal matters and assisted hundreds more through brief consultations and educational programs. The missions of nonprofit organizations that Lawyers Alliance represents each year are as diverse as the nonprofit sector itself.  These nonprofits are developing and providing housing, stimulating economic opportunity, improving urban health and education, promoting community arts, and operating and advocating for vital programs that benefit low-income New Yorkers of all ages. Because any nonprofit that is operating programs that have a positive impact on the quality of life in New York City neighborhoods is eligible for its services, its clients include community based local organizations, city-wide nonprofits, state-wide organizations, and national or even international organizations.

Lawyers Alliance provides corporate, tax, real estate, employment, and a complete range of other business law services to its nonprofit clients. The 24-person staff includes 14 attorneys, who represent nonprofit clients on legal projects that are technically complex, delivered on a fee basis, or too urgent for placement with its volunteer network of more than 1,800 volunteers from law firms and corporations. Lawyers Alliance staff also co-counsels all of the legal projects handled by the outside volunteer attorneys, providing guidance on issues such as nonprofit law and the Internal Revenue Code’s regulation of tax exempt organizations that may be unfamiliar to the volunteers. In recent years, Lawyers Alliance has developed a paid practice representing private foundations, initially to encourage their grant making in support of nonprofit advocacy but, more recently, to address a complete range of philanthropic legal needs.

A list of recent legal projects Lawyers Alliance staff has been working on can be found at this link.

For more information, please contact:

Allie Tunis
Program Coordinator
National Center on Philanthropy and the Law
New York University School of Law
139 MacDougal Street, 1st Floor
New York, NY 10012
(212) 998-6168
(212) 995-3149 Fax
ncpl.info@nyu.edu