Vanderbilt offers substantial financial support for students pursuing public interest work during and after law school. Summer stipends are available to students pursuing unpaid summer work at nonprofit and government agencies. First-year students may apply for Garrison Social Justice Scholar Awards, which provide students committed to or exploring social justice and public interest careers with summer stipends and scholarship support during their second and third years of law school. P-graduate fellowships funded by the law school are available through the George Barrett Social Justice Fellowship and the Gideon’s Promise Law School Partnership Program. Vanderbilt Law also offers a Loan Repayment Assistance Program to graduates practicing in the public interest. In partnership with the Vanderbilt Law Legal Aid Society, summer bar study stipends are available to third year students to offset cost of living expenses while studying for the bar.
Public interest law is rewarding, challenging, and meaningful. Many law graduates need to repay student loans, which can provide an additional challenge to taking public service employment upon graduation. To help ease the burden for public interest graduates, Vanderbilt Law offers a Loan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP) that pays 100 percent of your annual loan repayment obligation for up to 10 years for students who earn less than $70,000 and have enrolled in an Income Based Loan Repayment Plan eligible for Public Service Loan Forgiveness. The Public Interest Office also provides guidance on the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and other forms of educational debt relief.
The Public Interest Office helps students identify and apply for legal fellowships that support their career interests, such as the Equal Justice Works and Skadden Fellowships. Vanderbilt Law also funds post-graduate public interest fellowships through the law school’s Barrett Social Justice Fellowship and through Gideon’s Promise, which enables students to secure permanent employment as public defenders. Additional fellowship information can be found below:
“I knew what I wanted to do and that I’d need to go to a law school where I could discover and follow that path."