OUR GOAL: To double the number of donor-provided student scholarship and fellowship funds in order to open doors to the best and brightest students who would not otherwise be able to attend Duke Law School.

Duke law’s highly engaged students, as well as our top-notch faculty, are the foundation of our current success and the source of our future strength. Our students arrive with superior academic and professional credentials and demonstrate exceptional promise. At Duke they seek — and find — an interdisciplinary, international, and invigorating academic experience to prepare them to be leaders in law, business, government, and society.

Scholarship support opens doors for talented students who want to attend Duke Law but cannot do so without financial assistance. Financial aid through scholarships, fellowships, and loan repayment assistance, also is critical to ensure students can explore and pursue careers in public service without the constraints of significant debt.

Read more about how your support makes a difference everyday to Duke Law students:

• Celebrating scholarships
• Duke Law fellowship aid leads to post-graduate public service
• Building a bridge to the profession
   

“Receiving financial support without debt is a factor I weighted in determining which law school to attend. I am thankful that I do not have to question whether I made the right decision. I know I am in the right place, and your contribution certainly made a difference.”

— Christina Mullen JD/LLM’14
Jerome M. Culp Jr. Scholar

Words of Thanks

Supreme Court clerk credits scholarship with opportunity

When she was offered a U.S. Supreme Court clerkship, Allison B. Jones ’07 made a flurry of excited calls to family and friends ⎯ and to Lanty Smith ’67, a benefactor of Duke’s Mordecai Scholarship program. As a Smith-Mordecai scholar, Jones says she is indebted to Smith. “He is the reason I went to Duke. I wouldn’t have been able to make that choice without his generosity.”

For Jones, one of six Duke Law graduates to clerk at the Supreme Court in the past four years, clerking offered valuable lessons, particularly on the importance of clear and persuasive writing. “In some ways, my clerkships were a continuation of my law school education in learning how to write clearly and effectively,” says Jones, who is now an associate with Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C. “That skill is, of course, valuable in practice, where we are trying to persuade judges every day.”

Fellowship supports summer of service

Danli Song ’14 was able to split her 2L summer working for the North Carolina Indigent Defense Services and the Office of the Federal Public Defender in Jacksonville, Fla., thanks to the Robinson O. Everett Fellowship.

“Not only did I feel like I was genuinely making an impact on indigent defendants in two communities that I care a lot for, but I confirmed what is important to me in career,” she said. “It made me much more sure of my interest in working at a top public defense office next summer and beyond and put me in touch with people that can help me reach that goal.” To the donors who made her fellowship possible, Song conveys unrestrained gratitude: “Thank you for making my summer experiences a reality with your contribution!"

Scholar pursues social entrepreneurship

Duda Family Foundation Scholar Tony Wang JD/MBA’14 came to law school with work experience and an abiding interest in the nonprofit sector; as a Stanford University undergraduate, he co-founded a magazine to explore and promote social entrepreneurship as a way to solve global poverty.

Having been attracted to Duke, in part, by programs in community enterprise, Wang has co-founded the Association for Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation, an organization for law students with similar interests in social enterprise. Now pursuing an MBA at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business along with his JD, Wang also volunteers at Durham’s JusticeMatters Legal Clinic and sings bass and ‘beatboxes’ for Off the Record, Duke Law’s a cappella group.