Law School Public Interest Fundraising Season!
The PSLawNet Blog is always happy to learn of instances where entrepreneurial, public-interest minded law students stage fundraisers to support summer and postgraduate public interest opportunities for themselves and their classmates. In fact, later this year we are going to produce a resource manual for student groups by gathering information and best practices on student-led fundraising initiatives from schools throughout the country.
For now, we want to pass along coverage about recent, successful fundraisers at Yale, and one taking place
today at UC Irvine.
- First, the Yale Daily News reports on fundraising efforts at YLS. As with a lot of other schools, a Public Interest Auction is at the core of the fundraising initiative: “Around 250 members of the Law School community attended the auction, which raised nearly $44,000 for the Law School’s public interest fellowships for recent graduates and graduating third year students.” And although less lucrative than the auction, the mustache competition – a fundraising event which the PSLawNet Blog finds troubling and noble at the same time – brought in some welcome revenue: “Though it was not part of the auction, the Mustaches for Public Interest Competition garnered $750. Male and female law students raised money based on the impressiveness of mustaches they grew over the past few weeks.” (The mustache competition winner was something known as the “Spartan War Helmet.” Good stuff!)
- Second, UC Irvine is putting on a fundraising event that is new to us. The school’s student-run Public Interest Law Fund is hosting a “Community Trivia Quest.” It seems as though it’s your basic, pub quiz trivia event recast to raise money for summer public interest work: “Among the 12 teams of Community Trivia Quest contestants will be representatives from law firms, elected officials, in-house counsel, faculty and students, and others, including Sheriff Sandra Hutchens, District Attorney Tony Rackauckas, corporate teams from The Irvine Company, Broadcom, and Taco Bell, and three former state senators: Joe Dunn, Jim Brulte and Dick Ackerman.”
Don’t be bashful. Please share your school’s public-interest fundraising ideas in the comments section…
