Columbia Law School proudly provides wraparound support for students and graduates pursuing public interest/public service careers—from student financial aid grants and targeted community-building programs, to numerous postgraduate fellowship offerings and a generous Loan Repayment Assistance Program.
In recent years, the Law School has dramatically grown its investment in public interest/public service support to nearly $13 million per year—an increase of more than 60% compared to 2015. As a result, Columbia is now home to one of the most generous public interest/public service financial support programs in the U.S. and has become a true public interest/public service destination.
Here are some highlights of this important work, including recently implemented initiatives, enhancements, and programs. The list below is not intended to be exhaustive, but instead to supplement the wide range of public interest/public service offerings at Columbia Law.
Scholarships and Financial Aid
With the goal of ensuring that the career options of Columbia Law students and alumni are not unduly constrained by financial obligations, we significantly expanded access to financial aid and established new scholarships targeted toward public interest/public service.
- Greene Public Service Scholarships: Provide full-tuition scholarships to incoming J.D. students committed to pursuing a career in public service, made possible by a $7 million endowment commitment from the Jerome L. Greene Foundation in 2017 and expanded with an additional gift in 2024. This brings the total to five full-tuition public interest/public service scholarships for each entering J.D. class.
- Racial Justice Fellowships: Offer financial assistance to third-year J.D. students to facilitate the pursuit of careers in racial justice.
Loan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP)
Columbia Law School is one of only five law schools in the country that offers LRAP support beyond the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, providing eligible graduates with stability and reliability. Over the past decade, the Law School has implemented the largest increase in LRAP benefits in the program’s history.
- LRAP now covers 100% of eligible loan payments for participants with a calculated income of $70,000 or less (up from $50,000 in 2015). And, as careers advance, only 30% of the amount earned over $70,000 is expected to be paid toward debt
- A first-of-its kind Public Service Bridge Loan of up to $10,000 is available to LRAP-eligible graduates to help defray the cost of living and Bar preparation after graduation.
- New allowances reduce contribution levels for eligible graduates with dependent children and for those whose spouses also carry educational debt.
- Data collection efforts, including publishing 5-year aggregated LRAP participant data and introducing a post-program exit survey to collect information from those who complete or leave LRAP.
- The Law School has also introduced new modules on financing a public interest/public service career, including personal finance coaching sessions conducted by independent advisors.
Berger Fellows Program
The Max Berger ’71 PI/PS Fellows Program was established in 2019 and endowed in 2021 with a $3.3 million gift from Max Berger ’71 and his wife Dale and provides specialized resources and opportunities to a diverse cohort of students who are committed to working in the public interest, human rights, and government sectors immediately upon graduation.
Columbia Summer Funding
Students are encouraged to pursue internship and job opportunities with public interest organizations over their 1L and 2L summers. Columbia Summer Funding (CSF), which is widely considered the best-in-class summer funding program among top law schools, provides wages to students while relieving the financial burden on community-based organizations. Over several consecutive years, the Law School has: (1) increased the wage rate to $24 per hour (from $15 per hour in 2015); (2) extended the funding period to allow interested students to earn an extra two weeks’ wages; and (3) allowed students to receive advance pay for summer holidays to help defray up-front expenses.
Postgraduate Pathways Fellowships
Postgraduate fellowships are a pipeline for new attorneys to obtain critical training, experience, networks, and education, and they often lead to permanent positions in the field. Columbia Law School has a generous and unique array of post graduate fellowships, which support 3Ls and graduates pursuing public interest/public service employment in the United States and abroad. These fellowships are extremely successful entry vehicles into long term public sector careers and, in many cases, host organizations are not otherwise able to hire attorneys or provide key legal services if not for the support of the Columbia fellowship.
- Over the past few years, in addition to expanding existing postgraduate fellowship opportunities like the Singer, Millstein, and Pathways Fellowships, we have also launched innovative and important new pipelines for postgraduate work, including the generous Columbia Justice Fellowship, which supports impact litigation work at esteemed organizations such as NAACP LDF, ACLU, NYCLU, and LatinoJustice.
- In addition, we have a high success rate with externally funded fellowships. In 2024, for example, two graduates received prestigious Skadden Fellowships and another two were awarded Bristow Fellowships to work in the Office of the Solicitor General of the United States.
Public Interest/Public Service Community Building and Support
In addition to the Berger Fellows Program, the Law School—led by the Office of Public Interest/Public Service Law and Careers—has created new groups and convenings:
- Public Interest/Public Service Council: Created a group of senior Law School alumni who are experts and leaders in the public interest and government sectors, both in the U.S. and abroad. Council members are available to engage with students and recent alumni to provide support and advice.
- Columbia Public Interest Community (CPIC): Launched in 2023, CIPC is a network for all students interested in social justice, regardless of the sector they will work in after graduation. The network arose out of a widespread desire to expand the community for public interest/public service students and strengthen bonds between students while enriching their experience at the Law School.
- Career Counseling and Resources: Made available a public interest/public service roadmap for students; new general and specialized public interest job search toolkits; and information on financing a public interest career.
- Public Interest Curriculum: Added dozens of courses to the Law School curriculum on topics related to or intersecting with public interest/public service topics. Many of these include new externships and field-based experiential learning opportunities, which give students valuable hands-on experience in service and advocacy organizations.
- Office of Judicial Careers: Created a standalone office dedicated to counseling students seeking prestigious judicial clerkships at all levels of the federal and state court systems.
