Giving

Stanford Law School, in conjunction with Stanford University, completed The Stanford Challenge on 12/31/2011. This has been a historic campaign. Thank you to our generous supporters for all that you made possible. The final campaign report can be found here.

Law School Priorities

While The Stanford Challenge has concluded, the need for support of the law school's educational mission and highest priorities remains. We are deeply grateful for support we receive from the school's alumni and friends.

2011-2012 Giving Information:

Donors may choose to support a specific interest area at the law school or to make an unrestricted gift to the Law Fund. Each year gifts to the Law Fund from alumni and friends provide nearly 10% of the law school's budget. These funds help to sustain the school's commitment to need-blind financial aid, clinical education, innovative teaching, and research.

To make a gift, please visit https://law.stanford.edu/gift or call External Relations at 650.736.1238. For gifts of securities, please call the Stanford Management Company at 650.926.0312 for further details.

Checks, made out to Stanford Law School, may be mailed to: Stanford University, P.O. Box 20466, Stanford, CA 94309-0466. Checks sent via FedEx/UPS should be addressed to Stanford University, Office of Development, Gift Processing, 326 Galvez Street, Stanford, CA 94305-6105.

Message from the Dean

Transforming Legal Education

The world in which lawyers operate today has changed dramatically in the last decade. And the pace of change is accelerating. Business, medicine, government, education, science, and technology all have been transformed, have grown immensely more specialized, and have become far more complex. Legal education must address these changes and adapt. Understanding the fundamentals of law and learning to "think like a lawyer" are important and remain the very heart of what it is to be a lawyer. At their best, lawyers are problem solvers, and today's problems—whether in the public or private sector—require skills beyond those taught in the traditional legal curriculum. How can a lawyer truly comprehend and grapple with a complex intellectual property dispute without understanding the technology at issue? What counselor can effectively advise a client about investing in China or India without understanding their particular legal structures or lack of structure, to say nothing of their different cultural expectations and norms?

Lawyers today need to be educated more broadly if they are to serve their clients and society well. It will take law and lawyers to translate the discoveries and innovations of researchers in other fields into practical policy. It will take law and lawyers to ensure that these solutions are fairly and properly implemented and that individual rights and interests are secured. To play their essential part, lawyers will require a new set of tools that can be forged only from a solid multidisciplinary education—a bold step that will transform modern legal education as we know it. Why Stanford? The answer is simple but compelling. Of the great research universities, Stanford is unmatched in its excellence across the many relevant disciplines—law, business, medicine, engineering, computer science, natural and biological sciences, economics, political science, education, environmental science, and on and on. The law school has a crucial role to play as we train the next generation of leaders through innovative interdisciplinary and international programs, new and expanded forms of clinical education, and a renewed commitment to public service.

With your support, we aim to build on the strength of our faculty by enhancing interdisciplinary teaching and research, expanding our infrastructure, broadening our international curriculum, providing the best clinical education in the country, cultivating the value of public service among our students, and growing our financial aid and loan repayment programs. These represent critically important investments in not just the future of Stanford Law School, but of legal education. Please join us. We need your energy, your time, your ideas, and, yes, your financial contributions. I promise you will find the effort worthy of your support.

With Warmest Appreciation,

Richard E. Lang Professor of Law and Dean

Ways to Give

There are a variety of ways to invest Stanford Law School, including those highlighted below. We need gifts at all levels to ensure success.

The Law Fund

The Law Fund at Stanford Law School provides an opportunity for all alumni and friends to support the school's most pressing needs on an annual basis. While the Law Fund is a general unrestricted fund, it also offers donors the chance to invest in specific program areas meaningful to them, including the Mills Legal Clinic, the Crown Law Library, the school's faculty, financial aid, and the Levin Center for Public Service and Public Interest Law.

Please visit givingtostanford.stanford.edu to contribute to the Law Fund.

Expendable Funds

Gifts to expendable funds are spent as they come in and may be made in support of specific programs, research, or people of the donor's choosing—for example, an established or new interdisciplinary program or clinic.

Endowed Funds

An endowed fund—most often for a professorship or fellowship—establishes a permanent fund that recognizes the donor or someone the donor wishes to honor in perpetuity and provides Stanford with a continuing source of support.

Term Endowment

Term endowment funds are spent over a specific period of time during which they are invested with the university's endowment to take advantage of potentially higher investment returns. These gifts recognize that a valuable set of activities may not exist in perpetuity, but that a significant investment for a period of time can help them grow and achieve a measure of stability.

Planned Giving

Through careful planning, a donor may be able to make a sizable contribution to the school through a bequest or living trust; by designating Stanford as the beneficiary of a life insurance policy, IRA, or other retirement plan; or by means of a "life income gift" that can provide a donor with considerable tax savings currently as well as an income for life.

The Law Fund

Dear Stanford Law School alumni and friends,

Thank you for your interest in giving to Stanford Law School. Whether you are a loyal annual contributor or you are thinking about making your first donation to the law school, your support could not come at a better time.

Annual donations to the Law Fund give us the flexibility to allocate resources to the school’s most pressing needs. Even the most basic elements of our operation – recruiting and retaining faculty, attracting high-caliber students, maintaining a dynamic and relevant curriculum, providing space for teaching and research – are possible only with the annual support of our alumni and friends.

Thank you again for considering a gift to the Law Fund. Gifts of every size are appreciated, and will make a tangible difference in the lives of current and future students.

With warmest appreciation,

Richard E. Lang Professor of Law and Dean

Corporate Giving

Stanford Law School Affiliate Programs

Stanford Law School offers law firms, corporations, and foundations the opportunity to participate as Program Affiliates and event sponsors in two distinct interdisciplinary programs:

• The Rock Center for Corporate Governance (RC)
• The Stanford Program in Law, Science & Technology (LST)

Program Affiliates provide annual support for teaching and program development; in return, affiliates and their clients gain access to Stanford Law School's leading-edge executive programs and exclusive affiliate working groups. These programs bring together renowned scholars, lawyers, corporate leaders, investment bankers, accountants, venture capitalists, technologists, and key regulatory officials to share their expertise and discuss critical challenges facing legal practitioners, business executives, and policy makers. Affiliates also have opportunities to underwrite events hosted by program areas as well as law school student organizations and journals. Underwriters and their programs are formally recognized at sponsored events, in publications, and online.

Policy and Research Project Partnerships

Law firms, corporations, and foundations also provide support for a wide range of interdisciplinary policy and research projects at Stanford Law School. Through each of these projects, the law school aims to raise professional understanding and public awareness of legal, business and ethical challenges at the intersection of law, economics and business, and law, science and technology. Policy and research projects undertaken at the Law School include:

• Stanford Securities Class Action Clearinghouse (SCAC)
• Transatlantic Technology Law Forum(TTLF)

For more information about affiliate, event sponsorship, or project partnership opportunities, please contact Nancy Easterbrook, Associate Director of Development, at 650-725-4247 or [email protected].

Ways to Volunteer

Alumni are an integral part of any institution of higher learning. Stanford Law School is no exception.

SLS volunteers organize events and programs at the school as well as across the country through regional Law Societies and reunion committees. They also raise money, recruit students, assist with academic programs, and offer career advice. Volunteers help fellow alumni stay connected and contribute to the excellence of Stanford Law School.

1L Moot Court

Help judge the 1L moot court arguments held each spring. Nearly seventy attorneys are needed to provide feedback and guidance to first-year students. Unlike the Kirkwood Moot Court Competition, 1L moot court is required of all first-year law students as a part of their legal research and writing class.

Contact:
Jeanne Merino, Legal Research and Writing
650 725.8526
[email protected]

Admissions

The Office of Admissions engages alumni to serve as welcome ambassadors by outreaching to newly admitted students. Alumni can choose to call incoming or host an admitted student reception in their area.

Contact:
Raja Ashraf, Admissions
650 723.4985
[email protected]

Career Services

Alumni can be valuable resources for students as they look for summer and permanent employment. Stanford Law School students have diverse professional goals and are interested in working in law firms, public interest organizations, government, business, and more. Some other examples of participation include:

• Joining the SLS Career Network
• Serving as a career mentor
• Speaking on career panels
• Posting job announcements through the OCS

Contact:
Office of Career Services (OCS)
650 723.3924
[email protected]
www.law.stanford.edu/experience/careers/ocs

Class Correspondent

Serve as your class correspondent and collect updates from fellow classmates and author the section that appears in the Stanford Lawyer magazine.

Contact:
Linda Wilson, Stanford Lawyer
650 723.9301
[email protected]

Dean's Circle Leadership Council (DCLC)

DCLC members encourage fellow alumni and friends to support Stanford Law School at leadership levels. They participate in annual conference calls, attend events, and meet with fellow alumni and friends to help strengthen ties to the law school and encourage leadership annual giving.

Contact:
Marah Katz Herbach, Development
650 723.4749
[email protected]

Law Firm Alumni Giving

Through the Law Firm Alumni Giving Program, volunteer leads at more than two dozen firms encourage high donor participation among their colleagues. Stanford Law School welcomes all law firms that would like to participate.

Contact:
Marah Katz Herbach, Development
650 723.4749
[email protected]
www.law.stanford.edu/school/giving

Marion Rice Kirkwood Moot Court Competition

Judge the Marion Rice Kirkwood Moot Court Competition held in April. Each year alumni with litigation experience are needed to help judge the preliminary and quarter-final rounds, in which teams of 2L and 3L students brief and argue a case before panels of distinguished attorneys sitting as the Supreme Court of the United States.

Contact:
Randee Fenner or Lisa Pearson, Moot Court
650 723.4502
[email protected] or [email protected]

Minority Alumni Associations

There are several Alumni Associations dedicated to building a supportive and active alumni community, strengthening ties among fellow alumni and the School, and maximizing the community's professional strength. Currently, the four groups include:

• Asian Pacific American Alumni Association (APAAA)
• Black Alumni Association (BAA)
• European Alumni Association (EAA)
• Latino Alumni Association (LAA)

Contact:
Office of Alumni Relations
650 723.2730
[email protected]

APAAA: www.law.stanford.edu/alumni/apaaa
BAA: www.law.stanford.edu/alumni/slsbaa
EAA: www.law.stanford.edu/alumni/eaa
LAA: www.law.stanford.edu/alumni/slslaa

Regional Law Societies

Stanford Law School alumni stay connected to the School community and their fellow alumni through a network of Law Societies across the country. Law Societies hold events to help alumni strengthen their connections with classmates in their region, stay up-to-date on current trends in legal academia, and network with other alumni who have similar professional interests. You can get involved by participating in your local Law Society, or helping to plan or host an event.

Contact:
Office of Alumni Relations
650 723.2730
[email protected]
www.law.stanford.edu/alumni/law_societies

Reunions

Alumni can participate in their reunions in a multitude of ways, from encouraging classmates to attend Alumni Weekend to donating to the Reunion Class Gift. There are also leadership opportunities such as serving as a committee chair.

Contact:
Michelle Curtis
650.724.1540
[email protected]
www.law.stanford.edu/alumni/reunions

Teaching Opportunities

Use your expertise to critique students in a 4-unit pre-trial and trial skills class, offered as part of the Advocacy Skills Workshop. Each year the workshop needs approximately 165 volunteer attorneys and judges with significant litigation experience. Critique training is provided and continuing legal education credit is available for time volunteered. Other teaching occasions take the form of:

• Teaching an advocacy skills class in January
• Guest lecturing in Law School classes
• Helping to develop case studies