Shaping Professional Knowledge: The Intended and Unintended Consequences of Fellowship Funding in Law Schools

Cynthia Fuchs Epstein, Graduate Center, City University of New York

Abstract

The development of knowledge in any profession is determined by many factors including the cultural receptivity to new ideas within the field and in the larger society, the interests and visions of the professions’ leaders, and the availability of resources for recruitment of talent, resource development and dissemination of knowledge. This paper examines the impact of resources within the legal profession, and particularly regarding the role of resources in determining public interest career options. It draws from a larger study of the factors that facilitate and deter the choice of legal careers in the public interest. I find that fellowships are quite important not only in helping students financially but in providing many other benefits, such as granting prestige and fostering public interest communities within law schools and networks after graduation that offer employment possibilities. Further, the institutions in which fellowships are administered and offered are affected by them, for recipients of fellowships bring prestige to their law schools. Finally, the impact of the distribution of fellowships also reaches beyond the law school environment in affecting the shape and direction of the public interest sector of the legal profession.