Press Releases

Northeastern University School of Law Newsbriefs, Fall 1998

Soros Grants Law School $350,000

The Open Society Institute, a program of the Soros Foundation, has awarded a two-year, $350,000 grant to the School of Law to support public interest practitioners in the areas of community economic development and civil domestic violence practice by linking them with law school faculty, students and resources. The new program will simultaneously enrich Northeastern’s experience, expertise and professional connections in these two growing fields, while allowing the School of Law to expand both its educational offerings and career opportunities open to graduates.

Northeastern embarks on this project as one member of a four law-school consortium. The other schools, like Northeastern, have an established track record of legal education in the public interest. They are: St. Mary’s University of San Antonio School of Law, City University of New York School of Law and the University of Maryland School of Law.

Each of the consortium partners will experiment with different models for supporting public interest careers and practices, building on the particular characteristics of their institutions and surrounding communities. The Open Society Institute will work with all four schools to evaluate and disseminate the results of these experiments, and to encourage the adoption of models that prove successful. Northeastern’s contribution to the mix of programs is the support of "interdisciplinary, specialized collaborative practices" in two areas in which the law school, through its Domestic Violence Institute and Urban Law and Public Policy Institute, has already developed professional and community connections, and considerable expertise.

This new infusion of resources will allow the Domestic Violence Institute to collaborate with both the Women’s Bar Association (WBA) and the Women’s Bar Foundation of Massachusetts. A new Probate Litigation Seminar, informed by the expertise of both members of the Domestic Violence Institute and members of the WBA, will be offered in the winter and spring quarters of 1999.

In the spring and summer quarters, a related Mental Health Issues in Domestic Violence Practice Seminar will be offered to a similar mix of students and practitioners. In addition to the old-fashioned interactions created by these seminars, the project will build an electronic "virtual community," offering participants research and practice resources over the Internet as well as the opportunity to participate in ongoing discussions of cutting-edge issues in their practices.

The backbone of the economic development initiative will also feature an electronic link for practitioners who are working in low-income communities to create and maintain small businesses. Through this link, the Urban Law and Public Policy Institute will facilitate a joint exploration by practitioners, students and faculty of ways in which the university can contribute to the provision of business law expertise where it is most needed.

Next year will be a busy one, as Northeastern sets about translating the proposal’s vision into a reality that will enrich the law school, further the goal of promoting the practice of law in the public interest, and perhaps even change the way in which other law schools educate their students and participate in meeting the needs of public interest practitioners. Thanks go to Dean David Hall for seizing the opportunity to involve the school in this pioneering effort, and to the team that brought it to fruition, especially professors James V. Rowan, Clare Dalton, Lois H. Kanter and Filippa Marullo Anzalone.