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Student Scholarship

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Duke Law students studying in the Goodson Law LibraryStudents at Duke Law have ample opportunity to pursue their academic research interests. Work from independent studies and capstone projects often results in a publishable paper and the Student Scholarship Workshop provides a forum where students present drafts and receive feedback from faculty and peers alike. In addition, Duke has created a Summer Student Scholarship Grant, which gives students an opportunity to spend a summer doing creative and in-depth research to produce a paper that will be submitted for publication outside of the Law School.

 

The workshops are designed to:

  • Help students develop and sharpen their scholarly writing;
  • Provide a forum for students to have intellectually stimulating discussions about student scholarship; and
  • Provide an opportunity for students to learn to provide, and respond to, critical feedback on scholarship.

The workshop series meets over lunch during the spring semester. 

Duke Law School has created a summer grant program to support student scholarship. Our hope is that the opportunity to spend a summer researching and writing, with faculty support, will encourage students to undertake more creative and in-depth research for papers, and will enable students to develop scholarship for submission to journals outside of Duke Law School.

Description of Grant

Duke Law School will offer summer grants of $2500 each to support students committed to developing publishable scholarship. These grants will enable students to devote a summer to researching and writing with faculty supervision. Grant recipients will be expected to make a presentation of their research and paper in the fall semester following receipt of the grant. There is no specified limit on the number of grants that can be awarded. Grants will be awarded to students in support of research projects that will significantly further the student’s career or educational objectives and will lead to high quality, publishable work.

Grant Eligibility

  • Any currently enrolled student, including a current third-year student, may submit a grant proposal, though proposals from first-year and second-year students are preferred. A proposal submitted by a third-year student should demonstrate that the student will have sufficient time to devote to research and writing if he or she is also taking a bar exam during the same summer.
  • If a first-year student is awarded a grant before knowing whether he or she will be selected for a journal, the student must be committed to completing the proposed project regardless of journal selection. Students may not use summer grants to support work in a journal casenote competition, but may use grants to support work on a journal note after the student is selected for a journal, and the work completed pursuant to the grant may be used as the basis for a note, if approved by the journal.
  • A student may use a summer grant to support work on an individual capstone project, independent study project, or other for-credit project with permission of the faculty member awarding credit for the project.  
  • Only students who plan to make the research and writing project their primary summer focus will be eligible for the grant. Students who are undertaking full-time jobs for the summer are not eligible for these grants. However, students would not be disqualified from taking on limited work to cover living expenses not covered by the grant. A partial grant may be available to students attending one of the Duke Summer Institutes in Transnational Law.
  • Students receiving grants will work under the supervision of one or more faculty members. Each proposal should identify a faculty supervisor, and each student should discuss the proposal with his or her faculty supervisor before submitting it. Each student is responsible for working with his or her faculty supervisor to schedule a presentation of his or her research and paper in the fall semester following receipt of the grant.

Grant Proposal Process

  • Each grant proposal should include
    • a detailed written description of the research and writing project;
    • the name of the faculty supervisor;
    • a statement of the student’s summer plans, including possible employment, preparation for the bar exam, and other time commitments;
    • a CV and transcript.
  • The nature and scope of the proposed paper are left to the student and supervising faculty member to develop. There is no prescribed length. It is expected that the student will be committed to developing a publishable piece of scholarship, though the publishable piece need not be completed during the initial summer of work. The student and supervising faculty member will develop the timeline for completing the scholarship.
  • While the anticipated amount of each grant is $2500, a proposal may request additional support for specific, identified research costs beyond those normally incurred in a research project.