Office Description

The Office of Professional Development blog is your resource for up to the minute news, advice, and information relating to your career and professional development.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Williams Institute Law Teaching Fellowship - Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity

The Williams Institute is a national think tank at UCLA School of Law dedicated to advancing critical thought in the field of sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy.

ELIGIBILITY
Law Teaching Fellowship candidates must hold a JD degree from an ABA accredited law school and be committed to a career of law teaching and scholarship in the field of sexual orientation and gender identity law. Applicants should have demonstrated an outstanding aptitude for independent legal research, preferably demonstrated through research and/or writing as a law student or through exceptional legal experience after law school. Law Teaching Fellowship candidates must have strong academic records that will make them highly competitive for law teaching jobs.

FELLOWSHIP REQUIREMENTS
The Fellowship program lasts one to two years, during which time the Fellow will:
• Complete a substantial scholarly publication and present the publication as a work-in-progress to the UCLA School of Law faculty;
• Serve as the Faculty Advisor for either the Annual Sexual Orientation Moot Court Competition or the Dukeminier Awards
Journal;
• Teach two law school courses and one undergraduate course;
• Assist with other Williams Institute research, publications, and events;
• Permit the Institute to publish any article(s) resulting from the Fellowship -- as long as such publication will not interfere with the Fellow's ability to publish such articles in a law journal;
• Acknowledge the Institute’s assistance in any published work that is facilitated by the Fellowship; and
• Work closely with a faculty mentor in order to observe and participate in teaching, as well as to complete a publishable scholarly piece.

FELLOWSHIP BENEFITS
The unique features of this Fellowship include opportunities to:
• Develop expertise in sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy;
• Work with a faculty mentor;
• Observe faculty mentors teach and discuss teaching techniques with them;
• Engage in classroom teaching;
• Participate in the rich mixture of scholarly symposia, invited lectures, and conferences of the Williams Institute and UCLA School of Law;
• Complete a published piece of research before entering the law teaching market; and
• Obtain faculty recommendations for law teaching jobs.


TERMS OF THE FELLOWSHIP
The Fellowship offers a salary of $52,000 per year and full benefits. No degree will be offered as part of the Fellowship program.

TO APPLY
To apply for the 2014 Law Teaching Fellowship, please submit the following materials to the Williams Institute by October 18,
2013:

• A cover letter summarizing your qualifications for the Law
Teaching Fellowship;
• A current resume;
• A law school transcript;
• Three letters of recommendation, including at least two from law school professors familiar with your scholarly potential;
• A list of published works, if any; and
• A detailed research proposal, no longer than ten pages in length.

DEADLINE TO APPLY: Please note that completed applications must arrive on or before October 18, 2013.

SEND APPLICATIONS TO:

Law Teaching Fellowship
ATTN: Adelin Lo
The Williams Institute
Box 951476
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1476

For any inquiries, please email Adelin Lo at: lo@law.ucla.edu.

To learn more about the Williams Institute, visit:

Equal Opportunity Employer


The Williams Institute does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, ancestry, ethnicity, sex, disability, height, weight, religion, age, sexual orientation, gender, pregnancy, gender identity, marital status or veteran status in employment.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Patent Law: Advice from a 2005 Grad and Patent Attorney

Dr. Kelce S. Wilson, Sr. Technical Director, Patent Litigation, for Blackberry, is a 2005 CapLaw grad, who has been working as a patent attorney.

Recently, Dr. Wilson co-authored two articles one for Intellectual Property Today and one for Law360. In an email to the Office of Professional Development about the articles, he states,
I believe [the articles] would be quite valuable to any of your students who are thinking about a career in patent law.  I wrote one as a guide for new patent attorneys who are just starting out, to assist them with long-term career planning.  The other article is a companion article for in-house general counsel, advising how to select a patent attorney for a particular matter.  As you can expect the article aimed at new patent attorneys tells them to obtain the experience that the general counsel will be seeking.  They are the same subject matter, but aimed at different audiences.
You can read the articles he references at:


In closing his email, Dr. Wilson said, 
I have been exceptionally fortunate, in that I have specifically guided my own career path according to the advice in the articles when the idea first occurred to me back in 2005.  However, few patent attorneys that I have met have thought about their careers in a similar manner.
The OPD sends a collective "Thank You" to Dr. Wilson for his advice to future CapLaw patent attorneys!

2014-2015 Fellowship in Nonprofit Law - National Center On Philanthropy & The Law

2014-2015 Fellowship in Nonprofit Law


New York University School of Law - National Center on Philanthropy & the Law (NCPL)

Job Description

The NCPL Fellowship permits one Fellow each year to spend one year in residence at the New York University Office of the General Counsel, working closely with the General Counsel of NYU, and the office staff of eleven attorneys on legal issues facing the University.

The NCPL Fellow will delve into an unusually wide variety of legal and organizational issues and will participate in the legal work conducted by the Office of the General Counsel, including conducting factual and legal research, drafting litigation papers, transactional and policy documents, and correspondence, and participating in the lawyering enterprises of the University.

For more information, please visit http://www1.law.nyu.edu/ncpl/.


Qualifications

Fellows must be a graduate of an accredited U.S. law school. Fellows are selected for their scholarship, leadership, and commitment to practicing in the field of nonprofit law. Fellows will be selected without regard to the applicant's race, color, religion, gender, political beliefs, national origin, disability, age or sexual orientation.

Salary
Fellows are funded annually at a salary of $50,000 plus benefits.

Application Instructions: The selection process consists of a written application and interviews of final candidates. The timetable is as follows:
1.    Application Deadline: December 6, 2013
2.    Finalists Selected: December 2013
3.    Interviews Conducted: January 2014
4.    Fellow Commences Work: September 2014


Applicants must submit the following:
1.    Fellowship Application (available on line at http://www1.law.nyu.edu/ncpl/)
2.    Official Law School Transcript
3.    Resume
4.    Two Letters of Recommendation from any of the following: Law School Advisor, Law School Professor, or Former Employer

Fellowship deadlines are updated on a rolling basis. If application deadline has passed, next year's deadline will be noted once available. Alternatively, please contact organization directly for new application deadline information.

Contact Information:
Aden Munassar, Program Coordinator
Phone: 212-998-6168
Fax: 212-995-3149
ncpl.info@nyu.edu


National Center on Philanthropy and the Law
New York University School of Law
139 MacDougal Street, 1st Floor
New York, NY 10012 

2013 ACCFSL Writing Competition

Each year The American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers seeks to recognize written contributions to the field of consumer financial services law. Eligible papers include publishable articles, substantial book reviews, or book chapters; books; and student case note or comment. In any year, depending on the quality of the submissions, awards may be made in all or some of these three categories.

Awards

The awards include a cash payment ($2,500 for books, $2,000 for articles, reviews, or book chapters; and $1,000 for student work), a certificate or other token of recognition, and travel expenses to attend the College's annual dinner held in conjunction with the Spring Meeting of the Business Law Section of the American Bar Association.

Guidelines

Eligible entries must discuss some aspect of consumer financial services law. Topics that relate principally to securities regulation, insurance, or the safety and soundness aspects of banking regulation are not eligible, but works on subjects within these (or other) areas will be considered if they bear directly on consumer financial services.

Deadline

The deadline for entry is December 2, 2013, and entries are eligible if they have been written or published within the twelve months preceding that date. Unpublished manuscripts should be double-spaced and conform to law review standards. All entries should be submitted in electronic format.


Entries

Entries for the 2014 competition should be submitted to:


William L. Stern, Esq.
Writing Competition Chair
Morrison & Foerster LLP
425 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
Tel. (415) 268-7637
Fax (415) 268-7522
wstern@mofo.com

American Indian Law Review 2013-2014 Writing Competition

American Indian Law Review 2013-2014 Writing Competition Rules

Topics
Papers will be accepted on any issue concerning American Indian law or indigenous peoples.  However, topics recently published in the American Indian Law Review will not be favored.

Eligibility
The competition is open to students enrolled in J.D. or graduate law programs at accredited law schools in the United States and Canada as of the competition deadline of Jan. 31, 2014.  Editors of the American Indian Law Review are not eligible to compete.

Awards
·         The first place winner receives $1,000 and publication in the American Indian Law Review, an official periodical of the University of Oklahoma College of Law with international distribution
·         The second place winner receives $500
The third place winner receives $250

The three winning authors will be recognized on the masthead of the American Indian Law Review, and will receive copies of Felix S. Cohen's Handbook of Federal Indian Law, provided by LexisNexis.

Deadline
All electronic entries must be received no later than 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on January 31, 2014.  Any hardcopy entries must be postmarked by that date.  Entries will be acknowledged upon receipt.  All entries become the property of the American Indian Law Review.

Judges
Papers will be judged by members of the legal profession with an interest in American Indian Law and by the editors of the American Indian Law Review.

Standards
Papers will be judged on the basis of originality and timeliness of topic, knowledge and use of applicable legal principles, proper and articulate analysis of the issues, use of authorities and extent of research, logic and reasoning in analysis, ingenuity and ability to argue by analogy, clarity and organization, correctness of format and citations, grammar and writing style, and strength and logic of conclusions.

Form
Entries must be a minimum of 20 double-spaced pages in length and a maximum of 50 double-spaced pages in length excluding footnotes or endnotes.  All citations should conform to The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (19th ed.).  The body of the email must contain the author's name, social security number, school, expected year of graduation, current address, permanent address, and email address.  Inquiries may be replied to by email.  No identifying marks (name, school, etc.) should appear on the paper itself.  All entries must have only one author. Entries must be unpublished, not currently submitted for publication elsewhere, and not currently entered in other writing competitions.  Papers entered in the American Indian Law Review writing competition may not be submitted for consideration to any other publication until such time as winning entrants are announced.  Any entries not fully in accord with required form will be ineligible for consideration.

Submission
Submissions may be emailed to the American Indian Law Review at mwaters@ou.edu by the competition deadline.  Entries may be sent as Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, or PDF documents.  Although email submissions are preferred, hard-copies are acceptable.  If submitting hard-copies, mail them to:

AILR Writing Competition
American Indian Law Review
300 Timberdell Road
Norman, OK 73019



Please send an email to mwaters@ou.edu on or before the deadline to notify the AILR that you are sending a hard-copy submission.

2014-15 Rockefeller Brothers Fund Fellowship - National Center on Philanthropy & the Law

2014-15 Rockefeller Brothers Fund Fellowship

New York University School of Law - National Center on Philanthropy & the Law (NCPL) 


Job Description

The Fellowship, which was originally funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, permits one Fellow each year to spend one year in residence at the Vera Institute of Justice in New York City, working closely with the General Counsel to Vera and her staff on legal issues faced by Vera. In addition, the Fellow will be deployed to Vera’s various projects and programs to address the legal, business, and organizational issues confronted by these projects and programs.

A Fellowship at Vera will provide a recent law school graduate with exposure to an unusually wide variety of legal and organizational issues encountered by nonprofit organizations. It also will provide the opportunity to identify an emerging or changing area of law with particular significance for nonprofits, and to explore that area in depth, examining it in the real-life context of a complex, legally sophisticated organization.


For more information, please visit http://www1.law.nyu.edu/ncpl/.


Qualifications
This year, one Fellowship will be awarded to a graduate of an accredited U.S. law school. Fellows are selected for their scholarship, leadership, and commitment to practicing in the field of nonprofit law. Fellows will be selected without regard to the applicant's race, color, religion, gender, political beliefs, national origin, disability, age, or sexual orientation.


Salary
Fellows are funded annually at a salary of $50,000 plus benefits.

Application Instructions: The selection process consists of a written application and interviews of final candidates. The timetable is as follows:
  1. Application Deadline: December 6, 2013
  2. Finalists Selected: December 2013
  3. Interviews Conducted: January 2014
  4. Fellow Commences Work: September 2014

Applicants must submit the following:
  1. Fellowship Application (available on line at http://www1.law.nyu.edu/ncpl/)
  2. Official Law School Transcript
  3. Resume
  4. Two Letters of Recommendation from any of the following: Law School Advisor, Law School Professor, or Former Employer
Fellowship deadlines are updated on a rolling basis.  If application deadline has passed, next deadline will be noted once available.  Alternatively, please contact organization directly for new application deadline information.

Contact Information:
Aden Munassar
Program Coordinator
Phone: 212-998-6168
Fax: 212-995-3149
ncpl.info@nyu.edu



National Center on Philanthropy and the Law
NYU School of Law
139 MacDougal Street, 1st Floor
New York, NY 10012 

Monday, August 12, 2013

Independence Foundation Fellowships

The Independence Foundation is committed to the support of free legal services for poor and disadvantaged residents of the Philadelphia region. The centerpiece of this commitment has been the Independence Foundation Public Interest Law Fellowship Program. Created in 1996, the Fellowship Program is the only regionally concentrated program of its kind. It has had a direct impact on the lives of thousands of people who would otherwise have been unable to secure access to the justice system.

Through the Fellowship Program, the Foundation funds the compensation and cost of employment benefits for accomplished young lawyers who have decided to employ their considerable talents in public interest service. In an additional component of each Fellowship grant, the Foundation assists the Public Interest Law Fellows in the repayment of their often substantial educational loans. Thus the Foundation enables some of the best and brightest law school graduates to come to the Philadelphia area and obtain employment with an organization based in this region that provides free legal services to poor and disadvantaged people. People served include the elderly, the disabled, the homeless, and others deprived of their human or civil rights.

Importantly, the Foundation requires that the focus of all Fellowship work be on the direct representation of disadvantaged clients. Although the Foundation recognizes the value of broad based policy development, the Foundation is more interested in supporting direct legal services for those who cannot otherwise obtain the professional assistance they need to navigate the complicated judicial and administrative systems that affect their lives on a daily basis.

For more information, as well as access to the application, see http://www.independencefoundation.org/fellow_law.html.