ALWD Association of Legal Writing Directors

ALWD Summer Scholarship Grant Program

In 2001, the Association of Legal Writing Directors inaugurated the ALWD Summer Scholarship Grant Program for teachers of legal research and writing. The Summer Scholarship Program reflects ALWD’s commitment to the professional development of legal research and writing faculty.

Each year ALWD awards grants to full-time teachers of legal research and writing. These grants enable LRW faculty to spend the summer exploring scholarly areas of interest to them in order to produce works that will assist others in LRW.

In the past two years ALWD has been able to award five $5000.00 grants. The grants are funded primarily from royalties from the sale of the ALWD Citation Manual.

Application Procedures

  1. Eligibility. The ALWD Summer Scholarship Grant Program is open to full-time teachers of legal writing. ALWD Board members, officers, and members of the ALWD Scholarship Committee are ineligible to participate and remain ineligible until they have been out of those positions for a full academic year. Legal research and writing program directors are encouraged to invite faculty in their programs to apply for the grants to help ensure a rich diversity of proposals and ideas from both veteran professionals and those new to the field.
  2. Deadline. The application deadline for the summer grants is February 1 of the year for which the grant is to be awarded.
  3. Application Materials. The application must include:
    1. The Application Form (available for download in MS Word, and WordPerfect formats.)
    2. Four copies of a five page abstract of the project. There should be no identifying information on this abstract since submissions will be reviewed blindly. The abstract should include:
      1. a detailed description of the project
      2. a table of contents for the piece
      3. a timeline for completion of the work
      4. a discussion of both the contribution the piece will make to legal research and writing scholarship, including and any gap in the current literature that it fills.
  4. Where to send the application: Send completed applications to the Chair of the Scholarship Committee at the following address

    5. Professor Terill Pollman
    Director, Lawyering Process Program
    University of Nevada, Las Vegas
    William S. Boyd School of Law
    4505 Maryland Parkway
    Box 451003
    Las Vegas, NV 89154–1003

    702-895-2407
    Fax: 702-895-1095
    terrill.pollman@unlv.edu


  5. Review Process and Standards: All abstracts will be blindly reviewed by three people who are either members of the ALWD Board or members of the ALWD Scholarship Committee. Those three members will rank the proposals based on the following criteria
    1. How well-thought-out is the proposal?
    2. Is the topic one that has previously been covered in the relevant literature? If so, does the proposed work add something substantive to the discussion?
    3. Is the proposal well-written?
    4. Does the author seem to be targeting appropriate research sources?
    5. Is the scope of the project realistic?
    6. Is the work likely to be published?
    7. Is the proposed work related to Legal Writing? If not, why not?
    8. Is the topic interesting, and likely to appeal to targeted readers?
    9. Are the research methods (empirical research, multi-disciplinary research, statistical analysis, traditional legal research) chosen likely to result in a quality written product?

    At the time that the readers rank the submissions, they will not have information from which to identify the applicant. Once the anonymous readers have made their recommendations, those recommendations will be forwarded to the ALWD Board which will make the final recommendations for the grant recipients. At the time it makes its final selections, the ALWD Board will have access to the information on the application forms. This will be done so that the Board can balance the substantive review of the projects with due consideration for need (as reflected by eligibility for research grants at one’s own institution). Eligibility for or receipt of summer research grants from one’s own institution will not, per se, disqualify an applicant from eligibility, but preference will be given to those who have no other source for research funding.


  6. Selection date and grant disbursement. Winners of the research grants will be selected by April 1. At the time of selection, 60% of the research grant money will be paid to each grant recipient. Then, the remaining 40% will be paid at the time that the written manuscript is completed and submitted to ALWD. “Completed,” for purposes of the grant, means that it has been accepted for publication. The completed manuscript should be submitted to the ALWD Scholarship Committee along with a copy of the acceptance.
  7. Mentors. In some cases grant recipients may be assigned a mentor by the Scholarship Committee. The mentor will be selected on the basis of the topic of the proposed scholarly work and such other criteria mutually agreed upon by the applicant and the Committee. The aims of the mentorship are to help novice LRW scholars complete the work and to help them place it for publication.
  8. Presentation. Recipients of the ALWD Scholarship Grants must present the papers at the next ALWD meeting following completion of the work. This will allow the author the opportunity to share his or her scholarly efforts with the legal research and writing community, thereby allowing ALWD members to benefit first-hand from the scholarship ALWD is funding.
  9. Formalities. Grant winners should thank ALWD for the grant in the footnotes of the article.
  10. Publication rights. Grant winners should negotiate permission from the publisher to post the article on the ALWD website. The requirement can be waived if it would prevent placing the article in a well regarded publication.