Grants Awarded

Endowment Grants: January - June 2013

The North Carolina Bar Association Foundation announces its most recent endowment grants approved on January 24, 2013, at the Board of Directors Meeting in Cary. A total of 22 grants for January–June 2013 were approved in the amount of $172,392 including thirteen statewide and nine local/regional grants. This grant cycle includes support for five legal services projects, two scholarship programs; two law school projects; one project each in Durham, Winston-Salem, Asheville and Turkey, N.C., as well as four projects in Charlotte.

All of the organizations and their projects are listed below with dollar amounts for each grant in parenthesis.

The purposes of the NCBA Foundation Endowment are:

To build respect for and understanding of the law;
To support the delivery of legal services to eligible indigent communities;
To support legally related community service projects;
To study, improve and facilitate the administration of justice; and
To enhance the professional competence of lawyers

Semi-annual grants make possible dozens of statewide bar projects and the legally related service/educational projects of many bar-affiliated non-profit organizations. The Endowment is the philanthropic workhorse of the NCBA Foundation and the NCBA. Since 1988, 539 endowment grants totaling more than $4.2 million have been awarded.

Statewide Grants

NC Center on Actual Innocence – Innocence Claim Review – The Center identifies, investigates and advances credible claims of innocence made by inmates convicted of felonies in North Carolina. The Center's secondary mission is to educate policymakers, the public, students, the media, and the legal/law enforcement communities about causation issues that lead to wrongful convictions. ($2,000)

Legal Aid of North Carolina (LANC) – Martin Luther King, Jr. Summer Internship Program (2012). This grant will provide summer internships for 4 law students who are interested in public interest and poverty law at LANC field offices providing civil legal services to the poor. ($18,000)

Call4All LANC Project Support – The expanded use of volunteer lawyers through the Call for ALL initiative will be increased through the addition of an intake specialist to coordinate these short-term referrals. Last year more clients were served due to this volunteer expansion in spite of staff cutbacks. ($20,000)

LANC - Student Loan Repayment Assistance Program – Funds will be used solely for the LANC Student Loan Repayment Assistance Project for WFU, UNC, Duke Schools of Law alumni and others on staff at LANC to sustain attorney retention. ($31,234)

LANC LawHelp/Probono Statewide Websites (2013) – This website provides accurate self-help legal information for the public (www.lawHelp.org/NC) with numerous referral links to courts, government and social service agencies and self-help materials. The Pro Bono website (www.probono.net/NC) provides information to attorneys who are assisting poor people. ($8,000)

College Scholarships – For more than 20 years, we have awarded need-based college scholarships for the children of NC law enforcement officers who were killed or permanently disabled in the line of duty. There is $34,607 allocated for the 2013-14 school year. ($34,607)

Law School Admissions Conference – This one day conference will educate high school admissions counselors and college career counselors about increasing diversity in the law school candidate pipeline. ($400)

Law-Related Education in our Schools – Justice Iredell Middle School Mock Trial, Justice Teaching Institute, Lawyers 4 Literacy, NC Social Studies Conferences, and Career Day & Promotional Supplies ($10,000)

Law-Related Education in our Schools – We the People & Project Citizen is a competition that simulates a Congressional Hearing highlighting high school student's knowledge of the United States Constitution. Project Citizen challenges students to identify a problem and propose a public policy solution to that problem. ($4,500)

Duke University School of Law, Children's Law Clinic – Parents’ Guide to Special Education Advocacy – This project will support the development of a "toolkit" for N.C. parents of children with special education needs to help them understand both the law and the policies that govern their child’s right to a free, appropriate, public education guaranteed in the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. ($1,000)

Law Institute for Teachers – A program for North Carolina educators that provides instruction on the law as it applies to teachers and students in North Carolina schools coordinated by the NCBA’s Education Law Section. ($1,000)

Law Student Scholarships – Made possible at each of the seven N.C. law schools by The D. Staton and Maude B. Inscoe Law Foundation Education Fund ($10,500)

24th Annual Meeting Professionalism Speaker – United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia will serve as the professionalism/ethics speaker at the NCBA 2013 Annual Meeting in Asheville. This is made possible by the Willis Smith & Willis Smith, Jr. Justice Funds in the NCBA Foundation Endowment. ($8,301)

Local/Regional Grants

The Children's Law Center of Central North Carolina – Provides advocacy and representation to vulnerable children embroiled in high conflict custody or domestic violence cases. The CLE attorneys are appointed as Guardians Ad Litem by district court judges who need accurate, thorough investigated reports as they make custody and visitation decisions. ($5,000)

United Family Services - Legal Representation Project – Serves victims of domestic violence and sexual assault since 1978 in Charlotte and recruits and trains pro bono attorneys to represent victims of domestic violence who are seeking domestic violence protective orders in civil court. ($2,000)

Council for Children's Rights – Custody Advocacy Program (CAP) has been successful in representing the best interest of children involved in highly contentious custody and/or visitation disputes in Mecklenburg County. The CAP program fulfills our organization’s mission by protecting the well-being and rights of children. ($2,000)

Elna B. Spaulding Conflict Resolution Center, Inc – In-School Truancy – A conference held in Durham with the parent, student, social worker, counselor and other appropriate staff to determine the cause(s) of truancy. It is conducted with a volunteer judge (judges, attorneys, retired educators) as the authority figure who helps with the fact finding. ($500)

UNC School of Law Pro Bono Program; Duke Law Pro Bono Program, Duke Cancer Institute and UNC Cancer Institute and NCBA Pro Bono Division – Aims to connect students, under the supervision of licensed attorneys, with low-income cancer patients to aid in the creation of living wills, general powers of attorney an health care powers of attorney documents. ($1,000)

Latin American Coalition Immigration Law Clinic – Founded in 2008 to help meet the need for affordable, qualified immigration related legal representation and assistance for the Carolinas’ growing immigrant population. ($2,500)

Pisgah Legal Services – Mountain Area Volunteer Lawyer Clerk Project PLS will invite rising second and third year law students to consider working in the summer as full-time pro bono members of their staff. Law clerks will be involved in legal research and attend administrative hearings and trials of cases. ($7,500)

Larry King's Clubhouse: Children's Play & Care Center – The childcare center in the Mecklenburg County Courthouse is a free drop-in center which provides a safe, secure and enriching place for children who must be at the courthouse because they are witnesses, subject of child neglect or abuse or custody proceedings or their parents have business at the courthouse. The grant purchases disposable supplies for the children. ($1,000)

Project Outreach, Inc. - Peer Council – Resolving Conflicts in Schools focuses on teaching youth in grades 6-8 in rural Sampson County how the legal system works by teaching them courtroom procedures. Youth leaders serve as court officials who oversee proceedings where non-violent conflicts can be resolved peacefully and hold students accountable for their actions. ($750)

Direct any questions you might have about applying for grants in the future to Tom Hull, Director of Development for the NCBA Foundation, via e-mail (thull@ncbar.org) or phone 919-677-0561 or 800-662-7407.