Grants Awarded

Endowment Grants: January – June 2012

The North Carolina Bar Association Foundation announces its most recent endowment grants approved on January 26, 2012 at the Board of Directors Meeting in Cary. A total of 20 grants for January – June 2012 were approved in the amount of $215,317 including 16 statewide and four local/regional grants. All of the organizations and their projects are listed below with dollar amounts for each grant in parenthesis.

Semi-annual grants support dozens of statewide bar projects and the legally-related service/education projects of other non-profit organizations.

The purposes of the NCBA Foundation Endowment are:

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

The Endowment is the philanthropic workhorse of the NCBA Foundation and the NCBA. Since 1988, 495 endowment grants totaling more than $3.9 million have been awarded.

Statewide Grants

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 – 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. ($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 School of Law alumni and others on staff at LANC to sustain attorney retention. ($33,869)

LANC LawHelp/Probono Statewide Websites (2012) – 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. ($10,000)

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 $45,000 allocated for the 2012-13 school year.

Judicial Performance Evaluation Project – The Judicial Performance Evaluation initiative provided an evaluation of sitting judges seeking 2012 re-election for voter education. This grant will evaluate approximately 50 non-incumbent candidates who will run against incumbent judges in both the Superior Court and District Court on the 2012 ballot. ($15,000)

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)

Law School Admissions Conference (LSAC) – 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 – includes three day long training sessions for “The Big Bad Wolf”, Elementary (Bike Safety/Helmet Law) Book; NC-CSI: Constitution Secrets Investigated teaching guide and NC Social Studies and Middle School Conferences ($9,460)

Law Student Scholarships – at each of the seven NC law schools made possible by The D. Staton and Maude B. Inscoe Law Foundation Education Fund ($14,000)

The Changing Face of Leadership: Our Backyard and Beyond – The NCBA Women in the Profession Committee is hosting a conference in Asheville on April 26-27, 2012 to provide an opportunity for primarily women lawyers to interact with female judicial representatives from all courts including the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and the state appellate courts. ($2,306)

North Carolina Supreme Court Historical Society County Portrait Project – This project will inventory and digitally record the portraits which are housed in the 100 county courthouses in NC. Brief biographies of the subjects will be published. ($1,000)

Diversity Law Student Fellowship – placement and funding of two law students in environmental law positions in the summer of 2012 as part of an ABA sponsored effort to increase minority interest and representation of traditionally underrepresented groups in environmental law. ($5,000)

23rd Annual Meeting Professionalism Speaker – United States Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli, Jr. will serve as the professionalism/ethics speaker at the NCBA 2012 Annual Meeting in Wilmington. This is made possible by the Willis Smith & Willis Smith, Jr. Justice Funds in the NCBA Foundation Endowment. ($10,282)

Lawyer Referral Service (LRS) – annually assists more than 58,000 people matching them with LRS lawyers to assess/help with their legal needs at minimal cost. ($10,000)

North Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence Legal Empowerment and Advocacy Project – works to create and maintain accessible legal materials for survivors; provide comprehensive technical assistance to domestic violence advocates and lawyers through email and telephone; conduct trainings for lawyers and advocates to increase their capacity to assist domestic violence survivors; and recruit and train volunteer attorneys to represent domestic violence survivors on a pro bono basis. ($5,000)

Local/Regional Grants

United Family Services - Legal Representation Project – United Family Services Victim Assistance (UFSVA) in Charlotte has been serving victims of domestic violence and sexual assault since 1978. UFS VA has developed a legal representation project to recruit and train pro bono attorneys to represent victims of domestic violence who are seeking domestic violence protective orders in civil court. ($2,000)

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. ($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. ($1,000)

Mecklenburg County Bar – Educational exhibit at the Levine Museum of the New South in Charlotte for the 2012 MCB Centennial year will educate the public about the vital role of lawyers and judges in society ($10,000)

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.