The Federalist Society is pleased to invite applications for Searle Young Legal Scholars Research Fellowships.  Up to two junior tenure-track faculty members will receive funding to take a semester-long research leave in order to make major progress on an important scholarly article.

The Award

Fellows will receive a stipend set at a level reasonably comparable to their salary for half of a year.  The stipend will be sufficient to enable fellows to take negotiated leaves from teaching duties in order to devote themselves full time to production of a significant piece of legal scholarship.  In addition, fellows will receive advice and feedback on their project from a member of the Fellowship Selection Committee.  The leave should begin no later than the middle of the 2010-2011 academic year.  The program assumes that fellows will continue to use the offices and research facilities of their home institutions.  As a matter of policy, there are no allowable indirect costs under the terms of this fellowship.

Selection Criteria

Applicants should be tenure-track faculty members at a law school in the second to fifth years of their tenure-track teaching careers.  The Fellowship Selection Committee will consider the following criteria:

• Prior demonstration of outstanding academic talent
• Promise and importance of proposed scholarly article
• Demonstrated commitment to intellectual diversity in the legal academy
• Current teaching load (and, thus, likely utility of a fellowship)

Preference will be given to applications from candidates who are not currently at top law schools as top schools are likely to have their own research leave programs for junior faculty.

Selection Process

A distinguished group of academics will select the Fellows.

To Apply

Applicants should submit:

• A description of the project for which the applicant seeks the fellowship, including its current status
• A list and copies of completed or close-to-complete articles (published or not), with a notation indicating the single non-coauthored article that represents the applicant's best work
• A curriculum vitae
• Preliminary information concerning the applicant's school's policies on granting academic leave for the pursuit of research funded by an outside entity, including any minimum financial commitment generally required in those circumstances

In addition, though not required, applicants may submit the following:

• Two to three letters of recommendation from faculty members or other academic authorities familiar with the applicant's work
• Any information relevant to the applicant's qualifications under the selection criteria listed above.

All application materials should be submitted to:

Searle Junior Scholar Fellowship Selection Committee
c/o The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Att:  Erin Sheley
1015 18th Street, N.W.
Suite 425
Washington, DC 20036

Or by email to Erin Sheley, Deputy Faculty Division Director, at erin.sheley@fed-soc.org.

Application Deadline

All application materials should be submitted by September 15, 2009. 

Announcement of Fellowships

Applicants will be notified no later than November 23, 2009.