Harvard Law School Annual Fund: Essential Support

Each year, gifts to the Harvard Law School Annual Fund play a critical role in limiting tuition increases and in supporting key initiatives. Important programs such as financial aid, clinical education, and the Low Income Protection Plan, as well as numerous student organizations, depend on money given to the Annual Fund.

Give to HLS

Three banners hanging outside between columns on Langdell Hall. Two read Harvard Law School. Middle one reads Veritas and Lex Et Iustitia.
Credit: Martha Stewart

When you make a gift to the HLS Annual Fund, you are sustaining the core of everything we do at Harvard Law School.

  • Your commitment ensures financial aid and other supports for students, making legal education accessible to every student and preserving the broadest possible range of career options for graduates.
  • Your generosity strengthens recruiting, ensuring the excellence and diversity of every HLS class.
  • Your engagement enriches experiential learning, including legal aid and public service opportunities.

Through the Annual Fund, your donation is an investment in expanding the frontiers of legal education.

Make Your Gift to the Annual Fund

You make the difference.

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Clinical Programs: Learning the Law, Serving the World

HLS was the first law school in the United States to offer clinical education as part of its curriculum, and today we offer more clinical opportunities than any other law school. Last year, members of the Class of 2022 completed an average of 620 hours of pro bono service.

Annual Fund gifts in support of clinical education will fund clinical programs; grow and support our clinical faculty through clinical professorships, instructorships, and fellowships; and offer current-use funding for immediate opportunities and operational support.

Students share their perspectives on life at Harvard Law School, the caliber and diversity of its supportive community, the many benefits of the school’s Zero-L, mentorship, and clinical programs, and the role financial aid plays in making an HLS education possible for so many.

Financial Aid: Access for All

The ability to offer competitive, need-based financial aid packages allows Harvard Law School to attract and enroll the next generation’s best and brightest candidates from around the world, regardless of their ability to pay.

Annual Fund gifts in support of financial aid will grow HLS’s need-based aid for JD students and increase our loan repayment assistance program (LIPP), which enables graduates to pursue nonprofit, government, academic, and other lower-income legal careers.

Public Service: A Focus on Community

Harvard Law School builds an ethic of public service into the student experience, and many of our graduates are called to serve the public good through work in government, nonprofits, and academia.

Annual Fund gifts in support of public service will support the Public Service Venture Fund, which awards up to $1 million annually to support public interest startups launched by young alumni; Summer Public Interest Funding (SPIF), which supports students who choose to pursue summer employment in a non-profit, government, NGO, IGO, or other approved private public interest firm setting; and public service fellowships, which provide support for students and recent graduates working in unpaid or low-paid public interest and human rights positions.

Areas of Greatest Need: Supports Our Students in Times of Crisis

During emergencies and times of crisis, this area supports our diverse group of students through unexpected disruptions and times of far-reaching financial hardship.