Why Lawyers and Law Students Should Participate

Demand: Pro bono and public interest lawyers lack the time to fully explore new potential legal interpretations and strategies.

  • Practitioners working to advance causes in the public interest need research and writing on a broad range of issues, but lack time to supervise students doing research.
  • Even with the time to dig through law reviews, practitioners would find few applications of most scholarship to projects immediately at hand.
  • Students often struggle to find good research topics for their academic writing requirements.

Supply: Students do thousands of hours of faculty-supervised research and writing each year, most of which disappears into filing cabinets.

  • Independent research projects are a graduation requirement at most law schools.
  • Students are eager to apply lessons from the classroom to “real world” issues.
  • Faculty responsibilities include supervising student research and writing.
  • Student research is often outstanding but remains untapped because only a miniscule proportion of student papers are ever published.

The Solution is ACS ResearchLink: Connecting Law Students and Lawyers Committed to Justice

  • ACS ResearchLink informs law students and professors of specific research needs identified by public interest advocates and practitioners and offers national visibility to student research on social justice issues.
  • ACS ResearchLink helps perennially overtaxed public interest advocates better serve their clients and causes by creating a new library of resources for policymakers, as well as civil and criminal justice lawyers.
  • ACS ResearchLink multiplies the number of students engaged in social justice issues.
  • ACS ResearchLink provides a new avenue for collaboration between the legal academy and profession.

If you have any questions, please read the FAQ and contact ResearchLink@ACSLaw.org with any that remain.