Grants

Proposals should include the following:

• Cover Sheet—Includes names of principal investigators (PI), their institutions, addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses; title of the proposed project; total amount of the requested grant; proposed starting date and duration of the project; and authorizing signatures of the PI and appropriate institutional officer.
• Summary—A summary of the project of no more than 200 words should appear on a separate page.
• Project Description—This section is the heart of the grant application. The project description should not exceed 6,000 words. It should include: (a) a clear statement of the research questions to which the project is addressed; (b) a paragraph describing how the study will inform the process of selecting law students or legal education itself; (c) a discussion of the relevant literature, showing how the proposed study can be expected to add to what already is known; and (d) a clear and complete statement of how the research will be accomplished; that is, the research design and the procedures to be used to carry out the project. This section should include a discussion of feasibility issues and, if those present any serious challenges to the successful completion of the study, how such problems will be handled.
• Public Use of Data—Any funded project that includes the collection of original data will be expected to produce a public use data set as one of the deliverables either before or after the final report is complete. Project descriptions, work plans, timetables, and budgets should include line items for this work. Alternatively, if the creation of a public use data set is inappropriate for a project, the project description should provide a rationale for why it is not appropriate for the proposed project.
• Work Plan and Timetable—A brief section that lists the major tasks to be conducted by the project and gives a timeline showing when each task will be performed. This section should specify the time commitments of each principal investigator.
• Dissemination—A description of the researchers' plans for disseminating the results of their project.
• Budget—A sample budget form (PDF) is available for downloading. It should be accompanied by a budget narrative explaining the need for or computation of the cost of any item that is not apparent on its face.
• Curriculum Vitae—Include the CVs of the principal investigators and other essential project staff.
• Supporting Documents—Append other documents needed to verify that the path has been cleared for the project to start if it receives funding. These would include human subjects' review approval, copies of letters of agreement from law schools or other institutions whose cooperation is needed (e.g., granting access to students), pilot data if they exist, and questionnaires and other data-collection instruments.