The Morrison & Foerster Foundation sponsors a number of fellowships and scholarships across the country.

Equal Justice Works Fellowships
Equal Justice Works, formerly the National Association for Public Interest Law (NAPIL), is a leading nonprofit in the field of organizing, training and supporting public service-minded law students and in creating summer and postgraduate public interest jobs. Its two-year fellowship program for young lawyers combines funds from sponsoring organizations with funds from the Open Society Institute. The Foundation has sponsored several Equal Justice Works fellows in recent years, funding public interest work at Break the Cycle and the Harriet Buhai Center for Family Law in Los Angeles, the Legal Aid Society of San Diego, Legal Services for Children in San Francisco and Make the Road By Walking in New York City.

We are currently sponsoring four Equal Justice Works fellows: at the Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County, California, with a project to provide legal representation and policy advocacy aimed at increasing the supply of affordable housing in San Mateo; at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest in New York City, on a project designed to improve access to health care for that city's nearly 14,000 homeless children; at Protection & Advocacy, Inc. in Oakland, California, to enforce the special education rights of and create a sustainable network of educational advocates for Bay Area foster youth; and at the Western Law Center for Disability Rights in Los Angeles, providing education rights advocacy for children of low-income families with learning disabilities.

Break the Cycle Staff Attorney Sponsorships
The Morrison & Foerster Foundation is the charter National Founding Partner of Break the Cycle, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization whose mission is to end domestic violence by working proactively with youth. It furthers this mission by providing young people, ages 12 to 22, with preventive education, free legal services, advocacy and support. In 2002, we began a significant multi-year contribution to support Break the Cycle’s national expansion, partially sponsoring two-year staff attorney positions at each of the organization’s three new offices (in New York, San Francisco and Washington, DC).

Barry S. Sandals Memorial Fellowships
In late 2001, the Foundation established a fund in memory of Barry Sandals, an environmental litigation partner in the firm’s San Francisco office. A graduate of U.C. Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law who served as an editor of Ecology Law Quarterly during his years at Boalt in the late 1970’s, Barry was one of the nation's top CERCLA litigators and was known for his commitment to using his talents in the public interest. Colleagues, clients and others contributed to the fund, which also received a donation from the Foundation. Those funds now support the Barry S. Sandals Memorial Fellowship at Boalt. The staff of Ecology Law Quarterly awards the fellowship each year to a first year student who has retained employment at an environmentally oriented public interest or public sector organization for the summer after his or her first year.

Barbara Wellbery Memorial Awards
Barbara Wellbery, a partner at Morrison & Foerster until her death in 2003, was one of the leading experts on international privacy issues and was well respected for her in-depth knowledge of privacy issues and strong commitment to fostering international understanding of differing privacy approaches around the world. To honor her memory, the Foundation established a fund to encourage the continued development of practical approaches to privacy and the management of cross border data flows. Friends and colleagues began contributing to the fund, which now sponsors an independent yearly prize competition. The winner receives a monetary award, an invitation to present the paper at a renowned international conference and the publication of the paper in an international journal. The 2005 call for papers is available online in either English or French (both are in pdf format). For further information about contributing to this fund, or about award and guideline submissions, please contact Cynthia Rich of Morrison & Foerster LLP at crich@mofo.com.

Joseph E. Terraciano Scholarships
The Morrison & Foerster Foundation funds scholarships for undergraduate education for children of Morrison & Foerster staff members through the firm’s Joseph E. Terraciano Scholarship program. This program honors the memory of Joe Terraciano, an exceptional lawyer who had a distinguished career with the firm before his untimely death in 1989. Scholarships are awarded annually to qualified students based on a combination of academic achievement, financial need and demonstrated concern for the well being of others. Since its inception in 1990, the Foundation has given more than $750,000 in Terraciano Scholarships to more than 40 students.