The American Bar Endowment (ABE) has awarded its annual grant to the American Bar Foundation (ABF) of $3.8 million dollars for the 2024-25 fiscal year. This grant supports the ABF’s interdisciplinary, empirical research on law and policy.
“We are deeply appreciative of the American Bar Endowment’s unwavering support and partnership with the ABF,” said ABF Executive Director Mark Suchman. “As our primary benefactor for more than seventy years, their annual grant is essential in maintaining the strength of our research and the innovation and reach of our programming.”
The ABF has received annual grants from the ABE since the 1950s. In total, the ABE has awarded the ABF more than $166 million, which has proved vital for the continuation of the ABF’s critically acclaimed research.
“The Board of Directors of the American Bar Endowment is pleased to award its annual grant to the American Bar Foundation,” said ABE President Lora Livingston. “The ABF continues its history of stellar legal and interdisciplinary research, and we celebrate its legacy and amazing contributions to the legal profession once again this year. The work of the ABF is essential to our discovery and understanding of the legal systems in this country and beyond.”
The ABE is a not-for-profit public charity that sponsors high-quality, affordable life and disability insurance for American Bar Association (ABA) members. The ABE’s mission is to generate funds for the support of law-related research and educational and public service projects through its insurance program. ABA-insured members can contribute their insurance dividends toward the ABE’s funding for various programs of importance to the public and the profession, including the pathbreaking research of the ABF.
With the ABE’s support, the ABF has maintained project integrity while broadening its research scope on critical legal issues nationally and internationally. Among the many significant research endeavors at the ABF are projects like the “After the JD” project’s capstone book, The Making of Lawyers’ Careers, published in October 2023. Additionally, ABF Research Professor Anna Reosti continues to study the rental affordability crisis and tenants’ rights movements through data-driven analysis of the housing market in her project titled “Regulating the Crisis.” Research Professor Carol A. Heimer is set to publish her research in a capstone book project next year, focusing on the global health impact of standardizing medical care for HIV/AIDS through laws and regulations.
The ABF also uses funds provided by the ABE to support the research of emerging sociolegal scholars through an array of doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships and the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program.
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About the American Bar Foundation
The American Bar Foundation (ABF) is the world’s leading research institute for the empirical and interdisciplinary study of law. The ABF seeks to expand knowledge and advance justice through innovative, interdisciplinary, and rigorous empirical research on law, legal processes, and legal institutions. To further this mission the ABF will produce timely, cutting-edge research of the highest quality to inform and guide the legal profession, the academy, and society in the United States and internationally. The ABF’s primary funding is provided by the American Bar Endowment and the Fellows of The American Bar Foundation