About LAPA

Since Princeton does not have a law school, LAPA is the primary site on the Princeton campus for law-related activity. The Program in Law and Public Affairs is housed in the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs on the Princeton campus and is co-sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School, the University Center for Human Values and the University. LAPA-affiliated faculty, graduate students and undergraduates come from all over the university and from all disciplines in the social sciences and humanities, as well as from the sciences and engineering. LAPA encourages its fellows to develop ties with relevant departments and disciplines around campus.

Financial Support for Fellows

Salaries vary according to individual circumstances but will not exceed a maximum that is set each fall. Fellows from academic institutions normally receive one-half their academic-year salaries for the appointment period at Princeton up to an annually set maximum amount. LAPA salaries will not be set below a university specified minimum. While additional salary may be paid to Fellows who teach a course, this opportunity cannot be guaranteed. In general, we anticipate that Fellows visiting from other universities will come with sabbatical support from their home institutions, which would allow them to maintain their full salaries, although this is not a requirement for receiving a LAPA fellowship. Fellows who do not come with additional funding have been able to live reasonably in Princeton for the year just on LAPA support. If applicants do not have sabbatical funds but would like to get their full salaries for the year, we recommend also applying for other sources of funds to supplement LAPA salaries. While at Princeton, each fellow will be provided with an office equipped with a computer and telephone.

Fellowship Residency Requirements

Fellows are expected to be in residence at Princeton at least four days each week during the fall and spring academic terms. Fellows should plan to attend both the LAPA Seminars, held on alternating Monday afternoons followed by dinner, as well as the fellows' lunch each Thursday. They should also plan to attend major LAPA events for which advance notice will be provided. Fellows are welcome but not required to participate in other University conferences, programs, or events in their field(s) of interest.

Research Proposal

In evaluating an application, the selection committee looks particularly closely at the proposal outlining work the applicant proposes to do while in residence at Princeton. Successful LAPA applicants should demonstrate substantial expertise in law-related matters; however, in explaining research projects, applicants would be well advised to write for an audience of academic generalists. LAPA is particularly interested in potential Fellows with interests in policy or in normative or interpretive inquiry. The program does not support, as a primary activity, off-site fieldwork or work in remote archives, development of course materials, work in legal practice, direct advocacy of causes or residence elsewhere. The program is designed to give Fellows a year in residence at Princeton for scholarly reflection and writing, and prospective Fellows might consider timing their applications for a year in which time devoted to reflection and writing on a substantial project would be most crucial for them.

Selection Criteria

The selection committee, made up of Princeton faculty associated with the program, will evaluate applicants on the basis of (1) the quality of their achievements in their field of specialization and their ability to benefit from the activities of the program; (2) the quality and significance of their proposed projects; (3) the contributions they are likely to make in the future to legal scholarship and practice; and (4) their ability to contribute to intellectual life in legal studies at Princeton. In any given year, the program tries to get a mix of senior and junior scholars, domestic and international scholars, and those based in law schools or in the practice of law on the one hand and those whose homes are in other disciplines on the other.

The General LAPA Fellows Program

Drawn from law schools, the social sciences, the humanities, and from the world of policy-making and legal practice, LAPA's Fellows are engaged during their stay at Princeton in cutting-edge research about the law, legal practices and legal institutions. The Fellows enhance Princeton's tradition of excellence in undergraduate- and graduate-level intellectual inquiry into law-related issues, and they provide an intellectual critical mass for innovative scholarly collaborations about law and legal institutions. The Fellows also add to the group of normatively engaged scholars on campus who consider either policy or ethics as a substantial component of their work. LAPA does not designate annual themes for its Fellows cohort so applications on all law-related subjects are welcome for the general Fellows program. That said, the selection committee in any given year does give consideration in the last phases of the decision process to whether a particular set of Fellows would complement each other, bring synergies to the program and otherwise show signs of being more than the sum of their individual proposals. Because LAPA gets many more outstanding applications than it has fellowships, one of the final elements of the selection process is the coherent composition of the group. Intellectual clusters are often favored, as are mixes of senior and junior Fellows, domestic and international Fellows, and Fellows based inside and outside law schools.

One of our general Fellows who will teach an undergraduate course through LAPA will be named the Martin and Kathleen Crane Fellow in Law and Public Affairs.

Microsoft/LAPA Fellow in Law, Property, and the Economic Organization of Society

For six years, due to the generosity of the Microsoft Corporation, LAPA has had one fellow each year who was selected because he or she is making important contributions to research and teaching in law, property, and the economic organization of society. Applicants are invited to indicate their interest in the Microsoft/LAPA Fellowship. Doing so will not prejudice consideration for a general LAPA fellowship. In general, while we prefer to find someone whose primary interests are in intellectual property and/or in information technology and the law, the description of the fellowship also reaches more broadly:

The law plays a crucial role in defining property rights and constituting markets. LAPA fellows appointed to the position will study important problems related to defining and regulating property. Issues related to information technology now loom especially large. Such issues embrace many areas of the law, including copyright, patent, antitrust, free speech, privacy, telecommunications law, tax law, and international trade law. LAPA will make a special effort to secure fellows who have some expertise relevant to information policy issues. The position may also support study of other topics related to the economic organization of society. For example, some countries are now seeking to establish free markets in societies dominated by distrust, corruption, or heavy regulation. Other countries must find ways to adapt institutions so that they remain competitive in the new economy of the 21st century. Whether their economies are old or new, countries must decide how to protect the interests of workers, how to ensure corporate accountability, and how to deal with the huge inequalities produced by modern capitalism.