This study presents data on the value of grants and other financial support received by legal scholars over the past five years, and breaks down support from the Federal government, the private sector, law schools and all other sources. The study also quantifies the number of grants applied for, the percentage of work time spent on pursuit of funding, and the extent of faculty use of law school, university and law and general university library resources designed to assist in grant procurement.
In addition, survey respondents opine on the current state of legal research funding, and prospects for the future. Although legal scholars depend less on grants than their counterparts in STEM subject areas, they nonetheless enjoy significant levels of research funding from a broad array of sources.
Data in the report is broken out by the personal characteristics of the respondents, such as their age, work title, teaching load and gender, as well as the institutional characteristics of the law schools that employ them, such as their ranking, size and public or private status – enabling more precise benchmarking.
Just a few of this 94-page report’s many finding are that:
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Full professors spent 7.17% of their total work time seeking grants and other funding.
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Funding for male faculty was more than three times higher than for female faculty.
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27.3% of scholars at top 20 law firms felt that their law school or general university research offices had a good or excellent knowledge of grant sources for legal scholarship.
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20% of total grant support for associate and assistant professors comes from the US Federal Government.
The survey was conducted from April 10 to June 7, 2023.