ABA Real Property, Trust & Estate Law Fellowship: APPLY NOW!

I want to take a moment to give a major plug to the American Bar Association's Real Property, Trust and Estate Law fellowship program. I am just finishing my second and final year of this fellowship, and it's been on the most rewarding experiences I've had since entering the academy. The goal of the fellowship is to give young lawyers (including law professors) the chance to work with and gain insight from practitioners in the field. Each fellow is assigned a mentor and a committee with which to work and put on programs, CLEs, webinars, write articles etc. for that substantive area. The areas range from land-use and gift/estate tax to mortgage lending and real estate transactions (and many more). For instance, I've had the pleasure of working with Wilson Freyermuth (Missouri), Tanya Marsh (Wake Forest), Shelby Green (PACE), Jim Smith (Georgia), Jim Durham (Dayton), Amy Hess (Tennessee) and Nancy McLaughlinn (Utah) in working on a number of projects, including the planning and coordinating of the monthly Professor's Corner webinar that so many of you are familiar with.

Overall I think one of the best aspects of the fellowship is that it provided an opportunity for me to stay connected to the practice of property law and to obtain resources in improving the experiential learning aspects of what I do in the classroom. And aside from the many excellent attorneys I've come to know and work with, there's a really superb group of academics who are heavily involved in the section's work. But, probably best of all, the fellowship funds your travel to two big section meetings a year (and in some pretty fun places, too: I went to Boston, DC, Laguna Beach, and Naples, FL during my time).

The fellowship is for a total of two years. In order to be considered, the applicant must (1) have practiced in the trusts and estates or real property area for at least one year, (2) be younger than 36 years of age or have been admitted to the bar less than 10 years, and (3) have demonstrated leadership at the state or local bar level or in the ABA Young Lawyers Division. The section is always looking for junior law professors to be fellows, so please consider applying. It was a really great experience that I highly recommend to everyone teaching in the field.

The application for the 2016-2018 fellowship class is not due until June 30, 2016 and can be accessed by clicking here.