This guide from the Association of American Law Schools compiles fellowships and visiting assistant professorships by law school and subject.

The American Council of Learned Societies invites research proposals from scholars in all disciplines of the humanities and related social sciences. ACLS invites applications from scholars pursuing research on topics grounded in any time period, world region, or humanistic methodology. ACLS aims to select fellows who are broadly representative of the variety of humanistic scholarship across all fields of study.

The American Bar Foundation (ABF), in partnership with The JPB Foundation, is seeking a diverse group of empirical scholars interested in researching access to civil justice to join the ABF’s intellectual community for the ABF/JPB Foundation Access to Justice Scholars Program.

The ABF has numerous fellowship opportunities for faculty, postdoctoral scholars, doctoral candidates, graduate, and undergraduate students. Information, deadlines, and more information on each can be found on their fellowship page.

The ABF invites scholars to join their intellectual community throughout the year, as space allows, on a visiting and temporary basis. We encourage national and international scholars on leave or sabbatical to take advantage of our diverse sociolegal community and excellent facilities. We offer an office or workspace, telephone, and library access, but no stipend.

The ABF William H. Neukom Fellows Research Chair in Diversity and Law is a year-long visiting position. The Neukom Chair is an outstanding scholar with a distinguished record of scholarship in law and the social sciences who conducts empirical research on diversity and law, broadly conceived.

The Society sponsors fellowships to foster innovative scholarship, promote inclusive membership, and to cultivate new generations of legal historians. These fellowships support programs that create smaller and more focused venues where early career scholars may develop their skills, seek opportunities for career-building publications, interact with senior scholars, and meet peers from around the world with whom they will collaborate throughout their careers.

The ASIL International Law Fellows program gives recent graduates the opportunity to gain up to a year of professional experience working on ASIL publications and the development and implementation of its research, education, and outreach programs. The positions are full-time and typically of a 6-month duration.

Columbia Law School provides this partial list of available fellowships and visiting assistant professorships.

An occasionally updated list of openings for Fellowships and VAPs as created and edited by law faculty members across the country.

A brief overview of what to expect when applying for fellowships and VAPs and a guide to what to expect from different types of fellowships.

The Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program is the largest program of its kind in the United States, awarding more than 800 fellowships annually. Over 400 different types of opportunities are available to teach, research and conduct professional projects in more than 135 countries. Note the link to "Catalog of Awards" at the top of the page.

Here is a list of fellowships, grants, visiting scholars’ programs, and award opportunities for scholars working on South Asian studies, legal history, and socio-legal studies. Compiled by UW Law School Professor of Law, Mitra Sharafi.

The MacArthur Fellows Program is intended to encourage people of outstanding talent to pursue their own creative, intellectual, and professional inclinations. Recipients may be writers, scientists, artists, social scientists, humanists, teachers, entrepreneurs, or those in other fields, with or without institutional affiliations. They may use their fellowship to advance their expertise, engage in bold new work, or, if they wish, to change fields or alter the direction of their careers.

NEH Fellowships support individuals pursuing advanced research that is of value to humanities scholars, general audiences, or both. Recipients usually produce books, monographs, peer-reviewed articles, e-books, digital materials, translations with annotations or a critical apparatus, or critical editions resulting from previous research. Projects may be at any stage of development.

These fellowships support individual scholars pursuing interpretive research projects that require digital expression and digital publication. Successful projects will likely incorporate images, video, audio, and/or other multimedia materials or flexible reading pathways that could not be included in traditionally published books, as well as an active distribution plan. All projects must be interpretive. That is, projects must advance a scholarly argument through digital means and tools. Projects may be at any stage of development.

The Samuel I. Golieb Fellowship was established in 1981 to provide young legal historians with research support and a forum to present their work. Fellows attend the Legal History Colloquium during the academic year and have the opportunity to present their own work in the colloquium.

The Olin-Searle-Smith-Darling Fellows in Law program will offer top young legal thinkers the opportunity to spend one to two years working full time on writing and developing their scholarship with the goal of entering the legal academy.

The Open Society Fellowship is designed to support individuals pursuing innovative and unconventional approaches to fundamental open society challenges.

The PLEDGE Fellowship is an 18-month professional development program and intervention-based research project sponsored by AccessLex Institute and the Southern Education Foundation. The fellowship targets experienced law school administrators, faculty members, or other similarly situated and experienced professionals. Teams of two fellows will undertake intervention-based research projects, called Capstones, focusing on one of the following three topical strands: Admission and Access, Academic Performance, or Bar Exam Performance

To accelerate content development and showcase talent from various parts of the legal profession, the Scribes Board has created the Inaugural Scribes Fellows Program to attract attorneys, judges, academics, and librarians willing to produce original, engaging content related to legal writing. For the inaugural year, which will run from June 2023 through May 2024, Scribes will select up to three Fellows.

A list of the law schools with fellowship and VAP programs compiled by TaxProf Blog.

The Baldy Center awards fellowships to scholars pursuing important topics in law, legal institutions, and social policy. Applications are invited from mid-career and senior scholars from law, the humanities, and the social and natural sciences.
Post-Doctoral Fellowships are awarded to individuals who have completed the PhD or JD, but have yet to begin a tenure track, academic appointment.

Penn Law offers four fellowships to encourage academic careers: The George Sharswood Fellowship, the CTIC Fellowship, the Quattrone Fellowship, and the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law Fellowship. This page discusses the requirements and deadlines for each.

With support from the UW Law School Institute for Legal Studies, the American Society for Legal History sponsors this two-week program. Each Hurst Institute is organized and chaired by a well-known legal historian and includes visiting senior scholars who lead specialized sessions. An ASLH committee reviews applications and selects 12 early career scholars from around the world as Institute Fellows. The Fellows participate in seminars, meet other legal historians, and present their own work.

The Hastie Fellowship Program provides aspiring scholars an outstanding opportunity to prepare for a career in law teaching. The Fellowship reflects a commitment to diversity and inclusion in the legal profession and especially encourages applications from candidates of color and other underrepresented communities in the legal academy. Fellows have two years to pursue their scholarship and the support of the law school in going on the job market.

The chair is designed to support the strategic initiative “Enhancing the Wisconsin Idea” and further the legacy of the century-old Wisconsin Idea, which holds that the boundaries of the university are boundaries of the state and beyond. The holder must have contributed substantially to the outreach mission of the university and demonstrated ability to transfer knowledge and research through individual efforts or coordination of multidisciplinary activities. The candidate must also be widely recognized, both nationally and internationally as a distinguished teacher and researcher.

This program, funded by WARF in recognition of the leadership of the late WARF Trustee President H. I. Romnes, is designed to bridge the gap between the Research Committee’s initial research support for new faculty and the Mid-Career Award for Faculty Research. This award is intended to recognize and support faculty up to SIX years past their first promotion to a tenured position.

Hilldale Professorships are given to faculty members who excel in scholarly activity, who have records of outstanding research or creative work, and show promise of continued productivity.

The John D. MacArthur Professorship Chair was established by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, in honor of John D. MacArthur. The professorship is considered one of the most prestigious research chairs on campus and recognizes highly distinguished research scholars.

This award is comparable in competitiveness to the Romnes Faculty Fellowships and the WARF Professorships but is intended to recognize and support mid-career faculty, seven to twenty years past their first promotion to a tenured position.

Named Bascom Professorships honor the distinguished scholar and former university president, John Bascom. The coveted awards are for faculty members, and may be awarded in areas designated by the specific donor or to individuals designated by the donor.

The Teaching Academy offers two annual awards: the Distinguished Fellow Award and the Distinguished Future Faculty Partner Award. Recipients are awarded based on demonstrated sustained excellence in teaching and learning on the UW-Madison campus and dedicated service to the Teaching Academy. Teaching Academy award recipients cannot be current Executive Committee members.

The Vilas Associates Competition recognizes new and on-going research of the highest quality and significance.

The Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professorships recognize professors whose distinguished scholarship has advanced the confines of knowledge, and whose excellence has also included teaching or service. Faculty members receiving this award carry the title of Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor for the duration of their careers at UW-Madison.

The Vilas Research Professorships were created “for the advancement of learning.” Candidates should be of proven research ability, and possess unusual qualifications and promise. The individual must have contributed significantly to the research mission of the university, and be widely recognized both nationally and internationally for the quality of research.

This program provides recognition for distinguished research contributions of the UW–Madison faculty. The awards are intended to honor those faculty who have made major contributions to the advancement of knowledge, primarily through their research endeavors, but also as a result of their teaching and service activities.

The Wisconsin Distinguished Professorships Program was established in 1987 and provides incentive for top faculty to engage industry and other private sources in the UW-Madison research enterprise, which benefits the University and the State of Wisconsin.

Each year, the William Nelson Cromwell Foundation makes available a number of early career scholar fellowships intended to support research and writing in American legal history. The number of fellowships to be awarded, and their amounts, are at the discretion of the Foundation. In the past several years, the trustees of the Foundation have awarded from three to eight fellowships, in amounts of $5,000.