Soros Justice Fellowship Program

The Soros Justice Fellowships fund outstanding individuals to undertake projects that advance reform, spur debate, and catalyze change on a range of issues facing the U.S. criminal legal system. The fellowships are part of a larger effort within the Open Society Foundations to reduce the destructive impact of current criminal justice policies on the lives of individuals, families, and communities in the United States by challenging the overreliance on incarceration and extreme punishment and ensuring a fair and accountable system of justice. Fellows can receive funding through three categories, though only the Advocacy Fellowship is applicable to law students. The Soros Justice Advocacy Fellowships fund lawyers, advocates, grassroots organizers, researchers, and others with unique perspectives to undertake full-time criminal legal reform projects at the local, state, and national levels. Projects may range from litigation to public education to coalition building to grassroots mobilization to policy-driven research.

The application deadline for Advocacy Fellowships is in March and projects begin the following fall. Advocacy Fellowships are 18 months in duration and are encouraged to be in conjunction with a host organization. Advocacy Fellowships come with an award of either $94,500 or $127,500 (depending on level of experience). All projects must, at a minimum, relate to one or more of the Justice Fund’s broad U.S. criminal justice reform goals: reducing the number of people who are incarcerated or under correctional control, challenging extreme punishment, and promoting fairness and accountability in our systems of justice. Please carefully review the complete guidelines on the website for more details on the specific requirements for each category of fellowships. Open Society Foundations strongly encourages applications for projects that demonstrate a clear understanding of the intersection of criminal justice issues with the particular needs of low-income communities; Black, Indigenous, and other diverse communities; immigrants; LGBTQ people; women and children; and those otherwise disproportionately affected by harsh criminal legal policies, as well as applications for projects that cut across various criminal legal fields and related sectors, such as education, health and mental health, housing, and employment. Also, Open Society Foundations particularly welcomes applications from individuals directly affected by, or with significant direct personal experience with, the policies, practices, and systems their projects seek to address.