Scholarships

Eligibility for most gift aid is determined prior to your first year. Awards are typically renewed for up to a total of three years (six semesters) provided that you maintain full-time enrollment. Waiving the need to apply each year allows students to create a financial plan for all three years of the J.D. program.

The Entering Student Scholarships and Gift Aid website provides the application process and timeline for the Berkeley Law scholarships, grants, and fellowships available to entering students. This page will also explain the criteria used to determine award eligibility as well as a few examples of awards offered in the past.

The Berkeley Law Financial Aid Office administers several supplemental scholarships for continuing JD students, called continuing student scholarships. These scholarships are typically donor-funded and have particular eligibility criteria. The application period is announced each spring/summer by e-mail.

The UC Berkeley Graduate Fellowships Office administers many scholarships and prizes for graduate students, including the Graduate Student Parent Grant, and many require a FAFSA to be eligible. We recommend you read the descriptions of some of the UC Scholarships specifically available for law students.  

Outside Agency Scholarships are a great source of funding for your legal education. These scholarships have their own applications, procedures, criteria, and deadlines. Information is posted to this website as it is made available to the Berkeley Law Financial Aid Office.

Click here for Outside Agency scholarships for Law students

Where To Send Private Scholarship Checks:

• Private scholarship checks for Berkeley Law students should be made out to ‘UC Regents’ and can be mailed to: Law Office of Financial Aid, 226 Law Building, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720-7220. Please include the student ID (if possible), term/s for which the scholarship is intended, and the student’s full name with any check to prevent significant delays in processing.

The ABA Standard 509 requires all schools with conditional scholarships to post a conditional scholarship retention chart. The ABA’s definition of a conditional scholarship is: “any financial aid award, the retention of which is dependent upon the student maintaining a minimum grade point average or class standing, other than that ordinarily required to remain in good academic standing.” Scholarships are not conditional at Berkeley Law. Renewal of scholarships requires only good academic standing and full-time enrollment at the UC Berkeley School of Law.