The Tony Patiño Fellowship

Selection Process

At the heart of the Fellowship program is the selection process which culminates in Selection Day events at each school. Each year, all students who have gained admission to one of the three law schools are eligible to apply. From this pool of approximately 1000 students, the Fellowship receives about 125 applications.

Each application is read, reviewed and discussed by the Fellowship’s Screening Committee, which narrows the applicant pool to approximately 15 finalists. These finalists are then each interviewed during Selection Day by the Fellowship’s Selection Committee, which chooses up to three Fellow-Elects at each school.

The Selection Committee has included a number of distinguished jurists, leading legal scholars and longtime supporters of the Fellowship such as; the late United States Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, the Fellowship’s first National Chairman; the late Professor Jerome Hall, the Fellowship’s first Hastings Chairman; the Honorable Raymond L. Sullivan (dec.) of the Supreme Court of the State of California; James McGarry, the Fellowship’s first counsel and longest serving board member; and most recently, the Honorable Diane P. Wood, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Many Fellows look back on the Selection Day interview with a mix of pride, awe and agony. For most it was their first exposure to the rigorous and oftentimes humbling Socratic method of questioning – administered by some extraordinary practicioners.

The Fellow-Elects are awarded the Fellowship for a one year term, renewable annually at the discretion of the Fellowship’s Renewal Committee, which considers academic and personal achievement. Upon graduation, Fellow-Elects, who have successfully renewed for their second and third years of law school, graduate as Tony Patiño Fellows. The title and the stunning statuette are bestowed upon the Fellows during the annual Selection Day banquet and ceremonies.

SCREENING COMMITTEE