The American Bar Endowment (ABE) has awarded its annual grant of $3.8 million to the American Bar Foundation (ABF) for the 2025–26 fiscal year. This longstanding grant provides essential support for the ABF’s interdisciplinary, empirical research on law and policy.
“The ABE has long supported the important work of the American Bar Foundation and is excited about the projects currently underway at the ABF,” said ABE President Hon. Lora Livingston.
Said Interim Executive Director Bryant Garth, “Support from the ABE is essential and allows us to continue to equip policymakers, practitioners, and civic leaders with research-backed insights and solutions that create meaningful change. We are especially grateful for the ABE’s enduring commitment to our work, a partnership that makes our long-term impact possible.”
Since the 1950s, the ABE has awarded the ABF more than $170 million, sustaining the Foundation’s capacity to generate scholarship that shapes understanding of law in action.
The ABE is a not-for-profit public charity that sponsors affordable life and disability insurance programs for members of the American Bar Association (ABA). Through its insurance dividends, ABA members have the option to support the ABE’s funding of law-related research, education, and public service initiatives—including the ABF’s pathbreaking work.
With the ABE’s support, the ABF has been able to tackle urgent challenges with research that is directly relevant to today’s most pressing issues. Recent examples include ABF Research Professor Carol Heimer’s Governing the Global Clinic, which came out in April. Heimer’s book explores a tension in global health systems that is timely with health crises reshaping our world: What happens when global rules and norms meet the realities of local systems with limited resources? With authoritarian and would-be authoritarian leaders on the rise throughout the world, ABF Research Professor Tom Ginsburg is exploring how anti-corruption efforts may counterintuitively become tools to consolidate power. As many question whether the Supreme Court’s actions reflect partisan interests, ABF Research Professor Christopher W. Schmidt is completing a book that will show how the court evolved into an institution deeply entwined with politics and provide a foundation for discussions about potential reforms.
The grant also enables the ABF to invest in the next generation of scholars through doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships and the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program, ensuring emerging scholars have opportunities that are increasingly scarce due to shrinking federal support.
###
About the American Bar Foundation
The American Bar Foundation (ABF) is the world’s leading research institute for the empirical and interdisciplinary study of law. The ABF seeks to expand knowledge and advance justice through innovative, interdisciplinary, and rigorous empirical research on law, legal processes, and legal institutions. To further this mission the ABF will produce timely, cutting-edge research of the highest quality to inform and guide the legal profession, the academy, and society in the United States and internationally. The ABF’s primary funding is provided by the American Bar Endowment and the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation.