Today, a group of foundations announced a new pooled fund designed to support university legal clinics that are strengthening and defending the First Amendment, media access, and transparency.

Supported by the Democracy Fund, the Klarman Family Foundation, and the Heising-Simons Foundation, and hosted by the Miami Foundation, the Legal Clinics Fund was created with the idea that these clinics can be critical resources for journalists. They combine the skills of talented law students with legal scholars and practicing lawyers to take on legal challenges at the local and national levels, and are geographically diverse. The fund will look for proposals from clinics that would benefit from increased capacity and infrastructure support, are pursuing a collaborative project, or are seeking to experiment with their model.

The Foundation’s support of this fund is part of a suite of journalism grants made under the Community and Opportunity program, strengthening and supporting journalism as a critical ingredient in a healthy democracy.  This includes support of several key organizations that protect the power and freedom of the press.

To learn more about this fund, visit its website, as well as see the Democracy Fund for its announcement.