American Bar Donates $7.3M from Insurance Funds to Legal Research

The American Bar Endowment, a non-profit sponsor of group insurance and charitable giving programs for the 413,000 members of the American Bar Association, has donated $7.3 million to “improve the justice system and foster the highest ideals of the legal profession.”

The funds come primarily from the voluntary contributions of insurance dividends by ABA members who purchase ABE insurance policies.

The ABE awarded grants of about $3.7 million to the ABA Fund for Justice and Education and almost $3.7 million to the American Bar Foundation.

The funds will support research into areas such as discrimination, the civil jury system, internationalization of legal values and the rule of law.

According to ABE, approximately 90 percent of lawyers participating in ABE-sponsored insurance voluntarily donate their dividends each year to the ABE. In turn, the ABE annually makes grants to fund the work of the American Bar Foundation and the ABA Fund for Justice and Education.

The FJE supports programs such as Law Day, the ABA Center for Pro Bono, the ABA Legal Scholarship Fund that provides scholarships to minority law students, and programs that provide legal assistance to those in need.

With approximately 40,000 certificates in force, the American Bar Endowment said it has one of the largest insurance programs for American lawyers and one of the only insurance programs with a charitable-giving feature that advances the public service goals of the legal profession.

Source: American Bar Endowment