The Public Interest Law Association (PILA) is incredibly excited to announce our new supplemental public service summer grant program: PILA+! PILA+ is designed to be a need-based grant program and to serve as an addition to the current guaranteed public service summer grants, which will be renamed “UVA Law Public Service Summer Grants”. This program will be completely student run, fundraised, and administered. This is the pilot year of this program and we look forward to working with the UVA community to make this a reality!
We feel the PILA+ grant as a source of additional public service summer funding is more necessary now than ever given that in a survey of all 2020 PILA grant recipients, only 16.9% of grantees reported that their PILA grant covered all of their summer living expenses. Therefore, the purpose of PILA+ will be to provide additional funding for students seeking to do a public interest summer internship who have demonstrable financial need for additional funding. The amount of money we can provide depends on you! These grants will be completely funded through PILA fundraising efforts, and hence the UVA community. Every year, after setting a set amount of funds aside for taxes and other necessary purposes, PILA will equally divide the amount of money we raise among all eligible students (for more information on the exact process, please see our FAQ). As a result, each dollar we raise through our fundraising efforts is another dollar which will go directly towards summer public service funding for students!
What is currently known as the “PILA Grant” has been re-named the UVA Law Public Service Summer Grant. The new UVA Law Public Service Summer Grant is the same as the former PILA Grant. 1L students will still receive $4,000 in summer funding and 2L students will receive $7,000 (pre-tax). The eligibility requirements also have not changed, students are still required to:
- Complete 40 hours of pro bono (of which 5 can come from public service); and
- Attain a public service job or have submitted five applications to eligible employers; and
- Attend a grant information session; and
- Submit a completed application by February 11, 2022 at 5pm EST.
The only change to the former grant is that as of August 2022 students will no longer be required to complete PILA Points after receiving a guaranteed UVA Law Public Service Summer grant.
To be eligible for a PILA+ Grant, students must receive a UVA Law Public Service Summer Grant (see above for requirements) and must:
- Live in a high cost of living area, defined as any area where the average rent is $2,000 or more per month (for more information on this, see our FAQ or website); and
- Not receive a summer stipend of over $1,000 from their summer employer; and
- Certify that they will be paying two separate rents over the summer; and
- Not expect to receive more than $2,000 of family support over the summer intended to assist with their cost of living; and
- Not received a summer fellowship (in-house or otherwise) for over $2,000; and
- Submit a PILA+ grant application by March 18, 2022 at 5pm EST. Absolutely no late applications will be accepted.
PILA is incredibly excited about this new program! We know we can count on the UVA Law community to help us raise money and sustain these grants for public service students. We hope this additional funding will help ease financial burdens on students pursuing public interest summer internships for years to come and look forward to assisting in such an endeavor.