Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen receives NSF grant to study diversity and networking in law school

news March 11, 2022
Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen, assistant professor of law and co-director of the Center for Empirical Research on the Legal Profession at the UCI School of Law, is the first full-time UCI Law faculty member to receive a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant. They will be the principal investigator of a team awarded a $511,230 NSF grant to fund a project titled: “Diversity ansd Networking in Law School: Are Law Students from Diverse Backgrounds Disadvantaged?” Ballakrishnen is a CLP affiliate.
“This study will examine the ways networking inequality affects the value of legal education and whether these inequalities can account for differential experiences and outcomes across the diverse categories of students. The focus of the project is to study inequality in law schools and early legal careers. These findings may provide opportunities to mitigate existing inequities and facilitate more equal outcomes within the legal profession,” reports UCI. Read the full announcement on UCI’s website.