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Help Support the Kentucky Legal Education Opportunity (KLEO) Summer Institute

The Kentucky Legal Education Opportunity (KLEO) Summer Institute needs your help. Budget cutbacks are threatening to discontinue this pre-law preparatory program designed to prepare students from low-income, minority and disadvantaged backgrounds for the rigors of law school. The Summer Institute acts as an essential element of the KLEO program’s dedicated efforts to increase the number of historically under-represented students in Kentucky’s public law schools.

During the Summer Institute, law professors introduce KLEO scholars to the curriculum they will encounter during their first year of law school. The scholars are also exposed to the special study skills and strategies they will need to succeed in law school and are mentored by former participants in the program as well as a practicing attorney or judge.

To ensure the KLEO Summer Institute’s operation in 2009 and beyond, efforts are underway to encourage attorneys throughout the state to make donations to the Kentucky Bar Foundation for the specific benefit of the KLEO Summer Institute. The LBA’s Diversity Committee will host a reception at the Bar Center on July 16 at 5 p.m. to raise awareness and funds for the KLEO Summer Institute. Even if you cannot attend, please consider sending a tax-deductible donation to:

Kentucky Bar Foundation
514 West Main Street
Frankfort, KY 40601-1812

CLICK HERE IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO ATTEND BUT WOULD STILL LIKE TO MAKE A DONATION.

KLEO Fast Facts

In 2002, the Kentucky Legal Education Opportunity (KLEO) Program was born from the vision and determination of then- Kentucky Supreme Court Chief Justice Joseph Lambert and Rep. Jesse Crenshaw of Lexington.

The Kentucky General Assembly adopted and funded the KLEO program, patterned after the national Council on Legal Education Opportunity program, to increase the number of historically under-represented students in Kentucky’s public law schools.

Every year, the KLEO program accepts five entering first-year law students from each of Kentucky’s three public law schools: the University of Kentucky College of Law, the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law and Northern Kentucky University Chase College of Law. As KLEO scholars, these fifteen students are each awarded a $5,000 annual stipend to apply toward the cost of their legal education. A total stipend of $15,000 may be awarded to a scholar during the three years of law school if the student remains eligible.

To be eligible for the stipend, each new KLEO scholar must attend a two-week residential program —the Summer Institute—with the other incoming KLEO scholars.

The first KLEO Summer Institute was held in July of 2003 at the University of Kentucky College of Law. To date, over eighty students have successfully completed the Summer Institute.

Of the 75 KLEO scholars eligible for graduation, 58 students have graduated or will graduate from law school by 2010.