Research funds are endowments designated by the Board of Trustees of Cornell University to support research accomplished by faculty and students in the Law School.  Donors are encouraged to establish such endowed funds to promote scholarly research in the area of study or legal specialization of their choice.

Harry Bitner Research Fellows
Established in 2001 by Anne Bitner and Richard H. Gilden J.D. ’71 in memory of Harry Bitner, the Edward Cornell Law Librarian from 1965 to 1976, this fund provides resources to bring a Distinguished Fellow, expert in law research, to the Law School for a residency lasting as long as two months, during which time the Fellow provides instruction and training to improve and optimize the research capabilities of Law Library staff.

Tom Bruce Legal Innovation Fellows Fund
This fund is the gift of Timothy Stanley, co-founder of Justia, in recognition of the pioneering achievements of Tom Bruce, co-founder of the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law, in making law and knowledge about the law accessible, reliable, authoritative, and free.  The fund supports Innovation Fellows who work with the LII’s permanent staff to solve the most intriguing and pressing problems facing the LII; and LII Staff Fellows who visit other organizations either for exposure to innovative techniques and technologies of potential benefit to the LII, or to spread the LII’s own knowledge and experience to other Free Law organizations.  The Fellows do important work to help the LII tackle whatever uniquely difficult challenges are in front of it at any given time.

Judge Albert Conway Memorial Fund for Legal Research
Established by gifts from the William C. and Joyce C. O’Neil Charitable Trust beginning in 2014, the Judge Albert Conway Memorial Fund for Faculty Research supports scholarly research by a faculty member of Cornell Law School in an area of law important to the jurisprudence of Judge Albert Conway, Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals. These areas include legal ethics and professional responsibility; the administration of the courts; labor and employment law; civil rights, including free speech and freedom of religion; and the common law, including torts, contracts, and property.

Theodore Eisenberg Memorial Fund for Empirical Legal Studies
This fund honoring long-time Cornell Law School faculty member Theodore Eisenberg was established by a leadership gift from Drew Ranier, founding partner of the Ranier Law Firm LLC, and augmented by colleagues, family, and friends of Ted Eisenberg after his unexpected passing in 2014. The Eisenberg Memorial Fund supports empirical legal studies at Cornell Law School by providing funds for faculty projects; creating, accessing, and maintaining data sets; bringing visiting scholars to Cornell for collaborative work; convening conferences and paying research assistants; and offering grants to Cornell Law students preparing empirical legal scholarship for publication.

Andrew J. Schroder III and Charlotte E. Schroder Assistantship Fund
Established by Andrew Schroder B.S. ’57 LL.B. ’62 in 1992 for the purpose of providing monetary support to teaching assistants, visiting researchers, graduate students, and research activities related to the study of labor and employment law.

Walter T. Southworth A.B. ’25 LL.B. ’27 Faculty Research Fund
Established by Walter Southworth in 1998, income from this fund is applied, at the discretion of the Allan R. Tessler Dean of Cornell Law School, to promoting faculty research.

Homer Strong Research Fund
Established by the Estate of Margaret Woodbury Strong in 1970, this fund honors her husband, Homer Strong LL.B. 1897, by directing its income, at the discretion of the dean, “to encourage and support faculty and student research.”

Robert S. Summers Student Research Assistant Fund
Established by an Anonymous Donor in 2012 in honor of Professor Robert Summers and to recognize his exemplary service as a teacher, scholar, and mentor to his student research assistants during a distinguished and extraordinarily fruitful career of nearly fifty years.