National Center on Philanthropy and the Law (NCPL) Fellowship in Nonprofit Law

What is the NCPL Fellowship?
The NCPL Fellowship permits one Fellow each year to spend one year in residence at the New York University Office of the General Counsel, working with the General Counsel of NYU and the staff of eleven attorneys on legal issues facing the University.

The NCPL Fellow will delve into an unusually wide variety of legal and organizational issues and will participate in the legal work conducted by the Office of the GeneralCounsel, including conducting factual and legal research, drafting litigation papers, transactional and policy documents, and correspondence, and participating in the lawyering enterprises of the University.

Who can be an NCPL Fellow?
Each year, one Fellowship is awarded to a U.S. law school graduate.  Fellows are selected for their scholarship, leadership, and commitment to practicing in the field of nonprofit law. Fellows will be selected without regard to the applicant’s race, color, religion, gender, political beliefs, national origin, disability, age, or sexual orientation.

NYU Office of the General Counsel
The NYU Office of the General Counsel is responsible for overseeing all of the legal affairs of New York University, one of the largest private universities in the United States, with over 43,000 students and more than 16,000 part-time and full-time employees. The clients of the Office of the General Counsel include the Boards of Trustees of the University and affiliated entities, the President, Provost, Vice Presidents, and Vice Provosts who oversee the administrative functions of the university administration, and the Deans of the fifteen Schools and Colleges of the University, who oversee the academic and administrative functions of the individual schools.

The principal areas of legal practice engaged in by the Office of the General Counsel include litigation, real estate, labor relations, corporate, international, taxation, intellectual property, and regulatory, including matters unique to a medical school.

Litigation pursued by the Office of the General Counsel includes both academically oriented matters and commercial matters arising before federal and state courts and federal, state, and local agencies. The Office has a substantial in-house litigation capacity, including two former Assistant United States Attorneys for the Southern District of New York. In the labor relations area, the Office oversees the legal aspects of collective bargaining for the University with six unions totaling some 2,500 non-academic employees and more than 2,500 part-time faculty, which raises some interesting and complex labor law issues.

The Office’s recent corporate work has included major tax-exempt bond financings to support the building of new facilities and renovation of existing ones, and the drafting of agreements for every division of the University ranging from software licensing for Information Technology Services to publishing agreements for NYU Press to contracts with health insurance administrators who assist in administering the University’s obligations as a major employer in New York City. The Office regularly represents its libraries and special collections in acquisitions of materials, collections, and access to intellectual property. The Office also is involved in telecommunications law through its radio station, WNYU, and its television station, NYUTV. Through its School of Medicine, the Office is involved in review of technology licensing agreements, complex medical equipment acquisitions, private and public hospital affiliations, regulatory compliance issues, and issues related to the practice of medicine through the School’s faculty physician practice plan.

The Office is regularly involved with international law issues have arisen in connection with the development and continued legal oversight of its global campuses and academic programs around the world. Tax issues have centered on New York City real estate tax, federal unrelated business income tax, state and local sales tax, and charitable giving. Intellectual property work at the Office of the General Counsel has focused on the development of collaborative academic research arrangements with other universities, technology transfer activities, trademark registration and enforcement, patents, copyright law, and Internet issues.

Term and Salary

The term of the NCPL Fellowship is one year. The 2014 Fellow will receive a salary of $50,000 plus benefits.

See website for details: http://www1.law.nyu.edu/ncpl/resources/NCPL_fellowship.html