Programs and results
What we aim to solve
The great majority of lawyers - in all legal systems, whether the United States, Europe, Africa, Middle East, Latin America, or Asia - are the products of insular educations, necessarily focusing on the particular domestic legal system, its rules, and its requirements, and equipping the prospective lawyer to function within that particular system but not necessarily outside the system, i..e., interacting with lawyers from other legal systems, understanding the priorities of other legal systems and societies, and finding common ground that facilitates cross-border solutions. Each of the programs supported by CILS Benefactors Inc. addresses the need for providing law students and lawyers opportunities for cross-border and intra-cultural legal education.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Summer Law Internships
Approximately 15 American law students are selected annually to serve short internshps with law firms in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia and the Pacific. CILS Benefactors provides $500 travel grants to students who need assistance.
Foreign Direct Investment Arbitration Moot Competition
The Foreign Direct Investment Disputes Moot program began in Fall 2008 at Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts, and will continue in Fall 2009 at the International Arbitration Center in Frankfurt, Germany, and Fall 2010 at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. Twenty-five universities sent teams to the 2008 program, and more than 30 universities will send teams to the 2009 program. The program is especially relevant to universities from developing countries. CILS Benefactors Inc. will contribute to the travel costs of teams requiring assistance.
Pro Bono Teaching Assignments
Each year, nearly 100 American lawyers undertake pro bono teaching assignments in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics. CILS Benefactors Inc. will provide grants to lawyers requesting assistance in providing educational materials in their classes.
LL.M. Scholarships for Young Lawyers
CILS Benefactors Inc. provides 50% tuition scholarships for early-career lawyers from Europe, Africa, Asia, the Far and Near East, the Middle East and Latin America to pursue the LL.M. in Transnational Commercial Practice
Where we work
External reviews

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Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of participants in study abroad and exchange programs
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Pro Bono Teaching Assignments
Type of Metric
Input - describing resources we use
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Number of academic scholarships awarded
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
LL.M. Scholarships for Young Lawyers
Type of Metric
Input - describing resources we use
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Total dollar amount of scholarship awarded
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
LL.M. Scholarships for Young Lawyers
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Number of students who receive scholarship funds and/or tuition assistance
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
LL.M. Scholarships for Young Lawyers
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Number of pro bono hours contributed
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Pro Bono Teaching Assignments
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
The goals of CILS Benefactors Inc. are simple: to foster and create environments in which lawyers - old and young - and law students are required to use law as the common medium for cross-cultural communication. When an experienced lawyer seeks to explain the legal priorities of his or her legal system (and legal culture), he or she of necessity must take into consideration the legal and social priorities of the audience being addressed. CILS Benefactors Inc. wishes to assist in the training of lawyers and law students in the skills of recognizing cultural and social differences and the nature of the legal systems that have emerged from particular societies.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
CILS Benefactors Inc. supports four programs, each of which has a particular impact on assisting lawyers and law students in improving their cross-cultural legal communication skills.
1. The International Internship Program places law students in law firms, legal departments, and international organizations outside their home countries. They not only work in an international office; they also live in the a foreign country during the period of internship. CILS Benefactors Inc. contributes to the travel and living expenses of the interns,
2. The LL.M. in Transnational Commercial Practice not only offers students from throughout the world the opportunity to learn in classrooms in Austria, Poland, China, and the United States but to engage with classmates from throughout the world (there were 33 lawyers aged 25 to 55, representing 13 legal systems in the 2019 sessions). CILS Benefactors Inc. provides substantial tuition scholarships to those admitted to the LL.M. program.
3. The Senior Lawyers Program sends experienced lawyers to pro bono, short-term teaching assignments to law faculties at universities in Eastern and Central Europe, the former Soviet Republics, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. The educational benefit is not limited to the students n these classes. The lawyers who teach in the program learn a great deal as well from the students they teach, the faculty members of the host university, and the city in which they live during the teaching assignment, CILS Benefactors Inc. contributes to the travel and living costs of the pro bono teachers and the training they receive that equips them to better function in a foreign legal and cultural setting.
4. The Foreign Direct Investment Arbitration Moot competition brings law students and faculty from universities from throughout the world to compete in regional and global rounds of arbitration. Regional and pre-moot competitions are held annually in Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and Russia. The 2019 Global Finals were held in the United States and attracted 150 arbitrators and more than 350 students. CILS Benefactors Inc. contributes to the travel costs of many of the university teams, particularly those from developing or under-developed countries.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
CILS Benefactors Inc. is uniquely equipped to meet the goals that it has identified for the four programs that it supports. The President of CILS Benefactors Inc. is the founder of the Center for International Legal Studies (CILS), a non-profit entity established in Austria in 1975. CILS has more than 5,000 lawyer members worldwide. It has links with more than 50 universities worldwide. It established the international internship program in 1978. It partnered with Lazarski University in Poland, with Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary, with Lixin University in China, and with Boston University in the United States to establish LL.M. programs in those venues. It has a larg network of universities that accept its appointees for teaching assignments. All these contacts are available to and art utilized by CILS Benefactors Inc.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
The category above testifies to all that CILS Benefactors Inc. has accomplished thus far. All this has been achieved with a somewhat minimal effort at fund raising. In fact, until now, fund raising has been rather casual, CILS Benefactors Inc. is convinced tat, with a more formalized and sophisticated fund raising effort, it will be able to expand its support for the four programs identified above and open the way to new projects as well. The early returns on those fund raining efforts are promising.
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
CILS Benefactors Inc.
Board of directorsas of 12/19/2019
Professor Dennis Campbell
Center for International Legal Studies
Term: 2008 - 2009
Yolanda Salvacion
Center for International Legal Studies
Term: 2008 - 2020
Chrysta Bán
Bán, S Szabo & Partners
Dennis Campbell
Center for International Legal Studies
Joseph Hetrick
Dechert LLP
Kevin Mullen
Borton Petrini LLP
Laura Rieger
Center for International Legal Studies
Yolanda Salvacion
Center for International Legal Studies
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Sexual orientation
Disability
Equity strategies
Last updated: 12/03/2019GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We review compensation data across the organization (and by staff levels) to identify disparities by race.
- We ask team members to identify racial disparities in their programs and / or portfolios.
- We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
- We use a vetting process to identify vendors and partners that share our commitment to race equity.
- We have a promotion process that anticipates and mitigates implicit and explicit biases about people of color serving in leadership positions.
- We engage everyone, from the board to staff levels of the organization, in race equity work and ensure that individuals understand their roles in creating culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.