The Advocacy Institute Fund

The Advocacy Institute is a multifaceted effort to provide experiences and help develop practical skills in trial and appellate advocacy and alternative dispute resolution.

The implementation of this program has allowed the School of Law to think big and set an ambitious goal of making the program one of the nation’s Top 10 for legal advocacy.

Professor and criminal procedure scholar Anthony O’Rourke directs the program, providing a strategy to secure the Institute’s future.

“I envision my role as making big-picture decisions about what the Advocacy Institute should be and the direction it should take in cultivating excellent student advocates and litigators,” O’Rourke says. “We need to build an endowed Institute that builds on the strengths of our students, faculty, and legal community. My goal is for us to achieve national prestige without sacrificing the core values of legal education.”

Founding Donors of the Institute are: Terrence M. Connors ’71, John J. Fromen, Jr. ‘87 and the law firms of Goldberg Segalla, Brown Chiari LLP, Damon Morey LLP and Phillips Lytle LLP.

In order to reach the goal of making this one of the best programs in the nation, funding is needed for technology, programming and travel costs. Your further support is crucial for the institute to grow.