July 2, 2013 10:13AM # The Ford Foundation and the Modern American Law School By [Walter Olson](https://www.cato.org/people/walter-olson) --- SHARE As much as any other institution, the Ford Foundation has shaped the modern American law school, having provided key backing for developments such as clinical legal education, public interest law, identity-based legal studies, and transnational law. Whether you agree or disagree with Ford’s ideological thrust—and as a libertarian, I regularly disagree—it’s a pretty remarkable set of accomplishments. I give an overview and brief history in [this new article](http://capitalresearch.org/2013/07/the-ford-foundation-shaping-americas-laws-by-re-making-her-law-schools/) for the Capital Research Center’s *Foundation Watch*, adapted from my book [*Schools for Misrule*](http://www.amazon.com/Schools-Misrule-Academia-Overlawyered-America/dp/1594032335). ##### Related Tags [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).