Effective Altruism Forum
EA Forum

Hide table of contents
by Marisa
3 min read 1

24

Building effective altruismPolicyConferencesInstitute for Law and AILawOrganization updates
Frontpage

Legal Priorities Project is excited to announce our first Legal Priorities Summer Institute (LPSI) – an intensive, week-long program with the goal of introducing altruistically-minded law and policy students to projects, theories, and tools relevant to tackling critical issues affecting the long-term future. 

Applications are open until June 24. Learn more and apply here.

Who is this event for?

Applicants in the following categories are eligible to apply:

  1. Current law student: Enrolled in a legal degree program at the undergraduate or graduate level (such as a LLB, JD, LLM, PhD or equivalent program)
  2. Recent law graduate: Work in the legal profession (including clerkships, apprenticeships, post-doctoral programs, or other trainee positions) at the time of their application and have received a legal degree between May 2020 and June 2022
  3. Applicants from other degree programs, like MPPs (including recent graduates), will be considered where the applicant has demonstrated a particular knowledge of legal or policy paradigms related to the themes of the conference

This event is for people at all levels of familiarity with longtermism. Our goal is to provide a mix of programming ranging from introductory chats to in-depth analyses of law and policy questions at the cutting edge of our priority areas. If you think anyone in your networks (including those without previous involvement in EA or longtermism) would be a good fit, please pass our posting along.

People from anywhere in the world are encouraged to apply. Our programming will have an international focus. (We hope to also organize US-focused programming in the future.)

When and where will LPSI take place?

The event will be held in Oxford, UK from September 3-8, 2022. 

Is the application process competitive?

We have space for up to 40 participants. That said, if you think you might be qualified, there’s a good chance you are. If you’re on the fence about applying, please do! We often find that people are poor judges of their own qualifications and many qualified people take themselves out of consideration by underestimating their fit. We anticipate accepting many people with limited prior experience but a high level of demonstrated interest and potential. 

To make things easier, we’ve designed our process to take as little time as possible. Don’t overthink the prompts, and share what honestly intrigues you about the program. 

Is there funding available?

Each summer fellow who participates in the Legal Priorities Summer Institute is awarded a $2,500 stipend. In order to receive the stipend, participants must attend the entirety of the Institute programming and submit a post-program evaluation (that will take no longer than 30 minutes). 

In addition to the above stipend, participants will be provided food and lodging for the duration of the Institute and receive reimbursement for airfare or other travel expenses.

What should I expect?

The Institute will consist of daily presentations, discussion groups, debates, and workshops led by global leaders in government and international relations, academics and researchers, legal practitioners, philanthropists, and members of the judiciary.

The purpose of these workshops is to introduce students to key issues affecting the long-term future, provide a space to examine and discuss the ethical and empirical claims underlying these focus areas, and introduce participants to new opportunities to use their legal career for the common good.

Participants will have frequent opportunities to discuss these topics in the classroom, in one-on-one meetings, over meals, and in social gatherings. This programming will be complemented by practical career advising to help law students explore job opportunities and network with potential employers and partners.

Following the Summer Institute, participants will be connected to a network of global lawyers, policymakers, and researchers working to improve our collective future. Participants will be invited to join follow-up reading groups, apply for career coaching, and be directed to promising research and employment opportunities in high-impact fields.

When and where should I apply?

Apply here by June 24, 2022. We plan to send acceptance notifications by July 1.

24

0
0

Reactions

0
0
Mentioned in

More posts like this

Comments1


Sorted by
New & upvoted
Click to highlight new comments since:
Marisa1
0
0

Update: We've extended the deadline to apply for LPSI to June 24. If you think you might be a good fit, we'd love to see your application!

Reply
More from Marisa
View more
Curated and popular this week
Jim Chapman
 ·  · 12m read
 · 
By Jim Chapman, Linkedin. TL;DR: In 2023, I was a 57-year-old urban planning consultant and non-profit professional with 30 years of leadership experience. After talking with my son about rationality, effective altruism, and AI risks, I decided to pursue a pivot to existential risk reduction work. The last time I had to apply for a job was in 1994. By the end of 2024, I had spent ~740 hours on courses, conferences, meetings with ~140 people, and 21 job applications. I hope that by sharing my experiences, you can gain practical insights, inspiration, and resources to navigate your career transition, especially for those who are later in their career and interested in making an impact in similar fields. I share my experience in 5 sections - sparks, take stock, start, do, meta-learnings, and next steps. [Note - as of 03/05/2025, I am still pursuing my career shift.] Sparks – 2022 During a Saturday bike ride, I admitted to my son, “No, I haven’t heard of effective altruism.” On another ride, I told him, “I'm glad you’re attending the EAGx Berkely conference." Some other time, I said, "Harry Potter and Methods of Rationality sounds interesting. I'll check it out." While playing table tennis, I asked, "What do you mean ChatGPT can't do math? No calculator? Next token prediction?" Around tax-filing time, I responded, "You really think retirement planning is out the window? That only 1 of 2 artificial intelligence futures occurs – humans flourish in a post-scarcity world or humans lose?" These conversations intrigued and concerned me. After many more conversations about rationality, EA, AI risks, and being ready for something new and more impactful, I decided to pivot my career to address my growing concerns about existential risk, particularly AI-related. I am very grateful for those conversations because without them, I am highly confident I would not have spent the last year+ doing that. Take Stock - 2023 I am very concerned about existential risk cause areas in ge
jackva
 ·  · 3m read
 · 
 [Edits on March 10th for clarity, two sub-sections added] Watching what is happening in the world -- with lots of renegotiation of institutional norms within Western democracies and a parallel fracturing of the post-WW2 institutional order -- I do think we, as a community, should more seriously question our priors on the relative value of surgical/targeted and broad system-level interventions. Speaking somewhat roughly, with EA as a movement coming of age in an era where democratic institutions and the rule-based international order were not fundamentally questioned, it seems easy to underestimate how much the world is currently changing and how much riskier a world of stronger institutional and democratic backsliding and weakened international norms might be. Of course, working on these issues might be intractable and possibly there's nothing highly effective for EAs to do on the margin given much attention to these issues from society at large. So, I am not here to confidently state we should be working on these issues more. But I do think in a situation of more downside risk with regards to broad system-level changes and significantly more fluidity, it seems at least worth rigorously asking whether we should shift more attention to work that is less surgical (working on specific risks) and more systemic (working on institutional quality, indirect risk factors, etc.). While there have been many posts along those lines over the past months and there are of course some EA organizations working on these issues, it stil appears like a niche focus in the community and none of the major EA and EA-adjacent orgs (including the one I work for, though I am writing this in a personal capacity) seem to have taken it up as a serious focus and I worry it might be due to baked-in assumptions about the relative value of such work that are outdated in a time where the importance of systemic work has changed in the face of greater threat and fluidity. When the world seems to
 ·  · 3m read
 · 
Written anonymously because I work in a field where there is a currently low but non-negligible and possibly high future risk of negative consequences for criticizing Trump and Trumpism. This post is an attempt to cobble together some ideas about the current situation in the United States and its impact on EA. I invite discussion on this, not only from Americans, but also those with advocacy experience in countries that are not fully liberal democracies (especially those countries where state capacity is substantial and autocratic repression occurs).  I've deleted a lot of text from this post in various drafts because I find myself getting way too in the weeds discoursing on comparative authoritarian studies, disinformation and misinformation (this is a great intro, though already somewhat outdated), and the dangers of the GOP.[1] I will note that I worry there is still a tendency to view the administration as chaotic and clumsy but retaining some degree of good faith, which strikes me as quite naive.  For the sake of brevity and focus, I will take these two things to be true, and try to hypothesize what they mean for EA. I'm not going to pretend these are ironclad truths, but I'm fairly confident in them.[2]  1. Under Donald Trump, the Republican Party (GOP) is no longer substantially committed to democracy and the rule of law. 1. The GOP will almost certainly continue to engage in measures that test the limits of constitutional rule as long as Trump is alive, and likely after he dies. 2. The Democratic Party will remain constrained by institutional and coalition factors that prevent it from behaving like the GOP. That is, absent overwhelming electoral victories in 2024 and 2026 (and beyond), the Democrats' comparatively greater commitment to rule of law and democracy will prevent systematic purging of the GOP elites responsible for democratic backsliding; while we have not crossed the Rubicon yet, it will get much worse before things get better. 2. T
Recent opportunities in Building effective altruism
37
Announcing the Compassionate Future Summit 2025
Ruth_Seleo
· · 1m read
0
0
51
Job: Executive Director of CEEALAR (EA Hotel)
CEEALAR
· · 2m read
1
1
36
Meta Charity Funders: 2025 Spring round. Apply now!
Joey🔸
· · 2m read
0
0
View more