Raise Your Pick Giving Day 2023

The Law School Preparation Institute (LSPI) is celebrating its 25th Anniversary this year. Unfortunately, due to the ebb and flow of state and University funding, the program now gets less than a quarter of the funding we received 25 years ago, and it is insufficient to pay the salaries and bills. This puts us at the mercy of the biennial budget process, and while UTEP has always found a way to keep us afloat it has become more difficult over the years. We have had several close calls. As a stand-alone, non-degree granting unit, we do not fit into an easy category for funding purposes. No one questions our success and the value-added benefits of the program – but we are a very small, out-of-normal-category item.

We need the help of our LSPI alumni and community partners to cover our costs and ensure that our students and program have the funding they need to thrive.

If our campaign is successful, it will help us provide opportunities for students beyond the instructional component of LSPI. It will help fund internships, travel to events put on by the legal community, and the purchase of LSAT preparation material. LSPI is important to the community because it provides an avenue for El Paso’s brightest students to get the best possible chance to attend the best law schools. That is a boost to the El Paso community, since many LSPI alums return to El Paso from law schools spread across the nation. These students bring with them a broad range of experience and knowledge that greatly add to the professional and social depth of the El Paso region. This layer and depth of professional talent helps push the El Paso region to greater sophistication and produces new professional opportunities.

In the case that a minimum of $25,000 is raised over the duration of LSPI’s 25^th Anniversary Campaign, which extends beyond Raise Your Pick Giving Day, the funds raised will be used to create an endowed fund in support of LSPI students and programs in perpetuity. In the case that the minimum of $25,000 is not reached, the funds raised will remain in the annual fund and used for the same purposes—to support LSPI programs and its students.

In addition to LSPI, the College of Liberal Arts is seeking support for additional programs. Please click the buttons below to explore the various campaign areas: