The Civitas program also has a January Trial Practice Course, which challenges scholars to improve their trial practice skills by presenting techniques needed to participate effectively in courtroom proceedings involving children. Civitas graduates take the knowledge and skills that they learn from this program into their communities, working on behalf of abused and neglected children. The Civitas program gives the graduate a basis needed to address the complex individual, cultural and systemic problems facing maltreated children. The Skadden Fellowship Foundation, funded by a bequest from the firm, awards 25 fellowships per year to graduating law students and outgoing law clerks. Fellows of this program provide legal services to the poor, elderly, homeless and disabled, as well as human and civil rights issues.
Fellows create their own public interest projects before coming to the program.
The aim of the Foundation is to allow lawyers coming out of law school or clerk positions to pursue their public interest areas by supporting them financially and funding new public interest projects developed individually by the Fellows. One year fellowships are awarded, with the expectation of renewed funds for the second year. The Fellowship also provides all of the fringe benefits that a regular employee of the Skadden Law Firm would be entitled to. The firm will also cover a Fellow's law school debt service for the duration of the fellowship.