California · Nonprofit
SOUTHWESTERN LAW SCHOOL
SOUTHWESTERN LAW SCHOOL (California) receives grants from 45 organizations whose IRS filings report $4,669,009 to it, the largest being KENNETH & HARLE MONTGOMERY FOUNDATION ($1,045,000). 22 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $71M
- Funders on record
- 45
- Grants received
- $4.7M
- Net assets
- $118M
What Southwestern Law School does
Mission
For more than a century, southwestern has educated lawyers ready to serve clients, the profession, and our society with excellence. We empower students to reach their potential. We cultivate inclusion and belonging. We promote equity and justice. We champion trailblazers, develop dealmakers, and inspire intellectual curiosity. We innovate. We shape the law and public policy through teaching, scholarship, and service. We are the difference.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
The law school welcomes students from a broad range of backgrounds and experiences and strives to make a comprehensive legal education accessible to all qualified applicants while fostering inclusive representation in the legal profession. The law school accomplishes this goal in part by offering multiple courses of study leading to the juris doctor degree: (1) a fully online asynchronous curriculum in both full-time and part-time options;(2) a three-year, full-time day program; (3) a two-year, accelerated full-time day program;(4) a four year, part-time day program for students with child-care, elder-care, or other care-giving responsibilities;(5) a four-year, part-time day program; and(6) a four-year, part-time hybrid evening program.the law school also offers courses of study leading to either a masters in general law or masters of law in entertainment and media law. The law school offers a concurrent j.d./m.b.a. Program with the drucker school of management at claremont graduate university. The law school sponsors a foreign summer abroad law program as part of the j.d. Degree.
$51,696,178 spentof which $20,389,361 as grants$64,575,085 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $51,696,178.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2024 to 2025, from $135M to $148M (+10%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
Government-grant reliance: 2017 1% · 2018 1% · 2019 1% · 2020 1% · 2021 2% · 2022 2% · 2023 1% · 2024 1% · 2025 1%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
7% of SOUTHWESTERN LAW SCHOOL’s revenue is contributions — more earned-revenue than three-quarters of its peers (23% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 2 of the last 9 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Board chair
Lauren B Leichtman
Chair of the board of trustees
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base narrowed from 14 funders to 11 funders, grant income fell $407k → $261k.
10 of 45 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 24% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
From the IRS filings of SOUTHWESTERN LAW SCHOOL’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 45 funders by total. Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
SOUTHWESTERN LAW SCHOOL has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 22% of grant income, and it takes 4 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 4 funders to its left
28% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund SOUTHWESTERN LAW SCHOOL.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 49% · 2018 44% · 2019 41% · 2020 70% · 2021 31% · 2022 18% · 2023 19% — diversifying over time.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How long its funders stay
37% of SOUTHWESTERN LAW SCHOOL's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 49% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
52% of SOUTHWESTERN LAW SCHOOL's grant income comes from California funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.1M arriving through sponsors registered in 9 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Against its field
SOUTHWESTERN LAW SCHOOL runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 3,758 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,758 education nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2025
Government funding SOUTHWESTERN LAW SCHOOL receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $1.9M on record.
- Department of Education$1.9M
Federal grants vs contracts are distinguished; state line items keep their reported category. Matched by name + geography (the BMF), so coverage is partial and precision-first.
Organizations like SOUTHWESTERN LAW SCHOOL
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In California
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
77% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Part of a family of 4 related entities
- 682-688 Shatto Pl LLC · disregarded
- 670 Shatto Pl LLC · disregarded
- 676 Shatto Pl LLC · disregarded
- 666 Shatto Pl LLC · disregarded
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for SOUTHWESTERN LAW SCHOOL: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds SOUTHWESTERN LAW SCHOOL?
- SOUTHWESTERN LAW SCHOOL (California) receives grants from 45 organizations whose IRS filings report $4,669,009 to it, the largest being KENNETH & HARLE MONTGOMERY FOUNDATION ($1,045,000). 22 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does SOUTHWESTERN LAW SCHOOL have?
- IRS filings report 45 organizations giving $4,669,009 in grants to SOUTHWESTERN LAW SCHOOL, 22 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of SOUTHWESTERN LAW SCHOOL?
- KENNETH & HARLE MONTGOMERY FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $1,045,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like SOUTHWESTERN LAW SCHOOL find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in California. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
Play a game about who funds Southwestern Law School →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 45 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 14, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing