CISP (Cooperative Income Sharing Program) is a student-run and student-managed organization dedicated to increasing awareness of, and student participation in, work for the public interest. Such work can take the form of public interest co-ops, public service careers, and pro bono work at private law firms. The law school requires all students to participate in public interest work by completing a public interest co-op, taking a clinical course, performing at least 30 hours of uncompensated legal work (in a public interest setting or with a private firm on a pro bono project), or completing a public interest independent study. Consonant with the school's public interest requirement is CISP's belief that all attorneys, present or future, should dedicate some resources to helping people and organizations tackling important social issues.

To this end, we provide approximately $24,000 annually to students accepting unfunded co-ops with public interest employers. All CISP dues-paying members vote on the stipends and help determine how much is allocated to each eligible applicant. Fund-raising for the stipends takes the form of CISP dues, sales of official NUSL merchandise, CISP kitchen proceeds, ticket sales for CISP's annual "Talent/No Talent Show", used textbook sales, and fundraising drives from staff, professors, family and friends. In addition to providing co-op funding, we also will be working towards: 1) helping students educate themselves on the types of pro bono work done by firms, 2) improving the school's loan forgiveness programs, and 3) providing alumni speakers who work in the public interest and who can describe some of the exiciting service careers that await students upon graduation.