The Fellowship at Notre Dame Law School was piloted in 2024 to mark 30 years of democracy in South Africa, and finalised in 2025, in recognition of longstanding collaborations between the University of Notre Dame and the Constitutional Court of South Africa through fellowships.

 It builds on Notre Dame’s anti‑apartheid legacy, when Rev Theodore Hesburgh asked Justice Richard Goldstone how the university could help South Africa and was answered with the call to “educate our lawyers”, a mission that trained a generation of jurists who now shape the country’s constitutional order.

The purpose of this fellowship is to provide an opportunity for a young South African or African lawyer who has clerked at the Constitutional Court of South Africa or the Supreme Court of Appeal, South Africa, or who is working in a civil society law organisation with a primary focus on constitutional and human rights law in South Africa, to study at Notre Dame towards a one-year graduate programme leading to a Masters of Law (LLM) degree, or an LLM in International Human Rights Law.