William Martinez, a second-year student at Seton Hall University School of Law, works in the school's food pantry. (Courtesy photo.)

It costs thousands each year to attend law school, but some future lawyers are struggling to meet their basic needs—like getting enough to eat.

At least four law schools in the past year have opened up food pantries for students, or will soon do so. They join a growing number of law campuses already helping students put food on the table.

The latest to follow the trend is the University of Minnesota Law School, which this week opened Mondale Kitchen. It's a student-led effort that aims to provide law students not just with non-perishable items—think cans of tuna and ramen packets—but also fresh produce and ready-to-eat meals.

Similarly, three students at the University of Hawaii William S. Richardson School of Law are working to establish a new food pantry for classmates that will stock healthy snacks, breakfast food, and kitchen staples that students can take home.

Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania State University Dickinson Law last fall opened what it dubbed the "Free Pantry and Professional Clothing Closet," where students can get not only non-perishable food and toiletries, but also gently used workplace attire at no cost. Seton Hall University School of Law opened a food pantry in February with donor funding.

For Minnesota law students, food insecurity is a result not just of finances but also access to meals, said third-year Emily Franco, who is spearheading the Mondale Kitchen initiative. Many students are studying on campus until 9 p.m., when there are few restaurants or grocery stores open nearby. They are often left scrounging for leftovers from lunch events or journal offices, she said.

"It's really hard to expect students to be performing well academically and getting out there and doing well professionally and socially when they aren't able to eat," Franco said. "We're hearing a lot that finances are an issue, just as much as time is. Students will take out loans, but they might run out of money midway through the semester. It's hard to find additional ways to make income to find food, especially for first-year students, so we want to make it one less thing for them to worry about."

Campus food insecurity is a major issue. A 2019 survey of students at 100 colleges and universities by Temple University found that 45% had been "food insecure" within the past 30 days. Many universities have campus-wide food pantries for all students, but those are sometime located across campus—or even on another campus entirely—from law schools and may have limited hours. Bringing the food pantries into law schools makes it much more accessible to time-strapped law students, organizers say.

The City University of New York School of Law was the first law school to establish its own food pantry, in 2014, according to Amanda Beltran, the director of student activities and interim director of student affairs. She started the food pantry soon after her arrival at CUNY, after she noticed students coming into the office seeking emergency financial assistance so they could buy groceries. Now in its sixth year, the pantry is expanding from stocking non-perishable items to add fresh and frozen foods.

"As law schools focus more on serving non-traditional students, they need to reassess and look at the fact that student loans don't cover everything—especially in New York City where the cost of living in very high," Beltran said.

Franco said administrators from CUNY were instrumental in helping her work through the logistics of Minnesota's food pantry and getting an idea of how much money would be needed to get it off the ground.

Student organizers at Minnesota have raised nearly $5,000 for Mondale Kitchen from students, faculty and staff, with some additional funding coming from the law school through its Law Council. At Hawaii Law, funding for its new food pantry is coming from donations and a small semester allocation from the Student Bar Association, but eventually organizers hope to secure monthly sponsorships from law firms, according to a story in the Honolulu Civil Beat.

It's not just CUNY Law that has been an early adopter of the food pantry trend. Among the law schools that already have their own food pantries are the University of Illinois at Chicago John Marshall Law School, which also has a free professional clothing closet; Stetson University College of Law; and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law.

"There's sort of this image of the person who doesn't have access to food as someone who is down on their luck," Franco said. "But this is something that a lot of members of our community face, and having these conversation out in the open kind of reduces the stigma around it. Hopefully it opens more doors to be able to help people in this positions, and we also want to reduce the shame around asking for help."