When I opened the New York Times website yesterday, I was really glad to see that one of the most popular articles was about the surge of young lawyers joining the public interest field. The article centered around the phenomenon of deferred associates spurred by the recent recession. “BigLaw” corporate firms have been affected by the recession as well, and so they have increasingly been deferring law graduates, hired for Associate positions; essentially, law school graduates are being paid $60,000 – $75,000 to not work for the firms for a year.
The young lawyers benefit: they can travel, bum around, conduct research, or do public interest work to get experience for a year — they can basically pursue their passions. Law firms benefit: they are able to reduce their costs by one-half (the normal Associate salary is generally more than $150,000) without freezing hiring altogether. And non-profit legal organizations benefit: they get free labor for a year, which allows them to serve many more indigent individuals than they normally would be able to and vastly increase legal representation of those in need.
This is great news — but there is one group that misses out. The law students who have always been committed to public service. Those who have been volunteering since high school, who have worked for countless non-profits, human rights, civil rights and legal rights organizations throughout undergrad, who have given up $50,000 summer big law internships to work for free for legal nonprofits. What happens when law students passionate about public interest law graduate? They have to compete with the deferred associates for entry level jobs in legal non-profits – which are already difficult to land, and made all but impossible by the surge of free labor from the law firms.
It seems to me that we need to find ways to ensure that public interest-minded law graduates can also find their dream jobs, and that they won’t be crowded out by temporary deferred associates who may only work in public interest for a year before going back to their corporate jobs. I think deferred associates are great — but I also think that those truly committed to public interest deserve a fair shot at pursuing the work they’ve sacrificed to do. What can be done? Here are a few ideas I’ve jotted down:
- Big foundations (e.g. Gates, Clinton, Ford) should create fellowship programs to provide two-years worth of salaries and benefits to law graduates who are committed to public service.
- Private law firms should step up their donations to fellowship programs like the Skadden and Equal Justice Works, so they can award more fellowships to public interest law graduates every year.
- Foundations and donors should donate (or create special funds for) to create more staff attorney positions with non-profit legal firms. While foundations are often loath to contribute to “administrative” costs (which includes staff salaries), they should rest assured that one new staff attorney at a legal services organization means that the services, advocacy, and legal representation provided to the poor can be dramatically expanded.
- Law schools should fundraise for and provide more one and two year fellowship opportunities for law graduates who want to do public interest, civil rights, and human rights work either in the U.S. or abroad.
- The federal government should increase funding allocated to legal services organizations and public defender offices across the country. The current trend is to cut funds to these organizations due to the recession, so at the very least we should stop these cuts!
- The federal government should create a standards for a generous, simple and easy to understand nationwide loan-forgiveness program for law students who commit 10 years to public service, and encourage all law schools in the country to adopt these standards.
- Law schools should provide more scholarships (e.g. 1/4 of tuition) to those who commit to pursuing public interest work for 10 years after graduation.
We cannot ignore the growing crisis in legal representation for the poor, in the U.S. and abroad, and we have to ensure that law graduates who are genuinely committed to the public interest can actually do the work they’ve set out to do. Don’t you think public interest lawyers already have enough obstacles ahead of them? Let’s make their work a little bit easier, and we can all be sure that the problem of poverty will be more readily solved with high quality legal aid to the poor.
Related posts:
- Where are the Millennial public interest lawyers the world so desperately needs?
- Jump into public interest law now…not later
- Plight of the Public Interest Law Student {Guest post by Sarah Pierce}
- What does race have to do with it? The case for South Asians in public interest law
- Why Penelope Trunk is wrong about public interest law
