Legal Commentary

Thank you to Dan and the Prawfs community for inviting me back.  I?m really glad to be here. 

I?ve had a number of conversations with students recently about post-graduation job prospects, deferred start dates, and the like.  These conversations have sparked/renewed several concerns, to which I?ll devote this post and a few others.  Topic number one:  loan repayment assistance for students taking public interest jobs.

I teach at a Jesuit school, which, like many other institutions (some also religiously affiliated), purports to encourage students to consider focusing their legal careers in public service.  Along these lines, the school offers certain qualified graduates participation in a loan repayment program (again, like many other institutions).  I believe such a program is great in theory; in talking with students and in considering the terms and conditions of our program and others like it, however, I wonder whether such a program is a sufficient incentive to entice students to careers in the public interest. 

Student loans for tuition alone upon graduation are approaching or exceeding $80,000.  The model of loan forgiveness program I?ve seen will help a student in a qualified position (with a salary cap of between $50,000 and $60,000 per year) by offering up to $20,000 in student loan repayment assistance over five years.  The payment cannot go toward relieving the (often sizable) debt of the personal loans taken out by many students during their time in law school. 

So, I pose the question (well, questions):  If you are a student desiring to go into public interest work, does the prospect of loan repayment affect your decision, or is it simply an added bonus?  If you are a student unsure of whether to enter a career in the public interest, do existing loan assistance programs suffice as an incentive?  If so, what are the models of those programs?

The legal profession may be changing, and perhaps for the better (more on that in subsequent posts).  As we work with our students to help them enter the legal profession, what can those of us in university faculty/administration do to encourage/assist in the consideration of public interest jobs?