Preserving the Route to Public Service Careers
By Nancy H. Rogers
“Law school opens the doors to a noble profession but law school debt closes many of these doors,” says Sam Jammal, a George Washington University law student. Mr. Jammal was representing the ABA Law Student Division at a roundtable co-sponsored by the AALS and The National Law Journal.1 This is not a surprising statement to most in law teaching. What we may not realize is that we are coming closer to the point at which the public/nonprofit sector will be unable to fill positions with talented young graduates. Fortunately, the AALS Committee on Government Relations and the ABA Committee on Government Affairs and Student Financial Aid of the Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar are actively promoting several pending bills that might bring federal debt relief for lawyers in public service.
In most of our member schools, debt has played a role for some time in restricting our students’ career options. In 2002, 85 percent of our students had borrowed for law school, and two-thirds of the law students responding to a survey reported that their debt made it impractical to seek public service jobs.2 At some point in the future, debt may have an even more important negative effect – the public/nonprofit sector may not be able to attract talented lawyers. One can imagine the severe effect this might have on the nation.
The median debt seems to grow by several thousand dollars per year while public/nonprofit sector salaries remain low. The most recent ABA reports indicate a whopping $4,418 increase in just one year in median indebtedness from private law schools; the public law school median took a $2,155 jump over the same period. The ABA’s current median law school debt figures for the Class of 2006 are $83,181 for private law school graduates and $54,509 for public law school graduates. After adding in undergraduate debt, a quarter of our graduates begin their careers with six-figure debt.3
Unlike rising salaries for Wall Street law firms, median salaries remain low for those beginning careers in the public/nonprofit sector. The National Association of Law Placement reported median public/nonprofit sector salaries that make life difficult for those with debt. The 2006 graduates beginning as legal services lawyers had a median salary of $36,000; those starting as state prosecutors earned a median of $46,374; and medians in various other local and state government positions fell in between. A graduate earning $40,000 with 2002’s median indebtedness will pay 45 percent of after tax income to repay loans, and will have $17,000 a year to live;4 it will be worse for a 2006 graduate.
At last month’s roundtable, none of the panelists was ready to say that we have reached the point that public/nonprofit sector jobs cannot be filled, but all were concerned that we might be approaching that point. Philip G. Schrag of the Georgetown law faculty, who keeps a file of examples, described a prosecutor who moonlighted as a waitress. In the evenings, the prosecutor served lawyers she had tried cases against during the day. Ultimately, she left her dream job for a law firm, as she could not bear the physical and fiscal strain of her government job.5 Another panelist, Heather Wells Jarvis of Equal Justice Works, plans to stay in public interest law, but with consequences that many might not be willing to endure. She and many of her colleagues anticipate making loan payments until age 55 even if they do not purchase homes. Despite her persistence, other lawyers seem increasingly to be leaving for the private sector. Indiana Chief Justice Randall Shepard reported that the turnover in one of the Indiana county prosecutor offices exceeded 50 percent a year.
Several panelists noted that current options for dealing with the increased strain of law school debt were not sufficient to reverse the trend away from public interest careers. Though more than half of our law schools now have loan repayment assistance programs for graduates in public service jobs, Howard Law School Dean Kurt Schmoke termed these programs “more will than wallet” in all but the wealthiest law schools. He suggested that more law schools might offer a two-year route to a J.D. as a partial solution. Robert N. Weiner, President of the D.C. Bar Foundation and a partner at Arnold & Porter, said that the D.C. Bar Foundation now offers loan repayment assistance for those employed in public/nonprofit jobs in the District of Columbia, but pointed out how few attorneys across the nation have an option like that. Professor Schrag counseled individual students to be careful in taking on and structuring debt, but also doubted that this would help the national problem more than slightly. He asked the audience to consider what the nation would be like with nearly all lawyers working in the private sector, and how law schools would change if they prepared students only for this option.
The National Conference of Chief Justices recently unanimously joined the AALS and ABA in supporting federal debt relief for law graduates in public/nonprofit service. The most promising Congressional approach is reform of the federal income-contingent repayment option. In its current form, it has proved impractical because the 25-year repayment period is too long; it seems likely, for example, to place the public service lawyer in a position to pay for children’s education at the same time as the lawyer’s own educational debt.6 Fortunately, Senator Edward M. Kennedy recently introduced S. 359,7 which would reduce the repayment period to ten years for those who have worked for that entire period in full time public interest legal services; during the ten-year period, graduates in public service are obligated to pay only 20 percent of after tax income. This bill, noted Professor Schrag, would provide significant federal loan repayment assistance for those who need it most. At the same time, he pointed out, it would require substantial repayment during the ten-year period, and it would keep down the bill to the taxpayers because only those who put in ten years of service would qualify for the more rapid forgiveness. I hope that you will track its progress and encourage your students and colleagues to urge their own Senators and Representatives to support this bill as it moves through the legislative process on Capitol Hill.
1The roundtable, held at Georgetown University Law Center on March 22, 2007, is archived at http://www.law.georgetown.edu/webcast/eventDetail.cfm?eventID=328.
2Equal Justice Works, National Association for Law Placement and Partnership for Public Service, From Paper Chase to Money Chase: Law School Debt Diverts the Road to Public Service (2002). The report is available at http://www.equaljusticeworks.org/choose/lrapsurvey.php.
3ABA Commission on Loan Repayment and Forgiveness, Lifting the Burden: Law Student Debt as a Barrier to Public Service 24 (2003).
4Id. 21.
5See, Jonathan D. Glater, High Tuition Debts and Low Pay Drain Public Interest Law, New York Times, Sept. 12, 2003, p.1
6See generally Philip G. Schrag, Repay As You Earn: The Flawed Government Program to Help Students Have Public Service Careers (2002).
7Senate Bill 359, A Bill to amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to provide additional support to students. Referred to Senate committee on January 22, 2007. For more information visit The Library of Congress at thomas.loc.gov.