Back in economically flush times, public interest law careers
were regarded as the vocational redoubt for those who didn't make
the cut at a law firm. David Stern, CEO for the nonprofit Equal
Justice Works told The National Jurist in May 2009 that he
noted a change in attitude, with a newfound respect for the
accomplishments of public interest lawyers, and increased
competition among students for positions leading to careers in
public interest law.
It's not because there are more jobs on the public side. The poor
economy cut job opportunities in the public and nonprofit sectors
as much if not more than in the private sector. Instead, it's
students' perception of what constitutes the real value of a law
degree, and the realization that training in public service careers
broadens their experience, making them more employable when the
market picks up.
Diane Ring, co-academic dean of the Boston College School of Law,
says that today's grads examine options they might not have
considered in better times. She ponders reviewing this year's
graduating class 10 to 12 years from now, to ask what they did in
the first three years out of law school, and what will have become
of it.
Alasdair S. Roberts, first holder of the Jerome Lyle Rappaport
Chair in Law and Public Policy at Suffolk University Law School
notes: "You don't have to go into private practice. You can go into
government, non-government organizations … it's the Swiss Army
knife of degrees."
Curriculum vitae of today's accomplished lawyers and
jurists confirm his observation. But the cost of a law school
education has ballooned since many of those high achievers got
their law degrees. In response, Massachusetts law schools are
putting more money where they say their mission is, by
strengthening their loan repayment assistance and forgiveness
programs for graduates choosing public interest careers. Several
schools we interviewed note the number of loan assistance
recipients has increased by multiples over the past decade.
Bay State law schools, whether public or private, have various
forms of loan repayment and loan forgiveness programs for students
going into public-interest work, and students are well-advised to
compare the terms of these programs as if they were shopping for a
car loan or mortgage. Varying eligibility criteria include income
levels, the amount of need-based borrowing (Harvard's Low
Income Protection Program, for example) and set time requirements
for participating in public-interest employment.
The sources of funding also vary, from graduating-class gifts to
donations from alumni and private enterprises founded or directed
by alumni. The Boston College Law School received a $3 million gift
early this year to establish the Francis X. Bellotti Loan Repayment
and Forgiveness Program for public-interest graduates. Bellotti, a
former Massachusetts attorney general, is an alumnus of the Class
of 1952.
Federal legislation enacted in 2007 codifies and translates into
hard dollars the same concepts for which many of the state's law
schools have been advocating, in various ways, for decades. The
College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007 (CCRAA) established a
nationwide standard for forgiveness of federal school loans for
graduates who enter public service and stay in the field fulltime
for 10 years, which don't have to be consecutive. The CCRAA
discharges any remaining debt after 10 years (see sidebar, top
right).
A new model of legal education
Two of the state's law schools address the affordability issue
up front by offering tuition that is low compared to $33,000 to
$38,000 annual tuitions charged by other schools. Adhering to the
ethos that one can get an excellent law education at a public
institution, the UMass-Dartmouth School of Law sets its tuition at
$23,555 for in-state students and $31,210 for out-of-state
students. But it also offers a 50 percent reduction in tuition and
fees for students who agree to practice public-interest related law
for at least four years after graduation. Twenty-five students a
year are chosen on a competitive basis from those accepted into the
program.
Margaret Xifaras is chairman of the UMass-Dartmouth School of Law.
She notes the importance of combining the value of giving time to
public service with the programs and life strategies that allow it
to be financially possible. "You can lateral in and lateral out,"
she notes. "You can do five years of public service, and then say,
you've got a family and you need to worry about getting a house or
putting aside for college. I've seen many people come back into
public service later, and they enjoyed that time."
Michael Coyne, associate dean of the Massachusetts School of Law
at Andover is also a staunch advocate of accessible legal
education. Annual tuition at the school is just under $15,000, and
the administration has long gone head to head with the American Bar
Association and in the realm of public opinion on the issue of cost
and accessibility.
In editorials this year to the Worcester Telegram &
Gazette and The National Law Journal, Coyne noted
that MSL has garnered various regional and national advocacy awards
while competing against the country's top law schools. In the
latter editorial, he cites a training model patterned on medical
school education: to wit, the school trains law students "not to
just think like lawyers but how to act like lawyers while
representing real clients." This, in essence, is what the legal
clinics, pro bono assignments, internships and
community-involvement initiatives of other law schools also seek to
imbue.
Interviews with law program administrators at the state's law
schools reveal a common thread: public interest work should be an
integral component of any legal career, whether one serves in a
government or nonprofit sector or spearheads the pro bono work of a
private law firm.
How the machinery works
The Rappaport Center for Law and Public Service at Suffolk
University Law School was established in 2006 through a $5 million
gift from the Phyllis and Jerome Lyle Rappaport Foundation and the
Rappaports individually. It seeks to foster creative thinking on
public policy issues, offers career development, counseling and
mentoring to public-service career aspirants, and foster a sense of
responsibility to engage in pro bono work, promote access to
justice and serve the public. Suffolk's Alasdair Roberts observes,
"There are so many different fields of law that are affected by the
government, or deal directly with the government, that even if
you're not going into the public sector for your career, you have
the opportunity to learn. … You want to know how the machinery
works."
The Rappaport Fellows Program in Law and Public Policy is open to
all Boston-area law schools and exposes students to the crafting of
public policy issues that affect Greater Boston. Students work in
paid summer legal internships with state or local government
offices and are matched with experienced lawyers, government
officials and civic leaders in a mentoring program. The fellowship
is not done for credit, but it is structured, and the center is
careful about placement to ensure that useful work is done over the
summer, Roberts says.
Susan Prosnitz, executive director of the Rappaport Center, cites
the faculty's public-service roots. Students are able to engage
with faculty to learn how they got to where they are, and examine
all the different options for public service work. For the
fellowships, she arranges connections with public service movers
and shakers. A session on press politics and policy brings in press
secretaries for the governor and the mayor, and a reporter, to help
students understand what goes into the news that gets into the
papers.
The school's Marshall-Brennan Fellows engage in a yearlong,
credit-earning project to study constitutional law and teach it pro
bono in Boston and Cambridge public, charter and pilot high schools
in urban minority population areas.
Suffolk Law School's pro bono program is voluntary. It challenges
students to put in 50 hours of pro bono work before they graduate.
During the 2009-10 year, the program had more than 300 student
participants.
Clinic appointments
Harvard Law School's clinical law program is the country's
largest and most extensive, covering more than 28 areas of law. The
school offers more than 60 clinical courses annually and has more
than 60 clinical faculty and instructors. Clinics are elective at
Harvard, and they are in high demand. Clinical education grew
during the 1970s and 1980s, but demand has increased significantly
over the last five to six years, according to Elaine McArdle,
communications director for Clinical and Pro Bono programs at
Harvard Law School. Each year, about 900 HLS students do at least
one clinic. In addition, the HLS Class of 2010 averaged 556 hours
of pro bono legal services, with some far exceeding that
amount.
The clinic experience, she says, is "one of the best ways to learn
the law.
Practical components are played out, you confront real ethical
issues, or recognize that while the law should theoretically play
out one way in a court, [in situations] with very few resources, it
plays out another way. This is better than going out after you
graduate and trying to figure it out on your own." Employers, she
says, no longer want to subsidize a new associate's learning
process for the first year, and they now ask students if they have
had clinical experience, whether public or private. "Clients don't
want to pay for that any more, so law firms are hitting the ground
running. We have students who, no matter what they go into, find
that the value of a clinical education is tremendous."
Northeastern University School of Law has a public interest
requirement which can be fulfilled by completing a public interest
co-op, completing any of the law school's clinical courses,
performing at least 30 hours of uncompensated legal work in a
public interest setting or with a private firm on a pro bono
project, or doing a public interest independent study.
Legal Skills in the Social Context (LSSC) is a required
first-year class at the school. According to Jeffrey Smith,
director for Public Interest Initiatives, Cooperative Legal
Education at the school, LSSC students gain critical experience in
developing legal skills and working to promote access to justice.
They work in teams, serving a nonprofit organization, offering
assistance on a myriad of legal matters, including homelessness,
wage discrimination, public health, children's rights, immigrant
rights and prisoner re-entry.
Professor Russell Engler is director of clinical programs at New
England Law/Boston, and says that public service should be a key
element of any legal education. Student demand for what became
legal clinics began a generation ago, he says. "There are many more
opportunities [for public-service participation today]. I think you
can sort the schools by how front and center they put it."
He notes a dramatic increase of students coming to NESL seeking
participation in legal clinics and public interest jobs. A public
interest law seminar he taught in 2002 had 15 to 17 students. But
during the last three years, "The applications had been so
through-the-roof, I had to teach two sections totalling 40
students, and there's still a waiting list." The programs are
drawing some students for the experience, some for the service, and
some for both, he says.
The co-op pioneer
Northeastern University School of Law was the first law school
in New England to establish a public interest graduation
requirement, effective with the class that began in 1994 and
graduated in 1997. Since then, more than 85 percent of each
graduating class has done at least one full-time public interest
co-op for 11 weeks, with 90 percent of law students in the last two
graduating classes doing at least one.
Northeastern has built its reputation on co-op experiences, with
Northeastern University School of Law students required to complete
four full-time legal co-ops to graduate. While it is too early to
get figures for the Class of 2011, on average, approximately 25
percent of each graduating class accepts positions with
public-interest or government employers, excluding judicial
clerkships, according to the school's Office of Career Services.
The Class of 2010 saw 17 percent of those employed in legal
positions going to public interest positions and 12 percent into
government positions. The employment figures exclude nonlegal
positions. From the classes of 2006 through 2010, the percentage
range of students choosing public interest jobs is between 15 to 16
percent on average, though 17 percent of the class of 2010 went
into public service. Since 2006, the range of students going into
government work is 11 percent except for 2008, which was 15 percent
because a group of graduates were hired for a special one-year
project with a state government agency.
On average, 40 percent of each graduating class accepts
post-graduate positions with private firms of all sizes. Many of
these graduates, although not working full time in public interest
positions, are volunteering in their community or doing pro bono
work.
The law school provides a $2,500 guaranteed stipend to support an
unfunded government or public interest co-op for every qualified
law student. Northeastern's Smith notes that the school provided
$850,000 in co-op stipend assistance for students working in
unfunded public interest co-ops during the most recent funding
cycle.
Four students a year get full-tuition scholarships, renewable each
year, according to the Office of Career Services. They also receive
a $3,000 stipend to pursue a public interest co-op. Northeastern
University School of Law has provided $3 million in loan relief
support for graduates pursuing public interest careers since
1990.
Creating a sense of community
Western New England College School of Law, based in Springfield,
hosts a Public Interest Scholars program with the help of a $1.75
million endowed fund. Six scholars a year are chosen from
individuals who apply under a separate process from standard
applications. They receive scholarships and summer stipends of
$3,500 per summer.
Sam Charron, WNECSL's assistant director of career services and
public interest coordinator of career services, says the scholars
create a sense of community at the school and develop an atmosphere
that gets students interested in public interest and pro bono
opportunities. The Public Interest Law Association ran an auction
that raised $11,000 to provide five summer stipends of $2,200. "The
scholars find their way into activities that best suit them," he
says. Many have done volunteer work or public interest work before
law school.
For five years, through the auspices of an active chapter of Equal
Justice Works, the school has sponsored Street Law programs in
greater Springfield and has organized student travel to Mississippi
to provide legal services to communities damaged by Hurricane
Katrina. Students have also traveled to Arizona to a Navajo
reservation to give tax assistance, and to Texas to help provide
legal aid representation to undocumented minors who had been taken
into federal custody.
Margaret Xifaras of UMass-Dartmouth says public-service attorneys
branch out into many different disciplines. "They flower at
different times [in their lives]. They're like perennials --
they come back up. There's an underlying basic commitment that
manifests in a certain way."