Law Schools for the Public Interest Student

Professor Appleman has a great post on Prawfsblawg about how law schools might better help law students find public interest jobs. She concludes with the following great suggestions:

1) create a really strong public interest alumni network, with mentoring and interning options; 2) designate one OCI counselor to spend at least half of her time devoted solely to public interest; 3) have workshops explaining to students how it's possible to earn a public interest salary and still pay your rent, loans, and eat; 4) visits and meetings from local public interest attorneys; 5) continued assistance *after* graduation, since often it takes a little longer to find p.i. jobs; and 6) at least some form of loan-repayment schemes for eligible grads.

The public interest students at GW have had some of the same thoughts Prof. Appleman expresses and we recently lobbied to get a full-time career person dedicated to public interest law. We were half successful; the dean has authorized a part time position and said that whoever takes the job can work as much as he/she needs to in order to get the job done. Apparently the dean does not believe there is enough demand for a full-time person, but we hope to prove him wrong. What we've found is that the demand might be appear strong if you survey incoming 1Ls about their career aspirations, but that demand drops precipitously as loan debt skyrockets, making students feel they are not able to consider a public interest career by the time they reach their 2nd and 3rd years. As I and others have said before, “I can't afford to take a public interest job” is often a fairly hollow excuse, but the fact remains that it's an excuse that almost certainly decreases the demand many law schools feel for public interest career services.

Posted April 15, 2006 02:55 PM | 3L advice