Holy Tons Of Public Interest Money, Batman!

According to Harvard's new admissions blog, Harvard law gave out over $1.5 million dollars in subsidies to its students engaged in public interest work last summer. Apparently, if you work a summer public interest job, you're guaranteed $4500 from the school. Harvard also has an Office of Public Interest Advising that employs 9 attorneys (full-time, I assume) helping students find public interest jobs.

Just for the sake of comparison, GW gave out something near $160,000 last year in public interest subsidies, and that includes some stipends during the school year so the summer amount was less. GW has no office of public interest advising or anything that would even approximate such a thing, and, as far as I know, it has one attorney and one career office assistant who each spend half their time helping students find public interest jobs.

Obviously it pays to go to the top school, but I never realized just how much. Unfortunately, it looks like Harvard didn't participate in the Equal Justice Works E-Guide to Public Service at America's Law Schools so I can't make more direct comparisons between the two schools. It's not like I'm surprised to learn of Harvard's huge advantage here, anyway, it's just the size of the difference that shocks me.

Posted 06:38 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | 3L law school

At First I Scoffed

I just noticed that I was tagged by MeSawYou a couple off weeks ago. Oops. My assignment was:

1. Go into your archives.
2. Find your 23rd post.
3. Post the fifth sentence (or closest to it).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
5. Tag five other people to do the same thing.

My 23rd post was about spinning (as in pedaling fast to music on a stationary bike), which I really love(d). (I know I'd still enjoy it, I just haven't found a good place to get back into it since I moved to DC.) The fifth sentence was:

At first I scoffed.

I couldn't ask for anything better. Hard to believe that was on September 1, 2002. Have I really been doing this for three freaking years? I know, that's not that long, but still... Is that something to lament or be proud of?

Anyhoo, the final part of the assignment is to “tag” five other people, but I'm pretty sure most people I can think of have been “tagged” already. Still, I'll give it a try:

1. Energy Spatula
2. Mackenzie
3. Greyhame
4. Sui Generis
5. Audacity (who we should congratulate for officially becoming a lawyer, so: Congratulations! Those 70% out-of-state bar passage rates in Georgia are very scary for those of us planning to take bar exams in states where we didn't attend law school....)

If you get this tag and can't respond, I understand. That's how these things go....

Posted 10:38 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | meta-blogging