Lifting the Burden: Law Student Debt as a Barrier to Public Service

As the size of educational debts rises while salaries in government and publicinterest work rise at much less fast a pace, it is almost certain that, if they did nothave such high debts, many more students would hold on to their hopes for publicservice work. Remember Ms. Median. She had a choice between a government jobat $40,000 and a private firm job at $80,000. That is a huge difference in earnings.Nonetheless, if she has no debt to pay off, she would have disposable income ofabout $27,000 after taxes at the prosecutor’s office, more than enough to providea good standard of living for a single person. With her debt payments, however,she had a disposable income of only $16,927, leaving her barely better off than shewas as a student.The third impact that debt has on career decisions occurs after law graduates havetaken their first job. Some people who begin careers in public service and who wouldlike to remain there leave after a few years when they find that their debt burdens aretoo severely constraining on their hopes for making ends meet, much less buying ahouse or raising children. Others who began their careers in a firm with plans to leaveafter a few years to take a public service job find that after a few years have passed, theystill have such high debt payments that they need to stay where they are. Either way,public service offices end up without some of the most able lawyers who would like towork for them. Equally deprived are the needy people these employer organizations aredesigned to serve.THE IMPACT OF STUDENT DEBT ON GOVERNMENT AGENCIES ANDPROGRAMS PROVIDING LEGAL ASSISTANCE TO LOW-INCOME PERSONSPublic service employers worry a great deal about attracting and holding on to themost able employees. Two studies of public service employers have recently beenconducted. In 2002, Equal Justice Worksand the National Legal Aid and DefenderAssociation conducted an “EmployerRecruitment and Retention Survey”among public service employers. 33 Theorganizations surveyed over 2,000public interest and government employers,including Legal Services Corporationgrantees, non-Legal Services Corporationcivil legal aid providers, public defenderoffices, state/district attorney officesand state attorneys general offices. Intotal, 326 public interest employers andgovernment employers responded fromall fifty states and the District of“Law graduates today are graduating with astaggering amount of educational debt.Many of the new graduates interviewing forpositions with my office owe $100,000 ormore in law school debts. This debt places asubstantial burden on their ability to work inthe public sector. Since January 2000,I have lost 33 lawyers, most of them forcedto seek higher salaries elsewhere in order todeal with the financial strain of repaying lawschool debt and providing for their families.”Peter S. Gilchrist, III, District Attorney,Columbia. 34 Sixty-eight percent of the Mecklenburg County, Charlotte, NCresponding agencies reported difficultywith attorney recruitment, with lowsalaries and educational debt being by far the most commonly cited reasons. Similarly,62% reported difficulties with attorney retention, and again low salaries andeducational debt were the more frequent reasons. 3527Lifting the Burden:The Problem and Its Solutions33Equal Justice Works, supra note 23.34Id. at 33. “Government” does not include the federal government due to a low response rate.35Id.