Many law grads can't afford to take public-service

[Craig]

Not of interest to me personally, but since there are so many lawyers and aspiring lawyers on this website ...

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/busi..._lawyers15.html (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/134595949_lawyers15.html)

[lethal]

One good thing many schools offer is student loan forgiveness if their graduates take jobs in public interest.

[iris]

There are also many scholarships for law students willing to go into the public sector.

[TyroneK(prettypretty)]

Just to spray a little of my trademarked pessimism on the parade...

Loan forgiveness only covers so much and a lot of people still have to deal with debt incurred by college. Plus, it's hard to make public service attractive in the face of private practice jobs that entail a lot of the same research duties with 120% of the salary.

Scholarships are also highly selective and there aren't a lot of them to offset the number of people who would otherwise do public service and the amount of debt they face.

[kasia]

Originally posted by VBKao@Dec 15 2002, 05:30 PM
Just to spray a little of my trademarked pessimism on the parade...

Loan forgiveness only covers so much and a lot of people still have to deal with debt incurred by college. Plus, it's hard to make public service attractive in the face of private practice jobs that entail a lot of the same research duties with 120% of the salary.

Scholarships are also highly selective and there aren't a lot of them to offset the number of people who would otherwise do public service and the amount of debt they face.
i'd agree with all of the above. i'd also add that loan forgiveness only applies if you're making less than X amount of dollars...and what i've seen is that the schools place the ceiling lower than what public interest organizations pay...thus, there really is no loan forgiveness program.

georgetown, however, seems to be an exception. i heard ucla isn't too great...

[iris]

*whacks my head across the keyboard

How am I going to pay for law school???

I thought about going into the public sector. I interned with the ACLU for a year and it was great, but the whole money thing....bah! :angry:

[lethal]

There's also the track that many people take, which is to work in the private sector for a few years in order to pay off their loans, then go back into the public sector for a more fulfilling career.

[kasia]

Originally posted by iris@Dec 16 2002, 02:15 AM
*whacks my head across the keyboard

How am I going to pay for law school???

I thought about going into the public sector. I interned with the ACLU for a year and it was great, but the whole money thing....bah!   :angry:
don't worry too much about it. most americans live in debt, no?

if you're serious about working in the public interest, some people have told me that you just need to get used to a certain standard of living. and it really wouldn't be that bad. you'd still be making a lot more than other people in other professions...your "low" salary would probably only be really noticable when you hang out with friends who have taken positions at large firms. but if you doing what you enjoy doing...it's all worth it, right?

i heard working at the aclu is pretty awesome.

oh, and marry a guy that isn't so public-interest oriented :D

[SunWuKong]

international business law for me. working with american companies with vested interests in china or vice versa.
the ultimate goal is to open my own firm.
lethalweapon and i have already talked about this. he'll be a partner and he'll be in charge of the vietnam operations. :D

or i might just say, fuck it all and just fly my ass back to HK in a year or so.

[iris]

LOL Kas.. :lol:

Yeah working with the ACLU is very rewarding. I urge anyone who's thinking about law or who likes to do social work to intern with them or volunteer to man the hotlines. We get hundreds of calls a day and we're always understaffed. It's a very rewarding experience that allows you a good healthy dose of reality.

I'm a gonna find me a good looking i-banker who works on Wall Street and wears power suits and those intelligent looking glasses. :luv:

[lethal]

One of my friends in college went to UVa law and is now working as assistant counsel for the ACLU in NYC.

Sure, he might not be making as much money as his classmates, but he still makes almost as much as any other professional college graduate makes, so the lifestyle's not that bad. Just a few compromises here and there.

I believe all the law types have chimed in on this topic now...wait...MellowDrama? Arex?

[lethal]

Originally posted by iris@Dec 15 2002, 10:57 PM
I'm a gonna find me a good looking i-banker who works on Wall Street and wears power suits and those intelligent looking glasses. :luv:
So does this exclude SWK and his intelligent glasses cause he's a lawyer? :blush:

[SunWuKong]

Originally posted by lethalweapon@Dec 15 2002, 11:09 PM
So does this exclude SWK and his intelligent glasses cause he's a lawyer? :blush:
er... not a lawyer yet. may not even be one ever.

[TyroneK(prettypretty)]

You know, I might be a bit rosier with this kind of discussion if it wasn't in the middle of finals.

As it is, all I can think of right now is running away to the hills screaming for my lost sanity. Public good be damned.

I hope I didn't just kill this thread...

[jare2003]

Originally posted by kasia@Dec 16 2002, 03:45 AM
Originally posted by iris@Dec 16 2002, 02:15 AM
*whacks my head across the keyboard

How am I going to pay for law school???

I thought about going into the public sector. I interned with the ACLU for a year and it was great, but the whole money thing....bah! :angry:
don't worry too much about it. most americans live in debt, no?

if you're serious about working in the public interest, some people have told me that you just need to get used to a certain standard of living. and it really wouldn't be that bad. you'd still be making a lot more than other people in other professions...your "low" salary would probably only be really noticable when you hang out with friends who have taken positions at large firms. but if you doing what you enjoy doing...it's all worth it, right?

i heard working at the aclu is pretty awesome.

oh, and marry a guy that isn't so public-interest oriented :D
You said "if you're serious about working in the public interest, some people have told me that you just need to get used to a certain standard of living"

Making 35,000 a year as a lawyer isn't a big deal to me at all. What *IS* a big deal is the cost of law school nowadays. At the top 15 schools, it runs nearly 45,000 a year. And even at state schools (UVA for instance, it's still close to 30,000 for instate students).

That's the main thing keeping me from going into. I'll have a fair amount of undergrad debt from Cornell too, which is going to be hard to deal with at a salary of 35k...let alone adding on 75-150k more for law school.

A lot of us don't have parents supporting our education or paying off bills, and it's a bit hard to say that paying off undergrad and law school loans of that magnitude is just a matter of getting used to 'a certain standard of living'

[kasia]

Originally posted by jare2003@Dec 16 2002, 05:04 AM
A lot of us don't have parents supporting our education or paying off bills, and it's a bit hard to say that paying off undergrad and law school loans of that magnitude is just a matter of getting used to 'a certain standard of living'
i hear you. i just had my repayment of my undergrad loans deferred. most private law schools will provide some sort of financial assistance, whether through scholarships or grants.

is it really 35K though? i've worked only in public interest during law school and the p.l. attorneys i came across made more than that. the starting p.d. position in los angeles, also, is about $50-55K.

i work for a private public-interest law firm, so i kinda have the best of both worlds. i think there are quite a few of those types of firms.

[SunWuKong]

yeah i'm still paying off my undergrad debt from cmu. <_<
ah well, it's worth it. it got me my first and third (current) job just through the fact that the project manager from the first job and one of the two partners of the company for the current job had both studied there.