A new group of students is about to begin law school amid increasingly vocal concerns that it's not worth the money. A steady stream of critics claims that dim job prospects await many law students once they graduate, and that neither the cost nor the debt they take on can justify the price of their degrees.
This worthwhile debate nonetheless misses the fact that a fair number of law students are attending law school not just to get a good return on their investment. Some are in it to change the world.
Thousands of practicing lawyers — those who work in nonprofits, are engaged in government service and offer low-fee services in private practice — never went into the law for its earnings potential. The work is its own reward for these lawyers.
It can be intellectually stimulating, can help to right injustice and can give voice to those who have none in our legal and political systems. Such benefits are hard to factor into the bottom line.
Before I started teaching law school, I worked for 15 years at non-profit legal services providers. I helped keep low-income tenants in affordable housing, assisted first-time home buyers and ensured that low-wage workers received the pay to which they were entitled under the law.
Some of these needs were chronic, and some arose overnight. For example, after the events of Sept. 11th, the organization in which I worked in New York City, the Urban Justice Center, mobilized to assist small business owners and workers displaced by the attacks, and helped from nonprofits to respond to the crisis in communities throughout the city.
When they begin law school, many students are highly idealistic. They sometimes lose their way when they come to grips with the fact that their student loans are significant and the job prospects in the public and nonprofit sectors are weak.
Still, researchers trying to quantify the financial value of law school have found that, over the career of the typical lawyer, a law degree can generate up to a million more dollars in income than other college graduates will earn. For every dollar a law student spends to earn her degree, she has the possibility of earning between six and ten dollars in return. Some will make much more throughout their careers.
But others will face more difficult circumstances. State and local governments have had to cut back on hiring, and the federal Legal Services Corporation, which helps to fund free legal services for low-income people, has had its budget slashed 15 percent in just the last two years. This comes at a time when there is a desperate need for lawyers to serve people of low income, to help fend off foreclosure, eviction and the loss of government benefits.
Private firms have historically given financial support to ensure access to justice for low-income people, and offer hundreds of thousands of hours of volunteer lawyer time to serve them. The law firm of Skadden Arps funds a post-graduate fellowship program for public interest lawyers, and Equal Justice Works receives grants from a range of law firms to do the same.
A new fellowship, the Civil Legal Corps, hopes to encourage young lawyers to explore new models for financing the provision of legal services to low- and moderate-income Americans. Foundations and corporate philanthropic efforts have helped to fill the gaps in the provision of legal services to those in need. But all of these efforts are not sufficient to close the so-called "justice gap" — the overwhelming number of low-income people who must face great hardship without the benefit of legal representation. Many providers of free legal services turn away four prospective clients for every one they represent, and not because those prospective clients are not eligible for the services offered. It is simply because these providers do not have enough funding to meet the need.
For many Americans, having a lawyer would be of great assistance in facing the loss of a home, dealing with skyrocketing medical bills, trying to get special education services for a child, trying to reintegrate into community life after serving in the armed forces. For them, there's a new group of law students, many of them idealistic, hoping to take on such challenges when they graduate.
If the job market is changing for new lawyers, and traditional job prospects have dimmed, at least we can open up new career paths for young lawyers into public service by ensuring full funding for legal programs for low-income people.
Securing access to unemployment and worker compensation benefits and guaranteeing that workers receive the pay they deserve are good for the economy. Such work often requires the skills that lawyers are trained in, and benefits from the energy and passion that new lawyers often possess.
Increased funding for free legal assistance from all levels of government, and from the private and philanthropic sectors, makes good economic sense. It can channel the reservoir of idealism brimming in many incoming law school classes, even despite the many naysayers who assert that a law degree is not worth much.
Those lawyers of tomorrow who are committed to public service will find many legal needs await them upon graduation. Creativity and idealism can spark not just ideas for the delivery of legal services, but also generate new avenues to fund them, and stiffen the resolve of those committed to equal and full access to justice.
Raymond Brescia teaches at Albany Law School.