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Bar News - November 21, 2003 Debt Burdens New Lawyers By: Dan Wise "I'VE HAD LAWYERS on staff who were waiting tables on weekends to get by," said New Hampshire Legal Assistance Executive Director John E. Tobin, a career legal services attorney not known for overstatement. "That's just not right." Tobin and a public sector colleague, Public Defender Executive Director Christopher Keating, said many older members of the Bar - even those admitted to the Bar only 10 years ago - bemoan the loss of idealism of some of today's lawyers, but don't understand the financial pressures today's new lawyers face, whether they are in the public or private sector. According to one recent survey, three-quarters of graduating lawyers in 2002 owed more than $45,000 in student loans, and 50 percent owed at least $75,000. The debt burden is especially challenging for those in public-sector or public-interest law, where starting salaries typically range from $30,000 to the $40,000s. While legal services program jobs have never paid well, in the past 10 years, law school tuition has skyrocketed, resulting in rising student loan debt for new lawyers as they enter the job market. Last year, according to the ABA, the average debt for law graduates of law schools at public universities was $46,499, and slightly more than $70,000 at private law schools. Pierce Law officials report their J.D. graduates currently average $77,000 in debt. Meanwhile, the gulf between new lawyers' debt obligations and public-sector law salaries has dramatically widened. Over the past decade, starting salaries for new law graduates in private practice have increased by 80 percent, but public-interest salaries have risen by only 37 percent, according to Equal JusticeWorks, an organization promoting the concept of loan-forgiveness programs that would encourage law students to consider public-sector law careers, and would give them the financial assistance necessary to stay in those jobs. The problem is real. According to Equal JusticeWorks, two thirds of the 2002 graduates included in the survey said that their looming law school debts prevented them from considering a public-sector legal career. "This difficult economic environment for new law graduates in turn limits the potential amount of legal services available to our citizens," wrote an ABA task force recently convened to look at the issue. "The legal profession cannot honor its commitment to the principle of access to justice if significant numbers of law graduates are precluded from pursuing or remaining in public service jobs." Fortunately, steps are being taken to alleviate the problem. New Hampshire is one of a handful of states where loan-forgiveness programs shoulder a portion of the monthly student loan payments low-paid public-sector lawyers must pay. The New Hampshire Bar Foundation's program, in its third year, this year is providing $72,000 in loan-forgiveness payments to 17 attorneys in civil legal services positions. (The Bar Foundation program covers NHLA, Legal Advice & Referral Center, and, most recently, the Disabilities Rights Center.) Tobin said the program enhances access to legal services by enabling more law school graduates to consider working in legal service jobs in New Hampshire, and provides a financial cushion to attorneys with high debt payments. It also helps them resist the lure of private practice, thus keeping experienced attorneys in the legal services ranks. Modest as it is, the program is limited in scope, and does not provide assistance to attorneys working in government positions, or as prosecutors or public defenders. Nine of the 92 admittees sworn in to the Bar in October reported employment in the public sector in New Hampshire, including government positions or legal-services jobs. In e-mail responses to the Bar, several acknowledged the challenge of working in the public sector with student loan obligations approaching six digits. Jonas Cutler, a recent Pierce Law graduate, is working for the NH Bureau of Securities Regulation, where he interned. Couple an $110,000 total student loan debt with a state salary of less than $35,000, and Cutler wonders how he will be able to manage. With a $500-a-month loan payment (under a payment plan that steps up payments in two years), he is already having trouble making ends meet. "Add to this Bar dues, required CLEs, suits and dry cleaning, and there is not much to live on," he said. Liana Scrimgeour, who joined the NH Public Defender, is an example of someone who is benefiting from efforts to provide financial support to public-sector lawyers. Her law school, Georgetown University School of Law, has one of the more generous loan-forgiveness programs. Even though she owes a higher-than-average amount in student loans and earns less than $35,000 a year, she expects to pay considerably less than $100 a month on her loans while she is working in the public sector. The debt-forgiveness program, she said, allows lawyers with an interest in public-sector law to pursue that field without fear of penury in their early careers. But the desire for public service for many attorneys outweighs the difficult economics. Mark Osborne, who recently joined the Rockingham County Attorney's Office, decries the choices some law graduates make to forego the public-sector law careers they desire. Not eligible for a loan-forgiveness program, Osborne, who earns in the $40,000 to $45,000 range, emphatically said in an e-mail reply that he never let his student loan debt ($70,000) influence his choice of working as a prosecutor. "That kind of mentality undermines the very spirit, energy and idealism that young lawyers should bring to their respective bars," wrote Osborne, a New England School of Law graduate. "The greatest tragedy surrounding legal education in the 21st century is as follows: People decide they want to be lawyers so that they can pursue the jobs of their dreams. But when they graduate, they see how much money they owe and they get scared. So they get boring high-paying jobs (for which they never would have gone to law school) that make them miserable." "They end up spending the best years of their lives chasing after dollars, all the while wondering why they ever bothered to go to law school just to end up with a job that they hate." "Nope, not this guy!" wrote Osborne.
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