No, that title is not an invitation to donate to West Coast Environmental Law (although if you insist, you can donate here). This Environmental Law Alert is about what Canada can learn from the U.S. about how to support newly graduated lawyers who want to use their skills on behalf of the public good – whether in the service of the environment, poverty, Aboriginal communities, or human rights.
In 1974 West Coast Environmental Law was founded by Law Students. Since our start we have depended on lawyers – often keen, young lawyers – who are willing to put aside dreams of big pay cheques in favour of dreams of big environmental wins.
But in 2010-11 the tuition at the University of Toronto’s Law School was $21,767 for first year students, and Canada-wide the average tuition is $8,697 per year, not counting living expenses. Many other law schools have lower tuition fees, but there is no doubt that most Canadian law students are graduating with significant debt. Can you imagine going to work for a public interest organization at a salary that is dramatically lower than the mainstream industry with massive debts hanging over your head?
As the American Bar Association puts it:
A recent study found that law school debt prevented 66% of student respondents from considering a public interest or government job. This difficult economic environment for new law graduates in turn limits the potential amount of legal services available to our citizens. 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.
Many law students do find ways to work as public interest lawyers, despite the revenue that they lose by doing so: they went to law school to fight for a cause, and they’re willing to accept personal financial concessions. And more power to them. But perhaps we can support them better in this choice.
Lessons from the U.S.
Of course student debt has been much higher for much longer in the U.S. And the public interest lawyer tradition is alive and well in their country. So perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised to learn that they’ve developed tools to help students – and especially law students – who want to practice some type of public interest law. At the recent Public Interest Environmental Law Conference I learnt about three main tools:
- Loan Repayment Assistance Programs;
- Public Service Loan Forgiveness; and
- Equal Justice Works.
Law students take note: at least two of these three tools are in place in the U.S. because law students demanded them, and set them up, and advocated for them. Just saying.
Loan Repayment Assistance Programs
Loan Repayment Assistance Programs (LRAPs) are essentially like a scholarship – except that you get them after law school based on what you’re going to do with your degree, instead of before or during law school. The American Bar Association explains:
LRAPs provide loan repayment or forgiveness, lower interest rates on loans, or postponed payment of law school loans to graduates entering specific types of employment, usually law-related public interest jobs. Most LRAPs contain limits on the amount of income a recipient can earn while participating in such a program. There are various types of LRAPs, administered by law schools, state bar associations and foundations and federal and state governments, providing debt relief to some law graduates. The number of these programs has begun to increase recently, but still do not meet most of the need of many attorneys who would like to work in public interest.
A recent evaluation of an LRAP for civil legal aid attorneys Making a Critical Difference: Ohio Legal Assistance Foundation’s Loan Repayment Assistance Program, found that the $6,000 in assistance given annually to the attorneys has made a positive difference in the financial lives of the attorneys while helping them to afford taking and keeping jobs in legal aid organizations in Ohio.
According to Jane Steckbeck, Associate Director of Public Services Initiatives at the University of Oregon, speaking at Eugene’s Public Interest Environmental Law Conference (PIELC), American Universities began setting up LRAPs in the early 1990s. The University of Oregon was a comparatively late arrival:
At the University of Oregon, students started talking to the University, to law firms, to funders in 2002, and they made it happen. Once we got a major donor, that moved us forward, but it wasn’t until 2006 that we gave our first award.
Last year about 11 lawyers received some contribution towards their student loan payments.
There is no reason that this same type of program could not be set up for graduates of other professions to encourage/enable them to work with public interest organizations, and I was told at the PIELC that there are some examples. However, LRAPs have been used most widely by universities and bar associations to support public interest lawyers.
So far as I can tell, this type of scholarship arrangement has never been set up for lawyers in Canada. While there are at least some university programs aimed at assisting with loan repayment, the focus seems to be on ability to pay, not public interest practice (and not directed at lawyers). At any event, the law schools and the legal community have not made a decision to support public interest lawyering in the same way that the U.S. universities and bar associations have. With public interest clinics at several universities across Canada, and student loans reaching unprecedented and potentially unmanageable levels, now would seem to be a good time.
Public Service Loan Forgiveness
Not to be left out, the U.S. federal government, in 2007, unveiled the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. In some ways like a LRAP, the federal program will forgive loans given by the federal government to any student who makes a minimum number of loan repayments over a 10 year period while working for a qualifying “public service” initiative (broadly charities, governments, or certain non-profits).
While it sounds like there are some wrinkles to be ironed out in this comparatively recent initiative, this program is universally available (to all students with federal loans), and – depending on how much the student is earning and the structure of their loan, can result in very significant savings for the student.
There are parallel programs in Canada. For example, the BC government will forgive BC Student Loans of graduates of medical and educational professional programs working in underserviced communities, but such programs are much narrower, and do not include professionals working for charitable or in other public interest roles.
Earth Justice Works
A final, and important, support piece for newly graduated public interest lawyers is Earth Justice Works, a non-profit founded by law students to support and encourage students and law graduates to take on public interest work. According to Earth Justice’s website:
We believe that the poorest and most vulnerable among us deserve the same access to justice and quality legal representation as more fortunate citizens.
Founded by law students in 1986, Equal Justice Works is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to creating a just society by mobilizing the next generation of lawyers committed to equal justice. To achieve this, we offer a continuum of opportunities for law students and lawyers that provide the training and skills that enable them to provide effective representation to underserved communities and causes.
Check out their website for the full range of their services, which includes arranging fellowships with public interest organizations across the U.S.
I emailed EJW and asked whether they could provide support for Canadian law graduates, or whether they got requests for help from Canadian law grads. In reply they confirmed that
at this time we do not offer assistance to any schools outside of the U.S. and our Fellowship programs are open only to students attending U.S. schools.
Some organization like Earth Justice Works is certainly a possibility here in Canada. It might simply be a matter of expanding the mandate of Pro Bono Students Canada (which places students with community organizations, including West Coast), or could involve a new organization or structure. But again, it’s most likely to happen if students work to make it happen.
Law students, lawyers, what do you think?
There are not a lot of public interest positions available in Canada, for new or senior lawyers. But some students do manage to seek out jobs with non-profits, First Nations or other public interest roles, and others manage to arrange their own positions. These students deserve our support.
Please let us know in the comments below if you would like to see any of the above tools created in Canada for Canadian law grads (or all grads). Do you have any other ideas about how we could support new lawyers in finding and taking public interest positions? Let us know.
By Andrew Gage, Staff Lawyer
Much of the information for this post came from a panel at the Land Air Water Public Interest Environmental Law Conference. See our related post - Lessons from the world's top environmental law conference.
Related resources:
- American Bar Association’s Lifting the Burden: Law Student Debt as a Barrier to Public Service, The Final Report of the ABA Commission on Loan Repayment and Forgiveness.
- Equal Justice Works website.
Photo from Morgan as posted in Wikimedia Commons.