WASHINGTON, April 18, 2002 (PRIMEZONE) -- According to preliminary survey results released today at the 2002 Equal Justice Conference in Cleveland, public interest law employers in all 50 states and the District of Columbia see low salaries combined with high educational debt as key obstacles in recruiting and retaining staff attorneys.
Results of the survey conducted by Equal Justice Works (formerly the National Association for Public Interest Law) and the National Legal Aid and Defender Association (NLADA) indicate that a majority of the 300-plus employer respondents report significant difficulty in public interest attorney recruitment (69%) and retention (62%). In recruiting lawyers to public interest employment, 89% identify low salaries and 88% educational debt as major problems. Retention problems are attributed to the same factors with 92% indicating low salaries and 82% educational debt.
Although the employer respondents identified other obstacles to recruitment and retention -- including geographic location, pressure to take a private sector job and lack of opportunity for upward mobility -- none were noted as key obstacles by more than 45% of the respondents.
"These findings demonstrate that the combination of low salary and high debt is lethal to the public service law community," noted David Stern, Equal Justice Works Executive Director. "Too many lawyers dedicated to the public interest must make too many sacrifices to work for equal justice. When you offer salaries of less than $40,000 to persons with educational loans totaling more than $100,000, the result is epidemic problems in recruitment and retention."
Sheila Siegel, Equal Justice Works Program Associate for Research and Advocacy and manager of the survey, presented the preliminary results at a session titled, "Promoting the Development of Loan Repayment Activities." Siegel noted that an initial review of anecdotal responses appears to indicate that when public interest attorneys have access to good loan repayment assistance programs (LRAPs), recruitment and retention problems decrease.
Siegel explained, "Analysis of the anecdotal employer data is beginning to show the solution to our problem is at hand: LRAPs and similar programs that provide funds to help law graduates repay their educational debt."
Siegel added that a second survey, now in progress and aimed at the Class of 2002 law students, is examining how educational debt impacts or determines career choices. This second Equal Justice Works survey, co-sponsored by the National Association for Law Placement and the Partnership for Public Service, was released April 3, 2002 and to date has received nearly 1,000 responses. The survey is available at www.equaljusticeworks.org until May 8, 2002.
Equal Justice Works, formerly the National Association for Public Interest Law (NAPIL), leads the country in organizing, training and supporting public service-minded law students and in creating summer and postgraduate public interest jobs. Through more than 8 million dollars in annual donations from prestigious law firms, corporations and foundations, Equal Justice Works funds law students and lawyers in programs that bring justice to millions of low-income persons and families.