You’ve made it into Harvard Law. The hard part is over. In a packed Memorial Hall, Dean Martha Minow recites the remarkable and diverse achievements of your peers. The future, you are told, will be even brighter.
But fast forward just a few months and the mood is hardly optimistic. Overwhelmingly, students say that they “have to“ work at a corporate law firm. That they are afraid of unemployment. That they will never pay off their loans. That the legal market, that their parents, that that that.
Can anything explain this violent shift? Was Harvard insincere in promising a world of professional opportunity, or is the 1L experience of desperation, pressure and job scarcity entirely contrived?
If Dean Minow spoke with hopeful assurance at orientation, the Office of Career Services quickly retorted with fear. As early as November, every 1L began to receive two kinds of emails from OCS: alarmist ones (“In the professional jungle, you won’t be helping your career very much by putting your head in the sand and avoiding these events.” November 3, 2011) and normative, culture-shifting ones (“You’ve decided that you’re going to participate in EIP… Now what?” March 19).
No wonder it didn’t feel like much of a decision.
In just a few months, the change in messaging was loud and clear. Your impressions of a legal career were naïve. Your time of passionate and inspiring work has passed. Harvard Law students join big firms. And they join them promptly.
A group of us began meeting regularly to discuss this silent transformation—silent because students refuse to ask their peers why they’ve changed their minds so quickly. Recognizing that we suffer as a community from such self-censorship, and heartened by more senior students, we decided to start a broader dialogue.
We began with posters that highlighted some of the empty rationales students employ to justify their enrollment in EIP: I don’t really want to, I’m just doing it to pay off my loans; just for a few years, then I’ll do what I really want to do; I’m just doing it because I heard they have a great training program. Such statements, frequently heard, but infrequently challenged, capture the desperation that contrasts so starkly with Dean Minow’s buoyant reception.
Our first event, “Real Talk Re: EIP,” proved that the lack of conversation is not for lack of interest: we ran out of seats in a 60-person classroom. The lunch event was billed merely as an opportunity for 1Ls to discuss their thoughts and opinions on EIP. To critically evaluate where they get their information about EIP. To ask whether EIP promotes a culture of choice or consent. To ask, in short: what happened between orientation and now?
In the rare event that a thoughtful conversation emerges about EIP, students usually justify their choice to interview by uncritically reciting an established set of reasons for joining a firm. For example, students claim they need to pay off their loans, but HLS has one of the most generous repayment programs in the country. Students also claim they’re joining a firm just for the training—but training for what? Corporate transaction work, years of document review and less courtroom experience than LRW are hardly training for a career outside of corporate law. Otherwise bright and opinionated students make pivotal career decisions based on inaccurate, privately held and therefore unchallenged assumptions.
In light of such information scarcity, recruiting students to sign up for a funneling system after only two semesters of law school—often during their second semester of law school—is coercive. Second semester 1Ls have been locked out of all clinical opportunities and allowed to choose only one elective class. After these students are denied any relevant professional experience, they are told to enroll in a lottery-based interview system for employers and work that they know little about.
By minimizing both relevant experience and volition, HLS has created a process that encourages students to cast aside long-held professional (and personal) aspirations while making premature, uninformed and fear-driven decisions. Similarly, requiring 2Ls to reject all but one firm offer by November 1st—far before most public interest jobs are solidified—unnecessarily exploits the reasonable fear most students have about turning down a job offer.
As firms wrestle to move their recruiting dates earlier and earlier, Harvard Law School must take a stand. It must, if you will, firmly refuse. Refuse to let fear and intimidation pressure students into foreclosing their professional ambitions. Refuse to let firm recruiting overshadow the educational experience of law school. Refuse to ignore the personal, professional and moral about-face that takes place during 1L year. HLS and OCS have a responsibility to respond with more than complicity as, year after year, 1Ls undergo this silent transformation.
Still, the blame for our silent transformation—and our lack of agency—cannot rest solely on the administration’s shoulders. We are willfully blind to the privilege that comes with attending Harvard Law School. And we are all too willing to scalp our sense of agency and morality to the highest bidder. An HLS degree provides incredible personal and professional opportunity. With such opportunity comes a commanding ethical responsibility—one we cannot renounce for a myopic, monetary brand of success.
Given the complexity of these decisions, we are in dire need of a more honest and informed dialogue. When can we discuss whom firms actually defend, why document review is good training or how little time associates spend with their families? When can we acknowledge the silent transformation that takes place during 1L, as students struggle to forget what brought them to law school and come to peace with a life they never pictured living? When can we discuss the coercive, premature and fear-based funneling system called EIP? Can we, at the very least, talk about it?
I’m glad this is being discussed and think it is an important topic to address. It is startling how this transformation can occur and how many students can feel intimidated or forced into EIP and firm jobs. However, I would push back that some students come into law school wanting to work at law firms and that is in fact their career aspiration. This article tends to neglect that and how OCS may be an invaluable resource to these students. I agree there should not be such a strong divide nor a silent pushing into one direction or corner. I just think you need to also address other students who want to work for firms without making them feel awkward or uninspired for doing so.
really? REALLY? this article reeks of biting the hand that feeds it. At least you have the CHOICE to refuse to participate in EIP. What about ALL THE OTHER LAW SCHOOLS that don’t have anything close to the career resources and opportunities that HLS has? As a whole, silk-stocking law firms are paying millions of dollars to talk to you, and you’re upset with the “pressure” of working for them? Oh lord, my diamond rings are too flashy!
This article is completely out of touch with the actual experience that thousands of to-be graduates are going through right now. Thousands of highly-accomplished Tier 1 graduates who would kill to have had the opportunity to work as a summer associate at a large firm, or have AN interview for a permanent position in their 3L year.
It’s good to have this openly discussed. But EIP is a very well-structured program and indeed a great opportunity for students who do want to work at law firms. My main issue with “Firmly Refuse” is its assumption that most students are “forced” or “pressured” to participate in EIP (while many of them are not; and seriously, we’re all adults here. Are we really so incapable of making our own judgment that we are manipulated by some OCS emails?), and that people who go on to work at firms are some unfortunate sellouts. While there are students who want to do public interest work, there’s also a vast number of students who are interested in doing other things – for various personal reasons (including financial ones, which are perfectly reasonable). Vilifying EIP or trivializing/simplifying other people’s choices isn’t a good way to start the conversation.
LOL @ “normative, culture-shifting.” Take some personal responsibility. The school can’t force you to do anything. Pansies. Grow some balls.
I’m generally sympathetic to the aims of this organization and think it’s worthwhile to ask why some people who come into HLS committed to public service lawyering wind up working at firms (which is not to say the reasons couldn’t be entirely reasonable). I am, however, troubled by the way this article abuses perfectly good and useful words like “exploit” and “coercive.” Is EIP tempting and easy in comparison to seeking public interest employment? Yes. Is it “coercive”? Give me a break — and give your fellow students a bit more credit.
If students work for firms when no public interest organizations are looking to hire them, are they still greedy?
This is really great. As a Penn Law alum working in public interest, I think this is something needed on all top law school campuses.
I think this is SPOT ON. I certainly understand the sentiments of other commenters, but I’ve just personally seens SO MANY (dozens? hundreds?) of my classmates enter law school with certain dreams, but abandon them to the seeming inevitability of the law firm pipeline (under the great pressure and tight deadlines this article discusses). It shouldn’t be about demonizing those classmates who DO have dreams of firm life – they should be encouraged to follow their dreams too. It should be about expanding the conversation to promote and honor diverse career paths. Right now, a single career path is aggressively promoted and honored, in my opinion, to the detriment of the overall law school education and experience.
Okay, it sucks that public interest employers have later timelines, less available jobs, and unstructured recruiting process compared to private law firms. But seriously, how is school/OCS possibly responsible for that? If you don’t want to work for big firms, just don’t do it. Stop blaming others.
Strongly support this campaign despite the fact that I don’t think theres really any coercion. Everyone here is an adult and can act accordingly. The primary harm that I think is being done by the EIP pipeline is to the public at large when the brightest law students all immediately go work for people who already have all the advantages in society.
It’s hard to escape the personal biases that will guide each student’s response to a campaign like this. If you are already a 2L or a 3L with a corporate law firm job, you will inevitably and somewhat subconsciously search for the weakness in this argument–because it implicates you as a moral agent and it criticizes your decision as potentially coerced and ethically wrong. If you are a public interest student that wants to fight against the enormously powerful and pervasive corporate influence over the provision of legal services, this campaign is a god send. I am the latter. I’m a public interest student leader and 2L at Northwestern.
What’s more important than right and wrong in this debate is having the conversation. This is a very critical conversation–the lawyers coming out of top law schools are some of the best, brightest, most well-equipped professionals in our liberal democracy and we all hold a degree that gives us unique access to and influence in the legal system. Why is it that such an enormous, disproportionate amount of us go the corporate route? There are enormous segments of our communities that need better legal services, that deserve and are entitled to legal representation, who aren’t getting it. The chance to practice public interest law is exciting–there is an immediate challenge and an immediate opportunity to have an impact on an individual or systemic level. Why do so few graduates choose that route? Is it just the money? Is it the culture of hiring? Is it coercion? Fear?
I’m not sure. But I echo Firmly Refuses plea that we put both paths of legal practice on the table, compare their costs and benefits openly, and have the conversation. There is a lot of substantive, impactful, important legal work on behalf of less influential clients that could get done as a result.
Maybe if HLS made some of the changes recommended here, fewer HLS students would be filling up the big firms and those firms would have to seek employees at other Tier 1 schools — employees who really want those jobs, and aren’t taking them because of this funneling system.
You have buried a valid and important insight about the importance of thoughtful professional decision-making in a sea of profoundly mistaken claims and unfounded assumptions.
(1) You are 1Ls, so perhaps you haven’t learned this yet, but Martha Minow almost exclusively cares about public interest. It is the only topic she acknowledges in her emails to alums about HLS students’ achievements; it is basically the only work for which students receive awards at the 3L award ceremony on Class Day; it is just all she cares about. So it is no surprise that her orientation speech lauded your (/her) aspirations to go forth and save the world. Do not make the mistake of thinking that this reflects the ambitions of the majority of your peers. Many students enter law school thinking they may want to do something “public interest”-minded, but many of them have only a half-formed idea of what “public interest” entails (or pays), and many are unsure about what it means to be a lawyer at all. You are being too harsh on your peers when you judge them for deciding to do EIP, and concluding that this reflects a “sea-change” from strongly-rooted commitments to other, more “worthy” paths.
(2) You erect a false (and awfully biased) dichotomy between “passionate and inspiring work” and “Big Firm Work.” Not to denigrate you in any way, because I admire you for publicly tackling an issue that I agree is important, but you are a 1L: do you really know what it’s like to work in a public interest or a Big Law environment? I didn’t as a 1L, and based on what you’ve written, I don’t think you do either. Having summered in a large firm and worked in two public interest jobs, I have at least some perspective on this now.
First off: there are many different firms, and it’s terribly unfair to make gross generalizations about the experiences of working in them. Yes, there are firms that will bury young associates in rote, mindless discovery work, and it will be awful. But that horror story does not reflect the experience at all firms. HLS students are blessed with opportunities to work at top firms that give them substantive, intellectually challenging work pretty much right away. Of course there will be rote discovery work, but welcome to real lawyering life: it’s not as exciting as Law & Order, and you have to accept that. I can’t speak to how well corporate work prepares lawyers for work in other fields, but your article does not acknowledge that MANY HLS students go into litigation practices which often provide incredible training.
True, at most (but NOT all) large firms you won’t see the inside of a courtroom in your first few years, but courtroom experience is not the be-all end-all of litigation. In fact, most litigating is ~2% courtroom appearances and 98% motions practice, discovery, brief-writing, strategizing, deposition-taking, etc. I’m sorry if this disappoints you, but really, this work is often intellectually challenging and exciting. Many large firms will give you exposure to all stages of this trial process, and (most likely), this work will be limited to highly-complex and interesting cases. Law firms make so much money because their clients are embroiled in high-stakes legal disputes, and are willing to pay extraordinary fees for top firms to represent them. They don’t bring run-of-the-mill minor legal issues to firms that charge $900/hour; they farm that out to smaller firms or in-house counsel. And by the way, these clients are not only big-bad corporations; they are also entities such as small businesses that need help complying with complex administrative regulations; not-for-profits, including charitable foundations and universities like Harvard, who defend against all kinds of suits and need assistance in managing their trusts, etc. Firms also represent individuals, including plaintiffs pursuing massive class actions, shareholder suits, claims for ERISA benefits, and libel and other tort claims.
I don’t want to generalize about public interest opportunities at law firms, because the experience varies widely. But for what it’s worth, anecdotally I can say that every person I know who summered at a Vault top-20 firm worked on at least one public interest case. Many firms are eager to take on this work, and encourage young associates to commit time to these cases because it is a great way to gain trial experience. Yes, some firms mislead law students about how much public interest they do, but on the whole, this is not a gimmick: associates and partners really do get to spend a good chunk of time on these cases.
Another important point that you overlook: EIP is not all about “Big Law” firms. There are small/mid-size firms that interview at HLS, and they are a wonderful fit for many students. Small firms do noble and exciting work that you probably dreamed of doing when you came to HLS. I know HLS alums who are working in mid-sized employment law firms and do everything from ERISA planning to retaliation suits; in election/political law firms that do a mix of lobbying and legal work for, e.g., presidential campaigns; in criminal defense firms; etc. The point is, there is a wide range of firms and a wide range of firm experiences. Don’t be so quick to categorize them all.
(3) Your use of the word “coercive” is both inaccurate and offensive. You are HLS students! You have more opportunities than almost any law school graduates in the country! And more to the point: you are adults, and you are responsible for making career decisions and for informing yourself about the career paths you want to pursue. If you don’t want to do EIP, don’t do EIP! Remove yourself from the OCS email list and sign up for the public-service email lists! HLS is not forcing you to do anything. EIP hiring happens at the beginning of 2L year because that is how all the law firms do it, and you are requried to accept an offer by November 1 because that is the NALP guideline. This is not coercion; it is called being an adult and accepting that the world won’t stop spinning just because you aren’t ready to make a decision.
As for your classmates for whom you express the greatest concern–those who decide to do EIP when they really don’t want to, or don’t know if they want to–you should not be so concerned, because they are adults too, and there is no shortage of HLS-sponsored programming on the range of jobs available in public interest and government, many of which have the benefit of stipends and other funding. If they want to pusue those opportunities, all they have to do is open their eyes and see the hundreds of posters plastered all over campus, and then show up at one of the approximately five thousand HLS-sponsored informational panels or lectures and sit back and listen to the high-profile speakers that OCS brings in, and the impressive presentations given by experts in the area, while eating a free catered lunch. Stop whining.
Moreover, the EIP path is not as awful as you think. First, EIP is an interview program for SUMMER jobs. Yes, this often leads to permanent offers, but you are not “coerced” into acecpting them, and many students do not. And many students who do accept only stay for a few years, long enough to pay off loans and figure out what they really want to do. Second, summering in a law firm is awesome: you gain exposure to a work environment that may lead to a very desirable career path, to brilliant attorneys who can mentor you, and to a range of legal work that can help you figure out what you love to do. And to top it all off, you make a staggering amount of money, get whined-and-dined at tons of fun events, and make a dozen new friends and contacts. There aren’t many 2L-summer-jobs that can compete with that experience.
(4) Stop demonizing your friends who care about making money. Just stop it. Everyone makes their own choices in life, and everyone has their own financial goals and pressures (HLS’ loan repayment program does not result in zero debt, by the way, and if all students relied on it, the program would not function for anyone). I agree that an HLS degree comes with certain ethical duties, but rejecting law-firm jobs is not one of them.
(5) Don’t over-estimate the quality of the experience in public interest. Yes, there are highly-rewarding public-interest jobs that will allow you to do noble and intellectually exciting work; but they are extremely competitive, even for HLS students, and there aren’t *THAT* many of them. I will make a categorical exception for most government work: if you can get a job in the DOJ, or as an ADA or AUSA or state or federal public defender, you will likely have a great experience. I am clerking now, and I absolutely love it. But those jobs are hard to come by. Frankly, a lot of public-interest work (even government work) is a little mundane, because unless you are doing, e.g., impact-litigation for the ACLU or NAACP (and even then, I’m sorry, you will not be the one arguing before the Supreme Court your first year out), your job is going to involve either (1) the same type of work you would do at a law firm (discovery; researching simple legal issues; writing memos), but often for clients who deserve great representation, but whose cases are straightforward; or (2) more boring work than you would get in a firm (even if it does give you courtroom time).
There is a critical need for low-cost legal services in this country, but most people don’t need lawyers to represent them before the Supreme Court; they need lawyers to draw up a simple will; to advise them on taxation matters for their small businesses; to defend them on DUI and domestic violence and petty crime charges; to help them delay foreclosure for a few months; to file their fifth appeal from an air-tight conviction and an error-free sentencing; etc. It is wonderful if you want to represent these people, but you should realize that a lot of that work isn’t rocket-science-lawyering; it is somewhat simple stuff that may leave some HLS alums feeling morally fulfilled but intellectually and professionally bored. And it leaves many lawyers feeling demoralized and frustrated, wishing they could be involved in the high-profile cases that change the law, or lobby Congress to reform consumer finance laws or drug sentencing laws. The importance of this public interest work cannot be overstated, but you must realize that working in that system is not for everyone. Don’t blame your classmates for wanting to try out a career that involves other types of work. At the very least, don’t blame them for wanting to begin their careers in firms, where they will always have the option to move into public interest or government work (FYI, the reverse is much harder).
(6) It’s great that you are raising discussion on campus about the oft-unspoken pressure students feel to take high-paying jobs and abandon their ambitions to do other types of work. It is critical that students think carefully about their career path, and also that they resist the urge to follow the firm-path just because that is what the majority of students do. Lani Guinier wrote an exceptional book called “Becoming Gentlemen,” that addresses how law school pressures women in this. Although it is geared towards women, I encourage you to read it and talk to her about it.
Firmly Refuse’s goal is precisely that–to encourage people to take personal responsibility. Situational forces (like law school culture) profoundly influence the way we view the world and the decisions we make. You can deny it all you want, but it’s basic psychology. We can’t make truly informed, responsible choices if we don’t understand this; that’s why creating a dialogue is so important.
I just gotta ask, you’re all upset about the use of the “coercive” but where in this piece are students who choose law firms “demonized?”
Full disclosure: I’m a 2L and I think this poster/flyer campaign is awesome. The former student’s comments seem really divorced from the actual change that takes place among 1Ls. My social group pretty much 180’d after EIP. Try sitting in classes on gender and human rights with students going to work in corporate defense and you’ll feel the bizarre tension.
Are many students kidding themselves (and others) when they say they want to do public service work? Maybe. Do they have any idea what that entails? Who knows. I think the argument is that the school doesn’t acknowledge this change, and the correlative question is whether they should. I happen to think they should.
The article isn’t blaming Dean Minow. And it shouldn’t blame OCS (as much). Students need to take responsibility for their decisions. They need to acknowledge whose interests they are serving. Call me crazy, but committing the vast majority of your twenties to transactional work for a firm run almost exclusively white men defending almost exclusively white men is an inherently political and moral decision. To pretend it’s just a career move is wrong.
Full disclosure: I’m a 2L and I think this poster/flyer campaign is awesome. The former student’s comments seem really divorced from the actual change that takes place among 1Ls. My social group pretty much 180’d after EIP. Try sitting in classes on gender and human rights with students going to work in corporate defense and you’ll feel the bizarre tension.
Are many students kidding themselves (and others) when they say they want to do public service work? Maybe. Do they have any idea what that entails? Who knows. I think the argument is that the school doesn’t acknowledge this change, and the correlative question is whether they should. I happen to think they should.
The article isn’t blaming Dean Minow. And it shouldn’t blame OCS (as much). Students need to take responsibility for their decisions. They need to acknowledge whose interests they are serving. Call me crazy, but committing the vast majority of your twenties to transactional work for a firm run almost exclusively white men defending almost exclusively white men is an inherently political and moral decision. To pretend it’s just a career move is wrong.
I think the questions this op-ed raises about what HLS can/should do to support informed student choice are important. Is the school moving in the right direction? HLS is currently reducing meaningful 1L practice opportunities without considering how this will impact career opportunities and choices. The school should not view 1L extracurriculars as the enemy of academics. I believe that they are often more important for helping students make meaningful career choices.
This campaign is really so stupid for so many reasons but to pick a basic one, it blames people for defending corporation who did reprehensible things.
Well, Firmly Refuse, I can’t wait to see your posters about becoming a public defender. According to your logic, because you have to defend people who have raped, murdered, stolen and molested, people joining PD offices are unethical. Firmly Stupid is more like it.
I agree that there is a tide that tends to sweep 1Ls into EIW (as we call it) and it is hard to resist and more than a bit distressing that the system is set up this way. However, one major flex point that I found about recently is important. While you have to accept just 1 law firm offer by November 1 (or whatever date, I’m trusting what you said in the article), you can hold that one offer open, according to the NALP, until April 1st (I believe) if you want to continue looking for PI/PS jobs. I guess it’s pretty delicate to tell the firm you are accepting their offer, but holding open and our CDO asked us to consult with them on how to actually execute that in such a way that we aren’t starting off on the completely wrong foot with a likely employer, but it can be done. I fully intend to explore this option and was grateful to find out there is at least some minimal way to level the playing field between the search timelines for firms vs. PI/PS.
Can you please direct me to the public defender positions that bill $900/hr.?
Alternatively, can you please direct me to the corporate clients who are so marginalized by society that they cannot afford lawyers?
Thank you. I look forward to sharing in the wisdom and prudence that you have clearly gained during your three years of law school.
Umm. How about this? “And we are all too willing to scalp our sense of agency and morality to the highest bidder […] one we cannot renounce for a myopic, monetary brand of success.”
Then maybe the 1Ls shouldn’t respond in surveys that there is so much going on at the school that they feel stressed. The whole genesis of the school trying to reign in student events and so on is a direct response to concerns from student surveys of people whining about having too many opportunities at the school.
While I disavow the puerile name-calling, I had the same reaction as “3L” to the Firmly Refuse posters demonizing, among others, Quinn Emmanuel for defending the Kiobel case. The posters say “Can we talk about who firms actually defend?” as though merely representing people who have done terrible things is unethical. They don’t say, “Defending heinous criminals is only okay if you get paid poorly.” Perhaps because that doesn’t seem to make a great deal of sense. Poor people on death row deserve good legal representation — do rich people and corporations deserve bad legal representation?
I suppose that out of context you might say that the poster “demonized” Quinn Emanuel, but even then I think that’s a stretch. The point is that when it comes to EIP and OCS and the general careerist environment at HLS people don’t really discuss much of the work that the big firms actually do. There are many students who come to HLS with the hope and expectation of working at a big corporate law firm, and if they want to work at Quinn Emanuel, well then good for them.
The thrust of this campaign as I see it is that many students come to HLS with the hope and expectation of becoming civil rights lawyers, human rights advocates, or they’re interested in public health and AIDS law or international development, etc. Maybe their ideas aren’t fully formed but them come with intelligence and enthusiasm, and HLS welcomes them and their money with the promise that this institution will help them make some vision of that future a reality.
Yet within less than a year many if not most of them end up on the big law track. When asked about their change of course, most people try to justify it by appealing to the relative scarcity of jobs or some vague sense that this was the only reasonable path for them (as someone with a Harvard Law Degree!). Why can’t we confront this issue head on, and ask how people who claim to be and probably genuinely are interested in human rights can nevertheless head to the firm that defended Kiobel or Chevron?
Based on many of the comments here, I expect the response would be something like this:
“We exist in a static universe in which the HLS individual can choose from only two paths. A career at one of a few dozen big law firms, or a career at a small number of non-profits/PDs that rarely hire. There is no middle ground. This universe is divine in nature, governed by unseen forces against which HLS students, even when acting collectively and with allies, are helpless to alter.”
I refuse to accept such a profound lack of imagination and creativity.
First off, it’s great to see the issue raised and discussed; we ought to talk at least periodically about what 80% plus of us graduate and do every year. And, having seen the process myself, features of it certainly make it very easy to go after something you don’t want.
Here’s the problem. If 100 fewer people did EIP this year and all went looking for public service jobs instead, there would not magically appear 100 new jobs. There is no shortage of qualified, dedicated, bright individuals wanting to work for the public good. There may have been a time in legal education when the tops of classes went to firms and the bottom went and became public defenders or prosecutors. That time is gone. AUSA’s, Justice Department, NRDC, even regular prosecutors offices in big cities – these are all swelled with top shelf legal talent.
What there is a shortage of is money, mostly public money but also of course private giving as well, to finance what is undoubtedly a huge disparity of access to legal services in this country. That the rich can hire Quinn Emanuel and a poor guy can’t get a lawyer to help him take care of a wage and hour violation at his job or a dispute with his landlord is a scandal and a problem, but it is not a problem that more HLS grads wanting to go into public service can or will solve.
HLS can and does do a lot to support people who want public service careers. Maybe they could do more. But HLS can’t make the legal services corporation be funded better (other than testifying before congress, which many professors already do) or stop local and state governments from cutting legal services, or make people donate to foundations that can create public interest positions. HLS can make law school free for those people – it substantially already does – but it can’t create jobs out of thin air. Legal services have not been a political priority in this country under either party’s administrations, and I doubt they will become so anytime soon.
What we can and ought to do is try to become responsible members of a responsible profession, one that tries to use the influence it has to draw attention to the problem. But one can do that from a variety of legal stations, and there each and every member of the class must make his or her own decision. For many that decision will be easy – go the pre-determined route of prestige, good compensation, and top-flight training that we should, frankly, all be thankful this degree affords us. For those who want to do other things, we ought to support them to the fullest, and HLS has many good initiatives that do. But in the same way no one should be peer pressured into EIP, idealism brought on by a poster campaign ought not blind anyone to the fact that, Harvard degree or no, there are a lot of talented people wanting to get in very few doors.
Who lacks imagination? The whole rhetoric of this movement – Public Interest (Good, worthy, inspiring) vs. Law Firms (Evil, greedy, boring) – is not only flawed and simple-minded but also troublingly divisive.
“Firmly Refuse” indeed firmly refuses think outside the cliches and stereotypes.
As a law student, I would have agreed completely with this article, because there is a lot of pressure to interview. But now that I’ve graduated HLS and (one year later) am having serious difficulty finding any long-term public interest job, it feels a lot different. I’m now glad that there was this sorting process, because it weeded out a lot of halfhearted people who were willing to work at big firms. Before I entered law school, I had made the clear decision to avoid large corporate firms, and I stuck with it. I don’t blame HLS for pushing me towards EIP, FIP, etc; in fact, part of me wishes that pressure had been successful.
It’s not as simple as opting out of the firm market. Having made this “choice,” you are left with a limited array of opportunities, and the feeling that your work isn’t valued as highly as your classmates’. Public interest jobs, even if you can find them, are not always ideal work situations, and have many of the same issues as firms (long hours, sometimes terrible supervisors, lots of pressure) without the corresponding compensation.
“LAW schools are intensely political places despite the fact that they seem intellectually unpretentious, barren of theoretical ambition or practical vision of what social life might be. The trade-school mentality, the endless attention to trees at the expense of forests, the alternating grimness and chumminess of focus on the
limited task at hand – all these are only a part of what is going on.
The other part is the ideological training for willing service in the hierarchies of the corporate welfare state.
To say that law school is ideological is to say that what teachers teach along with basic skills is wrong, is nonsense about what law is and how it works is wrong, is nonsense about what law is and how it works; that the message about the nature of legal competence, and its distribution among students, is wrong, is nonsense; that the ideas about the possibilities of life as a lawyer that students pick up from
legal education are wrong, are nonsense. But it is all nonsense with a tilt; it is biased and motivated nonsense rather than random error. What it says is that it is natural, efficient, and fair for law firms, the bar as a whole, and the society the bar services to be organized in their actual patterns of hierarchy and domination.
Because students believe what they are told, explicitly and implicitly, about the world they are entering, they behave in ways that fulfill the prophecies the system makes about them and about that world. This is the linkback that completes the system: students do more than accept the way things are, and ideology does more than damp opposition. Students act affirmatively within the channels cut for them,
cutting them deeper, giving the whole a patina of consent and weaving complicity into everyone’s life story.”
The fact that HLS has the most generous loan repayment program in the country is not proof that it’s actually generous enough for all students, particularly those who had personal loans and other non-educational debt before entering law school. If you choose to work a firm summer to pay off this debt, suddenly the borrowing that you have to do to replace that student contribution is not eligible for LIPP. And then you get trapped in the system, suddenly shoved into the same category of privilege as those kids who came in with significantly positive net worths. You are on your own with that debt. Ironically, LIPP is more for the “needy” kids who came straight through from college without savings or debt and whose parents can probably support them through a few rough patches (hence the coverage for loans taken to replace parent contributions) than for the truly needy, debt-laden kids who were on their own before law school and will be afterward, for whom even a single month of unmanageable debt payments would be catastrophic.
And for those who realize during law school that they would like to transition into non-legal careers before they are ten years out of law school, LIPP just isn’t that great. As soon as you quit that nice public interest job with no savings in the bank, you’ll be slammed with that same $2,000 in monthly loan payments. Good luck making that work without some cushy corporate job!
I’m sympathetic to the cause, but let’s not let the system off the hook. I’m not convinced that HLS has really thought through all of the financial pressures that students actually face.
@Realistic 3L:
I think your point is important and actually lends support to the campaign’s cause. We should be discussing the system and the ways it pressures and influences students. Many of the commenters here seem intent on either blaming the system or blaming the individual students. I don’t see why we can’t confront both the systemic pressures and also the ways students react to those pressures.
As for your point about LIPP, I think that drawing attention to the inadequacy of such programs really calls out HLS for its empty promises. It is important that we do so, because HLS’ supposed support for public interest work legitimates the school’s structure, its role in the legal industry, and the career choices its graduates make. If the response to the article’s challenge is that the institutional architecture that supposedly supports public interest work is in fact faulty, then that is something that clearly needs to be discussed more openly.
I admire the writers for purposefully writing a simplistic article with mostly exaggerated rhetoric in order to allow themselves to be attacked so that ppl will publicly state the reasons why they’re wrong. Otherwise, all the jaded, experienced 2-3Ls would just talk sense to the few 1Ls they happen to talk to. Sometimes you gotta let ppl pillory you for the public good. Good job!
“Firmly Refused” is in sharp contrast to “One Day’s Work,” a great initiative that not only promotes public interest but brings students together and helps them encourage and support each other. While I’m really saddened by “Firmly Refused”s callous condescension toward their own fellow students, I’m most troubled by the incredibly divisive nature of this movement.
@4L: You put your finger on something that most people in this discussion seem to ignore: “There is a critical need for low-cost legal services in this country, but most people don’t need lawyers to represent them before the Supreme Court; they need lawyers to draw up a simple will; to advise them on taxation matters for their small businesses; to defend them on DUI and domestic violence and petty crime charges; to help them delay foreclosure for a few months; to file their fifth appeal from an air-tight conviction and an error-free sentencing; etc.”
However, I am a little troubled with the conclusions that you (and others) draw from this: “It is wonderful if you want to represent these people, but you should realize that a lot of that work isn’t rocket-science-lawyering; it is somewhat simple stuff that may leave some HLS alums feeling morally fulfilled but intellectually and professionally bored. And it leaves many lawyers feeling demoralized and frustrated, wishing they could be involved in the high-profile cases that change the law, or lobby Congress to reform consumer finance laws or drug sentencing laws.”
I think that this attitude represents one of the biggest non-financial obstacles to the large-scale entry of HLS grads into legal sectors that are hurting for bodies. Somehow, since entering law school, we’ve all become convinced that we should seek the most challenging work, and that we would be wasting our brilliant minds if we weren’t pushing the envelope with every billable hour. First of all, perhaps the middle-class legal sector is lacking in challenges precisely because so few creative lawyers are on the other side of the table, keeping people on their toes. More importantly, though, how is this complaint a response to the moral imperative to use our legal educations to do good? If it’s wrong to say that we care more about money than about helping people (although I take it that you disagree), we need to start believing that it’s equally wrong to say that we care more about maximizing our own opportunities to make ourselves feel smart than about helping people.
And FWIW, I worked before law school, and most of what I did was pretty mundane. But you know what bothered me more than the lack of challenge in my hour-to-hour work? The fact that I didn’t share the values of my company, and I disagreed with the role that I was playing in that system. I felt *more* intellectually stimulated then, because I wasn’t taxing my brain to work on problems that didn’t fire me up (my job was not that hard), so I had more mental energy to reflect on what I was doing, what I was reading, and what was going on in the world around me. Most of us are high-intellectual-needs types, but let’s give ourselves more credit. If our brains are itching to be more creative, they will find something to grapple with. Work isn’t the only source of intellectual stimulation.
Across the country, murderers, rapists, child molesters, and domestic terrorists are often set free due to procedural technicalities, misleading and confusing arguments, and aggressive legal tactics.
Can we talk about who public defenders actually defend?
As a graduate of a top 5 law school and a 2nd year attorney working in public interest, I’ll say that I didn’t submit to the pressure funnel, but that it was definitely not easy to stay firmly rooted. I had to literally insulate myself from all of the messaging at my school targeted at getting us into firms. I appreciate the insights of this article because I wholeheartedly relate to this experience.
I love how no names are associated with this campaign. I’d love to see some students publicly commit to not taking big firm jobs. The conspicuous absence of any names reeks of people keeping their options open.
(1) Anonymous said: “Call me crazy, but committing the vast majority of your twenties to transactional work for a firm run almost exclusively white men defending almost exclusively white men is an inherently political and moral decision. To pretend it’s just a career move is wrong.”
You’re not crazy; you’re just wrong. I never said it was an apolitical decision. I sympathize with your concerns that students are committing to work for firms where they will defend individuals/corporations who perpetuate values that the students (most likely) disagree with. This is a serious problem that lawyers have to deal with, because we are constantly called upon to represent clients who do awful things. I wish there were more discussions about this at HLS; though, I do remember having quite a few meaningful discussions in my legal professions class, for what it’s worth. But that is just what it is to be a lawyer. If we all had an imperative to represent only clients whose values are consistent with our own, then the justice system would cease to function! I disagree with and resent the implication (and direct statements that other commenters have made) that it is immoral for lawyers to represent “Big-Bad Corporations” like Chevron or BP, Kiobel, etc. Ignoring (as this entire poster campaign has so blatantly done!) that little principle of “innocent until proven guilty,” even if we assume the clients we represent are guilty, we still must believe that they have a right to representation.
Do not impugn the morals of your fellow students because they choose to represent, for example, well-funded corporations rather than, for example, indigent individuals. (I say for example because like I said in my earlier post: not all law firm work is for big corporations, and not all law firms at EIP are “big law”!) I’ll limit the discussion to litigators defending clients (as opposed to corporate work or plaintiffs’ attorneys), and say this: all of these clients have been accused of wrongful conduct, whether it is securities fraud or tax evasion, or violent crimes like murder or rape. Every lawyer has to decide for him/herself what his/her moral limitations are. Moreover, the posters attacking firms (which I won’t even touch on, because…ugh, how tasteless) distorts the reality of the work that firms do, which mostly involves stuff like tax fraud, non-compliance with administrative regulations, or antitrust violations: conduct that, while certainly wrong, tends to cause more disparate, indirect harms. I can understand why some lawyers can sleep better at night defending such relatively indirect harms without tangible victims, as opposed to defending, e.g., indigent violent defendants like rapists and murderers. And sure, Firmly Refuse folks, you might feel better defending the latter group, because you recognize that they are (most likely, depending on the defendant) systematically disadvantaged by the justice system and the structure of the world generally, and you feel good about being their advocate. Good for you; I feel better about our justice system knowing you are zealously defending such defendants. Maybe I’d feel a little bit safer on the streets if these violent criminals had slightly less brilliant lawyers, but oh well ;). My point is, everybody needs to make their own personal decision about who they represent in their professional career. None of us should criticize each other for deciding to represent any client, because there is blood (literal or figurative) on all of our clients’ hands.
(2) @Realistic 3L responds to my post saying, in pertinent part: “I think that this attitude represents one of the biggest non-financial obstacles to the large-scale entry of HLS grads into legal sectors that are hurting for bodies. Somehow, since entering law school, we’ve all become convinced that we should seek the most challenging work, and that we would be wasting our brilliant minds if we weren’t pushing the envelope with every billable hour.”
Realistic3L, I think you over-read my point. I said that simple, non-rocket-science-lawyering work “may leave SOME HLS alums feeling morally fulfilled but intellectually and professionally bored.” I said and genuinely meant “some.” I don’t think all do feel that way, and I’m glad that all DON’T feel that way. You say that we badly need HLS-trained lawyers to work in the “middle-class legal sector,” because it is “lacking in challenges precisely because so few creative lawyers are on the other side of the table.” Well, maybe. But you are challenging my premise, which was that much of the critical need for low-cost legal services is work that is *truly* mundane. Most people who need legal services have extremely straightforward, simple legal problems: they need a lawyer to draw up a simple will, help them get a TRO, represent them on their DUI, incorporate their small business, etc. I suspect that in 90% of these cases, there’s no creativity or unique skill required. I know HLS alums who would disagree with me on this, but I think it’s totally fine that HLS students still want to do it! Not all HLS alums want or need to be highly challenged intellectually to be fulfilled, and nobody should judge them for wanting to pursue this path. It is THEIR personal/moral/professional decision about what is the right path for them.
But I take you to be saying that whether or not the work is intellectually exciting, we still have an ethical imperative to help people rather than to “feel smart” or intellectually fulfilled. I think I have made clear that I reject the premise that an HLS degree comes with the ethical duty to accept any particular type of job. And I strongly reject your suggestion that there is something morally repugnant about prioritizing our own personal desire for intellectual stimulation over a desire to “help people.” An HLS degree prepares students to make all kinds of incredible contributions to society, but hey, accuse me of being a Randian all you like: I believe that nobody has an obligation to live his or her life solely to serve others at the expense of his own happiness. Furthermore, the argument cuts both ways. Some have argued that when HLS alums pursue such unchallenging, simple legal work, it is the waste of an HLS education; like “MIT engineering PHDs going out and fixing toasters.” Under this argument, HLS alums have some sort of imperative, by virtue of having this training, to do the most cutting-edge work. I can see both arguments, and I think they’re wrong. Each student needs to decide for him/herself what is fulfilling. We don’t live our lives for anybody but ourselves. I hope all of us will contribute to the world in a way that makes a positive change. Some of our positive changes will be more direct than others. But none of us should be comparing our moral worths based on our immediate (or even long-term) career decisions.
It’s run by Unbound and the Board is listed at: http://www.legalleft.org/staff/
Hear, hear.
I’m a 2L at HLS and I find this article, and the movement behind it, profoundly offensive. My only hope is that neither the law school administration nor any law firms pay attention to this movement’s assault on the vast majority of HLS students. It is no wonder that the students behind this – a small number of small-minded, selfish people – are remaining anonymous. They should be ashamed of themselves.
I come from one of the poorest areas of New York City. My parents are working class laborers who often have trouble putting food on the table. They were not able to contribute any money to my undergraduate or graduate education. I am facing hundreds of thousands of dollars of education debt and it’s up to me to provide for me and my family’s future. I am extraordinarily grateful for the opportunity to study here, and for the fact that I will be able to pursue fascinating, high-paying work at a law firm after graduation.
So where exactly does the Firmly Refuse movement get off judging people like me for working hard to improve our standing in society? Since when is climbing your way out of the lower class “a myopic, monetary brand of success”?
Don’t get me wrong: the Low Income Protection Plan is fantastic, but going to law school to make as little money as my parents do is a luxury I can’t afford. And LIPP only works because most of us won’t need to use it; if too many of us pursue low income work and participate in LIPP, the program would break down. Why denigrate the people who make your life choices possible?
The people behind this movement know nothing about what it is like to be disadvantaged in America. Maybe in addition to using their legal degrees to represent the indigent people like me, they might treat us with some dignity and applaud our efforts to emerge from poverty.
If you firmly refuse to work for a law firm, I won’t judge you. But could you consider abstaining from coercing the rest of us into pursuing your dreams? Treating us like Pavlovian dogs who salivate when offered big firm salaries is far worse than that the HLS community advice that OCS graciously offers you.
Finally, if you think that your efforts will help the public interest community at Harvard, you are misguided. Those of us who make lots of money are the ones who make initiatives like SPIF and LIPP possible. I used to be one of those people who planned to give back to HLS after graduation. After learning about this despicable campaign, however, I will be sure to never give a penny to public interest programs at HLS. Here’s hoping other students and alumni follow suit.
I KNOW 4L AND SHE’S BRILLIANT, SUPER HOT, SINGLE, AND UTTERLY BRILLIANT. HER ANALYSIS IS EMINENTLY REASONABLE AND MARK WEBER SHOULD SEND HER A GIFT BASKET WITH A LOT OF CHOCOLATE.
“Each student needs to decide for him/herself what is fulfilling. We don’t live our lives for anybody but ourselves. I hope all of us will contribute to the world in a way that makes a positive change. Some of our positive changes will be more direct than others. But none of us should be comparing our moral worths based on our immediate (or even long-term) career decisions.”
Very well said. Can’t agree with you more.
I share your sentiment. I’ve donated 600 dollars to “One Day’s Work” to support students who want to pursue public interest careers. But after I saw my summer firm featured in one of “Firmly Refused”s snappish posters, I almost want to ask for a refund. Surely these folks wouldn’t want their careers to be funded by the Evil Big Law.
Since Ayn Rand has been invoked… While it is certainly true that people are entitled to choose their own happiness over community-centered values like altruism and civic service, what Rand and her followers never seemed to comprehend is that that entitlement does not extend to an exemption from community scorn and shame sanctions. Rand perhaps justified herself to her own satisfaction, but everyone else just felt sorry for her or angry at her need to proselytize (which perhaps evidences her deep dissatisfaction with her self-justification efforts). Act selfishly and the rest of the world will disapprove of your morals. Those who choose to defend the armored citadels get gold as their reward while those who defend the castaways get praise.
Joe Smith killed his wife and two young daughters when she threatened to leave him after discovering he was molesting their children.
Can we talk about who public defenders really defend?
In response to a report that someone might be smoking marijuana, a team of police officers raids the wrong address and proceeds to shoot and kill the family golden retriever in front of a five year old child, and proceeds to charge the homeowner for assault and resisting arrest when she tries to break away from the officer to shield her crying child.
Can we talk about who state prosecutors really defend?
Members of the Nazi party wanted to conduct a march and demonstration in a predominantly Jewish community filled with elderly holocaust survivors.
Can we talk about who public interest lawyers really defend?
The federal government conducted a raid on a small organic medical marijuana grow operation in California, legal under state laws, destroying the facility and confiscating the assets of the collective, who primarily consist of elderly cancer patients who they have threatened to charge and imprison under federal drug laws.
Can we talk about who federal prosecutors really defend?
http://abovethelaw.com/2012/04/the-commendable-yet-futile-harvard-law-campaign-to-just-say-no-to-biglaw/?show=comments#comments
2L FROM LOWER CLASS BACKGROUND: I share your frustration and concern at the tone of the campaign. You can express frustration at what these students are trying to do, but it seems misplaced; these students are targeting students who came in with one intention and left with another.
I guess you can mock the group as small minded or whatever, but it’s hard to see how “selfish” applies to them any more than it applies to you. You said, “the people in this movement know nothing about what it is like to be disadvantaged in America.” How do you know? And does coming from a particularly disadvantaged background grant you the freedom to go and represent corporate interests that ultimately hurt (through lobbying, union-busting, etc.) the poorest and weakest communities in our country? Not all jobs are the same and not every attempt to “emerge from poverty” is a noble or even respectable endeavor.
I don’t know. I share your frustration. And we all have our own, deeply personal financial struggles. Still, it seems fair to question what so many students do with their degrees, especially when the reasons students themselves give (you’ve heard them before) sound like they’re based in anxiety and sometimes desperation. You’re right: Every student’s reason for taking these jobs is not the same. But it doesn’t mean we can’t talk about the jobs they choose.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQM8UKgt3Qs
Look, I don’t think the pursuit of money is evil. I think the pursuit of money at all costs- not only to society but to yourself- is. Our resources are not so scarce that we are all fighting for survival (not us, at this school, in this country, that is)- we have crossed a threshold and are now amassing an excess- of wealth, power, and prestige. But to what end? I would submit that for the most part, our pursuit of excess is mostly about managing other’s perceptions of ourselves. But does so doing actually make US happier? Life is short and finite and death is imminent- and we can never really control other people’s perceptions of us; so why do we put so much stock into them as our primary source of validation? What’s the point?
We have allowed our structures and contexts to define us- and so the only way to manipulate that definition of ourselves is to be able to manipulate the structures and contexts of our worlds. That takes some kind of social capital, right? And the most universally valued form of social capital is money, hence our relentless pursuit of it. If it weren’t money, it would be something else- whatever enables us to manage the dissonance between how we view ourselves and how the world views us.
It seems to me that the only way to really get to the heart of the issue, then, is to operate outside this paradigm- to find a way to define ourselves, and to also see others- as more than, larger than- as transcending the structures they operate within. We imagine ourselves as these infinitely deep and complex beings- but we don’t view other people as infinite in the same way that we view ourselves as infinite. We are guilty of creating the very dissonance for everyone else that we ourselves are struggling against.
There is a lack of imagination when it comes to how we perceive other people, and so we fill in that unknown with whatever context/structure they represent or fit into.
How do we STOP this nonsense, and what do we replace it with?
*I must credit Prof. Roberto Unger for providing me a language, a space, a forum, and the time, to dwell on these issues to the extent that this post is at all sensical and at the tip of my tongue.
I’m not an HLS student but I’m a 3L to another top 10 law school. This is an interesting discussion to have but it seems as if the focus on EIP and the 2L job process is misplaced and may serve to alienate a lot of students.
1) Most students I know came in talking about their interest in public service because it was the politically correct thing to do. However, they were obviously interested in the biglaw money or the prestige rat race that comes with V5 vs. V10 vs. V50 firms. I think this had to do with 1) the political culture of the university and law school, especially among K-JDs, 2) little information or knowledge about what biglawyers or public interest lawyers actually do, or 3) little information on the entry-level job market. You could tell the people who were dead set on public interest- they tended to have very specific career goals, would do internships during the school year, or had prior work experience. However, the people who spoke vaguely about international or constitutional law, their semester studying abroad in Africa, or all the cool clinics and externships in social justice mostly ended up working biglaw.
2) I’ve become extremely frustrated at the unspoken understanding between professors and students at my school. We pretend to listen closely while they gently chide us for going into big firms or joke about our salaries or the supposedly mind-numbing work. However, they are being paid astronomical sums of money in both salary and benefits. This simply would not happen if all the students who claimed they wanted to enter the public interest actually did. As 2L FROM LOWER CLASS BACKGROUND alluded to above, were the school to send half it’s students into public interest it would quickly run into difficulties funding loan assistance, placement services, and summer stipend programs- thereby making it an undesirable destination for public interest students. At my school, we have had substantial cutbacks in these programs despite not a large increase in the proportion of students entering public interest. Any more strain would send the entire support system tumbling.
If Dean Martha Minow or the HLS Faculty were really devoted to public interest, they would quit their cushy jobs and go work at Legal Aid. Or even better, they would slash their own salaries and cut tuition, so students could afford to take lower paying jobs or start their own practices catering to low or middle income clients. Unfortunately, elite law schools operate as they can because they send most of their graduates into lucrative private sector jobs. Therefore, students see 200K in loans as a good investment and alumni have more money to donate to the school. Almost all of my school’s physical space excepting the bathrooms seems to be named for biglaw firms or one or the other biglaw partner or guy who struck it rich moving over to finance. The top professors are given “chairs” (not nice mahogany ones) named for the founding partners of elite New York corporate firms. The amount of money moving through my law school every year is insane- that’s all trickle down from the money corporations and banks pay to hire law firms to hire law grads from Harvard and other elite law schools to do law work.
3) I work at a government office that is doing amazing work directly litigating against the worst offenders of the financial crisis. They require two years of biglaw experience minimum and most attorneys have 3-5 years of biglaw litigation experience. The job market is tough for government and public interest attorneys.
I was someone who initially agreed with the spirit of the Firmly Refuse campaign. However, after reading this comment and some of the others to similar effect, I’ve been convinced by their brilliant analogical reasoning. Its true, defending big corporations like Shell and Chevron is exactly like being a public defender.
Public defenders defend poor people, and protect their rights, even when nobody else will. Big law firms defend a different kind of person. They defend corporate persons, and in law school we learn that corporate people have rights just like regular people, and that they need lawyers to help them defend those rights.
Like many of the regular people public defenders defend, corporate people are a minority. There are 300 million regular people in America, and only 6 million corporations. That’s why its so important that corporate people have lawyers who will stand up for them and protect their rights, especially when all of the regular people gang up on them and try to stop them from spilling industrial waste in the Amazon or helping corrupt governments torture and murder people.
What HLS could do: Help teach students to start and join high-quality solo and small practices, which make up the vast majority of the bar and are where millions of needy people can be served in fields like employment, family, criminal defense, discrimination, immigration, etc. That’s how to make more jobs appear. Being at HLS has a way of making you so risk-averse you can only conceive of joining a mega-international firm, government office, or national nonprofit.
You have a lot of strange misconceptions about LIPP. I came to law school after 3 years of work, no parental support, and had some undergrad debt. LIPP has been great for me. Also, LIPP is NOT dependent on a certain kind of job, as most schools’ programs are. If you have a low salary and high debt, they send you money *even if you are in the private sector* This helps people at small firms, for instance. Finally, if your 10-year plan is slamming you, you can switch to Income Based Repayment (IBR). The financial pressures are there, but you’re demonizing a program much better than you think it is.
I am well aware of what LIPP offers, and that it works for some people. I’m not demonizing the program, but rather those who think that it has erased all of the financial pressures facing recent graduates entering the job market. LIPP is not so great that anyone who finds it inadequate should be called out as an excuse-making liar. It is generous, but some might find that it doesn’t bridge enough of the gap.
My post refers to consumer debt, not education debt. LIPP does not cover non-educational borrowing. So you either service that debt through law school (which is stressful and unmanageable for some) or you take a summer job to pay it off, but then you have to borrow to replace your student contribution from summer earnings, and that borrowing is not covered by LIPP.
I’m not talking about the kind of “no parental support” that means your parents expect you to cover your own expenses. At this point in life, most people are on their own in that sense. I’m talking about the kind where, even if the bottom falls out from under you, your parents can only watch helplessly as your life spirals out of control. The kind where your parents *have* no money.
LIPP is indeed dependent on a certain type of job: the job must be law-related or in the public sector. Some (perhaps most) people certainly want to stay in the law, but some do not. For these people, even halving the required monthly payment and going on an IBR plan might still leave them with a crushing monthly payment ($1000-$1500). Have you seen interest rates these days?
To reiterate, LIPP is great and many people benefit from it. But it doesn’t work for everyone, and I find it distasteful that so many HLS students (most of whom, statistically, are NOT from poor families) feel entitled to drag their poorer classmates through the mud and make them feel guilty for deciding that they need the money that law firms can give them. (See my post below for more.)
I suspected that you wouldn’t take well to the moral imperative idea, but I wanted to throw it out there so that the people who think the financial question is easy would have occasion to pause over something that they usually don’t discuss.
If we really are entitled to judge others for caring more about wealth than helping people, then why shouldn’t we judge them equally harshly for prioritizing intellectual stimulation over helping others? In fact, shouldn’t we be even more critical of the intellectual stimulation claim, given that people can more easily get intellectual satisfaction than money outside of their full-time jobs?
I respect your right to disagree with both lines of critique, although I hope that even you will agree that there is a limit to the extent to which we should feel morally free to participate in activities that actually harm others. However, for those who think that our privilege comes with more robust duties than that, I would like to see us move beyond financial motives to explore the other motives that we so often take for granted.
“LIPP is indeed dependent on a certain type of job: the job must be law-related or in the public sector.”
Is that wrong? I don’t think so. I am talking about the people who don’t want to be in the law. I know that it’s hard for most law students to imagine, but there really are people who decide after a year or two of law school that they probably won’t stay in the law forever. I think it’s unfair to characterize the category of jobs that are not covered as “quite small,” when in fact it includes the vast majority of employment opportunities in the country (and indeed the world).
See below for my discussion of the small firm/solo practice issue. I think we might actually agree on the idea that perhaps we should be pushing more people to take that route. However, some people just don’t want to be lawyers.
And, putting aside the job choice issue, I still think that LIPP doesn’t provide enough support that absolutely anyone can rely on it, for all of the reasons that my other posts explain. I’m not saying that any of these reasons apply to most or even many of the people who don’t take advantage of LIPP, but I do suspect that most of people who *are* in the position that I am describing feel alienated and misunderstood when they hear their more privileged classmates trashing their decisions to gain some financial stability for the first time in their lives.
I find this whole conversation really interesting, and I’m glad we’re having it. I am happy to share my personal experiences in hopes to A) give some context and a face of sorts to the type of student this campaign is targeted at; and B) provide one more narrative for 1Ls to consider when they’re deciding whether or how to approach EIP.
I came to law school set on public interest work. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do because, to be honest, I didn’t have much of an idea what most lawyers do, but I knew the general field I wanted to work in. I had heard about the “funneling” tendency and I was so set on public interest work that I made two of my non-law school friends promise to keep me accountable — if I even considered working for a firm, they were to remind me why I came to law school in the first place. I have since come to understand the naivete of my approach: I was reacting against Big Law because it was Bad without really thinking critically about what choices I should make.
I worked at a non-profit in my desired field my 1L summer, and I networked with a lot of people who have exactly the jobs I would like some day. Some of these jobs are in government, and some are at non-profits. Every single attorney I met with that summer told me the same thing: go work at a firm first. Get some experience being an actual attorney, figure out what the hell you’re doing and how you work best, prove that you can do the job, and then come talk to us. I was dismayed, but I signed up for EIP.
I worked in a big firm my 2L summer. I loved it. I was shocked and a little disturbed to realize how much I enjoyed everything about it — the work was incredibly interesting and stimulating, and I really liked the people at the firm. The firm I worked at places a huge emphasis on pro bono work and it’s very much part of the norm. I found a partner who spends 60% of her time doing pro bono work in the field I came to law school to work in. She mentored me and I got to work on some very exciting and impactful cases with her. It’s exactly the kind of work I want to do, and the law firm resources and funding increase the probability of success.
Let me be clear: the firm I worked at has probably represented some unsavory entities and advocated for things I don’t personally believe in. I don’t know for sure because I haven’t looked into it, but I can’t imagine many legal jobs where that wouldn’t be the case. Additionally, if I go back, I know that I will not get to devote as much of my time to pro bono as I would like, and that much of my work will be corporate. That’s one of the trade-offs.
I’m lucky enough to have a clerkship next year, so I don’t have to decide immediately. I’m still considering applying for fellowships and government jobs; I’m also considering going back to the firm. During my 2L summer I networked with additional public interest and government attorneys whose jobs I would love to have, and almost all of them repeated what I had heard the previous summer: you need to work at a firm for a few years first. Personally, I think this is an unreasonable norm in the legal profession, and I think we should fight against the idea that you have to go to a firm to get trained for the positions you want. But I’m not willing to put my career at stake to engage in this battle.
My end goal is still to end up working in public interest, but I realize that the best choices for me may not lead me on a straight path. Besides the reasons I mentioned above, here are a few other reasons I’m considering returning to the firm after my clerkship:
– exceptional maternity and paternity leave. My partner and I may want to start a family in the next 5 years, and 18 weeks paid maternity or paternity leave would be really great.
– there are a lot of ways to serve the underprivileged still available to me: as a board member of organizations I care about, through well-funded pro-bono work (which frequently includes assisting public interest organizations on large and expensive projects they can’t manage alone), and by volunteering in the community
– let’s be honest: I am deep in debt. A large amount of this debt is LIPP ineligible.
– did I mention that I really enjoyed the day-to-day work? I enjoyed it more than the work at the non-profit my 1L summer and more than the work I’ve done in two different clinics.
I don’t think everyone will find these reasons compelling, but they will certainly play into my personal decision-making and I wanted to articulate them for my peers who may not understand my decision and for 1Ls who are considering EIP.
I agree with part of that. The school could do way more to try to help people who are interested in hanging out a shingle; I’m not really aware of too many courses or clinical opportunities that would give people the resources – how to set up a business, manage money, etc – to start their own business.
I still stand by a good part of what I said. It isn’t that there are literally no employment lawyers or family lawyers or whatever. As you say, that’s what most lawyers do. It’s that legal services are expensive – you can bill at a tiny fraction of what biglaw firms charge, even essentially bill at cost and make no profit at all, and still make services unaffordable for huge numbers of people. Poor people cannot pay for them unless someone else – say a government – is paying the lawyer. Some countries do things like provide vouchers to poor people that they can give to lawyers, who then exchange them to the government for money. Or you can just have non-profits or the government employ the lawyers, whichever.
Jobs don’t appear because people start firms. Jobs appear when those demanding the services are given a way to pay for them. If poor people could pay – be assisted by the government to pay – lawyers would come out of the woodwork to meet the demand. We don’t have a lawyer supply problem.
Insightful and balanced observation. Thanks for sharing your experience.
I just want to point out that Firmly Refuse is not affiliated with One Day’s Work, SPIF, OPIA, or Student Financial Services, which administers LIPP. Please don’t penalize these important programs because you disagree with a campaign sponsored solely by Unbound, the journal of the legal left. It is possible to disagree with the claims and goals of Firmly Refuse while simultaneously supporting HLS students pursuing public interest work by supporting those programs whose ideologies you do agree with.
My mother works for a homeless outreach center. She always told me there were two ways I could grow up to be a good person that she’d be proud of: 1) I could have a career in service or 2) I could have a career making money, and then donate a generous portion of that money back to the causes that are important to our family. For the moment, I’ve chosen the latter. Do you think ACLU, Legal Aid, and NAACP pay their bills with altruism, dreams, and good intentions? These groups operate thanks to private donors, and many of your big law classmates will fill that role. Your time would be better spent encouraging those making the big bucks to give back to the causes that originally inspired them, rather than guilting them into taking a public interest job that doesn’t exist.
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I just have to say that it is wildly ironic that I saw some of the founding members of Firmly Refuse at the 2012 EIP three months ago.
It’s hard to flee the personal biases that can manual every single student’s reaction to your campaign similar to this. For anyone who is presently a 2L or simply a 3L using a company regulation organization work, you may inevitably and rather subconsciously look for the weakness in this particular argument-because it implicates you as being a moral agent and it criticizes your conclusion as likely coerced and ethically mistaken. When you are a community curiosity college student that wishes to struggle versus the enormously effective and pervasive corporate influence over the supply of lawful products and services, this campaign can be a god ship. I am the latter. I’m a public interest college student chief and 2L at Northwestern.
Hey Firmly Refuse leaders/organizers/conspirators,
If you believe so wholeheartedly in your ideals and are so willing to trash others (the people who work in OCS, the law students who choose to work at law firms, big law firms themselves), why don’t you at least have the courage of revealing your identities? If you are presumably unashamed of the work you are doing with this campaign, why are you hiding?
Methinks the lady doth protest too much. I’m fairly certain that most of you Firmly Refuse people actually do participate in EIP. in fact, I met your founder and he laughed about how he was doing EIP because public interest jobs pay too little. Perhaps his grimey personality isn’t representative of this whole organization, but I think the HLS community deserves to know exactly who is proposing all of this fanciful ideas.
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