If your New Year’s Resolution is to get a handle on your student debt, Equal Justice Works is here to help! Check out their message below detailing their upcoming debt webinars for this month:

As we enter 2013, educational debt remains a crippling burden for far too many, and especially for those who want to pursue careers in public service. Equal Justice Works provides in depth information on loan repayment assistance programs and relief programs like Income-Based Repayment and Public Service Loan Forgiveness to help everyone pursue the career of their dreams.

If you or someone you know needs a detailed guide to dealing with their student loans and earning forgiveness, it’s never too late to give them our new student debt eBook Take Control of Your Future as a gift! We go into the details borrowers need to understand and the exact steps they need to take to manage their educational debt and take control of their future.

 Our weekly U.S. News blog, the Student Loan Ranger kept us busy during the last month of 2012. We reported on how the increasing student debt burden is impacting parents, took a look at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s report on private student loan servicers, discussed the feasibility of public service careers for law school graduates and examined the true scope of student loan borrower distress.

Every month, our free, live webinars also provide a comprehensive overview of the debt relief options available for students and graduates – including Public Service Loan Forgiveness and Income-Based Repayment – and provide viewers with the opportunity to ask questions. Click here to view a schedule of our webinars and to register for an upcoming session.

Our January sessions include:

Plan Before You Borrow: What You Should Know About Educational Loans BEFORE You Go to Graduate School

Thursday, January 10, 3-4 p.m. EST

Interested in government or public interest work after graduating? This webinar will help you plan ahead and make sure you can take full advantage of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, the most significant law affecting public service in a generation.

The webinar will teach you about:

– Taking out the right kind of loans

– Consolidating or reconsolidating your previous student loans

– How the College Cost Reduction and Access Act can free you to pursue a public interest career

 How to Pay Your Bills AND Your Student Loans: Utilizing Income-Based Repayment

Thursday, January 24, 3-4 p.m. EST

Saddled with high student debt? This webinar reviews Income-Based Repayment, a powerful provision of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act that allows anyone with high debt relative to their income to reduce their federal student loan payments.

This interactive webinar will teach you:

– How to understand your federal loans

– How Income-Based Repayment works and if it is right for you

– How to sign up for Income-Based Repayment

Get Your Educational Loans Forgiven: Public Service Loan Forgiveness

Thursday, January 31, 3-4 p.m. EST

For recent graduates with jobs in government or at a nonprofit, this webinar explains how to make sure you immediately begin fulfilling requirements to qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness so that your educational debt will be forgiven as soon as possible.

You will learn about:

– The importance of having the right kind of Federal Loans

– What you need to do to qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness

– How long it will take to have your educational debt forgiven

P.S. –  Don’t forget to register for the upcoming Summer Public Interest Job Search webinars on 01/15 and 01/22, co-sponsored by NALP and EJW!

Interviews are arguably one of the most intimidating and important aspects of job hunting. A bad interview could quickly land you in the “No” pile, while a good interview could give you that final push you need to land the job. So what can you do to prepare for a big interview?

For starters, it’s best to research the organization and develop your own sense of why you want the position. The Forbes Career blog recently posted an article stating that most common interview questions stem from “the only 3 true job interview questions:

Acing your response to an interview question requires pivoting off your basic answer to reinforce your strengths, motivation or fit – depending upon the true underlying question. If you don’t answer the question, you get an F. If you simply answer it, you get a C or maybe a B. An A, and ultimately getting the job in most cases, requires more.

As I’ve articulated previously, there are only three true job interview questions:

• Can you do the job?
• Will you love the job?
• Can we tolerate working with you?

(Strengths, motivation, and fit.)

But what happens when you’re responding to questions from someone who hasn’t been trained in interviewing? Take charge in a way that makes them feel good about themselves and what they uncover about you. To do this successfully, follow three simple steps: Think – Answer – Bridge

1. Think before opening your mouth.
2. Answer the question asked.
3. Bridge to answer the true underlying question.

Career blog The Ladders also recently wrote about one of the most-asked questions during interviews: the dreaded “Tell me a little bit about yourself?”:

The Wrong Response

There are many ways to respond to this question correctly and just one wrong way: by asking, “What do you want to know?” That tells me you have not prepared properly for the interview and are likely to be equally unprepared on the job. You need to develop a good answer to this question, practice it and be able to deliver it with poise and confidence.

The Right Response

To help you prepare, I spoke to a number of career coaches on how best to respond when faced with this question. Heed the career advice that follows to ace this opener:

The consensus of the coaches with whom I spoke:

• Focus on what most interests the interviewer
• Highlight your most important accomplishments

Click here to read the entire Forbes Career article, and click here for the article on The Ladders.

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, ladies and gents.  And Happy 2013.  The Bulletin returns after a one-week holiday hiatus.  You are all undoubtedly looking for an authoritative source to tell you which pop culture trends to follow in 2013, and which to leave behind with 2012.  I am not that source.  (I recently had to spend 10 minutes convincing someone that my suggestion to “watch a DVD” was made in earnest.)  However, the Washington Post’s “The List: 2013” provides zeitgeist guidance in convenient “What’s Out?/What’s In?” format.  Tofu is out, in favor of insects.  That’s all well and good but I still classify both as “things that are not food.” 

Before the public interest news, a heads-up for law students that we’re hosting a public interest summer job search webinar series with our good friends at Equal Justice Works.  Dates: 1/15 and 1/22.  Registration info and all other details here.

Also, here’s a “fiscal cliff” dispatch focusing on two angles that may interest this blog’s readership:

• the potential impact on charitable contributions to nonprofits, courtesy of the Chronicle of Philanthropy: “Throughout December nonprofits [had] been lobbying Congress and President Obama not to impose limits on the tax savings wealthy donors get when they make charitable contributions.  The Senate-crafted plan enacts limits that charities have opposed. It reinstates a provision eliminated in 2010 that reduces the value of itemized deductions by 3 percent for household incomes over $300,000. Write-offs grow more limited the more taxable income a person has, and could reduce the value of deductions by up to 80 percent for the highest-income taxpayers, according to the Tax Policy Center.”
• the potential impact on the federal government labor force, courtesy of Government Executive.

On to the week’s public interest and access-to-justice news.  In very, very brief:

• the ongoing dispute over public defender caseload strains in Missouri;
• Oklahoma AG and legal aid collaborate on program to help low-income homeowners facing foreclosure;
• teaching law students about technology’s role in bridging the justice gap;
• Cash-strapped CA courts could see more cuts, closures;
• a CA county’s public defender sued for not providing counsel at defendants’ initial court appearances;
• ideas for how state-level access-to-justice networks should develop;
• law school clinic news potpourri;
• U.S. farmworker advocates take their pleas for farm access to the U.N.;
• no legislative action last year on Michigan indigent defense system reforms;
• a shift in post-Hurricane Sandy pro bono efforts;
• IOLTA funds to lose unlimited FDIC insurance backing(?).
• Music!

The summaries:

• 1.4.12 – this lengthy piece in The Missourian brings readers up to speed on the caseload controversy surrounding the Missouri Public Defender System.  In 2012 the rhetoric between prosecutors, judges, and those speaking for the defender system was at times quite heated. And there is still much disagreement on how strained the indigent defense system is.
  • And on a related note: “The chair of Missouri’s House Judiciary Committee is proposing reductions in the state’s public defender system.  Republican State Representative Stanley Cox of Sedalia says public defenders would still handle the most serious cases for indigent defendants, but the more minor cases would be bid out to private attorneys.”  (Story from St. Louis Public Radio.) 

• 1.2.13 – “The Attorney General’s Office and Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma are providing free legal help to homeowners who are facing mortgage issues or foreclosure.  The program – Resolution Oklahoma – is designed to help Oklahoma residents stay in their homes or seek the best outcome for their situations. The program is provided by a grant from the Attorney General’s Oklahoma Mortgage Settlement Fund.  The fund was created in March, following a settlement by the AG’s Office with five of the nation’s largest mortgage servicers.”  (Story from LoanSafe.org.)

• 1.2.13 – from a press release: “The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI®) will announce at the annual meeting of the American Association of Law Schools in New Orleans on January 6, 2013 that they have reached agreements with faculty members from six law schools to develop course kits as part of the Access to Justice Clinical Course Project (A2J Clinic Project). Participating law schools include Columbia Law School, Concordia University School of Law, CUNY School of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, UNC School of Law, and University of Miami School of Law. Each participating faculty member will develop and document a course model that uses A2J Author® to teach law students how technology tools can be used to lower barriers to justice for low-income, self-represented litigants. CALI will use those course models to assist other law schools in establishing A2J Clinical Courses as a permanent part of their law school curriculum.”

• January 2013 – “California’s judicial branch and its allies in the legal community are starting off the New Year under a cloud of uncertainty over further budget cuts…. Courts have been decimated by four years of cuts that have reduced the judicial branch budget by about 30 percent, or $475 million. In addition, the governor revealed to court leaders last month that he’s considering sweeping out local trial court reserves one year earlier than expected, which court leaders say would translate into an additional $200 million cut…. Many counties have already eliminated all non-mandatory spending, shuttered courthouses and reduced services. Litigants in remote reaches of San Bernardino County, for example, will have to travel 175 miles to the nearest courthouse starting in May. Los Angeles County Superior Court is considering a major restructuring that would close 10 courthouses and consolidate all personal injury cases to two judges”  (Story from the California Bar Journal.)

• 12.31.12 – “Contra Costa County’s long-standing practice of assigning defense attorneys to indigent criminal defendants after — and not at — their initial court appearance has resulted in a federal class action lawsuit against Public Defender Robin Lipetzky. Point Richmond attorney Christopher Martin, one of two attorneys who filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Oakland on Dec. 21, says the illegal practice could cost the county a minimum of $4,000 for each defendant whose civil rights were violated…. The lawsuit alleges that indigent, in-custody defendants are left in County Jail without an attorney for five to 13 days after their first court appearance, in violation of the right to assistance of counsel from the time one first faces a judge.”  (Full story from the Contra Costa Times.)

• 12.30.12 – Richard Zorza blogs on the priorities which should govern development of state-level access-to-justice infrastructures, and offers recommendations about promoting AtJ’s evolution in the states.

• 12.28.12 – law school clinic news potpourri:
  • 12.28.12 – “When students at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law return from winter break, those enrolled in clinics will enjoy new digs in a refurbished former city firehouse.  The law school in December opened the 6,000-square-foot space, which will now house its 10 legal clinics, just steps away from its main building.”  (Story from the National Law Journal.)
  • 12.27.12 – Stanford Law starting a religious liberties clinic, which “administrators say is the first of its kind at a U.S. School. The clinic was established with $1.6 million in seed funding from the Washington-based Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which supports the free expression of religious beliefs regardless of the faith. Unlike many public interest law groups that support religious freedom, Stanford’s clinic will take on clients from any religion, said director James Sonne.  ‘The point of a clinic is to teach professional skills to law students using real cases and live clients,’ said Sonne. ‘We think the religious liberty aspect offers a unique way to do this work, and it’s something the students get excited about. As our culture becomes more diverse, it’s a great way for students to represent clients whose beliefs are different from their own.’  (Story from the National Law Journal.)
  • 12.21.12 – “The University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law has received a $1 million gift that will permanently endow a student-run clinic that provides legal advice to the poor.  The donation from Sue Ellen Ackerson of Louisville and her family was made to honor her late husband, Robert Ackerson, who founded the Ackerson and Yann law firm. The clinic will be renamed The Robert and Sue Ellen Ackerson Law Clinic.”  (Story from the Associated Press.)

• 12.27.12 – Voice of America reports on a group of U.S. farmworker rights advocates that has gone to the United Nations on the issue of being able to get access to workers on farm property. “[A]  coalition of 28 rights groups, including Maryland Legal Aid, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the labor union AFL-CIO, submitted a complaint to the United Nations on December 13. The coalition argued that the lack of meaningful access to migrant labor camps ‘stymies’ farmworkers’ access to justice and, as a result, ‘violates international human rights law.’  It has called on the U.N. Envoy for Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, Magdalena Sepúlveda, to pressure the U.S. government to allow aid workers better access to migrant farm camps.”

• 12.24.12 – “A proposed overhaul to Michigan’s public defense system will have to wait until next year for action by the state Legislature.  State lawmakers passed a flurry of bills in their “lame duck” session. But there were a number of high-profile bills that didn’t move at all.  One of those would change the way the state appoints lawyers to people who can’t afford one.  Michigan’s public defense system is considered one of the worst in the country….  Critics of the [reform] plan say it would burden cash-strapped county governments, and doesn’t lay out specific standards they would have to meet.”  (Story from Michigan Public Radio.) 

• 12.24.12 – “Eight weeks after Hurricane Sandy, New York lawyers who have been assisting storm victims pro bono say they are in the effort for the long haul.  However, their focus is shifting from the most pressing legal needs in the immediate aftermath of the storm to grinding long-term problems.  At first, the lawyers concentrated on securing temporary housing, food stamps and unemployment benefits for storm victims, and later, documenting damages for homeowner and flood insurance and Federal Emergency Management Agency claims.  Now, people are increasingly experiencing difficulties with FEMA officials, landlords, insurance companies and contractors.”  (Full story from the New York Law Journal.)

• 12.20.12 – “Lawyer IOLTA accounts that help fund civil legal aid and other legal programs are likely to lose their unlimited federal insurance coverage on Jan. 1.  The ABA Governmental Affairs Office says it appears unlikely that lawmakers will act this year to extend the unlimited coverage provided by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., according to an ABA statement.  If Congress does not act, the amount of FDIC insurance available will be $250,000 per client, per financial institution, as long as the account is properly designated as a trust account and there is a proper accounting of each client’s funds.”  (Article in the ABA Journal.)
  • [update from Steve: an IOLTA administrator contacted me to offer some context about this, which I should have thought to include.  To closely paraphrase said administrator: Congress chose not to extend the FDIC’s temporary program that had provided unlimited insurance to certain checking accounts, including IOLTA accounts.  IOLTA accounts remain in the same position as this group of checking accounts — and the insurance picture looks pretty much the same as it did up until the 2008 emergency action that created a temporary unlimited insurance program. The biggest change from the pre-2008 picture?  The insurance cap remains at $250,000 per depositor instead of the pre-2008 cap of $100,000.  There are important details to this, of course, but none that end up treating IOLTA accounts unfavorably.  Here’s the link to the FDIC’s explanation of the change: http://www.fdic.gov/deposit/deposits/changes.html.]

 Music!  In 2006, The Long Winters of Seattle, WA released a pop gem with the album Putting the Days to Bed.   Here’s “Fire Island, AK.”

Great opportunity for a public-interest minded lawyer who wants to get into law school administration and who believes that practice experience is fundamental for the best legal education:

Georgetown University is currently accepting applications for the position of Assistant Dean, Clinical and Practicum Programs. The Assistant Dean reports to the Associate Dean for Clinical Programs, Practicum Programs, and Public Interest and is responsible for (1) the administrative supervision of the J.D. clinical program, (2) the academic administration of the Law Center?s clinical teaching fellowship program, and (3) the development and administrative supervision of the practicum courses.

Georgetown offers 15 clinical courses to its students. Each clinic has 1-2 clinical teaching fellows who are enrolled in the program for two years.

Qualifications: J.D. degree and 5 years post-J.D. experience; superior writing and organizational skills. Experience in clinical pedagogy, management experience in an academic or legal setting, and experience in professional mentoring or student counseling are a plus. This is an administrative, not a teaching, position.

Duties include: developing and implementing administrative procedures and academic policies governing J.D. students enrolled in the clinics and for the graduate teaching fellowship program; coordinating the clinic enrollment process; monitoring the multiple budgets of the entire clinical program; developing and editing publications describing the clinical and fellowship programs; overseeing and developing content for the clinics? web pages; coordinating the review; coordinating a year-long course on clinical pedagogy for teaching fellows; academic counseling to J.D. students related to clinics.

Georgetown is on the cutting-edge in the development of practicum courses, which combine a substantive seminar class and student field work in a related area. In these courses, all of the students in the class take the same substantive seminar. Each student also is assigned either to a field placement at an external organization or to a project that relates to the seminar topic. During the seminar, students are encouraged to critically reflect on the meaning of their field work experiences and what it means to be a lawyer practicing in this field. Duties include: recruiting faculty members to teach practicum courses; designing training for faculty members teaching practicum courses; evaluating the success of the courses and determining what classes to offer again and what the curricular needs are; providing academic counseling to J.D. students in all areas of the curriculum.

View the full listing here (login required).

[photo credit: Vox Populi blog]

By: Steve Grumm

Want insight from nonprofit and government employers about what they look for in cover letters, resumes, and interviews? We’re thrilled to partner with our friends at Equal Justice Works to present two webinars offering tips and best practices on the public-interest summer job hunt. 

 Attorneys with years of application review experience will highlight do’s and don’ts; explain how and why public interest application materials may substantively differ from law firm materials; and explore the dynamics of personal interactions in interviews and networking situations. While the webinars will focus on the summer public interest job search, the information is applicable to postgraduate positions.

• Webinar Uno: Cover Letters and Resumes on Tuesday, January 15, noon Eastern. Register here.  Presenters:
  • Paul Chavez, Senior Attorney, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights on the San Francisco Bay Area
  • Steve Grumm, Director of Public Service Initiatives, NALP
  • Ashley Matthews, PSJD Fellow, NALP
  • Jennifer Thomas, Legal Recruiting Director, Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia
• Webinar Dos: Interviewing and Networking on Tuesday, January 22, noon Eastern. Register here.  Presenters:
  • Nita Mazumder, Equal Justice Works
  • Kate Devlin Joyce, Associate Director of Public Interest Programs, Boston College Law School
  • Daniel Goldman – Assistant Capital Defender, Northern Virginia Capital Defender’s Office

We’ll be taking Q&A during the webinars.  So while we’ll record and archive them, we encourage you to join us for the live webcasts.  Contact me at sgrumm@nalp.org if you have questions.

Getting a summer job or internship is crucial for law students planning to enter the public interest legal field after graduation. As the year comes to a close, take some time out of your holiday break to check out these great resources on looking for a summer public interest job!

The Girl’s Guide to Law School site has a section dedicated to pursuing a public interest legal career. With tips from a public interest lawyer on how to get a job and guest posts from Equal Justice Works on financial options and support for public interest law students, the Girl’s Guide has really helpful resources for students interested in public interest work.

If working for free is not an option for you, check out PSJD’s Summer Funding Guides – including general and location-specific lists – for application information about funding opportunities.

PSJD’s Resource Center is also full of tips and advice directed solely to public interest law students and lawyers. The Career Central page in the Resource Center is a great place to start preparing for the summer public interest job hunt, with information on everything from drafting a cover letter to choosing a specific practice area within public interest law.

Don’t forget to use any resources within your law school available for public interest law students, and good luck with the summer job hunt!

Can’t wait to catch up on the latest public interest law news, career resources, events, and jobs? Have no worries – by entering your email address in the Subscriber section (top of the blog, right sidebar), all new posts will be sent directly to your email!

Also, don’t forget to check out PSJD’s Resource Center for more career-building tools and guides. Happy job hunting!

By: Steve Grumm

Many public-service-minded 2Ls are presently balancing finals and the job search, positioning themselves to be in full job-search mode before 2012 goes to its grave.  1Ls should be focused squarely on finals, in my view, unless there’s a job application deadline before January.  But in the interest of helping summer job seekers get into gear, we hope that they will take advantage of the cover-letter and resume drafting tips we’ve assembled on our Career Central page.  Below are highlights from those resources and some editorializing from me. 

First, though, an important announcement: NALP (which runs PSJD) and Equal Justice Works will present a two-part “Summer Public Interest Job Search” webinar in early January.  The webinars, each 60 minutes long, will take place on:

• 1/15/13 – Noon Eastern – Cover Letters and Resumes
• 1/22/13 – Noon Eastern – Interviewing and Networking

We’ll circulate registration details in the coming weeks.  (In the meantime, you can view a version of this webinar we did last January.)

Okay, here are some cover letter and resume tips we’ve culled from resources on PSJD’s Career Central page:

• Distinguish a cover letter from a resume.  I like this intro from the Michigan Law’s “Creating the Public Service Cover Letter” handout:  “A cover letter is your opportunity to communicate confidence in your abilities, and to reiterate your commitment to, and enthusiasm for, public service work….  Tell [the employer]…the main things you want her/him to learn about you. You should write a letter which addresses the requirements listed by the employer in the posting, showing why you would be an asset to the organization. Letters that merely state your needs and wishes will not evoke an employer’s interest in you.”
  • The cover letter isn’t a reformatted version of your resume.  It’s a companion piece.  Through the cover letter you can tell the employer why this job is the right one for you and why you’re the right candidate for this job.  As noted above, you can pull out one or two of the resume experiences/skills that qualify you for the job and tell what  you did.  You can also express some passion in the cover letter (which is harder to convey in a resume, of course).  I like this very succinct statement about what a cover letter does, from Harvard Law’s Office of Public Interest Advising: “Your letter is an uninterrupted chance to tell an employer about yourself and to add depth to the credentials highlighted on your resume.”
• The cover letter for summer jobs should not exceed one page. (Unlike this blog post).   Employers will likely review many, many cover letters.  It always feels good on the reviewer’s end if a candidate can say what s/he needs to in one page.  (For postgraduate jobs, there may be reasons to go to a second page.  But even those instances are rare.  For a summer job, keep it to one.) 
• Be clear, concise, and conservative in the cover letter’s opening lines. 
  • DO: “I am a second-year law student at [school name] and I am writing to apply for a summer clerkship.”
  • DON’T: “My name is Steve Grumm and this job will be the first step on my path to becoming attorney general.”   First, you don’t need to waste space on your name because the reviewer is already able to find it from the email or letter envelope they received, from your letterhead, and from your signature line.  Second, this kind of attention-seeking bravado will do more harm than good in almost every instance.
• Need Experience to Get Experience(?) – as for resumes, many students confront the perceived “But I need experience in order to get experience!” conundrum.  They wonder how they’ll get consideration from an employer if they haven’t done similar work in the past.  A secret revealed: employers don’t expect you to have a ton of directly relevant public interest experience.  How could you?  Experience is what you’re trying to get, and you’re at the earliest stage of your legal career.  So the trick is to draw parallels and find related skills from past experiences that translate to the work described in a job listing.  An example:
  • A job listing for a summer internship with a group that advocates for migrant farmworker rights may read: “Interns will do outreach at migrant worker camps, interview clients, and educate migrant workers about their rights.”  Even if a law student has done no advocacy in the arena, s/he could draw from any of several past experiences that highlight closely related skills/experiences.  As examples, consider these possible resume bullet points, all of which would stand out to the farmworker employer:
    • “conducted rural outreach to over 75 households for 2010 U.S. Census”
    • “assisted in client interviews as a legal intern”
    • “tutored a class of 20 English as a Second Language (ESL) students”
    • “taught a ‘know-your-rights’ course to 35 high-school students”
• Ditch the “Objective” section.  If your college resume included the “My objective is to secure a position blah blah blah…”, ditch it.  Employers know your objective is to get a job.  Resume real estate is a valuable commodity.  Use that freed-up space for more valuable content.
• Use action verbs and numbers.  I like this tip from UVA Law about language choice: ” Use action verbs and specifically describe your prior work experiences to let a potential employer know what skills you have developed (i.e. drafted a motion to dismiss, deposed two witnesses) and don’t use acronyms when listing your activities (i.e. P-CAP).”
  • In addition to action verbs, numbers stand out, as in the above: “taught a ‘know-your-rights’ course to 35 high-school students.”  
• Bonus Resume Tip: always keep your resume current.  If you’re wrapping up a fall work experience, get that on your resume now even if you’re waiting until January to apply for jobs.  It’s much easier to update a resume when information is fresh in your head.  You can always go back and tailor the resume to specific jobs for which you end up applying.  But it’s best to at least have an up-to-date iteration of your resume.

We’ll share more tips and resources in the coming weeks.  And look out for a registration announcement for our 1/15 and 1/22 webinars.

Fiscal health is a subject that is, for obvious reasons, of great importance to all law students. It bears even more importance for public interest law students, who must balance their passion for legal advocacy with a need to pay for an expensive legal education.

Today, the U.S News & World Report’s Student Loan Ranger blog, written by Equal Justice Works, tackled the feasibility of pursuing a public interest law career in the midst of low salaries, expensive loans and “Big Law” temptations:

…the Student Loan Ranger disagrees that a career in public interest law is not viable; particularly for lawyers who graduated over the last five years, a combination of Grad PLUS loans, income-driven repayment plans, and Public Service Loan Forgiveness has made a long-term public interest career more financially feasible than ever before.

Law students (and other graduate and professional students) interested in public interest careers should use Grad PLUS loans to cover what remains of their expenses after their grant aid and federal direct Stafford loans have been used up. This means they’ll only be using federal loans, which have important borrower protections and access to the full panoply of federal relief options.

Those options include income-driven repayment plans, including Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR), Income-Based Repayment (IBR), and Pay As You Earn. (The latter will be available December 21, thanks to early implementation by the Department of Education.)

IBR— the best option most law school graduates are eligible for—limits the amount borrowers pay monthly to 15 percent of their discretionary income.

Even better, ICR, IBR, and Pay As You Earn are qualifying repayment plans for Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), which provides forgiveness after 120 monthly payments (10 years’ worth) made while working full time at any of a broad range of qualifying jobs, including 501(c)(3) nonprofits and for federal, state, local, and tribal governments. The upshot is that attorneys dedicated to public interest careers can make 10 years’ worth of low monthly payments and then apply for forgiveness.

Click here to read the full article, and check out PSJD’s “Funding & Debt” section of the Resource Center to learn more about financing a public interest career.

Did you miss last month’s educational debt webinars? If so, no worries – EJW is hosting one more webinar on managing student loan debt before the start of the new year! Check out more information below and register here.

Educational debt has become a crippling burden for far too many, and especially for those who want to pursue careers in public service. Equal Justice Works provides in depth information on loan repayment assistance programs and relief programs like Income-Based Repayment and Public Service Loan Forgiveness to help everyone pursue the career of their dreams.

Our new student debt eBook Take Control of Your Future received its first review in the Kindle Store and it got five stars! Please help us spread the word about this comprehensive guide to borrowing student loans, repayment and eligibility for relief programs like Public Service Loan Forgiveness. We go into the details borrowers need to understand and the exact steps they need to take to manage their educational debt and take control of their future.

We were also busy last month writing our U.S. News blog the Student Loan Ranger. We examined the effect of the fiscal cliff on student debt, looked at some new initiatives colleges are using to help students avoid debt  and, of course, examined President Obama’s new Pay As You Earn plan.

Eligible student loans borrowers will be able to enroll in Pay As You Earn starting December 21. The plan caps borrowers’ monthly student loan payments at 10 percent of their discretionary income and provides forgiveness for borrowers still repaying their loans after 20 years. Only borrowers who took out their first federal loan after Sept. 30, 2007 and received a loan after Sept. 30, 2011 are eligible. The Department expects the program to initially help 1.6 million borrowers when it takes effect.

Every month, our free, live webinars also provide a comprehensive overview of the debt relief options available for students and graduates – including Public Service Loan Forgiveness and Income-Based Repayment – and provide viewers with the opportunity to ask questions. Click here to view a schedule of our webinars and to register for an upcoming session.

Our current sessions include:

Drowning in Debt? Learn How Government and Nonprofit Workers Can Earn Public Service Loan Forgiveness

Tuesday, December 18, 3-4 p.m. EST

A must attend for anyone with educational debt planning to work or currently working for the government or a nonprofit, this webinar explains how you can benefit from the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, the most significant law affecting public service in a generation.

This webinar will teach you how to:

    – Understand your federal loans

    – Manage your monthly payments using income-driven repayment plans like Income-Based Repayment plan

    – How to qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness