Deferral Stipend, Job Searches

In Chicago, Deferred Lawyers a Big Hit with Public Interest Organizations

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Last month, we learned that deferred lawyers got along pretty well with their temporary public interest colleagues in New York. Yesterday, the Chicago Tribune reported that public interest organizations were more than happy to have temporary talent who had their Biglaw dreams deferred for a year:

The opposite ends of Chicago’s legal profession found a way to come together out of economic necessity to partially consume the supply of highly educated young lawyers looking for work. Despite several challenges, the unusual experiment has paid dividends. It also has sparked discussions of whether a more permanent model of apprenticeships can be developed that would train law-school graduates at a lower cost and benefit public-interest legal organizations that are suffering from funding constraints while attending to a greater need because of the recession.

“We absolutely would do it again,” said Robert Acton, executive director of Cabrini Green Legal Aid, or CGLA. “It would be a very generous act on the part of law firms.”

Permanent charity from law firms? Don’t bet on it. We’ve already seen evidence that the generous deferral stipends extended to the class of 2009 are being scaled back for the class of 2010.

And really, we shouldn’t expect major American businesses like law firms to be all that charitable. It’s one thing for a firm to encourage its attorneys to take on some pro-bono cases, but really isn’t it the job of law schools to — you know — invest the resources necessary to train young lawyers?

Remember, it’s not just law firms that have had to pay stipends to people who are not billing for the firm. Public interest organizations also have to find money in the budget to handle the influx of new, temporary talent:

Still, the offer of free labor initially met with some resistance in Chicago’s legal-aid community. Acton, at first, was one of the loudest critics of the program.

“We’re a small staff handling as many clients as possible,” he said. “We didn’t have built into this system time to spend training and supervising someone who knew little about the subject matter and would only be with us temporarily.”

Acton also had a more practical objection. The additional overhead costs of equipment would stretch an already thin budget. Others expressed concerns about the motivation of furloughed lawyers who had been exposed to the trappings of the “Big Law” lifestyle — a private office, free smart phones, break rooms stocked with coffee and snacks, and staff to meet their every need.

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That sad truth is that somebody — be it law firms or public interest organizations — has to train new hires. The young lawyers need it because the American system of legal education does not prepare young attorneys to actually practice law. How law schools justify taking up three years of students’ time and charging them ever more money for an education that doesn’t prepare them to actually practice is beyond me. But until law deans collectively adopt an outcome oriented approach to education, somebody is going to have to pay to clean up the mess law schools spew out into the profession.

At least recent law graduates with no skills and deferred promise of Biglaw riches went into their deferrals with the proper sense of humility. And they got something out of the experience:

The experience in public interest law is helping change perceptions among lawyers who have not had much exposure to nonprofits. Dan Spira, 26, was excited to start at Sidley Austin last year after graduating from Washington University School of Law in 2009. He has spent the last six months at Equip for Equality, a legal advocate for the disabled.

“I think sometimes there’s the perception that legal-aid lawyers have such a volume of cases they don’t have time to give individual attention,” Spira said. “I’ve been very impressed with the quality of attorneys here.”

Rachel Margolis, a second Sidley associate at Equip for Equality, represented a client in a mediation at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and helped him get his job back.

“The client called me back and said I improved the quality of his life,” Margolis said. “It’s been a rewarding experience.”

[Margaret Benson, executive director of Chicago Volunteer Legal Services] said the associates will become cheerleaders for legal aid. “They will talk us up in the community,” she said. “That will help us in the long run.”

Remember that the next time you feel the urge to call wanna-be Biglaw associates self-entitled brats. Many of them went to law school thinking that three years and $100,000 later, they’d be ready to be a practicing attorney. Once somebody takes the time to teach them what they should have been learning in school, they’re not only happier, they’re in a better position to make an informed decision about their own futures.

Law school grads use deferred time to work at legal aid groups [Chicago Tribune]

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Earlier: Correction: Culture Gap Between Deferred and Public Interest Attorneys Not as Wide as We Were Led to Believe
Skadden Sets the Pace for Start Dates and Salary Advances Instead of Stipends?

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