How Important Is Prestige To Public Interest Lawyers?

The most successful public interest lawyer in the country went to a T14 school, right?

Who’s the most successful public interest lawyer in the country?

The first name that occurred to me is Mary Bonauto of GLAD (Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders).  She’s been called the Thurgood Marshall of the movement to end sexual-orientation-based discrimination, and she’s arguably led the charge that’s resulted in a deluge of cases striking down same-sex marriage bans and even a Supreme Court decision invalidating a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act.  She’s also a MacArthur Fellow and a lecturer at Harvard Law School.

With a record like this, surely she went to a top-14 law school, right?

Nope.

Northeastern.  Number 93 on the all-powerful US News law school rankings.

Guess what?  Northeastern offers full scholarships.

(And this isn’t cherry picking to make a point — Mary Bonauto’s name is truly the first one that came to my mind when thinking about successful public interest lawyers.)

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The point of this column is to double down on last week’s advice: if you want to be a public interest lawyer and haven’t already made the mistake of paying for law school, then you should go to law school for free (or as close to free as possible).

Quite a few people seemed to appreciate this advice.  Some didn’t.  If there was one common thread of criticism, it was this: taking a full ride likely means sacrificing prestige.  And, according to the critics, public interest lawyers actually care much more about prestige than their egalitarian ideals would suggest.

I’ll admit that this is true in a very narrow sense.  But mostly, in my experience at least, it’s wrong.

Here’s where the argument is right: there are public interest lawyers — entire public interest organizations, even! — that care about hiring graduates of prestigious law schools.  One commenter said of her organization that they “pretty much only hire from the Top 14 with very few exceptions.”  I’m sure that’s true.  But that doesn’t mean it’s a good reason for you to pass up a full ride.  (It also doesn’t mean it’s a sensible policy for the commenter’s organization.)

And that’s because there are also public interest lawyers — the vast majority, I’d venture to say — that really don’t care where you went to school.  Each nonprofit I’ve worked for has employed lawyers from a variety of backgrounds: Top-3 alums, unranked-school alums, and everyone in between.  The same egalitarianism holds for most public interest organizations I’ve encountered personally and professionally, though the balance is different at different places.  I’ve even heard some public interest employers profess an anti-prestige bias.  Focusing on the (probable) minority of organizations that do value prestige is a terrible way to make a decision that could put you $200k in the hole.  (Unless, I suppose, you’re deeply in love with one specific organization that practices this sort of exclusive hiring, and you’re willing to go into extreme debt simply for a shot at working there.)

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If you’re one of those public interest employers who pretty much only hires from the Top 14 with very few exceptions, you really should reconsider.  Hiring exclusively from the Top 14 makes sense for the big firms whose associates make enough money to pay off their student loans — a student who takes on debt from an unranked school expecting to pay it off with a V20 salary does not have sense enough to make it as a V20 lawyer.  But public interest organizations?  You’re missing a lot of good people — not just people who live their ideals and avoid Ivies on principle, but also people who make rational choices regarding the ratio of debt they’re willing to take on versus their anticipated salary.  Who knows?  You might even be missing out on the next Mary Bonauto.

(By the way, I hate relying on essentially anecdotal evidence for arguments like this, but I haven’t encountered any data that would allow me to consider the issue in a truly analytical way.  If you can point me to any interesting data on public interest employment, please email me at publicinterestatl@gmail.com.)

Earlier: The Single Most Important Piece of Advice for Aspiring Public Interest Lawyers


Sam Wright is a dyed-in-the-wool, bleeding-heart public interest lawyer who has spent his career exclusively in nonprofits and government. If you have ideas, questions, kudos, or complaints about his column or public interest law in general, send him an email at PublicInterestATL@gmail.com.