Ms. JD Announces its Public Interest Law Scholarships!

Ms. JD is pleased to be offering two $500 scholarships for law students working in public interest this summer. Unpaid judicial externs also qualify for these scholarships. This year's essay topic asks applicants to discuss myths about being a law student. Did you experience any pleasant surprises upon starting your study of law? Did you learn any law school 'lessons' the hard way? Ms. JD wants to hear about them. Applications are due no later than June 1st. More information is available at http://ms-jd.org/ms-jd-2008-summer-scholarship-application (you must be logged in in order to apply).

Unintended Consequences and Using the All-Mighty Dollar as a Carrot

There has been a lot of buzz in the blawg-o-sphere this week about Harvard Law School's announcement that it will waive 3L tuition for those going to work for the government or public interest for the five years after law school. I think this news is great. And as Professor Volokh points out, because HLS is a trendsetter among law schools, this just may spark a little healthly competition aimed at loan forgiveness policies amoung elite law schools. Feeling the squeeze of law students loans myself, I would be all for that.

However, what about the possibility of unintended consequences? Today on the Environmental and Urban Economics Blog, Professor Kahn explores the possiblity that this initiative may hinder the representation of women in law firm leadership down the road. The first step to his hypothesis is an assumption that women will take this deal in larger numbers than men. He writes, and I tend to agree that:

Liberal students will be more likely to accept this deal. Will women at HLS be more likely to take this offer? While I have no evidence for this claim, my intuition is telling me that the answer is yes.

In the second logic step, Professor Kahn points out that more women taking this deal to go into public or government service will necessarily mean that fewer go to work at law firms sooner or later as it is very difficult to go to a big law firm after 5 years in public service or the government. This is both for the practical reasons and the pragmatic point that few would want to go to big law after 5 years of public service.

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Social networking for women NGO activists and their clients

PulseWire is in beta testing, open for women who are working in the fields of human trafficking, HIV/AIDS, and water sustainability. Could that be you?

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Why Do Women Dominate Public Interest?

I was poking around the Perspectives magazine articles available online, and I came across An Eye-Opening Tool for Wide-Eyed Law Students, a piece last year about the Equal Justice Works ranking of law schools by their public interest programs. I found two things interesting about the article. First, the approximately 27% of law graduates who enter public interest has remained fairly static since the 1980s. Second, women are presumed to benefit more from pressure on law schools to provide more support for public interest job hunting since women are more likely to take public interest jobs (the article cites a study that roughly 6% of women graduates go into public interest while only roughly 3% of men do--don't ask me why 6+3 doesn't equal 27%, apparently the stats cited in the article are from different data or counting different types of jobs as public interest).

Hanging out my own shingle: what being Ms. JD means to me

My summer internship is over. I spent 10 weeks totally immersed in public interest law, and as a result I have completely changed what I had so carefully planned to do after graduation. No longer do I plan to remain an academic, nor do I wish to pursue a job at a large firm. More than likely I will open a solo practice so I can do public interest law.

Avoiding burnout on the Death Row defense bar

Public interest practice is a wellspring for reform of the entire legal profession

We have a duty to use our law degrees to advance women's rights

As women entering the legal profession, I believe we all have the duty to use our law degree to help advance the rights of women in some way. Before I even started law school at Catholic University, I knew that I wanted to use my law degree to advance women's rights. Since I have started law school my desire to provide legal services to the poor and underprivileged women has only strengthened.

International Human Rights Lawyering: Can I do my own gender justice?

My first year of law school has taught me there is no law. At least, there is no law that is not first experienced by and filtered through the participants to a case or a suit. Each complaint tells a story of men and women who have suffered. Sometimes they lose money, other times rights, and in the worst of cases, the victims lose their dignity and lives. Women experience "The Law" much differently than the men who construct it, and their stories must be told.

Public Interest: Woman-Friendly or Friendly Woman?

Are women attracted to public interest law because it is a friendlier environment for women? Rather, the opposite seems to be true. A 2004 study by Harvard Law students showed that twice the percentage of women than men said that “helping others” was one of the most important factors in choosing a career. Relatedly, women have achieved more top-level positions in the non-profit sector than in private law. This seems to imply that women are attracted to public interest law because they see it as a means to fulfill their desire to help others. But, does this also suggest that women see for-profit law as just that – for profit?

Will Rogers once said, “Make crime pay. Become a lawyer.” The above facts about women in public interest law beg the question of whether women see private law as embracing this adage, and not about justice and helping others.