HLS in Focus

There’s been a lot of discussion around the blogosphere today about the recently announced changes to HLS’s financial support for careers in public interest.  As this financial support is critical to many of your decisions on where to attend law school, I want to make sure you have the relevant facts, some of which have been erroneously reported in other forums. 

First off, HLS is increasing the total funds used to support financial aid and the public interest careers of its graduates and continues to spend more on such programs than any other law school in the country. 

The recent announcement contained many positive changes for our students, including:

• An expansion of our loan forgiveness program (known as LIPP, the Low-Income Protection Plan) for 2010 and 2011 graduates, to include those — typically deferred law firm associates — working in unpaid, public-service positions.  Overall LIPP funding is set to expand by ~$1.1M this year;
• A renewed commitment to guarantee Summer Public Interest Funding (SPIF) to all interested students, with an increase in funding of ~$800,000 this year; and
• A new set of fellowships (the Holmes Fellowships) for 12 graduating students, funding one-year of public service work.  This augments preexisting fellowships such as the Kaufman and Skirnick, the Beagle Fellowship at NRDC and a variety of human rights fellowships.

The announcement also highlighted some areas where the funding available to students is decreasing somewhat. Specifically:

• SPIF funding will now be offered for 8 weeks, rather than 10, due to dramatically expanded interest in the program (e.g. 375 students utilized SPIF in 2008, whereas over 600 are expected to do so this summer); and
• Our Public Service Initiative pilot program will be replaced with a successor program for future entering classes. (The program will still be open to current students and those admitted last spring who deferred).  A PSI Task Force appointed by Dean Martha Minow is currently working to develop the details of the successor initiative, to be announced no later than March 2010, to continue to promote public-interest opportunities for future classes. The program is being restructured to respond to the changing economic climate; at the time the PSI was created, public interest jobs were easier to obtain.  Given the changed legal job market, we have decided to reexamine the most effective way to make it possible for students to enter a career in public service.  We expect that when the successor program is in place, it will continue Harvard Law School’s unrivaled support for students who wish to pursue public service after graduation. Furthermore, we are confident that any detailed comparisons between what we offer and what is offered by our peer schools will show that HLS is more than competitive.

The net effect of these changes is a positive one for the HLS public-interest community, as they demonstrate a strong commitment to maintain, and in some cases increase, funding for public interest, even during the national economic downturn.

It’s also important to remember that HLS students do extremely well in securing public-interest jobs and fellowships during summers and after graduation.  This is in large-part due to having the superb Office of Public Interest Advising, the largest, most experienced Public Interest Advising team in the country with an unparalleled network of contacts in the public sector.   Additionally, HLS is one of the few law schools that guarantees summer public interest funding for all students, creating the opportunity to explore public interest positions over the summer with minimal financial impact.  

I hope this is helpful in clearing up the recent changes to our financial support for public interest careers. 

- Josh