Forgive us, Canada! Student Debt & Legal Aid

As freshly graduated students and young lawyers, working in the public sector or in legal aid is a difficult path to decide upon, for those who wish to pursue it.  As graduates of Canadian Law schools with usually around anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000+ in debt, it is one of the first things on all of our minds when we are about to graduate.  I have personally always wanted to work in Legal Aid, and ideally right out of law school.  However, over these three years, as I have watched my debt increase significantly, this has become a non-option if I want to pay my loans off in a reasonable time.

Unlike Canada, the American Bar Association has a sturdy system of loan repayment assistance programs (“LRAPs”), which provide loan repayment or lower loan payments to graduates entering specific types of employment, usually law-related public interest jobs. At the federal level, attorneys who work for a non-profit organization, the government, or a few other qualified employers may be eligible for forgiveness of their federal direct loans after making 120 payments and meeting other qualifications.

At the state level, 26 Loan Repayment Assistance Programs (LRAPs) in 24 states provide loans or grants to civil legal aid attorneys and in some cases, other public interest attorneys, to help them pay their educational debt. Many of these programs are set up to comply with the tax code provision that makes the assistance non-taxable income, which helps even more.  There is also the option of Employer Loan Repayment Assistance – many civil legal aid organizations and some other public interest employers provide loan repayment assistance to their attorneys.

In California for example, legal aid firms are well-equipped.  The largest, Bay Area Legal Aid, has eight offices around the Bay Area with many attorneys at each location.  The lawyers are dedicated and passionate, and many of them are from prestigious law schools such as Berkeley, Columbia, Harvard, etc.  Additionally, a lot of them have been working in legal aid since they graduated law school, as this is a tangible option when they are guaranteed loan forgiveness.

These programs make working in the public sector so much more accessible, and even desirable. From an access to justice perspective, it greatly benefits the public to have access to plenty of lawyers who are well-trained and from the top schools in the country to represent them.

The opposite is true in Canada. In Alberta, for example, legal aid is funded by the provincial and federal governments, and the Alberta Law Foundation – yet funding is a constant issue.  There have been many layoffs in legal aid and the salaries are not nearly as high as one could find in a firm, or in-house position, so students are choosing the latter.

On a more positive note, there has been some movement toward loan forgiveness for lawyers. The Canadian Bar Association’s B.C. branch (CBABC) has been lobbying the provincial government to add lawyers to StudentAid BC’s loan forgiveness program. There is a high need for lawyers in rural communities and the CBABC has been attempting to address the issue through their program Rural Education and Access to Lawyers which is funded by the law society and the law foundation in the province.

Additionally, some Canadian law schools are experimenting with income contingent loan programs. At York University’s Osgoode Hall, there are a few students included in a program that provides funds to cover tuition costs, requiring repayment depending on the student’s financial status before and after law school.  Osgoode has implemented a pilot project that is an income contingent loan program aimed at granting eligible students loans to cover tuition, which are to be repaid according to their post-law school income levels.

All of this is definitely a start, and I am very optimistic that one day we can get to a place where legal aid is more accessible for all – including the lawyers that want to pursue a career in it.

7 Replies to “Forgive us, Canada! Student Debt & Legal Aid”

  1. This topic really resonates with me Charlotte. Like yourself, I find myself more and more concerned with the increasing debt that I have as result of attending law school. Your desire to work for Legal Aid right after law school is similar to my desire to work in the human rights field. However, as I find myself more and more concerned with the prospect of paying off my educational debts, in addition to possibly owning a home in the future, I have found myself becoming more and more aware that my options are slightly limited in terms of practice areas. Having said that, my passion will always be people and community, so I know I will find a way to create possibilities for myself that fulfill this passion.

    At the same time, if we had more options in terms of repayment assistance from either the provincial or federal government, it would be possible for more people to consider attending law school as a real possibility. This would increase access to justice since finances would no longer act as an immediate barrier to gaining a legal education. Lawyers would also be more likely to work in rural communities rather than major city centres where there is a higher demand for their services due to the higher populations in these cities, again increase access to justice. If the CBABC is successful in their efforts to lobby the provincial government to add lawyers to StudentAid BC’s loan forgiveness program, I would be excited for the positive impact this will have on the legal field. The benefits of debt forgiveness would be experienced not only by members of the legal industry, but also by the community.

    1. Thanks for your post Salona. I agree with you about more options for loan payment – I had never thought about that. Maybe there should be some sort of proportional payment program; if you make $X then you pay $Y, etc. I think also a big issue is that although the government is pretty good in terms of letting you have leeway when you graduate, the banks are not. For me personally, my line of credit through my bank is my biggest worry, because they are dinging you for interest from the day you take out your loan…

      Debt forgiveness like you mentioned would be a great solution to this.

  2. Great news in relation to this post!

    The government of Canada has introduced changes to the student loan repayment regime effective November 1st – Students will not be asked to repay the amount unless they start making at least 25k a year. Also there are new rules for families of 5 that are more lenient than the previous repayment regime.

    This definitely doesn’t solve the student debt crisis in its entirety, but it’s a start towards the right direction.

    CBC article: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/student-loans-new-rules-1.3830661

  3. When I applied to law school, my personal statement was filled with both (1) business law and commercial litigation and (2) hopefulness and passion of working in the field of sex work in India and the related human rights issues. Today, as I search for articles, I am focused solely on the former. Interestingly, I have convinced myself that my human rights “hobby” cannot come into play until my 10th year of call – and then of course I worry about my prospective family and my responsibilities outside of my career. Slowly, the dream of “helping people” in the way I always imagined fades away. Thank you for writing about this and bringing light to this very real issue! I hope the legal landscape of Canada gets on board with loan forgiveness soon!

  4. Afras Khattak

    Great post Charlotte. I think you hit the nail on the head. As you indicated, it kind of forces law graduates to work for a major firm when we leave school because of debt concerns. It’s unfortunate that as of now it seems that major firms seem to be the only ones that can afford to pay the salaries required to reduce our debt. Hopefully the CBABC’s request goes through. It would be a small step to resolve this problem in BC at least.

    Apart from loan forgiveness, maybe funneling more money to actual legal aid and government programs, may make those opportunities more attractive. Easier said than done, I know, but if the issue is the lack of financial consideration, maybe programs designed to address this aspect could put more of an emphasis on law students seeking out these opportunities. I’m thinking of public or private organizations subsidizing some of the salaries much like how the REAL program is subsidized. Of course there would have to be a mutual benefit in this kind of scenario, but a part of the strategy could be to locate organizations that would benefit from this type of agreement.

    These are just a few thoughts but great post on your end nonetheless.

  5. Charlotte, I absolutely agree that government should take action to address this issue and help law students, so that they can work in public interest law and make a positive difference. I also think that law school tuition and post-secondary tuition, in general, should be more affordable, so that students are not burdened with a large amount of debt in the first place.

    Our government and post-secondary institutions should look at models that have been implemented in other countries. In the UK, a bachelor’s degree is not required prior to entering law school. This means that students spend less time and money in order to pursue a law degree and this would lead to lower overall student debt. In some other European countries, university education is free.

    If students did not have to struggle repaying a mountain of student debt, they would be able to pursue the career that they really wanted to when they came to law school in the first place, such as working in public interest law and advocating for social justice and human rights.

  6. I like the blog post Charlotte, but I have to say that I disagree with the premise; I am not a fan of loan forgiveness, especially in a legal aid type of setting. I think that rather than give the loan forgiveness to support those lawyers who want to make a difference and work in legal aid, the government should instead be supporting legal aid offices to pay a living wage to lawyers who work for them. The problem with loan forgiveness is that you will then always have new lawyers working for legal aid, since they are the ones that would receive the most benefit with that kind of incentive. But what happens when their loans are paid off, and they are stuck with low legal aid wages? Chances are, they will go to different types of work to pay bills and support families. This would create a revolving door of people in legal aid only receiving help from newer lawyers, rather than more experienced lawyers. I would argue that there would be an increase in legal aid work quality by retaining experienced legal aid lawyers who have been working for them and in the system for a long time, rather than continually flipping experienced lawyers for new ones. Finally, with loan forgiveness, there would be no incentive for established lawyers to work legal aid files. If legal aid could pay a higher wage, then experienced lawyers in the field who may have never worked legal aid would have a financial incentive, or at least there would be no disincentive, for them to do public interest work. I think loan forgiveness is a step in the right direction, but I think that stepping up what legal aid and public interest advocates can pay would be a better long-term step in getting help to those in need.

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