Reprinted from NALP Bulletin, February 2012
by Mark Goldfarb
Those students and
recent alumni seeking positions in the public service sector face a challenging environment.
Strained state budgets, a slashing of federal Legal Services Corporation
funding and poor returns on
Interest On Lawyer Trust Accounts have led to reduced legal services funding for the indigent.
(Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts, or IOLTA, is a program that allows lawyers who handle nominal or short-term client funds to place these funds in pooled,
interest-bearing accounts. The interest earned on these accounts is remitted to
the state IOLTA program for charitable purposes.) At the same time, the number of
individuals eligible for these services has increased as foreclosure, unemployment, and underemployment rates remain
elevated.
In the past few
years, federal hiring and stimulus funds provided a slight buoy to an otherwise
difficult public service
market. This too, however, has waned in recent months as Congress and the
President have cut funding to
the Legal Services Corporation by almost 15% and have frozen or cut spending at most federal
agencies.
Against this
backdrop, the NALP Public Service Section endeavors to provide NALP members with
more quantitative information on hiring trends and to learn firsthand from
employers about the skills and qualifications they seek in job candidates.
We hope that this
will allow NALP members to provide more informed guidance to students and
alumni trying to navigate the public interest job search. Toward this end, in
September we collected data from employers on recent summer and postgraduate
hiring, hiring expectations for the near future, anticipated “growth areas” in public
interest practice, as well as information on what job seekers can do to be
standout candidates.
This is the second
annual report, which is available in its entirety at www.nalp.org/publicservice.
This article highlights some of the main quantitative and qualitative findings.
A
By-the-Numbers Look at Public Service Hiring
We surveyed public
service employers of all types and received 623 responses, over 200 more than last
year, from legal services providers, public defenders, prosecutors, federal
agencies, and others. The majority of responses came from civil legal services
providers and other nonprofit law offices.
Responses were
geographically distributed as follows: 23% from the Northeast, 14% from the
Midwest, 43% from the South,
and 20% from the West. As the beginning of this article might suggest, public service employers
are not yet back to hiring at pre-recession levels. For summer 2011 internship
positions, the percentage of paid and unpaid opportunities remained relatively
constant as compared to summer 2010. Over 25% of employers reported that they
accommodated paid law students for the summer, while 79.8% reported
accommodating unpaid law students. This trend looks to continue as
approximately 75% of employers anticipate taking on about the same number of
paid and unpaid law students for the summer of 2012. That said, there may be a
slight uptick in unpaid opportunities as 10% of employers anticipate accepting more
unpaid interns in the coming year.
For those law
students intent on receiving paid public service summer employment, it would be
best to point them toward local prosecutors and state government opportunities
as those groups tended to hire the most paid law students per employer.
This is especially
true considering that the other significant source of paid internships in the past,
federal agencies, will likely hire fewer paid interns than last year.
As for postgraduate
employment, the numbers are not encouraging. This year the survey divided postgraduate employment for 2011 graduates
into two categories: permanent staff attorney positions and fellowships. Of
those surveyed, 16.6% reported hiring 2011 graduates for permanent staff
attorney positions, while 21.7% reported hiring recent graduates for fellowship
positions. This data suggest that a greater percentage of employers are taking on
new hires through fellowships. But in terms of aggregate numbers, it’s still
likely that regular attorney hiring is bringing in more new attorneys.
Overall, these
statistics appear on a par with last year’s survey, which found that 31% of
employers hired 2010 graduates for permanent and/or fellowship positions.
Many employers seem
to be getting through resource shortages by accepting unpaid attorneys. Indeed,
more than 21.8% of respondents “hired” recent graduates on an unpaid basis.
As to layoffs, 16.1%
of respondents reported laying off attorneys in 2010-2011, with the majority coming
from civil legal aid and state attorneys’ general offices. With respect to
2012, employers are not forecasting growth in hiring.
Looking
to the Future: Where Do Employers Forecast Job Growth?
The survey asked
employers about practice areas that are likely to grow in the near future. Much
like last year, elder, housing, and health care law topped the list. In
addition, many reported that employment law is strong and that family law and
the need for Spanish-speaking attorneys will continue to grow for the
foreseeable future.
The problem with
forecasting in the public interest sphere, however, is that funding for
services does not necessarily match the need for services. In particular, some
attorneys expressed concerns about whether they would continue to receive
additional resources for foreclosure work that still comprises a significant
portion of their caseload.
What
Do Employers Wish to See from Job Candidates?
The survey also
gathered advice about the types of experiences our students should be pursuing
along with any additional job search tips survey participants would offer to
job seekers. The advice is not surprising. In
terms of helpful experience, the overwhelming majority of employers desire
experience directly relevant
to their specialty or area of law. Many employers specifically seek clinical
experience, and some explained
that this preference is based on their perception that students receive better supervision
in a clinical setting. Short of that, legal aid and public defenders want
attorneys who have worked with low-income individuals, and, if a student is
pursuing prosecution or public defense, he or she should take all the standard criminal
law courses and participate in mock trial.
As far as job
search tips, many employers highly recommend that students learn Spanish or
other languages prevalent in a particular community, and suggested that a
summer language-intensive program abroad might even be more beneficial than a
summer legal internship experience. In addition, legal aid organizations are
really looking for well-tailored cover letters that demonstrate a student’s interest,
understanding, and passion for the organization and what it does. Lastly,
employers suggest that recent graduates gain experience by volunteering or
seeking employment in rural areas.
The survey,
unfortunately, does not point to any bright spots in the near future. However,
we hope that it offers you a more data-driven picture of the public service
employment market and offers you a few tips that you can pass on to your
students and alumni.
Mark
Goldfarb is a Career Advisor at the University of Iowa College of Law. This article
was submitted on behalf of the NALP Public Service Section.
