Fellowship of the what exactly?
5 second summary:
Boalt is now guaranteeing funding for at least one summer of work in the public interest/service area. Excluding judicial externships.
In the words of one of my wiser classmates, "Why the f*** should it matter that you're working for the SEC or a judge?"
Adzhemyan, 1L, concurring.
Boalt is now guaranteeing funding for at least one summer of work in the public interest/service area. Excluding judicial externships.
In the words of one of my wiser classmates, "Why the f*** should it matter that you're working for the SEC or a judge?"
Adzhemyan, 1L, concurring.
Labels: DE, Kevin Smith, Legal Education Costs, LRAP
posted by Armen Adzhemyan at 4:36 PM
19 Comments:
Yes -- your wiser friend points out the horizontal equity issues. But what about the vertical equity issues? If I'm volunteering for Berkeley Legal Aid and have a trust fund that is footing the bill, why should another student's loans be funding me?
If there's not enough money to fund externships in addition to *all* PIPS work, wouldn't it be better to change the system completely by funding summer voluntary work on a need basis rather than simply funding some types of service and not others?
As to the first comment, reducing tuition (or fees in our case) would only reduce my eligibility for loans. Not really a solution.
As to the second, yes, my wiser colleague also noted that there SHOULD be a need-based system. I concur with that as well.
Specifically he said something along the lines:
"If these externs later go on to become clerks, who then become judges down the road, why shouldn't everyone have an equal shot of getting them, instead of just limiting it to those with rich parents."
Here-here.
Is it possible that "excluding judicial externship" simply means that while Boalt can guarantee jobs in public service, they can't guarantee those slots in judge's chambers, which are harder to line up?
Your "wiser" friend is right -- neither should be funded. Rather, it should be limited to students (1) who need the money, (2) are serving a underserved community, and (3) do not plan on getting a big firm job upon graduation.
I pay full tuition with no financial aid at this place and I don't want my money going to some whiny sucka 1L with rich parents for a "careerist" move like working at the SEC (or for a judge).
Excluding judicial externships, my anonymous friend, means just what it sounds like. Maybe you were only trying to be clever by suggesting that it isn't a big issue because most students don't get offered externships. Perhaps, but that doesn't justify systematically denying funding to students with externships that would be available if they had other PIPS jobs.
Most (all?) law schools systematically exclude externs from funding, and the closest thing to a justification we hear is that the long-term benefits of an externship are compensation enough. Taking advantage of this opportunity involves short-term costs, and those with fewer resources find that cost harder to bear.
Incidentally, the most rational choice for those who would want to take an externship if they had funding is probably to take one even without the funding - the long-term benefits of externships probably outweigh those costs for most people. If this calculation comes out the other way (or if people are irrationally cautious), however, the effect of this system of funding might be that those who enter law school with more resources are disporportionately represented in every career path in which externships help one succeed. Most legal careers fall into that category.
Maybe people with more resources are not more likely to become judicial externs for that reason. If so, the better-society argument loses most of its appeal, but we still have the old saw that it's just not fair that life is easier for people with rich parents.
Ummmmmm, seems to be a supply and demand issue. Dean Edley wants to encourage public sector and public interest work through the fellowships. There is a more-than-adequate supply of potential externs who apparently don't need such incentive, so the school and the administrator of the courts don't need to pay.
If the idea is to fund jobs that provide legal services that the market normally doesn't otherwise provide, then you exclude judicial externships because the market already provides an overabundence of that kind of service.
If the idea is to fund jobs that the students really want, then excluding judicial externships is counter-productive.
But I'm betting that the idea is the former, not the latter.
It isn't just a question of whether externship posisions will be filled - of course they will. The question is who will fill them. Funding externships might affect which students choose to compete for them.
What does everyone also think about also excluding all paid internships, no matter how low the compensation? One position I was looking at pays the federal minimum wage.
Also if you get any other outside funding, like a fellowship, you can only draw from the $4000 so that you have a cap of $5000 for summer funding. If I'm reading this right, then it seems that if you get fellowship funds of greater than $1000, each additional $1 over $1000 results in a corresponding $1 reduction in your Boalt grant.
Really disincentivizes people from applying for fellowships, dontcha think?
I've heard of this "wise friend" -- though I happen to think he's more of a village idiot type. Anyhow, he may be on to something here, and I think his reply to these points would go something like this:
1) Externships are prestigious. That's terrific. So is working for the ACLU or the DOJ. What's the difference?
2) While the long-term benefit of externships may outweigh the short-term costs, there's still the little matter of paying for those short-term costs. What is the limited income extern to do? Max out his Visa card? Find an emergency loan? Survive on tuna-melt crusts fished from the wastebin at Zeb?
I guess the real go-getters (or at least those not on Atkins) can do as much...but the rich kid doesn't even have to worry about that stuff, which leads to....
3) A socioeconomic skew in precisely the area that incubates future legal 'elites.' If externships are so presitigious, and lead to so many wonderful jobs down the line, shouldn't Boalt be going OUT OF ITS WAY to ensure that lower income students have a fair shot at them? How can Boalt on the one hand bemoan the lack of diversity among SCOTUS clerks and professors and federal judges, and on the other hand help perpetuate the system by driving minorities toward *funded* summer positions?
4) So other top schools don't fund externs? Fine. Let Boalt be the first. This is a chance for Boalt to distinguish itself. It would send a powerful message to future applicant classes: EVERY student gets funded their first summer one way or another.
Lord knows that, as our ranking falls, our faculty unravels, and incoming students grow wary, we should offer some evidence that we're improving the place.
5. And don't forget fundraising! I would expect that an unfunded summer extern 5 years down the line would look on requests for contributions with detached amusement. Or maybe amused detachment.
Or he might even think, "They raised my tuition, gave the $$ to everyone else doing supposedly *real* public interest work, and now want money from me? Hey, as Tony S might say, 'Go fuck yourself.'"
That certainly doesn't seem to be in Dean Edley's interest.
6. Christ, can't Law & Tech just write a check to fund all this? I swear to God they have unmarked, non-consecutive hundies sitting in a potato sack up on the 5th floor...
\\
Only a wise village idiot would quote Tony Soprano.
I don't know how you guys got the idea that an externship is prestigious or would help one become a Supreme Court clerk. It's just a standard, non-embarrassing thing to do for your 1L summer if you don't get a gig at the ACLU or a fully paid summer at a well-known law firm.
I don't know how you got the idea that everyone, or even most, or even some, necessarily go through that progression.
I think it is pretty clear that the Dean is just trying to do what many other schools do: provide funding for students doing public interest work for the summer. Externing for a judge is not public interest work. Working for the SEC is. I think the difference is that externing (or clerking for that matter), is most often a means to an end-- you aren't doing a judicial externship because you plan to be a career clerk. You might, however, be interested in finding out whether a career with the SEC might be a good fit for you (along with its accordingly lower salary than a private sector equivalent). You'll find this same distinction in most LRAP programs--no one is getting their student loans subsidized while they clerk.
Second, my understanding is the "our tuition" isn't going to paying for this program. Funding this program is done through fundraising-- for instance, one of the specific categories that 3L's can donate money to (for the class campaign) is "summer fellowships". BLF (the traditional source of many grant for public interest work) will still be providing support for students who can't get the Boalt Fellowship (often 2L's). And, Boalt has been provding these school-funded fellowships for at least the past couple of years, it was just very competitive.
Finally, I think the Boalt program is especially well-designed because of the option for a student to get funded for a second year with a forgivable loan for those who go into public interest work. I'm a 3L at Boalt now, and I know that my summer work decisions would have been made much differently if I would have had these options avaiable to me. As a result, I worked at a paid government position my first summer and a firm the second summer. This was basically for financial reasons. I now know I have no interest in working at a firm, yet I was never able to do the type of public interest work that I am now interested in pursuing as a career.
Sorry for the long post. I've just been following the development of this program closely.
Judicial externships aren't funded because they can't be. It's against the rules. If you accept an externship. Something to do with the independence of the judiciary!? As far as Boalties not being able to land them, you all are clueless. I externed last summer and the Federal building in San Francisco was like an extension program of Boalt.
And the Earth is flat because it has to be. Something to do with not falling down while walking.
I assume that paying law clerks does not make the judiciary a puppet of the other two branches, therefore summer fellowships to externs (paid by the school) will likely not have a similar effect.
"I assume that paying law clerks does not make the judiciary a puppet of the other two branches..."
The fact that the judiciary pays its clerks (out of its own monies) is fundamentally different than having someone else pay.
Can't you see this?
Also, this has nothing to do with the other two branches of government. It has to do with other influences and the appearance of impropriety. When you start as an extern you get to sign a form upon penalty of perjury, as I recall, that you aren't being paid by anyone.
Good luck with the tilting at windmills.
The only agreement I signed was to not expect anything from the court...that's FAR different than preventing me from receiving a fellowship for the work. I dare say even a Federal court would realize the First Amendment implications of that...but who knows, maybe 1Ls have their heads so far up their asses they haven't noticed any such thing.
Second, during the year, externing with a court doesn't raise any barriers to work-study funds. As fashion conscious as California is, I doubt the independent judiciary concerns are seasonal.
But assuming everything you say is true, at the very minimum, we are owed such an explanation by the school rather than the standard, well you don't get jack shit because that's how it is, case closed.
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