Blame it on the Lattes.

This (insane) article from the Washington Post suggests that law students are going into massive debt and reluctantly turning down the low paying public interest jobs they really want not because of the tuition, room & board, text book costs, bar exam prep monopolies, and three years of deferred income, but rather because of the expensive lattes and espressos some students buy.  Really. 

Now, I am a big believer in what my mom told me ("if you're going to drink coffee, drink it black"), and my students can confirm that I urge them to live beneath their means as much as possible, but shouldn't we focus on the real costs?  And at what point will we take a hard look at opening a second, less expensive route to practicing law?

Comments

[S.cotus]

This article was bad. Very bad. The fact that law school employees are thinking this way does not speak well for the law school.

If law schools want to reduce student debt load they can do so in a lot more ways besides telling students not to spend $3-$4/day to hang out at Starbucks. Here are my suggestions:

1) Encourage professors not to require students to purchase books. Most law school material is public domain or cheaply licensed.

2) Provide students with quiet places to drink and study. Most law schools have quiet libraries, but most librarians don't allow coffee-drinking. Although many law students are loud (and annoying) a lounge with an ENFORCED quiet rule might solve the Starbucks problem.

3) Provide students with gift cards to Starbucks. Or, provide catered coffee (like some schools already do.)

4) Reduce tuition. Provide better financial aid. Provide aggressive loan forgiveness.

There is something extremely disturbing about the implicit assumption that students just out of school are choosing (or not choosing) to become public defenders. Many public defender agencies can have over 100 applications for each spot. They can choose from extremely well-qualified students from "top-ranked" schools that have loan-forgiveness programs. (I have heard tell that Seattle University does not take loan forgiveness seriously.) Moreover, they can also choose from lawyers with 5-10 years litigation or clerking experience. I might be in the minority, but I think that people who work for public defenders or practice "public interest" law should be extremely experienced and competent, and not people just out of school.

Indeed, I don't quite see why people object to a law student making $150,000/year for three years, paying back his debts, and then working for something good. In this way, everyone is happy. 1) Student gets an education; 2) student pays for coffee; 3) Starbucks gets richer; 4) law firms get to suck the soul out of someone for three years; and 5) public interest cause gets a real lawyer with real talent (and more personal connections) rather than someone just out of school with little experience.

[David Hricik]

Another solution: come to Mercer Law School, where there is 1 Starbucks (opened June, 2005), but it's 5 miles from campus, and coffee here is $1 for a vending machine latte.