Theresa Amato, writing in an op-ed in The New York Times, questions why the demand of Americans for legal services for life-altering civil matters can't be met by all the lawyers who are unemployed (The U.S. ranks 65th for accessibility of its civil justice, she notes).
The reason that unemployed lawyers can't plunge in right away to address the civil justice gap is because 86 percent of lawyers have six-figure debts, she says. But she offers some solutions: professors who have represented clients should be hired to train practice-ready lawyers. Congress should continue the program that forgives law-school debt for lawyers who work in the nonprofit or government sector for a decade. And more incubator programs should be funded by philanthropists to help young lawyers start "low bono" law offices in which clients are charged low prices for legal services.
Hat tip on this piece to my former law school classmate, Joe Ross, who has started a weekly newsletter of his own roundup of important legal news. Check it out at: http://joeross.me/blog/
Lawyer and Legal Journalist
