Law Grads Can't Afford to Fight the Good Fight

Jay Goodman, age 32, says he "really didn't appreciate some of the realities" when he enrolled at Albany Law three years ago. Goodman wanted to do "good work" for a nonprofit environmentalist group such as the Sierra Club or the Conservation Law Foundation. Now that he is graduating with a wife, a 21-month-old baby and more than $50,000 in debt, he says his plans have changed.

"After 10 years, I want the debt paid off," Goodman says. Most likely, that means seeking out a higher-paid position in the private field.

Glinnesa Gaillard, 32 years old and also about to graduate Albany Law, says she is determined to help others, even though she owes $115,000 and is a single mother. "I think that is the duty of being a lawyer" she says.

Gaillard plans to work for a nonprofit that counsels low-income people with housing problems, thanks in part to a fellowship from Equal Justice Works.

If she is lucky, she will end up like 29-year-old Harvard graduate Lea Weems, who says she lives a relatively comfortable lifestyle working public service in Chicago. Weems handles complex cases involving mortgage rescue fraud. One client, who speaks only Spanish, says he was conned out of his house by a broker who made him sign documents written only in English.