The National Legal Aid and Defender’s Association is asking for our help to convince Congress to fund the John R. Justice Act. The act, passed last year, provides for student loan forgiveness for those law school graduates who take jobs in prosecution or public defense. It allows $10,000 of loan forgiveness each year for the first six years of service. But the bill needs funding.
Loan forgiveness allows public defense offices to compete with private firms to recruit and retain the best new lawyers. With the crushing debt burden so many law graduates leave school with, loan forgiveness could make public defense a viable option for more new lawyers.
Please help by contacting our senators to support funding of the Act. Senator Mike Crapo, himself a Harvard Law School graduate, is on the Senate Budget Committee. Here is a link to the "E-mail Me" page on Senator Crapo's website.http://crapo.senate.gov/contact/email.cfm. Senator Jim Risch, a U of I law school graduate and former Ada County Prosecutor, can be e-mailed at: http://risch.senate.gov/webform.cfm.
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