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Date: October 7, 2002 FEDERAL STUDENT LOAN FORGIVENESS To: California Public Defenders and Deputy Public Defenders From: Michael P. Judge, CPDA Legislative Committee Chair Subject: Federal Student Loan Forgiveness & The Innocence Protection Act
The House version of the IPA (H. R. 912), is now before the House Judiciary Committee. It is likely that markup on this legislation will occur shortly. If the legislation does not pass by the November recess, it will be dead for the year, which would mean starting all over again at "square one" next year. So, to ensure passage from the House Judiciary Committee, we need everyone to get in touch with their congressional representatives, write letters of support, and get other colleagues to do the same. The most valuable contacts are those made by actual constituents of the Congress members. Identifying oneself as a constituent is best stated at the outset of the outreach. The links directly below will provide you with a list of those members of the California congressional delegation who are NOT yet co-sponsors of H.R. 912. You will also find a link to a web site that lists the entire membership of the House Judiciary Committee with options to send letters of support, including via email from the web site. We have also included directly below an excerpt from the Innocence Protection Act that pertains directly to the loan forgiveness section of the Act. Please set aside some time to work on helping us secure passage of this very important legislation. There is substantial support for this legislation, but it is crucial that members of the House Judiciary Committee learn of your support directly from you, and from your representatives as soon as possible. California members of Congeress who have
NOT yet agreed to co-sponsor H.R. 912 Members of the House Judiciary Committee The
Loan Forgiveness Portions of the Innocence Protection Act of 2002 The loan forgiveness contained in the Innocence Protection Act (IPA) applies to Stafford student loans and Perkins student loans. Prosecutors already are entitled to Perkins student loan forgiveness of up to $30,000 for five full years of service time as a prosecutor. The IPA would extend parity to public defenders for Perkins student loan forgiveness. The IPA student loan provisions require only three years of service as a full-time prosecutor or defender and allow for $6,000/year to a maximum of $40,000 of Stafford student loan relief. This is a major benefit that prosecutors and defenders should cherish and pursue with great enthusiasm. N.B. This $40,000 student loan forgiveness package is modeled on the benefits currently provided to United States Department of Justice Attorneys.
Below you will find an an exemplar letter which illustrates one way to approach the outreach to Congressional representatives.
Note: There are Internet web site links at the end of this page that will help you locate the contact information for all of your county's congressional representatives. ======= Sample Letter (Sent by the Los Angeles County Public Defender =================
_________________________________ RE: INNOCENCE PROTECTION ACT (IPA) Dear _____________: Enactment of the Innocence Protection Act will substantially mitigate a crisis that has developed in employment of attorneys in local criminal justice agencies. Despite the longstanding positive reputation enjoyed by the Los Angeles County Public Defender's Office as an attractive place to practice criminal law in the governmental arena, significant and unprecedented difficulty has been experienced in recruiting and retention over the past two years. It is common for rookie lawyers to be encumbered by $125,000, and even more, in student loans upon passing the Bar. The so-called "going rate", a traditional benchmark for compensation packages offered by major civil firms to new lawyers who graduate near the top of their law school class, is now $165,000 in California. In contrast, the Los Angeles County Public Defender pays a salary of $52,275 to new lawyers. It is not suggested that anyone would reasonably expect full parity in salary between private industry and governmental service. Nevertheless, the confluence of enormous student debt load and exceptional disparity in private practice income has created a dramatic negative impact on recruiting and retention. It should be noted that the National Association of Public Interest
Lawyers (NAPIL) has recently published an analysis illustrating the predicament
of new lawyers with only $80,000 worth of student loans. After paying
for housing, utilities, food, clothing, transportation, insurance, and
other necessities, a new admittee would be fortunate to have 10% left
in disposable income to pay off other debts such as student loans. To
evenly pay off $80,000 over a 10 year Last year far fewer candidates applied for positions in the Public Defender's Office than previously. In the past all the interview slots for the next 6 months could be filled within 2 weeks of the Bar Exam results being promulgated. Often additional interview days had to be added to accommodate all the applicants. Recently it has taken 3-4 months before the interview slots were taken, there have been many cancellations and no additional exam dates needed to be scheduled. In a shocking development, during the past year 21% of job offers made to attorney applicants were rejected, including 3 which were rejected after acceptance. This is a 100% increase in rejections by applicants. Another troubling phenomenon is a noticeable increase in attrition among well-performing lawyers with 2-3 years experience. They often cite the inability to make student loan payments along with everyday living expenses as the reason for leaving. In fact, the overall attrition rate has leapt from 3% to 10% over the past 3 years. This constitutes a considerable loss of experience as well as a failure to realize the benefits which our significant investment in training should yield. In order to address the recruiting deficits we expanded the ambit of our law clerk outreach to a regional approach last year and to a national one this year in order to interest a larger talent pool in our office. This is expensive in terms of travel and lodging as well as a diversion of staff time out of the office. There have been consistently more than a dozen vacancies in attorney slots during the past year in the Los Angeles office due to the difficulties outlined above. This has caused the Public Defender to be unable to handle more than 10,000 cases which were diverted to the Private Bar at a much more expensive cost per case. Compromising our standards in selecting only well qualified candidates for employment is not the answer. The scandalous poor quality of indigent defense in some states has been denounced by both political parties. California should not be permitted to slip into such a dismal predicament. The result of Proposition 209 is that most public law schools in California have suffered a very large decrease in the number of Latinos enrolled, while African American enrollees have virtually disappeared. Consequently, a well qualified diverse staff, that will match up well demographically with the communities served in Los Angeles, can only be secured by meaningful recruiting at private law schools. However, students matriculating from private law schools are most likely to be burdened by the greatest student debt loads. In addition, it is unlikely that our entry level salaries will be raised sufficiently to entirely overcome the competitive disadvantages in recruiting. Consequently, student loan forgiveness is the only viable solution available to ensure that sufficient qualified attorney staff will be successfully recruited and retained by public defender offices. It also would likely reduce some of the escalating pressure on starting salaries for new lawyers. The Innocence Protection Act is presently before the House Judiciary Committee. I am hoping that you will support the Innocence Protection Act. Should
you or your staff need any additional information I would be pleased to
respond. Your action in this matter addresses a vital national interest. _______________________
======== End of Sample Letter ===================================================
Additional Background and Contact Information
California Congressional Delegation - Full List with Contact Information California Counties and Their Congressional Representatives - PDF File Find your representatives by entering your zip code by clicking on this LINK
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