Ham Sandwich Indicted!

A couple weeks ago, I came across an article by Elie Mystal , the editor of abovethelaw.com , offering some alternative ideas on how to cope with the crushing student loan debt that I (and many of my cohorts) are dealing with right now. Today, Elie was on a clip from FoxNews , making a case for changing the interest rate to 0% for government students loans. The UK just recently made a decision to do this, and Elie argues that it was a good one. By releasing some of the pressure on college/post-college graduates, you're enabling them to help increase the consumer spending needed to jump start the economy. On the front end, knowing that your debt isn't going to include excessive interest will (ideally) motivate more students to consider bettering themselves through higher education. In regards to law school grads, lower loan debt could mean more grads would be willing to take jobs in the public sector--I know from personal experience that some really great public defenders and pr...

Special thanks to my friend Michael for forwarding me the following two websites. They detail (or, at least outline) two new programs going into effect starting July 1, 2009. The College Cost Reduction & Access Act has two parts that will be of interest to public interest lawyers. One, after making loan payments for 10 years on government-backed loans, the government will forgive the loan balance for qualifying borrowers. And two, there's a new, income-based repayment system in place: monthly loan payments will be capped at an amount relative to the borrower's income and after 25 years, the federal government will forgive any remaining loan debt. For further info check out the following: Student Loan Relief on the Way for Law Grads and The National Law Journal

John R. Justice, Champion of Prosecutors Apologies, fellow legal eagles and food lovers, for my failure to provide any posts for the last month. My New Year's resolution is to make posting a regular part of my life (along with getting my butt off the couch more often). A recent article in The Prosecutor and a conversation with a fellow law school grad spurred me to give those of you poor, hardworking government and non-profit attorneys some information on the loan repayment programs currently being developed. According to this article , there are two more steps before people like me and my co-workers can start clamoring for funding under the John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defedenders Incentive Act : appropriations and regulations. I'll let the article speak for itself: 1. Appropriations. The program must be funded either in the FY 2009 or the FY 2010 spending bill for the Departments of Commerce and Justice and the science related programs because the program will be administe...

So, I got on the horn on Monday and emailed Mr. Kenneth Goldsmith, Legislative Counsel for the American Bar Association. I inquired about the next steps in the process for the APA/PD loan repayment program, and he explained that the next step would be adoption of regulations (ie: how one would apply, how the funding would be disseminated around the country, etc.), as well as actually GETTING the funding. Apparently, this bill authorizes the funding, but does not provide for it. Scrounging up the millions of dollars needed is the next major challenge. Mr. Goldsmith also wanted to point out that much of this is due to the hard work of Senator Richard Durbin (IL), who has been fighting for this bill for several years. The ABA is working with Senator Durbin's office as well as the National Association of District Attorneys' in collecting questions, comments, and insight as to how the final program should look as it gets sent over to the Department of Justice. To that end, he encou...

On August 15, President Bush signed into law the Higher Education Opportunity Act, part of which includes the John R. Justice Prosecutor and Public Defender Loan Repayment Program. (The official text of which is here .) Basically, the attorney general will be responsible for paying up to $10,000 a year for those individuals willing to offer three years of service as a prosecutor or public defender. The total amount available is capped at $60,000, meaning you can "re-up" for another three year stint after your first three years are completed. This is GREAT news. The government finally realized that making $50K or less a year makes it damn near impossible to pay off your law school loans AND not live in your parent's basement. (And yes, I know several responsible, intelligent prosecutors and P.Ds who can't afford to move out of mom and dad's house.) They've also come to the brilliant understanding that if you actually pay your prosecutors, ADAs, an PDs, they mi...