Even lawyers do national service

Broadly defined, national service could be any employment for the public good. In fact, it could include all of us in the nonprofit sector. However, national service is more often narrowly defined as a formal program in which participants work on community development, or teach, or serve in the military, usually for a year or more for nominal pay and sometimes in exchange for a small amount of funds toward college tuition. National service also comes with prestige.

One of the jobs I have not seen described as national service is Legal Aid Lawyer. Does national service assume an employment commitment for a limited period of time rather than a career choice for low pay? In an e-newsletter I received yesterday from the Legal Services Corporation, legislation has been passed by Congress for a loan repayment program for legal aid lawyers. The U.S. Department of Education would be required to “provide loan repayments of up to $6,000 a year—$40,000 for a lifetime—to full-time civil legal aid lawyers who agree to remain employed as such for no less than three years.” The U.S. House and Senate still need to reconcile different versions of the legislation and send it to the President.

The Legal Services Corporation was created by Congress in 1974 “to promote equal access to justice and provide civil legal assistance to low-income Americans.” Legal aid serves Americans who fall at or below 125 percent of the federal poverty level, about $25,000 a year for a family of four. For the 50 million Americans who are eligible for services, more than 50 percent go unserved because of the limited capacity of legal aid offices.

Does a 3-year commitment and a loan repayment option mean that legal aid lawyers are performing national service? Without those provisos, are they just low-paid do-good lawyers? For some people, national service is a career.