This week on Everyday Injustice, we are joined by UCLA Law Professor Scott Cummings who discusses a 2020 paper published in Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics, that looks into the role that lawyers and schools play in movements of social transformation.
One of the key findings in the literature has been the notion of drift away from public interest work – he cited that when law students enter law school more than half have an interest in going into public interest law, but that falls to about five percent by the time they actually pass the bar and gain employment.
Cummings and his colleagues look into things that law schools can do to bolster pursuit of public interest law.
They find surprising ways that law schools play a crucial facilitative role: “guiding students toward public interest careers through externships, summer jobs, and extracurricular activities that equip students with the tools they need to navigate the public interest job market and pursue social justice over the course of their professional lives.”
