CANCELLED - In It For Good: An Empirical Study of Public Interest Careers
We regret to announce that this conference has been cancelled.
The Faculty of Law and the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism welcome (UCLA), who will discuss a study he led with colleagues on what encourages law graduates to stay in public interest careers.
Abstract
We know a great deal about the decline of idealism in law school. Conventional wisdom says that large numbers of students enter with public service aspirations, but most leave to pursue careers in the private sector, dissuaded and demoralized by law school culture and training. What encourages law students to commit to public interest careers over the long-haul—to stay “in it for good”?
Our guests sought to answer that question by analyzing data from an empirical study of the graduates of six California law schools between 2001 and 2010. Comparing the impact of endowment effects—what students bring to law school—and educational effects—what they experience there—they found that student participation in a suite of public interest programs is related to what they call “public interest persistence.”
Their study concludes that persistence is a complex product of what they bring to law school and what they take from it. The characteristics and experiences students bring with them to law school matter in predicting persistence, but so do the choices students make and the availability of resources to support those choices. A critical finding of the authors' study is that law schools play a key role in fostering public interest careers: nurturing students by providing the experiences and tools they need to navigate the job market and persevere over the course of their professional lives.
Our guest will offer recommendations for law schools to build on current programs in support of public interest careers.
