In October, the unemployment rate for workers with a bachelor”™s degree or higher was 4.4 percent ”“ less than half the overall unemployment level.
However, nationally and in Westchester, legal experts have noted that their profession is one of the few areas of the private sector requiring an advanced degree that have yet to post consistent monthly job gains.
Earlier this month, Pace Law School in White Plains unveiled a plan to confront the problem head-on by creating a university-sponsored law practice that would provide real work ”“ and real salaries ”“ to recent graduates looking to start careers in public interest law.
The school announced the formation of the Pace Community Law Practice at its annual Leadership Awards Dinner Nov. 10, with David A. Pope, president and CEO of the Generoso Pope Foundation, pledging to donate $100,000 to the new practice through his foundation.
Over the next several months the school will continue to seek out donors, with hopes of launching the practice in September 2012, said Jennifer Friedman, director of the Public Interest Law Center at the school.
“To be able to have this opportunity to provide that foot in the door is very, very important to us. We recognize that this is a very difficult time to enter the field of public interest law ”¦ but it”™s a very highly prioritized value here,” Friedman said.
She said the law incubator also fulfills a local need for affordable legal services for Westchester residents who are dealing with evictions, foreclosures, other landlord-tenant disputes, domestic violence and immigration concerns.
“There is this justice gap ”“ there are so many people who don”™t have access to legal resources, so it”™s very timely; there is this dual need,” Friedman said.
School administrators are hopeful the practice will hire between five and seven people who graduate Pace Law in the spring. The Community Law Center staff would be paid on par with the starting public interest legal services salary ”“ $42,000 according to the National Association of Law Placement ”“ and would be able to work for the center for up to a year. Friedman said there would also be at least one experienced supervisor to mentor the new lawyers.
While much of the program”™s construct will depend on the school”™s fundraising results, the practice will generate revenue of its own once it is up and running, Friedman added.
At least a few other law schools have similar incubator programs, including the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, the University of Maryland School of Law and the City University of New York School of Law.
Friedman said that Pace Law administrators have spoken with the directors of the CUNY practice, but that the Pace practice would be based largely on the needs of the Westchester community.
“I think we”™re taking elements of what would work for our community from their program and really creating our model from scratch,” she said.
