Making Cents of Justice: Does Educational Debt Affect Lawyers’ Probabilities of Employment in Government and Public-Interest Law?

Abstract

Legal scholars, social scientists, and law schools have assumed that educational debt deters law graduates from pursuing public interest careers, yet empirical evidence for this claim is limited. This study examines whether educational debt affects lawyers’ probability of entering government and public interest (GPI) employment and whether its effects differ by gender. Using data from the American Bar Foundation’s After the JD (AJD) project, I use logistic regression models to assess the association between educational debt and GPI employment (N=6,231). Additionally, I use split-sample analyses to test whether debt operates differently for men and women, and I disaggregate levels of debt to explore potential magnitude effects. Contrary to conventional expectations, educational debt alone does not reduce the probability of entering GPI careers. However, debt is positively associated with employment in GPI law among women, suggesting that women with educational debt are more likely to pursue GPI work than their debt-free counterparts, while men’s career choices are largely unaffected. These findings highlight the importance of gendered dynamics in career selection and challenge prevailing assumptions that debt universally discourages graduates from GPI law.