Forty-two percent of [Illinois's] legal aid lawyers plan to leave their jobs in the next three years, which would further strain the state's legal services for the poor, legal-aid groups say in a recently released report.

Many of the lawyers feel pressure to find higher-paying jobs, saying legal aid salaries have not kept pace with the rising cost of law school, according to a survey and report issued last month by the Chicago Bar Foundation Association and Illinois Coalition for Equal Justice.

"If you look at law school tuition and debt, it keeps rising each year. But after about 2000, it just goes up dramatically," said Joseph Dailing, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Equal Justice. "You need to provide a living wage and also help these people with these debts."

The legal-aid groups hope the report sounds an alarm that will be heeded by the federal Legal Services Corp., state government, private donors and others who help pay for legal aid.

The state's 280 full-time legal-aid attorneys already are stretched thin, trying to advise low-income clients in landlord-tenant cases, disputes over the denial of government benefits and other civil matters, the report said.

Legal aid attorneys typically start at $38,500 a year, the report found. But they must repay typical law school debts of about $60,000, and as much as $100,000 for more recent graduates, the report said.

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