County Counsel Have Debts, Too

Cheryl Miller
The Recorder
01-29-2007


SACRAMENTO - California's county counsel are angling for their share of a law school loan repayment program that to date has only targeted local prosecutors, public defenders and lawyers who work for child-support agencies and legal aid groups.

But even if municipal attorneys can convince lawmakers that they deserve debt relief as much as their other public-sector peers, their victory may ring hollow. In the six years California's Public Interest Loan Repayment Program has been on the books, it has never received a dime of state funding.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last year vetoed a request for $150,000 to get the program started. And his proposed 2007-08 budget includes no money for legal loans either, even as law students leave school with increasingly enormous debts. Two-thirds of recent graduates say those debts discouraged them from considering a public-service career, according to a survey by the American Bar Association.

David Waggoner, a staff attorney at the Homeless Resource Center in Berkeley, owes $160,000 in loans that are temporarily deferred. His salary at the nonprofit wouldn't cover his payments.

"If I were paying them off right now, they would cost more than my rent," he said. "I don't know what I'm going to do when the deferment ends. I really like the work I'm doing."

While attorneys like Waggoner worry, the state is paying up to $105,000 in student debt for young doctors, nurses and teachers who agree to work in underserved areas.

Those familiar with the budgeting process say public-interest law just doesn't attract the support that pays off for more politically popular professions, especially in financially lean years.

But Assemblyman Jim Beall, D-San Jose, who's carrying the county counsel legislation, said this year's large batch of new lawmakers - which includes five former county supervisors - may be more receptive to the cause.

"They understand what county counsels do and why it's very important to have the best and the brightest in these jobs," he said.

Lawmakers didn't have county counsel in mind in 2001when they created the loan repayment program for public-interest lawyers. Under the new law, practitioners working in one of four fields could apply for up to $11,000 in aid over four years: a district attorney's office, a public defender's office, a child-support agency or a legal aid shop that served predominately poor clients.

'If I were paying them off right now, they would cost more than my rent. I don't know what I'm going to do when the deferment ends. I really like the work I'm doing.'

- DAVID WAGGONER
Homeless Resource Center

"I thought that was ridiculous," said Tulare County Counsel Kathleen Bales-Lange, who couldn't believe lawyers like her, who deal with conservatorships, child-welfare cases and advise local service agencies, were not included on the eligibility list.

"We help grease the wheels that make local government run," she said.

As Baby Boomer veterans in her office start to retire, Bales-Lange said she sees the potential of a loan-repayment program in attracting debt-burdened young lawyers to her rural county. In fact, loan help is one of the first things prospective counsel ask about, she said.

"I went to Hastings and the cost of my entire law school experience, including books, was less than a semester costs now," Bales-Lange said.

As the former president of the County Counsels' Association of California, Bales-Lange made it her mission to add her profession to the list of attorneys eligible for the state's dormant loan program. Even if the program isn't funded, Bales-Lange said she wanted state recognition of the public work county counsel do. And, she said, if the state acknowledges in statute that county counsel are public-interest attorneys, recent graduates might qualify for debt-relief programs offered by some law schools and other grant programs.

And it might eventually encourage the state to fund its own attorney-loan program, she said.

"This bill would be the first step to moving this forward," Bales-Lange said.

More than 1,000 attorneys work in county counsel offices around the state, according to the California State Association of Counties.