Despite recent efforts from the American Bar Association to help recent law school graduates defer their student loans, neither the Obama administration nor Congress have gone along with the ABA’s proposal.
Carolyn Lamm, ABA President, said last week that the association will keep pushing by building support for student loan relief for recent graduates.
The ABA has been lobbying the Obama administration in response to the growing debt of recent graduates who have been unable to find jobs because of the recession.
Lamm says that she and other ABA officials have met with aides on Capitol Hill, at the U.S. Department of Education and in the White House to press their case, so far without success. She goes on to say that while they are interested in education and in helping, they have yet to find a solution.
Lobbying Congress and The White House for a handout is a waste of time.
The ABA could immediately help America’s unemployed and underemployed attorneys by (1) pulling the accreditation of 25 law schools and (2) barring law firms from outsourcing legal work to India. America doesn’t need 225 law schools, and the ABA-enabled outsourcing of America’s legal work doesn’t help the ABA’s rank-and-file members.