Graduates fulfill public interest

Julie Farrell has the job she went to UCLA to get.

After spending six years working with lawyers while she was
employed by nonprofit organizations such as The Nature Conservancy,
she decided to make the jump to the legal side of community
development. She then attended the UCLA School of Law specifically
to become a public interest lawyer.

When she graduated in 2005, she received a two-year fellowship
with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, a public interest
firm that specializes in issues of urban poverty. She now fills her
days helping nonprofit groups like the Figueroa Corridor Community
Land Trust develop innovative ways to create and preserve
affordable housing for the city.

Though she earns far less than she would at a private firm,
Farrell said she feels lucky ““ both to be doing a job she is
passionate about and to have found a job in public interest
law.

Despite offering salaries that are far lower than those at
corporate law firms, finding jobs in public interest law is
difficult.

“Public-service positions are always very competitive,
which is somewhat counterintuitive,” said Cathy Mayorkas,
director of public interest programs at the UCLA School of Law.

The average salary for a lawyer working in public service varies
from $37,000 to the low $40,000 range, while lawyers starting at
large corporate firms currently earn $130,000 per year on
average.

But the amount of lawyers who want to work in public service far
outnumber the available positions.

At the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, for example, jobs
are scarce partly because turnover is low and money issues limit
the amount of lawyers the firm can hire, said Diane Talamantez,
director of human resources for the foundation.

To quantify the level of competition for jobs at the foundation,
Talamantez cited the number of law students who applied for the
organization’s summer clerkship program. She said she
received more than 750 applications for the 2006 program, and she
will have to winnow that number down to a maximum of 35.

Farrell said the application process for her fellowship ““
which is sponsored by Equal Justice Works, an organization that
seeks to mobilize lawyers in social causes, and Munger, Tolles and
Olson LLP, a Los Angeles law firm ““ was also intense.

She had to prepare a proposal for the kind of work she would do
if she received the fellowship, and go through a series of
interviews, the last of which featured rapid-fire questions from a
group of attorneys from the firm.

“I think it’s the most rigorous thing I have ever
applied for,” Farrell said.

Still, UCLA law graduates like Farrell have a better chance of
securing the few public interest jobs available because
UCLA’s public interest program is selective, Mayorkas said.
The program accepts 25 first-year law students and five to 10
transfers each year. Last year the program had more than 500
applicants.

Because the program accepts students based on many of the same
criteria public interest firms look for, such as a commitment to
community work and experience in the nonprofit world, it functions
as “a prescreening for employers,” Mayorkas said.

But that does not mean students in UCLA’s program have an
easy time finding public interest work.

Andrea Luquetta, a third-year law student in the public interest
program, said she has been rejected by two of the three fellowships
she applied to. But she thinks the public interest program does
give its students a leg-up on the competition because the field has
become so specialized.

“There’s an idea that if you do public interest law
you don’t have to be as serious (as other lawyers), but you
have to be just as serious. You have to be competitive,” she
said.

The law school’s program is not alone in placing students
into public service.

UCLA has consistently had large numbers of students who go into
the nonprofit world, said Kathy Sims, director of the UCLA Career
Center. The university is a top recruiting location for
organizations like the Peace Corps and Teach For America.

And though the job market for nonprofit work can be competitive,
these jobs are more readily available than those in public interest
law.

Nonprofit organizations can include groups as diverse as
community organizations, universities and charities. And Mayorkas
said students who have a balance of academic achievement and
extracurricular activities or work experience can usually find jobs
in a part of the nonprofit world that fits them. A student’s
challenge is to have enough passion about an issue to get hired,
but enough flexibility to not be limited to a particular job.

“A student who is not too narrowly focused and who has
good grades, and has had internships, usually does not have
problems finding work in the nonprofit field,” she said.

Some UCLA graduates who go through programs like Teach For
America later find employment in the ranks of those
organizations.

Pearl Chang Esau, who joined Teach For America when she
graduated from UCLA in 2003, was hired as recruitment director
after she completed her two-year commitment to the program.

And while some nonprofit jobs are low-paying, Esau said she is
able to work for a cause she cares about and maintain a reasonable
standard of living.

“By being an American and a graduate of UCLA, I am already
in a privileged position, and along with that comes a tremendous
responsibility,” she said.

And though staff of small nonprofits can make less than $20 per
hour, Esau said salaries in large nonprofits are livable. She
declined to state the amount of her own salary but she said pay is
reasonable for the staff of Teach For America.

“$40,000 a year still makes you one of the richest people
in the world,” she said.