Public Interest Law

To the Editors of The Crimson:

I would like to share with you some thought about my recent trip to Boston.

My employer, D.N.A-People's Legal Services, a legal aid organization on the Navajo Indian Reservation, sent me to recruit and interview law students at Harvard and a number of other law schools in the Boston area. D.N.A. has recruited on campus at the Law School for many years and a great number of attorneys who have worked on this program over the years, including myself, graduated from Harvard Law School.

I was surprised to hear, when I called to confirm the interview date, that Ron Fox and Dana Bullwinkel were no longer at the law school and that there was now no public interest placement office at Harvard. Although I was told that public interest placement was being coordinated as part of the whole placement process, on the day of the interviews I found out that only two students had signed up to talk with me.

In the fall of 1987, when I was one of the third-year law students interviewing for jobs, the D.N.A. recruiter had a full day scheduled at Harvard, which resulted in the hiring of two summer clerks and myself. Last fall we also spoke to a large number of Harvard students. But programs like this one, with little or no funds for publicity, doing vital legal aid work in parts of the country of which many people have never heard, cannot hope to attract a large number of applicants from schools like Harvard unless the schools help make our existence known to interested students.

Ron Fox was a great asset not only to law students who wanted to use their degrees to work in the public interest, but to large numbers of underrepresented people and public causes around the country. Over my three years at the Law School I attended many seminars organized by the public interest placement department. I probably never would have heard of D.N.A. if it were not for Ron; I certainly would not have managed to find the funding for the project I wanted to pursue here if Ron had not been at Harvard.

I am convinced that a significant number of my classmates who are now working in corporate law firms will at some point in their career consider government, non-profit or public interest law. The programs Ron created and the counseling he provided to anyone who stopped by his office will surely lay a foundation for people to exercise that vision. Will the students who are at Harvard now have the same opportunity?

A public interest counselor cannot be judged by the number of students who opt for public interest jobs right out of law school; many factors make the private sector an easier route to take. But public interest jobs are the hardest jobs in the legal world to find and to get, even coming out of the top schools. By not providing the encouragement, guidance and direction of someone like Ron Fox, Harvard Law School will miss the chance to serve many of its students who want to contribute to the unmet needs of society. The law school fulfilled an important social obligation of its own by helping its students serve the public.

I hope that Dean Clark will reconsider his decision to eliminate this valuable department. James E. Cohen   Harvard Law School, Class of '88