Hypocritical Legal Studies

ISN'T it heartening to see more than 1000 law students fighting for expanded opportunities in public interest law?

An outside observer might think that Harvard law students were selfless idealists, rightfully infuriated over Dean Robert C. Clark's apparent lack of commitment to their future career path. Those caring law students seem to be willing to do anything to help the millions of Americans who cannot afford representation.

Not quite.

Last year, six students in a graduating class of 474 entered legal services jobs, according to the Harvard Law Bulletin. Contrast that number with the more than 300 students who rallied last fall in Harkness Common after Clark closed--under the guise of budget constraints--the school's only career counseling office in that field.

Only weeks later, 1065 law students signed a petition demanding Clark restore the office. And shortly before winter vacation, hundreds of students wrote angry letters to the dean objecting to comments he made about public interest law to The Crimson.

Evidently, law students may believe in public service, but aren't willing to practice what they preach. More than 60 percent of last year's graduating class headed off to high-paying private law firms.

SOME law students defend this discrepancy with the argument that they are looking out for the interests of a handful of their classmates.

"We want that opportunity to remain open for our classmates who do want to do public interest," they say earnestly.

This feeling--while it may be genuine--may also serve as an excuse for students not to pursue public interest law themselves. As long as Jane or Joe Classmate is doing good, we're free to go for the big bucks.

Other students contend their summer experiences in public interest law prove their sincere commitment to the field. But the overwhelming majority of these students do public service in the summer knowing they will soon be secure in their corporate easychairs.

Perhaps the most widely used argument for the lack of public interest careers among law students is that they must take the cushy high-paying corporate jobs to pay off huge school debts. But these debts haven't stopped the few law students who do enter the lowerpaying public service field.

Besides, the Law School boasts the Low Income Protection Plan, which pays off the debts of students who enter low-paying fields such as public interest law. More recently, private endowments have greatly expanded the number of public interest fellowships.

EVEN though law students don't back up their rhetoric, at least their rhetoric is right. Clark should not have closed the career office, and should be more committed to public interest law. The Law School should focus on more than teaching and research in the abstract.

But for all the furor over Clark's decision, at least he has been honest. Clark has never beat around the bush about his feelings on public interest law, even if these sentiments did infuriate the student body. It was this rare honesty with the press that elicited the attacks for his apparently anti-public interest comments. Two weeks ago, he subjected himself to an hour of antagonistic questioning by students at a forum.

Perhaps law students and Clark could learn from each other.

Clark could take to heart the students' beliefs about the importance of public interest.

The students, in turn, could take a lesson from Clark's honesty. Instead of rallying for public interest law and pursuing corporate law, they could follow their own words and take advantage of the opportunities they so vigorously defend.