Promoting Teaching at Public Law Schools Could Ease Justice Gap

It’s no secret that the US has an access-to-justice crisis. A 2022 study by the Legal Services Corporation found that most low-income Americans can’t get the help they need for their most substantial legal problems. Nearly half cite costs as the reason why.

The structure of US legal education is partly to blame. Across the country, the average total cost of attending law school exceeds $200,000. For many students, tuition alone is more than $46,000 per year. And at the most selective institutions, costs are far higher—the sticker price for Stanford Law School (our alma mater) is now greater than $363,000 for all three years.

It’s only rational that students graduating with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt will seek the highest-paying jobs they can find. For most, that tends to mean working in business settings for corporate clients, not ordinary Americans looking for legal help.

President Donald Trump’s 2025 tax-and-spending package likely will make things worse. The law caps the amount law students can borrow in unsubsidized federal loans at $50,000 per year. It also creates a lifetime borrowing ceiling of $200,000. Most observers expect that students will seek higher-interest private loans to cover the difference, increasing the pressure to accept the most lucrative jobs they can find after graduation.

Supporting regional public law schools is one way to address the access-to-justice crisis. We teach at Northern Illinois University College of Law, a small public school 60 miles west of Chicago. Combined tuition and fees at our law school are about half the national average. In fact, ours is one of the few law schools in the country where students can borrow the full cost of attendance and not exceed the new cap on federal loans.

Not surprisingly, a high fraction of our graduates tend to end up working in public service, or in small- and medium-sized legal practices that serve the public. With less debt to pay off, our students are free to serve the kinds of clients that the legal system too often overlooks. We take pride in training students to represent clients on “Main Street, not Wall Street.”

But the realities of maintaining a thriving regional public law school are challenging. Low-cost, high-quality law schools need the best professors they can get, but they can’t always attract or retain the best talent. Among law professors, there is clear cachet in teaching at a top-ranked law school. Elite law schools pay their faculty more, and their scholarship is more likely to attract attention. Aspiring law professors tend to want to be at the most prestigious, best-paying school possible.

Such schools often have more money to support research, too (whether in the form of fewer teaching and service obligations, research assistants, or other subsidies)—an important factor when scholarly productivity drives reputation and material success. So when new professors land at law schools whose graduates are more likely to work in the public interest or to provide legal services for lower- and middle-income people, they often try to “write their way out” to higher-ranked schools.

If the legal academy is serious about addressing our access-to-justice crisis, we should do more to encourage our best students to teach at regional public law schools. A model for doing so already exists.

When it comes to the practice of law, many law schools, together with the federal government and even some large private firms, offer a variety of programs to aid and encourage graduates to practice public interest law. These include loan-forgiveness initiatives, competitive early-career fellowships, and professional events designed to create a community of public-minded future lawyers.

These measures are admirable and appropriate. But there is no analogous pipeline for those committed to teaching these very same students.

Most fellowships for aspiring law teachers market their ability to place students in high-prestige but high-expense law schools. Some law school loan-repayment programs don’t even cover teaching positions. The reach of those that do, like the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness program (already a target of the Trump administration), will be limited by the new caps on federal loans.

We are aware of no efforts to create a professional community of individuals committed to teaching at regional public law schools. We think this is a mistake.

Demand for law professors will always be lower than the demand for lawyers committed to serving lower- and middle-income clients. But finding ways to encourage aspiring law professors to teach at regional public universities can make a meaningful contribution to addressing our access-to-justice challenges.

Legislatures should take note that some public law schools might need to offer more competitive wages to retain great teachers. Foundations active in supporting academia—the Ford Foundation or the Hewlett Foundation, for instance—might be enlisted to help boost salaries at regional public universities, particularly for those entering the profession. Organizations such as the American Bar Association or the Association of American Law Schools might consider sponsoring prizes for early-career teaching.

And the highest-profile law schools, whose graduates disproportionately populate the ranks of legal academia, might consider creating pathways into the profession that put special emphasis on teaching—and, in particular, teaching at schools where they might make the most difference for students.

Giving the very best legal education to students like ours—many of whom are first-generation students who intend to serve communities where legal services are often out of reach—is a cost-effective way to ensure that more Americans have access to the legal tools they need.

Law professors, like teachers everywhere, are force multipliers. Over the course of our careers, each of us will train thousands of new lawyers. We help shape students’ thinking about the law, and we are in a position to steer students toward jobs where they will represent underserved clients.

We take pride in the work our graduates do to close the justice gap. With a little help, we and others like us can continue to facilitate that important mission.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law, Bloomberg Tax, and Bloomberg Government, or its owners.

Author Information

Gregory A. Elinson is an associate professor at Northern Illinois University College of Law.

Daniel S. McConkie, Jr. is a professor at Northern Illinois University College of Law.

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