By Fred Messner
We all know the numbers. For decades, survey after survey has shown that while large majorities of incoming law students express interest in public-interest careers, only tiny cohorts of graduating JDs actually follow through on those salutary aspirations. As the narrative goes, students enter as fresh-faced idealists and leave as hired guns. The dropoff is particularly stark at Harvard Law School. In perhaps the most famous account of “public interest drift,” an early 1990s study recorded 70% of incoming HLS students as reporting a preference to work for the common good. By their third year, a scant 2% still planned to take a public-interest job.
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