I Got A Summer Legal Job!
Today I was offered an internship working for the Missouri State Public Defender’s office which I accepted. I’m looking forward to putting some of the knowledge I’ve acquired in 5 semesters of law school to practical use. Since I’m Missouri Rule 13 eligible I should get the opportunity to appear in court. I’ll be working in the town where my mother lives which is considered a rural jurisdiction. Since the state has a hard time placing attorneys in rural jurisdictions they have a program where they hire 3L students 3-4 months before the bar if the student wants to work in a rural office. After I finish working this summer I’ll know whether I want to continue to work in this field. If so then I plan on taking advantage of this program.
There are some drawbacks to the position though. The main one is that it is unpaid. I’ll have to find another job in the evening to make some money. I’ll be staying with my mom for the summer and my niece and nephew usually spend the summer with her as well. That will probably be a little too much family time for me since I’m used to living alone. My lease here doesn’t runs through the end of October though and I can’t justify paying rent on two apartments even if I could afford it. I’m sure it will work out okay and I’m looking forward to getting started.
Another Look at Income-Based Repayment for Student Loans
When discussing the College Cost Reduction and Access Act I discussed the income-based repayment plan in conjunction with the public service loan forgiveness program. The coupling of the two is a great deal but I wanted to see how the income-based repayment plan would work when used alone.
The income-based repayment plan limits your payments to 15% of your discretionary income which is defined as your adjusted gross income minus 150% of the federal poverty level. Any debt remaining after 25 years is forgiven. I used this repayment calculator to compare the income-based repayment plan to the standard repayment plan. The income-based repayment plan didn’t compare very well when I plugged in $70,000 for the amount of debt and $40,000 for starting salary. I used the default settings for everything else in the calculator. After 25 years you would have paid $161,546 under the income-based repayment plan compared to a total of $96,667 under the standard repayment plan. Tweaking the numbers can help the income-based repayment plan but it is still going to cost more in total payments unless you have an extremely low income that doesn’t rise much over the 25 years. The major drawback of the standard repayment plan is that the payments would be $805 a month which I would unlikely be able to afford in my first job out of school. If I’m not able to qualify for the public service loan forgiveness program I think my best option would be to start with the income-based repayment plan and then convert to standard repayment as soon as I’m able to afford it.
The CCRAA and Law School Loan Forgiveness
The College Cost Reduction and Access Act offers a loan forgiveness program for those who work in public service. As I am strongly considering a career in public service when I graduate from law school I decided to do more research on the loan forgiveness program.
The details of how the program works are somewhat complicated but this fact sheet from Brooklyn Law School and this one from NASFAA give a good overview of the program. First, you need to consolidate your loans(private loans aren’t eligible) with a Federal Direct Consolidation Loan. Next you need to make payments for 10 years(120 payments) while employed in a public service job. The remaining debt then will be forgiven.
In order for this to work you need to be on the income-based repayment plan. Otherwise,under the standard repayment plan after 10 years the loan would be paid in full and there wouldn’t be any balance remaining to be forgiven. The income-based repayment plan limits your annual debt repayment to 15% of your discretionary income-adjusted gross income minus 150% of the poverty level. By my calculations this would result in $37,035.00 in payments for someone making $40,000 a year. Since I expect to have around $70,000 total in loans I would have about half my debt forgiven. Over the 10 years one’s income would most like rise though which would also increase the total of payments.
There are some drawbacks. If you don’t stay in public service for 10 years than you won’t receive any loan forgiveness and any interest that remains unpaid because of IBR payments is capitalized when the borrower leaves the program. You don’t have to be in public service to use the IBR program though and it forgives any remaining debt after 25 years. Another potential pitfall is that the amount of forgiven debt is treated as income in the year it is forgiven. This could result in a huge tax bill. They may address this issue but I’m not aware of any solutions yet.
All in all it is a good deal though and I’m worrying a little less about my huge student loan debt. Make sure you get all the relevant information if you wish to take advantage of this program.
One Final Done
One of my finals is out of the way now. My Professional Responsibility class was only half a semester as it is designed to finish right before the MPRE exam. I didn’t take the MPRE since my law school future is still uncertain. It looks like I’ll probably take the MPRE this summer which means I’ll have to study all over again.
My exam for Professional Responsibility was a take home exam which is not my preference. I’d much rather have a three-hour in-class exam and get it over with. This exam had a 4200 word limit. That means you need to get pretty close to 4000 words to get a good grade. Since this was only a two credit class that seems excessive to me. I am glad to have it out of the way and now I can concentrate on my other classes when finals time comes.
Using LexisNexis and Westlaw
*Note-My new posting schedule is for Saturday’s posts to be about law school or law and Sunday to be about goals. Monday through Friday will be about frugality but there will probably often be some overlap in the weekday and weekend subject areas.
If you’re in law school you probably know all about LexisNexis and Westlaw. This post is not going to be a tutorial on how to use them. Instead it is a suggestion to make sure you are getting the rewards out of them.
LexisNexis and Westlaw both have rewards programs that award points for doing various research activities. They both want to make sure that you become a paying client when you graduate and enticing you to use their research systems now helps ensure that you will keep using them.
There are many different ways to earn points. The easiest is to do the Fact or Fiction? at LexisNexis and the Daily Trivia at Westlaw. These are not many points but they don’t take long and since you can do them frequently they add up. To get the big points though you need to do tutorials or participate in the classes that the reps occasionally have. These usually provide many more points. I recently completed a forty-five minute class for 800 points. That was well worth it since I can redeem those points for a $10 gift certificate and still have points left over. Of course I also improved my research skills.
I prefer the LexisNexis reward program to the Westlaw one since they have a variety of $5 and $10 gift certificates you can redeem your points for. This makes it quicker to get value for your points. Westlaw doesn’t really have smaller items to redeem your points for. The best choice in their program seems to be using the points for books. Right now I’m just letting my Westlaw points accumulate and I’ll redeem them for something big when I finish school. It doesn’t really matter which rewards program you like best since you should participate in both. Keep your eye out for various opportunities to earn extra points throughout the semester. These programs are a really good deal since you earn points for stuff you would or should be doing anyway and you gain valuable knowledge at the same time.
Starting School Tomorrow
I’ll have my first day back in law school tomorrow. I’m looking forward to returning to school but a little disappointed that I won’t be making any progress on my financial goals for a while. As part of my re-admission to law school I had to agree to not work during the semester. My boss was willing to let me work one day a week if I could get permission but I was denied permission to work at all. It will be nice to not have to work though and be able to concentrate solely on law school. I find law school easier than working 40 hours at a job. Of course my law school g.p.a indicates I should be finding law school harder. I definitely have to increase my efforts as I won’t be given another chance if my grades aren’t up to par this semester.
Back In Law School!
I had my meeting with the re-admissions committee today and I have been re-admitted to law school. I’ll return for the next semester which starts in January. I have to retake a couple of classes. I’m not thrilled with having to do that since it will probably mean it will take me an extra semester to graduate. Of course graduating one semester later is better than never. Both of the classes are important bar subjects so I do need to know them. Taking them a second time should make them pretty easy. Since this week is Thanksgiving week I have to wait until next week to finalize all the details. The important thing though is I’m back in.
Finally Finished With Law School Paper
I turned in my paper for law school Thursday night. The paper is going to be a major factor in whether I am re-admitted to law school. I’m not completely pleased with how the paper turned out since I procrastinated and didn’t get the paper exactly like I wanted it to be. I believe it should be good enough though. My professor was going to look over it this weekend but I haven’t received any feedback yet. I’m relieved to finally have this paper done though. I’ve basically done all I can for being re-admitted now. I have to wait until Nov. 20th before I meet with the re-admission committee but I think my prospects look good. Now all I have to do is wait.
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