Dear Friends,
A young, skilled attorney is passionate about providing civil legal aid to low-income clients. She grew up with economic challenges herself, and was the first in her family to attend a four-year college—let alone law school. But she’s now saddled with law school debt and challenged by the DC-area’s cost of living. Local legal aid nonprofits face a barrier to recruiting her, because they can’t offer salaries competitive enough to meet these realities.
Sound familiar?
It’s a common problem, limiting employers’ ability to hire and retain top talent, as well as attorneys’ ability to do the work they feel called to. For our community’s most vulnerable citizens, it threatens the continuity and capacity of services to meet urgent needs.
This is where our Loan Repayment Assistant Program (LRAP) comes in, providing support to legal aid attorneys who are shouldering substantial educational debt.
LRAP is transformative, as we recently heard from Eric Angel, Executive Director of Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia:
“The DC Bar Foundation’s LRAP program has been critically important to our ability to recruit and retain diverse, well-qualified attorneys. We include information about DCBF’s LRAP program in all of our offer letters! It is a successful, well-run program which has made a huge difference to enhancing access to justice for low-income DC residents.”
Learn more below, including how you can make this program possible just by Go[ing] Casual at the office this summer. Promoting equal access to justice has never been easier or more fun.
Thanks for your support!
Sincerely,
Kirra L. Jarratt Executive Director
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