Dear Alumni and Friends:

Here at Cornell Law, listening is at the heart of what we do, and as we prepare this issue of the Forum, I am thinking about an email I received in my early days as interim dean. The writer was a student of mine who had graduated, taken a job in the public sector, and begun being recognized for his successes. 

At the time he was hired, he benefitted from the Law School’s loan repayment assistance program, but after being promoted, he no longer qualified. He was earning slightly above the threshold, and following a very modest increase in salary, his financial situation had gotten worse, not better. He talked about this perverse incentive that had been created for alumni in public service, and he talked about regretting the promotion that had made his life more difficult.  

I never forgot that email.  

The printout has been on my desk ever since, and when we started crafting a solution, I kept thinking about that letter writer. My colleagues and I spent a long time debating between incremental approaches and bold, seismic change, and we came to realize that baby steps were not going to be enough. We decided to fully commit ourselves to supporting students in their chosen career path, whether they want to work in the private sector or in the public interest. As part of that commitment, it was important for the Law School to acknowledge the burden that debt can place on our students, and to partner with them in shouldering some of the weight of working in public service.  

We needed a sea change, even if we couldn’t be sure about the financial impact, and we needed to demonstrate leadership, even if our peers in legal education weren’t ready to make that same leap.

We needed a sea change, even if we couldn’t be sure about the financial impact, and we needed to demonstrate leadership, even if our peers in legal education weren’t ready to make that same leap. As you’ll read in this issue’s cover story, we set a new standard, one that encourages students to choose the kind of impact they want to make in the world, and we created the most generous loan repayment program among the country’s top law schools. Under this initiative, alumni working in public service can now qualify to have their federal loans fully repaid if they earn below $120,000 a year and have their federal loans partially repaid if they earn below $150,000 a year.  

It is one of the things I’m proudest of as dean, and with this new priority, students are free to pursue work in the public interest, just as generations of Cornell Law alumni have done before them. They can accomplish what they set out to do when they first dreamed of becoming lawyers, and they can fulfill the promise of the Law School’s clinical programs. We are all in this together, and our partnership doesn’t end when students As alumni tell us, the lessons learned at Cornell Law last a lifetime. In just one example, I think of the letter writer, and when I look at our clinical programs, I see students like him learning to make an impact one client at a time, building the foundation for future practice along whatever path they choose to follow. In one of this issue’s features, you’ll hear from ten alumni who were drawn to work in the Gender Justice Clinic, now celebrating its tenth anniversary. Through those early hands-on experiences—conducting research, drafting resolutions and white papers, submitting briefs, partnering with clinics and grassroots organizations, leading community workshops, and advising judges and lawmakers—these students began to become the lawyers they are today. 

Time and again, we hear about the transformative experience of our clinics and practica, and in this issue’s faculty essay, Stephen Yale-Loehr ’81, professor of immigration law practice, writes about the extraordinarily difficult, tangled issues surrounding human migration. Following the decades of inaction in Congress, courts are becoming the final arbiters of immigration policy, and groundbreaking programs like the Law School’s 1L Immigration Law and Advocacy Clinic are becoming an increasingly important part of the solution.  

In working to repair a broken system, Cornell Law—and Steve, who is retiring at the end of the year after a brilliant, remarkable career in teaching—is using the power of the academy, in both classroom and clinic, to provide students the fundamental lessons they will carry with them throughout their careers, regardless of how they use their degree. Over the course of working on behalf of immigrants and the children of immigrants, they are challenged to develop the skills to effectively advocate for their clients, learning along the way about real people, real issues, the real effect of the law, and the real work attorneys do every day to become lawyers in the best sense.  

We are proud to share these stories, and we look forward to hearing more from you.

In community,

Jens David Ohlin
Allan R. Tessler Dean and Professor of Law
law.dean@cornell.edu

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