ABA report sheds light on student- debt loads of young lawyers

Ninety percent of young attorneys responding to an American Bar Association (ABA) survey borrowed education loans for their juris doctorate (J.D.) or prior degrees. They owed an average of about $108,000 in J.D. loans and $130,000 in all loans combined at graduation.

Of those who borrowed, 80-90 percent indicated their student debt has “in some way disrupted the trajectory of their career or personal life, or negatively impacted their financial well-being.” Most borrowers said their debt load caused them to weigh salary more heavily in their job selection than they expected before entering law school.

Those are but a couple of the findings of the 2021 ABA Young Lawyers Division Student Loan Survey, titled “Student Debt: The Holistic Impact on Today’s Young Lawyer.”

Among the 14 percent of survey respondents who did not borrow for law school, most used scholarships and grants (58 percent), personal savings (59 percent), or financial support from friends or family (68 percent) to cover their law-school expenses. Only 34 percent of non-borrowers reported financing their legal education with earnings from working during their time in law school.

The survey was conducted over three weeks in April and May of this year, targeting ABA members aged 36 or under and who graduated law school or were licensed within the last 10 years. AccessLex Institute received complete responses from more than 1,300 young attorneys from across the U.S. 

The full survey results are available at: https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/young_lawyers/2021-student-loan-survey.pdf