Blogs | March, 25 2026

Strengthening the Civil Legal Aid Workforce: How Student Loan Forgiveness Addresses the Crisis in Maryland’s Justice System

For many law school graduates, six-figure debt loads overshadow their aspirations to serve as civil legal aid attorneys. When high debt loads force talented lawyers into the private sector, it is often underserved communities and the efficiency of the courts that suffer. The Maryland Access to Justice Commission recognizes the urgent need to bridge this justice gap by ensuring that a career in public service is financially sustainable for the long term.

Access to Justice and Civil Legal Aid Workers

Civil legal aid attorneys are a linchpin in increasing access to justice. Yet many attorneys graduate with debt exceeding $150,000, while public-sector starting salaries often remain below $60,000. This debt load affects recruitment, preventing many public-interest-minded law students from working at civil legal aid organizations or building a career pursuing access to justice.

This disparity also makes it difficult to retain talent within civil legal aid organizations. As people move into the middle of their careers and family obligations and costs increase, it can be hard to remain committed to a public interest career due to the continued debt burden and the resulting financial strain. 

Turnover in staff at civil legal aid organizations has a negative impact on the ability to serve clients and meet the high demand for legal services. Additionally, if more senior attorneys leave and are replaced by entry-level staff, there is a loss of institutional knowledge and mentorship that hurts the quality of advocacy. In under-resourced or rural areas, recruitment and retention in civil legal aid organizations can be doubly challenging, leading to legal deserts and scarcity of critical legal services. 

The Importance of Student Loan Forgiveness

The Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program was created in 2007 by a bipartisan act of Congress to encourage people to pursue public service work by forgiving the remaining balance of their federal student loans after they complete 10 years of public service work while making required student loan payments. 1.  

PSLF helps ensure that talented attorneys can afford to choose and remain in careers at civil legal aid organizations—which pay far less than the public and private legal sectors—without being burdened by long-term federal student debt.  Civil legal aid is often critical to upholding legal rights and addressing a range of basic needs, from preventing homelessness caused by unlawful foreclosures, to recovering unpaid wages illegally withheld, to obtaining food and medicine for critically ill children, to enabling domestic violence survivors to reach safety and financial security.  

By ensuring that talented attorneys can afford to work for civil legal aid organizations, PSLF indirectly supports a lifeline for millions of low-income families and individuals facing major health, safety, housing, and financial crises throughout the United States.  The largest portion of the civil legal aid system—130 nonprofit organizations funded by the federal Legal Services Corporation (LSC)—assists over 5.2 million people with civil legal problems annually. 2.  Over 550 non-LSC funded organizations provide additional civil legal aid to millions more. 3.

While legal aid programs serve millions of low-income people, there are presently more people in need than capacity. The civil legal aid system is struggling to meet the high demand for its services due to funding shortages. The Legal Services Corporation (LSC) reported that in 2021, three of four low-income households experienced one or more legal problems.4. Among households under 125% of the federal poverty level, the following percentages reported having one or more legal problems: 70% of senior households, 76% of veteran households, 83% of households with children, 98% of households with recent domestic violence, and 77% of rural households. 5. Yet, despite the serious legal needs of low-income households, states have just 2.8 civil legal aid attorneys per 10,000 people in poverty. 6. In 2021, due to the lack of sufficient funding for the necessary legal aid staff, LSC-funded organizations were unable to provide any or enough legal help for an estimated 1.4 million civil legal problems for which low-income people sought their assistance. 7. That same year, 92% of low-income households with serious legal problems received no or insufficient legal assistance. 8.

Recent changes to the PSLF rule grant the Secretary of Education authority to determine that government, legal services, and 501(c)(3) nonprofit employers are no longer “public service” employers if the Secretary deems that they have engaged in certain disfavored conduct. This change may exacerbate the “justice gap” between the civil legal needs of low-income Americans and the resources available to meet those needs because non-profit civil legal aid organizations, by serving vulnerable populations, including immigrants, transgender persons or persons with disabilities, can arbitrarily be deemed as disfavored conduct. Hiring and retaining lawyers is a major barrier to the effectiveness of legal aid programs. Legal aid organizations face serious difficulties in recruiting attorneys—job openings can stay unfilled for months—and retaining current staff. 9. Job turnover diverts resources to training new employees. Two primary reasons for the staffing challenges are low salaries and high educational debt, and PSLF is critical to help address these challenges.

As mentioned above, a key obstacle to hiring and retaining legal aid lawyers is the financial pressure caused by low pay. 10. In California, for example, entry level California legal aid lawyers make $25,000 less than the low end of the range for government lawyers in the same community. 11. For experienced attorneys, the gap is even larger. 12. Low pay combined with the increasing costs of housing and other costs of living, such as supporting children, causes financial pressure on those pursuing legal aid careers. 13. Given these pressures, attorneys who are inclined to choose a career in civil legal aid are increasingly opting to work for the public or private sector, where they can earn substantially more. 14.

Another is the burden of student loan debt carried to acquire the education and credentials to become an attorney. 15. One study, for example, reported that over 84% of entry-level legal aid lawyer candidates and over 75% of all legal aid lawyers in California have educational debt, with the median amount being between $125,000 and $149,000, and more than a third having $200,000 to $300,000 or more. 16. Given these large student loan balances, the PSLF program has been a decisive factor in legal aid organizations’ ability to recruit and retain talented attorneys despite offering salaries far below market rate.

In short, civil legal aid organizations rely heavily on the PSLF program to recruit and retain adequate staff to meet the legal needs of low-income people. Reducing the reliability of the PSLF program would lead to a reduction of essential civil legal aid services necessary to the long-term health and safety of low-income communities across the country. 

Recruiting and retaining attorneys for civil legal aid organizations is critical to their functioning and their ability to serve Marylanders. Having a robust Public Interest Loan Forgiveness program is a key component to ensuring the health of civil legal aid organizations and access to justice in Maryland. 

A bill currently pending in Maryland,  HB19 (the Maryland Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program), seeks to provide a clear path to debt forgiveness for those who meet the following criteria:

• Employment: Be employed by the State of Maryland within the Executive, Legislative, or Judicial branch.
• Longevity: Maintain a minimum of 10 cumulative years of state employment.
• Education: Hold a degree from an accredited college or university located within the State of Maryland.

The bill defines “higher education loans” broadly, covering debt incurred for tuition and living costs, whether obtained from government, commercial, or nonprofit sources.

If enacted, HB19 would authorize the state to pay 100% of an eligible employee’s remaining higher education loan debt, subject to the availability of funding.

The legislation includes specific provisions to ensure the program promotes equity. Priority for participation is given to graduates from:

1. Institutions within the University System of Maryland (USM).
2. Institutions where at least 40% of enrolled students are eligible for federal Pell Grants.

While HB19 is a step towards ensuring that a more diverse pool of professionals can afford to remain in public service, extending such forgiveness to state employees is not enough to sustain an equitable justice system. For the reasons stated above, A2JC urges the Maryland General Assembly to enact legislation providing student loan forgiveness for employees of Maryland non-profit organizations as well.

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1.   Pub.L. 110-84 §401 (2007).
2. Legal Services Corp., LSC 101: Understanding Civil Legal Aid.
3. Nat’l Center for Access to Justice, Justice Index, Attorney Access (2021).
4. Legal Services Corp., The Justice Gap: The Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-Income Americans 8 (April 2022).
5. Id. at p. 29.
6. American Bar Ass’n, Profile of the Legal Profession 2023 9.
7. The Justice Gap, supra, at p. 9. See also Legal Services Corp., 2026 FY Budget Request 9 (2025).
8. Id. at p. 8.
9. See, e.g., Legal Aid Ass’n of Cal., Justice at Risk: More Support Needed for Legal Aid Attorneys in California (Jan. 2020); Matt Reynolds, Civil legal aid lawyers are often the last line of defense. Why are there so few of them?, americanbar.org (Apr. 1, 2024).
10. Cal. Access to Justice Comm’n, Legal Aid Recruitment, Retention, and Diversity: A Report to the State Bar of California 14-16 (Feb. 2022).
11. Legal Aid Recruitment, supra, at p. 15.
12. Id. at p. 16; Justice at Risk, supra, at pp. 21-31.
13. Justice at Risk, supra, at pp. 21-24.
14. Justice at Risk, supra, at pp. 24-28.
15. Id. at pp. 31-30.
16. Id. at pp. 31-32.