Flash forward 21 years: Harvard’s Office of Public Interest Advising is thriving with the equivalent of eight full-time counselors and a steady stream of students seeking career advice.
The office’s growth reflects a larger shift in the way public interest law careers are perceived and how young lawyers prepare for those jobs. More freshly minted lawyers are opting for public interest careers: The percentage of new law graduates taking those jobs grew from 2.1 percent in 1990 to 6.7 percent in 2010, according to the most recent data from the National Association for Law Placement, or NALP.
