Serving the Public Good: Some New Data on an Old Question

Public service work is important for the functioning of the legal system. Someone must do the necessary work of prosecutors and public defenders in the criminal justice system as well as the work in other public arenas where legal expertise is needed. Our interest is in law student motivations as they relate to public service careers and in utilizing empirical data and new theory to see beyond vague notions and old myths.Our article uses data from surveys of law students conducted by the Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE) between 2010 and 2021. The surveys consistently asked U.S. law students about their preferred work settings (e.g., prosecutor’s office, public defender, corporate, solo practice, and so on). This data allows us to examine any patterns and changes in student aspirations and their experiences in law schools for the years between 2006 and 2021. In addition, our research also utilizes a set of seven questions asked by LSSSE in 2010 and again in 2021. These are questions on students’ self-reported reasons for attending law school and choosing a career in law. They constitute the new data on an old question about law students’ public interest orientation and, hence, the focus of this article.Our article has three parts: the first, drawing from our previous work, talks about motivation, especially what public administration scholars call “public service motivation” or PSM. The second looks in detail at the motivation data from the 2010 and 2021 surveys. While we started with no assumptions about changes in motivation, we did find, unexpectedly, a pronounced change in the percentage of students motivated by contributing to the public good in some way. The third part discusses the possible implications for legal education and the profession of that unexpected finding.