By Noah Powelson

As the end of the year approaches, New York’s legal community this week made its case to Gov. Kathy Hochul to expand student loan assistance for lawyers working in the public sector, who are often paid much less than their counterparts in the private sector.

Nearly 40 different legal organizations and prosecutors’ offices signed an open letter to the governor Wednesday, urging him to allocate $4 million in his upcoming 2026 executive budget to the District Attorney and Law Department Attorney Loan Forgiveness Program destitute, also known as DALF.

Currently, the DALF program, which was created in 2009 and has not seen any adjustments since, is capped at $3,400 in loan forgiveness per year with six years of eligibility per law school graduate. In total, graduates can be rewarded up to $20,400 in debt forgiveness.

The proposed $4 million is an estimated cost to pass legislation, introduced by New York State Sen. Jessica Ramos, that would increase student loan assistance from $3,400 to $8,000 per year. year, for up to eight years, or for full scholarship eligibility of up to $64,000.

Ramos, who recently launched his bid for New York City mayor, said the bill would go a long way toward properly compensating young lawyers working for local prosecutors or as public defenders, many of whom have accumulated years of experience. debts to law school.

“Public defenders are a constitutional right and they are not immune to the affordability crisis facing our state,” Ramos said in a statement. “With changing federal tides and aggressive attacks on student loan forgiveness and public service loan support, New York must step up its efforts. It is clearly unacceptable that legal aid attorneys must support Instacart or Uber services on top of their already large caseloads, and the DALF expansion is a great way to address this crisis.

Signatories to the letter included the Legal Aid Society, UAW Local 2325, the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys and Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz.

According to the coalition’s letter, loan aid for public interest attorneys and assistant district attorneys lags behind registered nurses and social workers, who are eligible for $40,000 and $26,000, respectively. loan assistance.

“The need for dedicated and experienced public interest lawyers who can provide essential legal services to hundreds of thousands of low-income New Yorkers is more critical than ever,” said Twyla Carter, CEO of Legal Aid Society. “But extremely high student loan payments, coupled with the ever-increasing cost of living in New York, continue to pose a significant threat to these lawyers’ ability to remain in the public sector. »