The legislation, sponsored by Senator Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Representative David Scott, D-Ga., authorizes $25 million for the program for fiscal 2009, though advocates for the legislation said it’s unlikely that the appropriations committees would provide such funding by next year. While both key sponsors are Democrats, the legislation has received bipartisan support as it made its way through the two houses and expected to be signed by President Bush.
The program is aimed at enticing law school graduates into the lower-paying legal government service jobs in spite of higher-paying alternatives at law firms that would better allow them to pay off their tens of thousands of dollars in student loans. Federal prosecutors aren’t included in the program because there already exists a government loan repayment program for those government employees.
