Project on Predatory Student Lending: Inspiring My Public Interest Career

By Jessica Ranucci, J.D. ’16 

Jessica Ranucci, J.D. ’16

The Project on Predatory Student Lending, part of the Predatory Lending and Consumer Protection Clinic, has been a tremendously important part of my law school experience. The clinic is housed at HLS’s Legal Services Center (LSC), which is located in Boston, and is only a few minutes drive away from the community center where I worked full-time before law school.

I came to HLS in order to be able to combat the structural inequalities that I saw facing the youth and families with whom I worked. I sought out a clinical experience at LSC because its mission to provide quality legal services to clients in their own neighborhood comported with my own belief in community-based public interest work.

The Project on Predatory Student Lending provides direct representation to low-income student loan borrowers who have experienced illegal predatory activity by for-profit colleges. As a 2L in my first semester at the clinic, I directly represented clients in civil litigation. I also wrote a motion and conducted discovery for the first time. Through the Continuing Clinical Program, I have been able to remain in the clinic for my entire 3L year.

This year, I have a lot of flexibility to work independently while I oversee the clinic’s intake process. I love conducting intakes: they give new potential clients the opportunity to share their stories and give me the intellectual challenge of matching up the clients’ experiences with potential legal claims. After an intake meeting, I make recommendations to the clinic’s attorneys about the legal options we have to assist our clients. In some cases, there is a relatively easy solution and I can help the client apply for an administrative loan discharge. I bring the complicated cases to our weekly team meetings, where the supervising attorneys, fellow clinical students, and I discuss the legal assistance the clinic can provide.

The Project on Predatory Student Lending is also involved in shaping student debt policy on the state and national level. The clinic’s attorneys set policy priorities by listening to our clients’ needs and identifying when the current system is not working for them. What has really inspired me about the Project on Predatory Student Lending is its simultaneous commitment to high-quality direct legal services and pursuit of policy change on our clients’ behalf. I came to law school to find a way to combat structural inequality—and I see the clinic’s combination of legal services and client—driven policy advocacy as a model for how to achieve that. It is a model I hope to emulate in my career.