Lawyering on a low income.

J. Samantha Vacciana found representing victims of domestic violence for the Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County "rewarding in every way."

But the "horrible reality" of educational debt, a modest income, and the high cost of living in South Florida proved to be a combination she just could not overcome.

Saddled with more than $100,000 in student loans and a salary that had grown to just $46,000 after almost four years on the job, Vacciana recently pulled the plug on her legal aid career for a more lucrative position in private practice.

"It can be very disheartening when you can't meet your own financial responsibilities," Vacciana said.

Vaccianna's story is all too typical. A new survey commissioned by The Florida Bar Foundation found legal aid attorneys are leaving Florida's 28 civil legal aid programs at an alarming rate. Armed with this information and believing that funding a high quality civil legal aid system is critical to ensuring access to justice for low-income Floridians, the Foundation in March is expected to make grants to bolster the salaries of all of the state's legal aid lawyers. (See story, page 1)

The attrition rate for legal aid lawyers is now well-documented. During the past five years, the average annual turnover for the programs combined has been 20 percent, or one out of every five attorneys leaving each year, according to the Foundation's study.

"When one looks back five years to the beginning of 2002 and asks how many attorneys are still employed with the program they were with at that point, the answer is only 39 percent," said Kelly Camody, a consultant who conducted the survey for the Foundation.

"Perhaps more startling is that of those who left in the last five years, half left before they had been with their programs two years."

Camody also found that 56 percent of the current 377 legal aid lawyers in Florida think they will leave their current positions within the next five years.

The primary cause for attorneys leaving and not applying for positions is the "abysmally low" salaries paid by Florida civil legal aid providers, Camody said. The median starting salary of $38,500 is below what most new attorneys need to meet the cost of living "and far below the salary one would expect for a highly educated professional," Camody said.

Just as troubling is the rate at which legal salaries increase, she said. It takes a median of nine years for a legal aid staff attorney to reach a salary of more than $50,000.

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