Law graduates that build a career in an underserviced community should have access to debt forgiveness programs, according to a report published today by the Canadian Bar Association that outlines 22 recommendations on how to improve the legal industry.

Across Canada, the report explains, many law students want to practise law in the public interest. But those students often carry six-figure student debt, so they pursue high paying jobs in urban centres — even if their passion lies elsewhere.

Meanwhile, smaller communities across Canada need more lawyers, says Ian Holloway, dean of the faculty of law at the University of Calgary and a co-author of the education section of the report. “There are too many would-be lawyers in downtown Toronto, but not nearly in enough in Cochrane or Timmins.”

Debt forgiveness programs, he says, could encourage new lawyers to practise in small communities, despite the lower salary.

In fact, this is not an entirely new idea.

Consider, for instance, the Forgivable Loans Program in Manitoba. Launched in 2011, the Law Society of Manitoba provides an interest-free loan to one law student each year who grew up in an underserviced community. If, after graduation, that student returns home to practise, the Law Society will forgive 20 percent of the loan each year. In five years, young lawyers can become debt-free.

So far, one law student has gone through the program, says Allan Fineblit, CEO of the Law Society of Manitoba. She now practises in her hometown of Thompson, which has a population of around 13,000.

The long-term goal, he says, is to inject 20 lawyers into remote regions across Manitoba. “If a community only has one lawyer, adding one more doubles the level of services. And in many communities there are no lawyers,” he explains. “A relatively small number could be very, very important.”

But the program is expensive. According to Fineblit, it costs $75,000 to put each student through the Forgivable Loans Program.

Indeed, the central barrier to implementing similar programs across the country is cost, says Holloway. In the end, he says, law schools, law societies and governments will all need to chip in to get more programs off the ground. Still, he admits: “No one has blank cheques to hand out to law schools to do this.”

In their wide-ranging report, the CBA made several other suggestions for how to improve legal education. For instance, the report says law schools should accept life experience as a substitute to the required two years of pre-law university study and that law schools incorporate more practical training into their curriculum.