STATE OF NEW YORK ________________________________________________________________________ 4608 2025-2026 Regular Sessions IN ASSEMBLY February 4, 2025 ___________ Introduced by M. of A. CRUZ -- read once and referred to the Committee on Higher Education AN ACT to amend the education law, in relation to the New York State district attorney and indigent legal services attorney loan forgive- ness program The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem- bly, do enact as follows: 1 Section 1. Paragraph b of subdivision 2 of section 679-e of the educa- 2 tion law, as amended by section 1 of part VV of chapter 56 of the laws 3 of 2009, is amended to read as follows: 4 b. "Eligible period" means the [six-year] seven-year period after 5 completion of the [third] second year and before the commencement of the 6 tenth year of employment as an eligible attorney. For purposes of this 7 section, all periods of time during which an admitted attorney was 8 employed as an eligible attorney and all periods of time during which a 9 law school graduate awaiting admission to the New York state bar was 10 employed by a prosecuting or criminal defense agency as permitted by 11 section four hundred eighty-four of the judiciary law shall be combined. 12 § 2. This act shall take effect immediately. Nothing in this act shall 13 be implemented in a manner that diminishes the current award or status 14 of eligible attorneys currently participating in the program. EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets [ ] is old law to be omitted. LBD07620-01-5