More recently, he started his own practice, renting a $300-a-month space at Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport. Some of his clients now pay his standard $150-an-hour fee, and he does free legal work for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, whom he has met through his role as a judge advocate general in the Fourth Regiment of the Tennessee State Guard.

“I would not be able to make the significant contribution of my time to pro bono legal service and as a volunteer member of the State Guard,” he wrote in an e-mail, “if I had to worry about a mountain of school debt hanging over me.”

What Mr. Wintermeyer has given up in prestige, interstate mobility and income, he says, he has gained in peace of mind, not to mention the freedom to donate his time. There are, of course, thousands of graduates of A.B.A.-accredited schools who are every bit as satisfied with their degrees.

But compare Mr. Wintermeyer’s circumstances with those of Keri-Ann Baker, who graduated from the Loyola University School of Law in Chicago in 2004. Tuition was about $33,000 a year, Ms. Baker says, and she left with $200,000 in loans — about half spent on tuition, the other half on books, fees and living expenses. She quickly abandoned her long-held ambition to become a prosecutor because the pay in the Florida county where she and her husband settled was $42,000 a year. She now earns $90,000 a year at a midsize corporate firm. It is barely enough money.

“Right now, loans control every aspect of my life,” she said. “Where I practice, the number of children I’ll have, where I live, the type of house I can live in. I honestly believe I’ll be a grandparent before I pay off my loans. I have yet to make even a dent in them.”

THIS has been a difficult year for the A.B.A. It has been peppered with insistent letters by members of Congress — most notably Senators Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, and Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa — over a number of accusations of failings. Among the contentions is that the organization has not done enough to prevent law schools from overstating the current job prospects of graduates.

The A.B.A. has lobbed back lengthy and detailed letters to Capitol Hill, which appear to have done little to lower the temperature. Threats of Congressional hearings have surfaced in the news media.