Boston College law professor Kent Greenfield stands in front of the BC law offices in Newton, Mass. Friday. Greenfield was active in creating a group of law schools that brought a suit challenging a decade-old federal law requiring universities to give military recruiters the same access to students as other recruiters. The U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled in their favor, and invalidated the law. (AP Photo/Winslow Townson)

AP Education Writer

BOSTON — Maj. Rachel VanLandingham’s job sounds like one of the toughest in the military — persuading law school graduates to pass on high-paying private sector jobs and become Air Force judge advocates for about $40,000 a year.

But VanLandingham, chief of recruiting for the Air Force Judge Advocate General Corps, says she often succeeds in luring the bright young lawyers that the military urgently needs.

Often, she sells the career by talking face-to-face with students about the opportunities being a JAG afforded her to travel and make courtroom arguments just two months after passing the bar exam.

‘‘I wish I drove a BMW and I don’t, but that’s something money can’t replace,’’ she said of the experience.

‘‘And I can’t convey that to a law student without sitting down with them in an interview.’’

That’s why VanLandingham, who works out of the Pentagon, says she is deeply disappointed with a federal appeals court ruling this week that could make it harder for military recruiters to make their case in the nation’s top law schools.

The ruling, by the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, invalidates a decade-old — but only recently enforced — federal law requiring universities to give the military the same access to students as other recruiters, or forfeit their universities’ eligibility for federal research funds. At some schools, that would mean losing hundreds of millions of dollars.

After the Pentagon began strictly enforcing the measure in 2002, the law schools complied, but only under protest. Many contend that, since gays can’t serve openly in the armed forces, granting formal access to Pentagon recruiters violates the schools’ policies forbidding on-campus recruiting by employers who discriminate on the basis of race, gender or sexual orientation.

On Monday, they won a major legal victory when the appeals court ruled 2-1 that the law is an unconstitutional violation of the schools’ free speech.

‘‘We’re simply applying the same rules to military recruiters that we would apply to any other recruiter,’’ said Kent Greenfield, a Boston College law professor who was active in creating the consortium of law schools the brought the suit. ‘‘We’d say the same thing if they only wanted white students or they only wanted men.’’ A dissenting judge argued the law merely deprives the schools of money, not free speech, since nothing prevents the schools from continuing to protest the Pentagon’s policy.

The Justice Department has not indicated whether it will appeal, and several law schools said this week they are still considering how to proceed. But Harvard Law School has announced it will revert to its previous policy of banning the military from formal recruiting access.