By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  Thanks for reading our weekly attempt to track goings-on in the business of public interest law – particularly developments that affect funding and employment – as well as news from the legal education world that impacts the way we train tomorrow’s public interest advocates.  If you are  also interested in keeping up with similar developments in the larger legal industry, check out NALP’s Industry News Weekly Digest.  Published every Friday morning, the digest is authored by NALP executive director Jim Leipold, one of the industry’s closest watchers, and a darned fine dresser (read: my boss). 

This week: some funding for a new Northeastern Law pro bono program; nonprofits bracing for impact from looming federal budget cuts; the University of Maryland’s law school also gets pro bono dollars; the 20^th century saw the dawn and significant evolution in public interest law practice; a new Chicago-area legal helpline for undocumented immigrants is fielding calls from across the nation; a California public defender seeks to undo county budget cuts (we suspect he’s not alone in this endeavor); from tragedy emerges a creative means to support a public defense program; the Dallas D.A.’s family violence unit faces a budgetary axe; and, significant changes to both the Massachusetts and Missouri public defense systems.

• 9.22.11 – good news for Northeastern Law students and Beantown micro-entrepreneuers.   According to the Boston Business Journal the law school “has been awarded a $500,000 grant by the U.S. Department of Commerce to set up a center at the school that will provide free legal services to local low-income or under-served entrepreneurs, the school said on Thursday.  The new center will focus on several emerging industries in Massachusetts including clean energy; green technologies; science and health technologies; and small and ethnically diverse businesses, according to Northeastern.”  One of the particularly nice things about these kinds of pro bono programs is that law students who participate will be able to develop transactional skills, which is not the norm with most pro bono opportunities.

• 9.21.11 – noting that the Legal Services Corporation’s congressional appropriation is on the chopping block, the Nonprofit Quarterly offers some broader perspective on how other nonprofit sectors which rely on federal dollars may fare in the FY12 budget process.  The picture’s not pretty.

• 9.20.11 – more good news on the law school pro bono funding front.  The National Law Journal reports that the University of Maryland’s law school received a $1 million grant from the Moser Family Philanthropic Fund to “establish the Moser Ethics in Action Endowment, which will fund projects and courses centered on ethics, pro bono and professionalism.”

• 9.19.11 – Chip Mellor of the libertarian Institute for Justice pens a Forbes.com piece looking at “Public Interest Law, Then and Now.”  In the early 20^th century both the NAACP and the ACLU “realized that without an effective and persistent courtroom presence, they would not be able to secure the rights and goals they sought. In the coming decades, their programs evolved and other organizations on both the left and the right launched their own public interest law efforts. As a result, the role of the courts and the nature of legal advocacy were transformed.”  As time passed, “public interest law came to involve more than just litigation. The tactics incorporated media relations and mobilization of the public. And it involved appearing in court representing a client and advocating a cause for the purpose of achieving larger social and legal goals.”

• 9.19.11 – from the Huffington Post: “The nation’s first 24-hour hotline for undocumented immigrants seeking information about deportation went live in Chicago Monday….  Created by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR), the Deportation Family Support Hotline is run by volunteers. During the monthlong trial, 67 volunteers responded to 173 calls from across the country seeking advice about deportation law, the Chicago Tribune reports.”  We’re not sure, but it doesn’t appear that law students are engaged as hotline volunteers.  This seems like a great opportunity for student pro bono work, however.

• 9.19.11 – in California, Riverside County’s public defender is asking county officials to reconsider budget cuts put into place earlier this year.  From the Southwest Riverside News Network: “Riverside County Public Defender Gary Windom is expected to ask the Board of Supervisors Tuesday for $1.4 million to cover a gap in his office’s budget that, if not closed, will result in layoffs.”

• 9.19.11 – here’s a creative way to support a public defender program.  According to the Arizona Daily Star the widow of an attorney who was killed earlier this year has donated his wardrobe to the “Yuma Public Defender’s Office so destitute defendants can increase their chances of having a fair trial” by looking presentable during courtroom proceedings.

• 9.19.11 – some dark clouds looming over the Family Violence Unit in the Dallas D.A.’s office.  According to KERA, the unit “could take a hit when County Commissioners approve a new budget tomorrow. KERA’s BJ Austin says state grant money is running out, and the county can’t pick up the cost….  Officials with the District Attorney say the loss of [the unit’s three positions] will make prosecution of domestic violence cases much slower.”

• 9.17.11 – Significant changes in the Massachusetts indigent defense system are moving forward.  The Taunton Daily Gazette reports: “Leaders of the state’s public defender system will soon detail a plan to hire more staff attorneys to represent the poor and contract less of that work to about 3,000 private lawyers across Massachusetts.  The cost of defending low-income people came under the spotlight on Beacon Hill this year when Gov. Deval Patrick proposed hiring about 1,000 new state attorneys and ending the use of private attorneys altogether…..  Patrick ultimately signed a state budget that makes less ambitious reforms. It requires at least 25 percent of cases with indigent defendants to be handled by state attorneys by next July, up from about 10 percent now.  [An official with the state’s public defense administration] said the plan will likely require hiring 346 new full-time employees, including attorneys, support staff, social workers and investigators.”

• 9.16.11 – change is also afoot in the Show-me State’s indigent defense system.  From the Columbia Missourian:  “The Missouri State Public Defender Office has changed the way it contracts with and oversees private attorneys to reduce the wait time for indigent defendants who need an attorney and increase the monitoring of private attorneys who take cases…. It’s been 22 years since the public defender system had enough lawyers to handle the number of cases it received. The gap between capacity and caseload grew through the ’90s and “escalated dramatically” from 2000 to 2009,” according to Missouri Public Defender System director Cat Kelly.