By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  And happy June.  June is the sunniest month, at least for those of us living on the Earth’s northern half.  Speaking of where we are, I am in motion – aboard an Amtrak train and destined for my hometown of Philly.  I’m in Maryland now.  This state’s beauty is sadly unheralded.  To cross the bridges spanning the Chesapeake Bay tributaries just after sunrise is to observe a wonderful bit of scenery.  And the City of Baltimore is like Philly’s cool little brother, except with crabs.  There has to be a better way to phrase that.

Shortly I’ll be at the Philadelphia Bar Association, where I’ll have the pleasure of speaking with a group of law students about maximizing their summer public interest experiences.  Later I’ll join my childhood friends Billy and Sean – neighborhood riff-raff like myself – to watch the Glorious Philadelphia Phillies Baseball Franchise reel in the Marlins of Miami.  (If you think it’s bad that we call a grown man by his yesteryear nickname of Billy, imagine how bad it is for our friend Stinky.  He’s a medical doctor these days.  He really wishes we’d call him Duane.)

As you know I focus mainly on access-to-justice developments in this newsletter.  I feel strongly, though, that the AtJ community must itself monitor happenings in the law-firm world, especially those affecting the “business of law.”  So I commend to you this incisive AmLaw article by Professor Bill Henderson.  He uses this week’s demise of the storied law firm Dewey & Leboeuf to explore how large law firms must quickly rework their business models lest they risk running themselves into the ground.  (You may be required to register to read the piece; a trial registration should be free.)  Also, every Friday NALP’s executive director Jim Leipold produces a terrific legal industry digest that you may access here.

On to our news:         

This week:

• Upside: the U.S. has a strong civil justice system. Downside: poor people don’t get to use it
• The New York State Bar’s incoming president is a legal aid leader
• Student loan debt is a real big problem
• Maine’s got some King-size indigent defense funding problems
• More debate around the 50-hour pro bono requirement for admission to practice in New York
• A veteran PA children’s rights advocate moves into retirement
• Merck’s in-house team has launched a pro bono project to serve vets in need
• The Northern District of Alabama is finally going to host some federal defenders
• A great new report out of Illinois about the economic benefits generated by civil legal aid

The summaries:

• 6.1.12 – an ABA Journal piece covers one of the central access-to-justice dilemmas in the U.S.: “Two recent studies provide news good and bad for the U.S. legal system. The good: The United States’ civil legal system is one of the best in the world, according to the results of the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index 2011.  And the bad? According to this same study, millions of Americans can’t use this fine system because they can’t afford it. They have legal rights—to child support, Medicare benefits or protection against an improper home foreclosure—but they find these rights meaningless because they can’t enforce them….  A plethora of government and volunteer programs provide free legal aid, but they are overstretched…. To make matters worse, the system for providing free legal services is a mess. There is “an enormous diversity of programs and provision models with very little coordination at either the state or the national level,” according to Access Across America, a 2011 report (PDF) authored by Rebecca L. Sandefur and Aaron C. Smyth and funded in large part by the American Bar Foundation.”

• 5.31.12 – a legal aid leader takes the helm of the New York State Bar.  “Seymour W. James, Jr. of Brooklyn, a 38-year veteran of The Legal Aid Society of New York, assumes office on June 1 as the 115th president of the New York State Bar Association….  James is the attorney-in-charge of the criminal practice for The Legal Aid Society, which provides criminal and civil legal services for low-income individuals in New York City.  The theme for his presidency is “making a difference” with an emphasis on access to justice.”  (Story from realMedia.)

• 5.30-31.12 – the PBS Newshour aired a two-part report on the increasing crisis of skyrocketing educational debt-loads being carried by higher-ed grads, including law students.  Indeed, part two contained a lot of content about the plight of law grads.
  • Here’s part one: “The State of Student Loans: More Debts, More Defaults, More Problems”
  • Here’s part two: “Student Loan Debt: To Pay or Not to Pay”

• 5.30.12 – “Maine’s Commission on Indigent Legal Services, which provides lawyers for criminal defendants who can’t afford their own, gets inadequate funding every year. Its budget for this fiscal year recently bottomed out, and it will not be sufficient to pay lawyers for the month of June. They will be paid at the start of the new fiscal year in July, but dwindling funds are an ongoing problem.”  Thanks for the (bad) news, Maine Public Broadcasting Network.

• 5.30.11 – debate continues around the new 50-hour pro bono requirement for admission to practice law in New York.  In the New York Times, David Udell of the National Center for Access to Justice at Cardozo Law defends the initiative as one that is not overly burdensome on law students and that could have great outcomes for students and clients.  (I believe that the devil remains in the details – e.g. will work satisfying the definition of “pro bono” for a law school’s internal program count toward the requirement if that work does not meet New York’s definition? – but I generally agree with David.  More importantly: what do you think? The Times writes: “We invite readers to respond to this letter for the Sunday Dialogue. We plan to publish responses and Mr. Udell’s rejoinder in the Sunday Review. E-mail: letters@nytimes.com.”
  • And here, from Bloomberg, is a nice summary of the key considerations driving the debate.

• 5.29.12 – we bid “Happy Trails” to a veteran, Pennsylvania-based children’s advocate.  From the Philadelphia Inquirer:  “Shelly Yanoff, a longtime champion of children’s causes, will step down this fall from her role as head of the nonprofit Public Citizens for Children and Youth, the organization’s board of directors announced yesterday.”  The Inquirer did a Q&A with Yanoff which captured her thoughts on what her job had taught her: “That people can respond to the needs of kids. That there are many different ways to get to a good result and that nothing ever stays done. You have to keep at it.”

• 5.29.11 – when pharmaceutical giant Merck began supporting veterans support group Community of Hope, Merck’s in-house lawyers “…realized that they could provide services through their substantial pro bono program that would be as helpful if not moreso than the checks their company was writing to support Community of Hope. Thus was born the Hope for Veterans Program.”  Read about it in the Huffington Post.

• 5.28.12 – some federal court news: the Northern District of Alabama finally has some full-time federal defenders.  From Al.com: “North Alabama’s first crew of federal public defenders, working out of Birmingham and Huntsville, in August will begin defending indigent clients charged with crimes…. The district is one of only four federal court districts out of 94 nationwide that don’t [presently] have some form of federal public defender’s office.”

• 5.24.12 – this may even cause my friend Bob Glaves to forget about the misery of the Chicago Cubs for a bit.  The Chicago Bar Foundation was one of a few stakeholders involved in producing “Legal Aid in Illinois: Selected Social and Economic Benefits.”  This report does a wonderful job of exposing the concrete, financial benefits that inure to Illinois’s population at large because of the work that legal aid organizations do to keep families in their homes, stop domestic abuse, secure government benefits, and obtain child support for clients.  This is the so-called “business case” for legal aid, and this report makes a strong one.  Here’s the report and an accompanying press release.

Finally, this being graduation season, I leave you with the transcript of this commencement speech by Professor Lawrence Lessig.  In it, he emphasizes that if lawyers are stewards for the rule of law and for meaningful access to justice, then we must not make it a priority to serve moneyed interests at the expense of society at large – particularly our society’s most vulnerable members.  I think 90% of commencement speeches are hot air – bromides strung together lazily so as to offend no one and congratulate everyone.  This one resonates with me, though.  Happy June.  Enjoy the sun