Organization

A Better Balance is a national legal advocacy organization with offices in Nashville, TN and New York, NY dedicated to promoting fairness in the workplace and helping workers care for their families without sacrificing their economic security. Through nationwide policy advocacy, legal services and strategic litigation, and enforcement and education, ABB is fighting back and improving workers’ lives at the local, state and federal levels. The organization has fought for and won victories in improved paid leave, equal pay, pregnancy and caregiver protection, breastfeeding accommodations, LGBTQ rights protections, and other economic justice issues throughout the country.  

Position

Based in Nashville, TN, the Staff Attorney would advance the goals of A Better Balance by promoting fairness for working families in the South and raising awareness nationally of local issues affecting Southern low-wage workers, especially marginalized communities. The Staff Attorney would work in the following areas: combating discrimination and unfair practices against women and caregivers, such as pregnancy & breastfeeding discrimination and Family and Medical Leave Act violations, staffing our free legal helpline to assist low-wage workers, being part of a team working on impact litigation cases, drafting and disseminating public education materials, and conducting legal research.

See the full post on PSJD: https://www.psjd.org/opportunitydetails?OppID=86603 

Organization 

The Institute for Justice is the National Law Firm for Liberty.
IJ litigates to limit the size and scope of government power and to ensure that all Americans have the right to control their own destinies as free and responsible members of society.

The Institute for Justice combines cutting-edge litigation, sophisticated media relations, strategic research, boots-on-the-ground advocacy and much more to fight on behalf of those individuals who are denied their constitutional rights. Despite the challenge of taking on powerful government officials and entrenched precedents, IJ is successful in winning 70 percent of its cases in the court of law, in the court of public opinion or through legislative reforms.

Position 

The Institute for Justice’s Dave Kennedy Summer Fellowship program provides an unparalleled opportunity for select law students to substantively contribute to IJ’s cutting-edge civil-rights litigation. Fellows conduct legal research; help develop litigation strategies for active and potential cases; and draft discovery requests, motions, and briefs filed in both state and federal court.

IJ’s Dave Kennedy Summer Fellowship positions are highly competitive. The fellowship is a paid opportunity, $7000 for the 10 week program, and generally runs from the last week of May through early-August. Fellowship opportunities are available at all six of IJ’s offices:

Arlington, VA (Headquarters)
Austin, TX
Seattle, WA
Miami, FL
Minneapolis, MN
Tempe, AZ

See the full post on PSJD: https://www.psjd.org/opportunitydetails?OppID=86481 . 

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! I won’t dodge. Things have been busy here at NALP, both with the PSJD Mini-Conference that happened at the end of October and with a number of projects in the office that I’m hoping to share with you all later this year. But also, it’s been hard to face the news the last few weeks and find a face to wear for all of you.

But the world continues to turn and the digest is back. Major news this week includes the likely demise of a successful and critical legal aid program in Ontario, ominous questions concerning the legitimacy of cy pres from the Supreme Court, a new, free, online caselaw library from the Harvard Law Library Innovation Lab, and a number of high-profile district attorney elections that went to candidates promising substantial progressive reforms.

See you around,
   Sam

Immigrants & Refugees 

• The Justice Department began using video hearings to have migrant children testify in immigration proceedings from detention, according to the Associated Press, “some attorneys and judges say[] that technical glitches…are actually making it much harder for teens in shelters to have a fair hearing.”
• In Seattle, WA, Seattle University suspended its externship program with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, “based on its current policies and practices.” 

Access to Justice – Civil

• In Washington, Justices Roberts, Alito, and Kavanaugh made comments during oral argument in Frank v. Gaos  that questioned the legitimacy of cy pres deals by extending reasoning from the Court’s recent holding in Janus v. AFSCME: According to law360, “Chief Justice John Roberts questioned whether it’s appropriate to hand out funds to charities–which may make political or other speech–that class members have not approved.” As the publication notes, “the scrutiny of these deals indirectly threatens a system that the American Bar Association estimates sends approximately $15.5 million every year to legal aid service organizations.”
• In Ontario, “[a] program that gets lawyers to volunteer their time to help people navigate the civil court system in Toronto and Ottawa is shutting down next month for lack of funding–even though a study shows it saves Ontario’s justice system more than $5 million a year.”
  • A former president of the Ontario Bar Association launched a GoFundMe campaign in an attempt to save the program.
• In the Ohio News-Herald, the Managing Director of Ohio State University’s Student Legal Services program discusses the student-legal-services model.

Veterans Services

• In Washington DC, the Department of Veterans Affairs led other government agencies (including Labor, Justice, Defense, and the US Navy), “signed a joint statement aimed at improving access to free legal services for Veterans in need.”

Student Debt

• Citing reports from the Urban Institute and Brookings, Forbes reported that “40% of student loan borrowers may default on their student loans by 2023.”
• AboveTheLaw suggested “law students should join ROTC to help minimize their student debt.”
• In Washington DC, “[DC] Attorney General Racine and a coalition of 20 states called on U.S. Department of Education (ED) Secretary Betsy DeVos to help student borrowers who attended schools that abruptly closed have their loans discharged.”
• In Maine, lawmakers extended the state’s “Educational Opportunity Tax Credit” program, a state policy that offsets student loan payments for recent graduates who stay in the state, “making a similar offer to graduates from outside the state; in effect, trying to lure them to Maine.”
• In Newburgh Heights, Ohio, the mayor has proposed a program which would offer $50,000 in loan forgiveness to people who move to the town, buy a home, and stay for at least 10 years.
• In Washington DC, Bustle.com speculated that the influx of younger congress-members may create an institution more inclined to treat student debt reform as an urgent issue.
• In Milwaukee, WI, the state journal reported the story of a former student loan debtor who reports that the Department of Education began requesting additional payments months after he received official notice his debts had been paid.

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Michigan, “[t]he Michigan Indigent Defense Commission is preparing to distribute $84 million in grant money to counties in an effort to provide fairer legal representation to those who cannot afford it.” (This disbursement will be the culmination of many months of work by the commission, documented in earlier editions of the digest.)

Criminal Justice Reform

• In jurisdictions across the country, voters elected district attorneys promising to reform their offices:
  • In Dallas County, TX, John Creuzot won with a platform of police accountability and bail reform.
  • In Bexar County, TX, Joe Gonzales won with a platform of cite-and-release for minor offenses.
  • In St. Louis County, MO, Wesley Bell won with a platform of diversion and drug treatment.
  • In Boston, MA, Rachel Rollins won with a platform of eliminating cash bail, dismissing minor offenses, hiring a more diverse staff of prosecutors, and collecting data to discover biases among her staff.

Legal Technology

• In Cambridge, MA, Harvard Law School’s Library Innovation Lab launched the CaseLaw Access Project: “a new free website [that] makes available nearly 6.5 million state and federal cases dating from the 1600s to earlier this year.”
• According to Gizmodo, “[i]n a company-wide meeting[], Amazon addressed its relationship with law enforcement agencies, including Immigrations Customs and Enforcement–its first direct response to employee concerns raised in June about the company’s often successful attempts to provide cloud infrastructure and facial recognition software for these government authorities.”
• The Chief Program Officer for the Pew Charitable Trusts wrote for governing.com on how “[t]echnology can help people who don’t have lawyers and make courts more efficient.”
• A new report, “Government Jobs of the Future,” examines how changes in technology might affect the types of roles humans play in the administration of government.

Music Bonus

Dolly Parton, “19th Amendment“

Organization 

DNA People’s Legal Services, Inc. (“DNA”) is the largest and one of the oldest Indian legal services programs in the United States. It was established on the Navajo Indian Reservation in 1967 under the name Dinebeiina Nahiilna Be Agaditahe, a Navajo phrase which means “contributing to the revitalization of the People through the legal process”.

DNA’s primary source of funding is the Legal Services Corporation, which was created by federal statute to provide civil legal services to indigent persons. In addition, DNA seeks funding from other sources, such as private foundations, to support particular community legal education endeavors, major case litigation and other special projects.

Position 

DNA People’s Legal Services is hiring 8 attorneys in their various offices across Arizona and New Mexico. They are also accepting applications from 2L’s for their summer law internship program.

See a full list of DNA’s openings on PSJD: https://www.psjd.org/search?SearchTypeID=2&OrgID=113674 

Awa Sowe, PSJD Fellow

October was a big month for us here at PSJD. Our annual mini-conference went off without a hitch- many thanks to all the employers and career services professionals who attended!  PSJD was also an exhibitor at the Equal Justice Conference and Career Fair and witnessing the next generation of social-justice-minded lawyers was exhilarating.  These past few weeks are just a continuation of PSJD’s successful year, which is highlighted by our ever-expanding job database (our 2017-2018 overall jobs present exceeded the three-year average).

 As our database continues to grow, we want to ensure that all geographic regions in our subscribing schools’ network are being represented in proportion to the size of the public interest legal market in each individual state. Therefore, we have developed a method for calculating each state’s job market for entry-level legal positions and comparing this information to the state’s presence on PSJD’s job database.  

This automated method allows us to identify any imbalances between the number of recent law graduates entering the public interest legal market in a state versus the number of entry-level positions on PSJD for that state. With this information in hand, the next step is developing a framework for reducing such gaps.

Interested public, PSJD subscribers and friends, be on the lookout for exciting developments with this new project in the coming months. As always, shoot us an email at psjd@nalp.org if you have any opportunities you’d like to forward our way. 

The Organization 

Earthjustice is the premier nonprofit environmental law organization. We take on the biggest, most precedent-setting cases across the country. We wield the power of law and the strength of partnership to protect people’s health; to preserve magnificent places and wildlife; to advance clean energy; and to combat climate change. We partner with thousands of groups and supporters to engage the critical environmental issues of our time, and bring about positive change. We are here because the earth needs a good lawyer.

The Position 

Summer law interns work with attorneys on case development and litigation. Under the supervision of an attorney, a law clerk’s primary responsibilities are to perform legal and factual research, and to develop case strategy and legal theories. Law clerks may also have the opportunity to assist attorneys with preparing briefs and motions, to meet with clients and experts, to participate in moots of oral arguments, and to attend court proceedings and conferences with opposing counsel. In addition to involvement in ongoing litigation, the summer program includes seminars with attorneys from across the organization on current environmental issues.

See the full job post on PSJD: https://www.psjd.org/opportunitydetails?OppID=86196