Today marks the 50th anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright, a historic ruling establishing that all defendants have a constitutional right to an attorney – even those without the funds to afford one. This landmark case, decided on March 18, 1963, put a spotlight on the American criminal justice system and its ability to adequately ensure a fair trial for the accused. Fifty years later, tax-payer funded public defender offices are struggling to handle crippling caseloads and quality of representation is suffering. Public interest lawyers committed to indigent defense often find themselves “fixing” this broken system – struggling to ensure equality and fairness despite financial burdens and marginalization of the work itself.

If you want to learn more about the case and its modern implications, check out the documentary film Gideon’s Army, which shows the inadequacies of the indigent defense system and the underfunded public interest lawyers defending not only the accused, but the constitutional rights guaranteed in this landmark case. Gideon’s Army premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival and was honored with the documentary editing award.

If you want to know even more about Gideon v. Wainwright, browse through The Atlantic’s guide to books and movies that will help you understand the case. You can also take a look at NPR’s piece on Gideon‘s anniversary.

Organizations like Gideon’s Promise  and Equal Justice Work’s Public Defender Corps have tried to combat the growing problem of underfunded indigent defense offices and insurmountable caseloads by recruiting, training and mentoring new attorneys, but funding remains an obstacle. What are some other ways of ensuring the constitutional guarantees laid out in Gideon? The U.S. is certainly having no shortage of attorneys, so could there be a solution waiting in the pools of unemployed recent law graduates?

The Asian American Bar Association Educational Fund is currently accepting applications for the 2013 AEF Bar Assistance Grant!

This fellowship award grants a $1,500 stipend and a reduced-fee Barbri course to recent graduates who have taken or are planning to take a 2013 bar exam prior to embarking on a public interest legal career. The only catch is that the job must benefit either the Asian Pacific American community and/or the metropolitan Washington, DC community-at-large. AEF created the self-funded fellowship because public interest and government employers rarely provide direct financial support to their employees for bar-related expenses. With this award, grantees don’t have to take out additional loans or find part-time jobs while studying for the bar.

With that being said, the AEF Bar Assistance Grant is a great way to relieve some of the financial pressure associated with taking the bar, allowing grantees to focus on passing the bar. The deadline to apply is May 1, 2013!

Earlier this week, NALP‘s student debt expert Heather Jarvis  led a webinar for public interest employers on recruiting and retaining the best legal talent in spite of their student loan debt. During the webinar, Jarvis explained the ins-and-outs of loan repayment options and forgiveness provisions. These programs are beacons of hope for all public interest law students with small salaries and looming debt, and they provide great relief in the struggle to finance a public interest law career.

For this reason, the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Northwestern University School of Law, and the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law all deserve a round of applause for recently boosting their loan repayment assistance (LRAP) and scholarship programs.

The National Law Journal reports that Penn has overhauled its LRAP to cover all student loan debt for alumni earning less than $80,000 a year. Northwestern increased spending on its LRAP and scholarships by 25%, and also cut down on its enrollment. And UCLA received a $1 million donation for student scholarships.

More from the National Law Journal article:

“The pressures created by high student debt discourage many graduates from law schools and other professional schools from pursuing vital careers and accepting job opportunities in public service,” said Penn dean Michael Fitts.

According to NALP, formerly the National Association for Law Placement, the median entry-level salary for a legal services attorney is just shy of $43,000, while new public defenders and prosecutors can expect to earn about $50,000 a year. New public-interest lawyers tend to earn between $45,000 and $47,000, NALP said. By contrast, the median starting salary at at law firms of 50 attorneys or less is about $80,000.

In addition to making its loan repayment program more generous, Penn is launching a unique program dubbed the Reward for Sustained Service. After three years working at a public-interest or government law job, Penn alumni earning $80,000 or less are eligible for an additional payment that they can apply to principal loan debt, living costs and other expenses. The amount is determined on a sliding scale based on salary and years of service, but participants can receive as much as $22,800 between the third and tenth years of their careers, said Tory Messina, associate director for public interest and government counseling. She did not know of any similar programs elsewhere.

“I’m really proud of the program,” Messina said. “It really expands the amount of loan repayment that’s available to our graduates.”

Participation in the school’s loan-forgiveness program has doubled since 2010, Messina said.

Click here for the full article.

Colloquial urban slang aside, we can’t stress enough how important it is to find funding for your summer public interest work. Receiving a stipend or fellowship can be a huge financial burden off of your unpaid-intern shoulders, while allowing you the freedom to de-stress after those long hours providing legal assistance to communities in need.

If you haven’t found funding just yet, no worries! PSJD is always updating our Summer Funding lists, which contain links and deadline information on organizations that fund summer public interest work in any geographic location or specific geographical locations. Many deadlines are approaching fast (mid-March/early April), so check this list out ASAP!

With or without funding, all interns are interested in stretching their paycheck over the summer. PSJD is here to help –  check out our guides to Having Fun on the Cheap in Washington DC, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. If you’re interning at a city that’s not on this list and you want to see a guide, just shoot us an email at psjd@nalp.org letting us know!

Here’s a message from our friends over at Equal Justice Works:

Has your student debt become a financial burden you are struggling to deal with? Are you worried about the amount you are borrowing to pay for college or graduate school and wondering if you will be able to repay it all? If so, Equal Justice Works is here to help.

We provide in depth information on loan repayment assistance programs and relief programs like Income-Based Repayment and Public Service Loan Forgiveness to help everyone pursue the career of their dreams. Our eBook, Take Control of Your Future, details the steps you need to take to manage your student debt now and in the future.

Every month, our free, live webinars also provide a comprehensive overview of the federal debt relief options available for students and graduates and provide viewers with the opportunity to ask questions. Click here to view a schedule of our webinars and to register for an upcoming session.

Our March sessions include:

Drowning in Debt? Learn How Government and Nonprofit Workers Can Earn Public Service Loan Forgiveness

Thursday, March 14, 3-4 p.m. EST

Thursday, March 28, 3-4 p.m. EST

A must attend for anyone with educational debt planning to work or currently working for the government or a nonprofit, this webinar explains how you can benefit from income driven repayment plans, including President Obama’s new Pay As You Earn program, and exactly how Public Service Loan Forgiveness works.

Finally, make sure you keep up with what’s shaping the student debt world by following our weekly U.S. News blog, the Student Loan Ranger. Last month let you know how to evaluate Loan Repayment Assistance Programs; looked at a report analyzing how the financial aid system can be revamped to support college access, affordability, and completion; and asked if the increased credit risk posed by student loans will affect borrowers’ credit scores in the future.

See you at the webinars!

Law school debt affects many elements of an attorney’s professional career, from the selection of a post-graduate employer to stressing about repayment options. Lack of proper debt management can have a wide range of consequences, not only on law graduates but on the public service organizations that employ them. As legal aid groups and non-profits face a dearth of available positions and the threat of funding cuts, it’s becoming more and more important to stay financially literate so your employees can afford to be advocates for marginalized communities.

For this reason, NALP has engaged Heather Jarvis to serve as our student debt expert to provide members with information, best practices and professional insight related to educational debt and repayment options for law students and graduates. Next Tuesday, March 12 at 2:00 pm she’ll be leading the webinar Recruit and Retain the Best and Brightest in Spite of Their Student Loan Debt: NALP’s Step-by-Step Guide for Public Service Employers.

If you are a public interest employer, please respond to this brief survey to help Heather Jarvis tailor her efforts to your needs!

The law schools at Duke, UNC Chapel Hill and the University of Virginia are all expanding opportunities for their students to get real-world legal experience by offering new pro bono and externship programs.

Duke University and UNC Chapel Hill’s law schools have partnered up to create the Cancer Pro Bono Legal Program, a project that sends volunteer law students to both the Duke Cancer Center and the the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center – in both cases to help patients create power of attorney documents. Supervised by licensed attorneys, participating law students will also host monthly seminars on topics relevant to patients with chronic illnesses. The Cancer Pro Bono Legal Program launched last Friday.

The University of Virginia School of Law has redesigned their program to include three new types of externships that will launch in the fall. Students can: earn a full semester of credit by working for a local, national or international government or non-profit agency; earn course credit by working part-time in Virginia; or participate in the “UVA Law in DC” program, which will allow students to spend a semester working full-time in Washington, D.C. for a government or non-profit agency for academic credit.

As law students struggle to compete in today’s job market, these expanded opportunities to gain practical legal knowledge are much-needed. In addition to hands-on experience, students also benefit from academic seminars that reinforce what they are learning in the office. Cheers to UVA, Duke and UNC Chapel Hill law schools for creating more opportunities for public interest law students!

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, folks.  As many of you know I’m leaving NALP to take a position directing the ABA’s Resource Center for Access to Justice Initiatives.  I’m excited to join the ABA and to focus squarely on ATJ work, but there is much I will miss about NALP, PSJD, and the community I’ve worked in for the past seven-plus years.

I joke sometimes that this weekly blog post’s readership consists of four people.  I’m just being modest, of course.  The readership is nearly double that.  Well, in fact it’s a little larger, but I’m not setting any Web-traffic records either.  Numbers aside, what I see when I look at my email distribution list for this weekly post is a group of people who operate in every corner of the public interest legal world: law school administrators and clinicians, law students, nonprofit and government lawyers, legal-aid executive directors, law firm pro bono counsel, bar association officials, and so on and forth.  I’ve worked with a remarkably diverse, talented group of individuals.  I’m grateful for that.

What will become of the Public Interest News Bulletin? It will enter into a brief, late-winter hibernation.  But a few weeks from now NALP will return to publishing the bulletin here on the PSJD Blog.  Keep any eye out for it.  In the meantime, if you want to read a newsletter focused on the larger legal industry then check out my boss’s weekly offering here (updated every Friday).  I’ve learned a lot from Jim’s observations on the business of law and his aggregation of the week’s important stories – despite the inexplicable lack of a Super Music Bonus.

Separate from that, in early March I will begin publishing a weekly access-to-justice news digest on a new platform.  If you would like to receive this digest, please email me at sgrumm[at]hotmail.com.  I’ll add you to the distribution.

I don’t think of myself as a sappy person.  But my NALP departure has me thinking all the way back to my arrival in the public interest world.  It came when I served for a year, just after college, as a Jesuit Volunteer in the Northwest Justice Project’s Yakima office.  One of my enduring memories is of reading a quote which was framed and nestled in the bookcase of the first legal aid lawyer I met – Don Kinney.  Here’s the quote, penned by Bonaro Overstreet:

You say the little efforts that I make
will do no good: they never will prevail
to tip the hovering scale
where justice hangs in balance.

I don’t think I ever thought they would.
But I am prejudiced beyond debate
in favor of my right to choose which side
shall feel the stubborn ounces of my weight.

That quote’s appeared in some form or fashion in every office I’ve occupied since that experience in 1999.  It’s pegged to a corkboard next to me right now.  And it will follow me to Chicago, where I look forward to placing my stubborn ounces on the scales of (access to) justice.   Thanks for reading this blog post for the past few years.  Let’s stay in touch.

Okay, the week’s news in very, very short:

• $800K in class action residuals going to Legal Aid of W. Missouri;
• a new social justice center at Temple Law (hey, I went to school there!);
• debate continues on how to fix the Show Me State’s public defense system;
• New York Law School offers scholarships to government employees;
• recap of recently passed ABA resolutions impacting ATJ;
• pay Montana public defenders more;
• California county bows to pressure and starts assigning defenders at felony arraignments;
• corporate pro bono in Canada;
• find more funding for Wisconsin’s public defense program;
• a Georgia county’s public defense program closes;
• the “business case for pro bono” is made outside the legal arena;
• some changes in providing legal aid to low-income seniors in N. California;
• Super Music Bonus!

The summaries:

• 2.14.13 – from a press release: “Legal Aid of Western Missouri has received nearly $800,000 in additional funding to help provide services to low-income families in the state.  The funds are residual proceeds from a class action lawsuit settled in 2011 titled Allen & Lande v. UMB Bank. The court-approved settlement was secured by plaintiffs’ attorneys from the law firms of Tycko & Zavareei LLP, Stueve Siegel Hanson LLP and Gray, Ritter & Graham, P.C. The Court’s order approving the settlement provided that settlement checks not presented by individual class members for payment within one year would be distributed to Legal Aid to carry out its charitable mission.”
  
• 2.14.13 – good things from my alma mater.  “The Temple University Beasley School of Law will use a $1.5 million donation to launch a center for social justice.The gift is from plaintiffs attorney Stephen Sheller and his wife, Sandra Sheller, an art and family therapist.  The Stephen and Sandra Sheller Center for Social Justice is slated to open in the spring. It will work with city agencies and nonprofit organizations that focus on social justice throughout the Philadelphia region in areas including civil liberties, consumer protection, the environment and disability rights.” (Short article from the National Law Journal.)

• 2.13.13 – this story’s password-protected, but FYI: “A bill that would transfer the majority of cases from the Missouri State Public Defender system to private attorneys was greeted with both support and skepticism at a House committee hearing Wednesday.”  (Story from the Columbia Missourian.)  And here are dueling op-eds re the state public defense system’s problems (both from St. Louis Public Radio):
  • 1.30.13 – law professor Michael Wolf says the system’s woes stem from a lack of resources;
  • 2.13.13 – prosecutor Jennifer Joyce lays blame at the feet of the system’s management.

• 2.12.13 – “Police, firefighters and other public workers in New York City now have the chance to land a free ride at New York Law School.
  Administrators have announced the Public Service Scholarship Program, which will pay full tuition to three public servants next fall and half-tuition scholarship to 12 more…  The scholarships are open to public workers at the city, state, or federal levels, and recipients may attend either full time or part time. Recipients will be selected based on their [LSAT] scores, their undergraduate grade-point averages and a ‘dedicated commitment to community service’.”  (Story from the National Law Journal.)

• 2.11.13 – recently passed ABA House of Delegates resolutions pertaining to indigent defense and civil legal aid issues:
  • from the ABA Journal: “Resolution 104A urges Congress to create and fund an independent, federally funded Center for Indigent Defense Services to help governments carry out their constitutional obligation to provide effective assistance to indigent defendants…. ”  Resolution 104C urges state lawmakers to pass laws that would prohibit firing a chief public defender or other indigent-services leader who limits acceptance of new clients in a good-faith effort to ensure competent representation.”
  • again, from the ABA Journal: “Resolution 10A approved by the ABA House of Delegates on Monday urges federal lawmakers to assure adequate funding for federal courts and the Legal Services Corp.”
• 2.11.13 – from the Treasure State: “[P]ublic defenders are paid far less than other state-employed attorney and county attorneys. The office has high turnover and high caseloads.  Turnover in the public defenders’ office has been more than 40 percent annually. According to testimony last week at a legislative hearing, public defenders routinely get 600 cases in their first year out of law school….  The appropriations subcommittee got the full picture of the importance of public defenders. We call on all lawmakers, especially those from Yellowstone County, the busiest defenders’ office in the state, to study this problem and help remedy it in the upcoming budget.”  (Editorial from the Billings Gazette.)

• 2.11.13 – “Public defense attorneys are now staffing felony arraignment courtrooms in Contra Costa County, where the prior absence of such attorneys spurred a federal class action lawsuit.  Contra Costa County’s former practice — not uncommon in cash-strapped and rural counties in the nation — was to assign defense attorneys to indigent criminal defendants after their initial court appearance. That meant that people who couldn’t afford bail would sit in jail for up to two weeks before a public attorney would appear at their side in court. Public Defender Robin Lipetzky said that the office had been fighting for money to have deputy public defenders appear at arraignments long before a local attorney in December filed suit in U.S. District Court in Oakland to force the issue. The lawsuit seeks damages for allegedly violating defendants’ Sixth Amendment right to counsel.”  (Full story from the Mercury News.)

• 2.11.13 –  corporate pro bono in Great White North.  The executive director of Pro Bono Law Alberta offers insight as to how and why corporate counsel to get involved in pro bono work.   (Full piece in Canadian Lawyer.)

• 2.10.13 – bolstering Badger State support for indigent defense: “The budget for the state public defender’s office is $83.4 million for fiscal 2013.  And that isn’t enough to keep up with demand.  For instance, the state has fallen behind in its payments to private attorneys who are hired to help handle cases at $40 per hour for in-court work. That rate doesn’t meet industry standard and doesn’t come close to the cost of running a law firm…  In addition, assistant state public defenders have been passed over for a system of pay raises that has been implemented for assistant district attorneys in our state.  The investments required to pay the bills on time and to treat staff equitably are relatively modest. But those moves are the right approach to support a system that is crucial to a fair trial and vital to living up to our constitutional requirements.”  (Full editorial in the Lacrosse Tribune.)

• 2.10.13 – “In a few months the Dougherty County Public Defenders’ Office will close as a cost saving measure.  Starting July 1st Dougherty County will no longer have public defenders on their payroll. It’s been decided that two already vacated public defender positions and two administrative jobs will go away….  Dougherty County’s Public Defenders’ Office has already begun the transition by hiring several contract workers. Officials say the next step is to talk with county leaders to find out how much money will be allotted for more contract positions.”  (Story from FOX 31 in Southwest Georgia.)

• 2.8.13 – this Q&A piece in the Huffington Post explores how Capitol One has incorporated pro bono into its culture, and highlights this accomplishment in the legal arena: “[L]ast year, a pro bono team of 15 volunteers from across Capital One’s IT, Legal, Communications, Supply Chain Management, Business Systems Analysis, and Brand teams partnered with the Virginia Legal community to create a technology solution, called JusticeServer, which matches low-income clients to volunteer attorneys offering pro bono legal services. The new tool came at a critical team for Legal Aid in Central Virginia, which had lost half their staff attorneys, while demand for their services increased by nearly 60 percent.”

• 2.8.13 – “A North Coast nonprofit is expanding its legal offerings to focus on seniors in Lake and Mendocino counties.  Legal Services of Northern California began offering the new services at the start of the year in order to fill the void left by the closure of the Lakeport-based Senior Law Project.The Senior Law Project, which had provided free legal services to seniors in Lake and Mendocino counties, closed after 30 years….”  (Story from the Lake County News.)

Super Music Bonus!  Long-distance drives are one of my true loves, and I’ve logged thousands of miles throughout the country.  I’m about to hop in a moving van and drive to Chicago.  (Driving a U-haul truck through Ohio and Indiana may not prove the most relaxing excursion, but you get my larger point.)  In a country of such size and geographic diversity, an American does herself a huge disservice by not taking the ground-level tour.

In 1995 the band Son Volt released the album “Trace.”  The band’s songwriter, Jay Farrar, was living in St. Louis.  Two bandmates were living in Minneapolis.  Farrar’s girlfriend was living New Orleans.   As a result the album’s writing and recording took place up and down the Mississippi River.  Trace has been referred to as a love poem to America’s mighty river.  And the lyrics reflect that.  The album’s opener is “Windfall.”  It’s a song about healthy restlessness, and the feeling of liberation that comes with movement.  (It’s also the song that taught me that Country & Western music can be cool.)  So here’s “Windfall.”  Cheers.

Found the perfect summer public interest job opportunity, but no way to fund the work? Check out PSJD’s Resource Center for lots of guides and lists full of fellowships, stipends, and advice! We’re constantly updating these lists, so make sure you check back every week for new links:

1) Summer Funding Resources Available for Work in Any Geographic Location

This guide lists funding resources for public interest work across the United States. From scholarships to fellowships, these programs help law students serve communities in need without going broke.

2) Summer Funding Resources for Work in Specific Geographical Regions

This guide has the same information as the one featured above; however, this guide is limited to programs that only allow applicants who will be working in certain regions.

3) Finding and Funding International Public Interest Opportunities

This guide, produced by NALP members at the University of Arizona, University of Georgia and William & Mary law schools,  provides background information and recommendations for law students and lawyers interested in international public interest careers.

4) BONUS: Financing a Public Interest Career – Background & Resources

While you’re looking for ways to fund your summer public interest work, it couldn’t hurt to do a little research on financial planning and debt management for public interest lawyers! Help yourself become more financially literate by reading our guide, which includes links to additional resources and information on the basics of loan repayment assistance programs.

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, ladies and gents.  Washington, DC has been touched only by a bit of rain today, but a few hundred miles north of here folks are preparing for a large snowfall.  A winter storm is a bittersweet pill: great for some, terrible for others.  As I wrote after Sandy hit the Northeast, storms of this size remind us that we are as much subject to nature as masters of it.  If you are affected by the storm I hope you get through it just swell.

On to this week’s public interest and access-to-justice news, through which we’ll explore Montana public defender salaries, a faith-based ATJ project, and the relationship – if any – between pro bono work and kittens.  The week in very, very short:

• Montana public defense program looking to shore up salaries and attorney retention;
• NYSBA, focusing on civil and criminal legal aid funding, gets behind New York judiciary’s proposed budget.
• progress(?) in a Pennsylvania lawsuit about the alleged inadequacy of a county public defense program;
• a faith-based ATJ innovation in the Volunteer State;
• could/should compulsory law student pro bono be implemented in the UK?;
• government hiring, which had been growing, grows no longer;
• expanding conversation, and action, on pro bono and ATJ;
• the growth of corporate pro bono;
• Super Music Bonus!

The summaries:

• 2.6.13 – “Public attorneys tasked with defending high-profile criminal cases are among the lowest paid in state government, prompting many of them to take jobs as staff attorneys in state agencies and elsewhere, the Office of the Public Defender told lawmakers Wednesday.  Turnover in a year can exceed 40 percent due to pay inequity, agency officials said in arguing that a budget increase is needed to boost pay and add more attorneys to reduce the caseload. Lawyers right out of college are routinely handling 600 cases in their first year….  The public defender’s office is asking for about $5 million in each of the next two years to hire around 37 more staffers, on top of the 209 it has right now, and to increase pay closer to market standards.  A law school graduate…currently receives a starting salary of $43,000, the agency said.”  (Full story from the Billings Gazette.)

• For a little bit of context, according to NALP’s 2012 Public Sector & Public Interest Attorney Salary Report the national median starting salary for defenders was $50,500.  Read the report’s accompanying press release for more data on defender and other public-interest salaries.

• 2.6.13 – “New York State Bar Association President Seymour W. James, Jr. today urged state lawmakers to adequately fund the state Judiciary and provide that ‘all people, including the weak, poor and unpopular as well as those who rely on the courts to resolve their business and commercial disputes,’ have access to the courts.  ‘The effective operation of the court system is crucial to maintaining an orderly society,’ James said in testimony submitted to the fiscal committees of the state Legislature.  James (The Legal Aid Society in New York City) endorsed Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman’s no-growth budget plan for the Unified Court System.”  (Read the full NYSBA announcement, which includes details on how the proposed budget would handle short- and long-term legal aid funding.)
  • Oh, hey, as I’m putting finishing touches on the Bulletin I see this National Law Journal op-ed from Seymour James (who besides being NYSBA president is also the Legal Aid Society’s head criminal defense lawyer: “Just six weeks ago, Congress took last-minute action to avert automatic across-the-board federal budget cuts that would have significantly harmed the federal court system and legal assistance programs for the poor.  With the new March 1 deadline, the federal judiciary and the Legal Services Corp. (LSC) continue to find themselves in dangerous fiscal waters. Their day-to-day operations are threatened by cuts that will devastate the ability of businesses to resolve their disputes, for the middle class to be heard on civil rights and bankruptcy cases, and for our most vulnerable citizens to secure access to justice.  That is why the New York State Bar Association will be proposing a resolution at the upcoming American Bar Association midyear meeting on Monday, February 11, that urges the ABA, the national voice of the profession, to speak out and condemn these cuts.”

• 2.6.13 – from the Keystone State: “A judge has scheduled a conference next month to discuss the failed attempt to settle a lawsuit alleging gross underfunding of the Luzerne County Public Defender’s Office.”  The ACLU of Pennsylvania filed the suit in state court on behalf of the county defender and other plaintiffs.  (Full story from the Citizens Voice.)

• 2.5.13 – “In an effort to reach more people in need of information about legal services, the Tennessee Supreme Court’s Access to Justice Commission has formed a faith-based initiative to engage lawyers within their place of worship.  The Tennessee Faith and Justice Alliance (TFJA) is a program developed by the Access to Justice Commission to support and encourage faith-based groups in Tennessee who commit to providing legal resources to their congregations and communities….  It is one of the first programs of its kind in the country created to align needs seen at the local church level with possible legal resources that are nearby, perhaps even within the same congregation.”  (Full story from The Chattanoogan.)

• 2.4.13 – compulsory law-student pro bono, a la New York State, in the UK?  A piece in The Guardian notes that there is presently no momentum to make this change in legal education, and that there is no infrastructure in place that could support such a program.  Nevertheless, with huge legal aid cuts coming down the pike this spring, “…there is a new call for more law students in the UK to attend pro bono clinics and an increase in partnerships between pro bono organisations and law schools.”

• 2.4.13 – Government hiring on all levels, which had been growing in the recent past, grows no more.  “Federal agencies shed 5,000 jobs in January, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.  On the whole, government, including the state and local sectors, lost 9,000 jobs during the month. Further losses may be on the horizon, with budget sequestration that would cut tens of billions of dollars from agency budgets looming at the end of February. Several federal agencies already have implemented hiring freezes in anticipation the sequester could go into effect.”   (Story from Government Executive.)

• 2.1.13 – Chicago Volunteer Legal Services director Meg Benson chimes in on how to turn pro bono talk into action: “Pro bono, as a concept, is stronger than ever. Pro bono, as a solution, is also stronger than ever. Pro bono, in practice, continues to limp along.  Why this disconnect? No one in the legal community, either local or national, dares to suggest that pro bono is not awesome. That’s like suggesting that kittens are not adorable. The problem is that, while most people agree that kittens are adorable, many would not have one in their home. Pro bono is like an adorable kitten — we love it, but not in our professional homes.”  Benson goes on to explore two possible reasons why there isn’t more pro bono engagement: 1) many attorneys are not personally touched by access-to-justice issues, and 2) “[m]ost attorneys have not been invited to participate in the access to justice crisis discussions…. At a minimum, we need to invite solo practitioners and attorneys from small and midsize firms to help formulate effective pro bono policies and strategies. This also means involving attorneys from diverse practices such as divorce, real estate, commercial and business, probate, etc.”.  (Read the full piece in the Chicago Lawyer.)
  • On a personal note I do not find kittens to be cute.  They grow up to be cats.  Cats are cunning, untrustworthy creatures.  I’ve met Meg a few times and have a lot of respect for her, but this conflation of kittens and pro bono threatens to shatter my entire pro bono worldview.  Very troubling.

• 1.30.13 – a blog post from the Pro Bono Institute reminds us of the growing role that corporate counsel play in delivering pro bono services, and that the Association of Corporate Counsel has been leading the charge to promote more pro bono from in-house counsel.

Music!  This week’s song, from Canadian songwriter A.C. Newman, is called “Like a Hitman, Like a Dancer.”  The song’s first lines are “Like a hitman, or like a dancer – all muscle.”  I’ve always thought this a clever, artful way to express the idea of two things having exact likeness of form but unlikeness of purpose.  I also love the line in the refrain, “You’re gonna change sides, but you wanted to wait,” which speaks to me about the moral push and pull we feel when forced to choose between what’s right and what’s popular, and how we sometimes cling to the hope that what’s right will become popular.   Enjoy this nearly note-perfect, in-studio performance of “Like a Hitman, Like a Dancer.”