This week: we begin with an exciting announcement about…case management software(!), but then we move on to a profile of Chicago’s Cabrini Green Legal Aid; kudos for a Florida-based Equal Justice Works fellow; the ABA wants guaranteed counsel in civil contempt proceedings; profiles of Judy Clarke, the accomplished federal defender who will represent accused killer  Jared Loughner; a NOLA administrative battle has judges squaring off against the DA and public defender; thoughts from a deferred associate leaving Texas RioGrande Legal Aid; UNC law forges a new pro bono partnership; a statewide legal services hotline is launched in Oklahoma; Legal Aid of East Tennessee gets $125K in IOLTA revenue; free legal help for Staten Islanders facing debt collection cases; and office/staff constriction at Southern Arizona Legal Aid.

• 1.13.11 – looking for new case management software, legal services providers?  According to a press release, “Technology consulting firm Urban Insight today announced a donation of nearly $100,000 in free software to help nonprofit legal services organizations that serve millions of residents in 12 states … Urban Insight’s free and open source software, called Drupal for Legal Aid Websites, or DLAW, enables legal aid programs to affordably manage complex websites using only a web browser … DLAW is developed and maintained in the public interest by Urban Insight in collaboration with Legal Services National Technology Assistant Project (LSNTAP), Idaho Legal Aid Services (ILAS) and legal aid organizations from Arkansas, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Vermont and West Virginia. Original development of the software was funded through a Legal Services Corporation Technology Initiative Grant.  More information about DLAW is available on a special website, www.legalaidtech.org, where legal aid organizations can also download the latest version of the software for free.”

• 1.12.11 – the Huffington Post has a nice, albeit brief, profile of Chicago-based Cabrini Green Legal Aid.  “The Cabrini Green Legal Aid (CGLA) has provided free legal services to Chicagoans since 1973 and represents residents in the city living below the poverty level.  From family and housing law to criminal defense, CGLA wants all residents to know their options.”

• 1.12.11 – hey, wait a minute.  More Huffington Post.  And, only a week after naming an Equal Justice Works fellow its “Greatest Person of the Day” (Anneliese Gryta – 1/4/11), Huffington Post did it again.  January 11’s Greatest Person of the Day was Equal Justice Works Fellow Peterson St. Philippe of Gulf Coast Legal Services in Tampa, FL.  “[A]s an Equal Justice Works Fellow working with Gulf Coast Legal Services, Peterson finds himself in a prime position to give back. For Haitian immigrants who arrived before the quake, he assists in filing for Temporary Protected Status–letting them stay and work here for up to 18 months.  But for survivors who fled to America after the quake, the legal options differ. Typically granted temporary visa status, these immigrants cannot legally work or drive a car, leaving them stranded in legal limbo. Many of these people have nothing to go back to in Haiti, where they have lost homes and family members.”  While both Gryta and St. Philippe are doing great work and undoubtedly deserve this kind of recognition, we at the PSLawNet Blog find it curious that two EJW fellows have been featured in consecutive weeks.  As it happens, we’re going to happy hour with a friend from EJW this evening.  We’ll get to the bottom of this.  We’ll likely also stick our friend with the bar bill, but let’s keep that between us.

• 1.12.10 – the ABA has filed an amicus brief in a Supreme Court case – Turner v. Rogers, to be argued on March 23 – asserting “that poor people should have the right to a lawyer in civil contempt proceedings carrying a threat of jail time … According to the brief (PDF), the ABA has concluded that low-income people should have a right to counsel in adversarial proceedings where basic human needs are at stake, such as those involving sustenance, safety, health, or child custody determinations. The rationale underlying this position also supports a right to counsel in civil contempt cases where an indigent defendant faces possible jail time.”

• 1.10.11 – the New York Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune are among many news outlets that have written about the federal defender who will represent accused Tucson killer Jared Loughner.  Judy Clarke’s record of helping defendants in high-profile cases avoid the death penalty is remarkable.  From the Times piece, which refers to Clarke as a “master strategist”: “The capital-defense lawyer who will represent Jared L. Loughner in the shootings in Tucson, Judy Clarke, is a well-known public defender who gets life sentences in cases that often begin with emotional calls for the death penalty.  Ms. Clarke has helped a number of infamous defendants avoid death sentences, including Theodore J. Kaczynski, the Unabomber; Eric Robert Rudolph, the Atlanta Olympics bomber; and Susan Smith, the South Carolina woman who drowned her toddlers.”  The Union-Tribune article focuses on Clarke’s low-key personality, work ethic, and her passion for making the justice system work fairly for those accused of crimes.  “Those who know her say she’s the most low-profile high-profile attorney in the country — she doesn’t chase after cases and she doesn’t do press conferences. All she does is work.”

• 1.10.11 – according to the New Orleans Times Picayune, a strange battle is playing out in New Orleans criminal courts regarding the system for assigning cases to judges.  “The DA’s office and public defenders want a system that allows them to better manage their offices by assigning cases to a judge the moment a person is arrested. This summer, the judges agreed to that change, but then three months later scrapped it, saying it wasn’t fairly distributing cases.”  And what’s a courtroom – or courthouse – drama without dueling experts?  The judges abandoned the new system after a report from the National Center for State Courts (which had been commissioned by the judges) found that the system created an imbalanced workload from judge to judge.  Not to be outdone, though, the DA and PD can point to a recent report from the New Orleans inspector general’s office which is critical of the NCSC report. The latest is that the judges are commissioning yet another study.  The “battle of the experts” may end up being a battle of attrition.  (Here, by the way, is a Times Picayune editorial siding with the DA and PD.)

• 1.10.11 – the TRLA Times, a newsletter run by Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, features a post by an outgoing Sidley Austin deferred associate who spent a year in TRLA’s Austin office defending low-income clients who were facing eviction actions.  Vijay Desai ran a trial within his first month of work (lost, but learned a lot), and through the course of his year got a lot of litigation skills under his belt.  Here’s how he closed the piece: “Finally, I learned that legal aid attorneys and staff are among the most decent human beings I have ever met.  I do not know where it begins, but the greatest characteristic I can identify is their unshakable passion for helping the helpless.  Advice from one of my supervisors almost always begins with ‘It’s just not right!  They shouldn’t be allowed to do this.’  And I have never worked in an environment where my supervisors were so enthusiastic about stopping everything they were doing to answer my questions … I am still whole-heartedly committed to my career in IP law, but now I have a new commitment to continue housing pro bono work as well.  Sidley Austin is gaining more than an attorney – they are gaining an associate who knows that his strength lies less in his one year of knowledge and more in his friends at TRLA who will always be his mentors.”

• 1.9.11 – more news about law schools entering into pro bono partnerships with legal services providers in order to help the rising numbers of low-income clients who seek assistance.  Chapel Hill News reports that “[t]he Pittsboro Office of Legal Aid of North Carolina has partnered with the UNC School of Law to assist qualifying low-income Orange County residents seeking divorces.  Under the partnership, UNC law students who are committed to providing access to justice for people of modest means will represent clients under the supervision [of a clinical professor].”

• 1.8.11 – Legal services news from Oklahoma.  The Enid News & Eagle (great name! – why just get news when you can get it with an eagle!?) reports that “Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma has launched a statewide phone line to better serve low-income and elderly Oklahomans facing civil legal problems.”

• 1.8.11 – from the Daily Times in the Volunteer State, we learn that the “Tennessee Bar Foundation has awarded Legal Aid of East Tennessee a $129,467 grant from its IOLTA (Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts) program to be used to provide critical civil legal services to the abused, impoverished and elderly during 2011 … Even with this generous grant award, there are thousands more that need LAET’s help. It is estimated that more than 300,000 persons in the LAET service area are eligible for services, yet limited resources allow LAET to serve less than 5 percent of the legal needs of this population.”

• 1.8.11 – according to a report from the NYC-based CBS radio affiliate, Staten Island lawyers are teaming up to provide free legal help to the increased numbers of New Yorkers facing consumer debt collection actions.  “In 2009, more than 15,000 collection cases were filed, according to the [Richmond County Bar] Association, and only 1 percent of the defendants had legal representation.  [The bar] formed a civil legal advice and resource office to provide free legal aid.

• 1.7.11 – We end the digest, unfortunately, with some bad news out of the Arizona legal services community.  The Nogales International reports that budget strains have taken a toll on Southern Arizona Legal Aid, which last week shuttered its Santa Cruz County office and let two staffers go.  SALA is looking for free office space now, and the county attorney, who referred many cases to SALA, is supportive of a continued presence.  Like a lot of providers, the main culprit causing SALA’s budget woes is a huge falloff of IOLTA funding – 50% in this case.