Here’s a message from the folks organizing this year’s RebLaw gathering:

Come to the 17th Annual Rebellious Lawyering Conference!
Yale Law School
February 18-20, 2011

Hello Rebel!  

You are invited to the 17th Annual Rebellious Lawyering Conference, which will take place on the weekend of February 18-20, 2011.  Last year, we brought over 700 practitioners, law students, and community activists to New Haven to discuss progressive strategies for social change within and without the law, and we’re excited to do it again! We have posted descriptions of panels and workshops on our website and will continue to update with speakers and schedule information as it becomes available.  Please visit: http://www.yale.edu/reblaw/  to register, and for more information–PLEASE REGISTER BEFORE FEBRUARY FIRST IF YOU WOULD LIKE FREE HOUSING!

Questions?  contact rebellious.law.questions@gmail.com

PSLawNet is beginning a large-scale website redesign to ensure that we provide you with the most comprehensive and useful resource for law students and attorneys looking for public interest legal jobs .

We need your input to guarantee that PSLawNet makes the changes to the website’s design, job search functions, career  resources, and social media interfaces to ensure that we best serve you.  Please go here to complete our short survey (should take you no more than 5-10 minutes).

To thank you for your time, completion of the survey by individuals with PSLawNet job seeker accounts will give them the opportunity to enter a drawing for a gift card.

• First Prize Winner: $100 gift card
• Second Prize Winner: $50 gift card
• Third Prize Winner: $50 gift card

Thank you for taking the time to complete our survey! Please feel free to contact us at pslawnet@nalp.org with any other feedback.

Earlier this week, Vermont Law School released the Top 10 Environmental Watch List for 2011 highlighting the “nation’s most critical environmental law and policy issues of 2010 and how they may play out in 2011.”

Which issues made the top three on their list?

1. Congressional failure to enact climate change legislation: Professor Gus Speth, a pioneer of the environmental movement, explores what went wrong and whether the EPA and state and local lawmakers will step forward in 2011.

2. The nation’s worst oil spill: Associate Professor Betsy Baker, an expert in the law of the sea, examines the legal and policy fallout from the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

3. First U.S. greenhouse gas rules: Professor Pat Parenteau, whose expertise includes climate change, looks at whether the EPA’s efforts to restrict global warming pollutants will survive judicial and political challenges.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rycqUaKRolE&rel=0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3]

The full report examines 10 judicial, regulatory, legislative and other actions that have significant impacts on humans and the environment.  Read the full report here.

A big thank you from the PSLawNet Blog to Vermont Law School for their dedication to improving the public’s understanding of environmental law and policy issues!

This week: indigent defense budget wrangling between a county and state government; a new veterans clinic will operate out of a West Virginia Veterans Affairs building; Ithaca has gorges and a securities law clinic; it’s nice when a legal services lawyer is the GREATEST PERSON OF THE DAY; a 30-year prison ordeal ended for an innocent man following his exoneration in a Texas court (wow, if the PSLawNet Blog subtracted 30 years from his life he’d be writing this report in crayon and commuting to work on a Big Wheel); hail to the new LSC chief; a  new Top Ten Environmental Watch List from Vermont Law School; the “perfect storm” in legal services funding; the National Law Journal’s Pro Bono Awards; in California, you best not call yourself “legal aid” unless you’re really legal aid; mirroring a national trend, law-firm pro bono in Kansas City picked up during the recession; no honeymoon period for Texas’s new death-row appeals office; the remarkable story of a recovering drug addict who’s just become a California county’s chief prosecutor.

• 1.6.10 – according to the Poughkeepsie Journal, in a cost-saving move last year New York’s state government passed a bill that changed the nature of its relationship with Dutchess County for purposes of funding indigent defense services.  County officials are contending with a potential loss of revenue from the state unless the county moves away from an assigned-counsel system and toward a staffed public defense program.  This situation is but one illustration of the tension that will exist between state and county governments as they struggle with post-recession budget shortfalls.  Criminal justice is an area in which many state and municipal governments throughout the country have shared-cost arrangements, so it will be interesting to see how they maintain balances amidst fiscal pressures in the coming budget cycles.

• 1.5.10 – In West Virginia, the State Journal reports on a new veterans legal clinic that will station a lawyer at the VA building.  “The Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center has a new legal aid program for its veterans. Legal Aid of West Virginia, Equal Justice Works, AmeriCorps, The State Nursing Home, and the VA Hospital are all working together to offer free legal assistance to Veterans and their family members.”  Once per week, an Equal Justice Works/AmeriCorps Legal Fellow will set up shop in the VA to meet with those in need.

• 1.4.10 – from the Ithaca Journal, we learn of a recession-era legal clinic operating at Cornell: “The Securities Law Clinic at Cornell Law School is available to provide legal services to investors in the Southern Tier and central and western New York who have suffered losses due to fraud or other improper conduct, the clinic announced.”

• 1.4.10 – the Huffington Post’s “Greatest Person of the Day” on Tuesday was Anneliese Gryta, a legal services lawyer doing community economic development work in Toledo (go Mudhens!).  Anneliese’s doing some terrific work as an Equal Justice Works Fellow.  Check out our earlier blog post to learn more about her efforts.

• 1.4.10 – NPR was one of several news outlets that covered the release of an innocent Texan man after 30 years of incarceration.  The story focused on the release of Cornelius Dupree, Jr., and went on to note that there’s something of a trend afoot in Dallas.  “For the past five years, Dallas has watched a parade of men, nearly all black, march out of the state prison system after wasting decades of their lives. Dupree, who served more time than any other Texas prisoner exonerated by DNA evidence, is the 21st from Dallas — that’s more than all but two states.  Barry Scheck and his staff at the Innocence Project have been behind many of these exonerations, including Dupree’s.”  It’s not necessarily that Dallas County juries get it wrong more than others, but Dallas happens to do a good job of storing DNA from old criminal cases.  So advocates for the wrongfully imprisoned have more evidence to work with.

Keep reading . . .

The ABA Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants and the National Legal Aid and Defender Association are calling for nominations for the 2011 Harrison Tweed Award.

The Harrison Tweed Award was created in 1956 to recognize the extraordinary achievements of state and local bar associations that develop or significantly expand projects or programs to increase access to civil legal services to poor persons or criminal defense services to indigents.

Please view award history, criteria, and submit nominations online.  Nomination forms and all supporting materials must be received by the close of business on Friday, April 1, 2011.

Last June, our former NALP colleague Katie Dilks published an article asking “Why is Nobody Talking about Gender Diversity in Public Interest Law?”  Katie noted that while a lot of time and effort is used analyzing gender gaps which disfavor female attorneys in law-firm practice and on the bench, there’s been little discussion of the fact that the tables are turned in the nonprofit arena:

[According to NALP’s 2004 After the J.D. report,] 9% (147) of the women surveyed worked in civil legal services or public defender offices, nonprofits or education, and public interest, while only 4% (71) of the men worked in these fields.

Nonprofit guys and gals, but mostly gals

More recent research by the National Legal Aid & Defender Association supports the idea of a notable gender gap in the civil legal services community, particularly among younger attorneys.  The survey effort that led to NLADA’s 2007 report, It’s the Salaries, Stupid…And Much More, was focused mainly on gathering information from legal services attorneys 35 and younger about how salary and debt impacted their decision to remain in legal services or move to private practice.  A startling data point emerged when the responses were broken down by gender: of the 786 survey respondents, 79% were female.  4 in 5. Wow. 

We’ve now got some even fresher data which confirms a gender gap within nonprofit law offices.  NALP’s 2010 Public Interest & Public Sector Attorney Salary Survey (final report available in NALP’s bookstore here), in addition to collecting salary data, also collected data about the gender makeup in public interest law offices.  Among attorneys in civil legal services offices, 66% were female.  (That 2 in 3 legal services attorneys are female might seem like good news in light of the 4-in-5 figure from the 2007 NLADA report.  But recall that the NLADA data dealt only with attorneys 35 years old and younger.  So it’s reasonable to at least wonder if the gender gap could be wider among younger attorneys.)

Interestingly, by comparison, attorneys working with local prosecutors’ and public defenders’ offices were split nearly 50/50 with respect to gender makeup.

There has long been discussion in the legal services community about the “why” – why is the community disproportionately female?  One worrisome explanation which has been offered is that the low salaries (legal services salaries are basically at the back of the pack in the legal industry) ward off men, particularly those who feel a need to be significant breadwinners on the domestic front.  In this circumstance, there is a tie-in between the gender makeup of an office and the salaries paid to attorneys.  John Tobin, executive director of New Hampshire Legal Assistance, wrote in a 2003 Management Information Exchange Journal article:

“Legal services salaries are so low that many legal services staff are de facto subsidized by a spouse/partner, and a divorce/breakup can make the legal services person’s financial situation untenable. Legal services staffs are becoming disproportionately female. We must ask ourselves what role we are unwittingly playing in a culture that conditions women to work for less.”

Our “Expert Opinion” series moves into 2011 with a post on job search strategery from our friend Nicole Ayala…

Nicole Ayala is the Assistant Director, Public Interest & Fellowships at the University of Connecticut School of Law’s Career Planning Center.  Nicole’s extensive experience in the public service field includes having worked for a legal services organization, the federal government, unions and nonprofits.  She received her law degree from Northeastern University School of Law, a Master of Divinity from Harvard and a BA in political science from the University of Iowa.

Now, more than ever, landing that public-interest dream job right out of law school is a daunting task.  As a result, you should be thinking strategically about how to position yourself to get the job you want when hiring picks back up.  What follows is a five-part outline to use in developing a strategic plan that will move you closer to your career objectives. 

1. Describe your immediate employment goal(s) as precisely as possible.  Think in terms of both outcomes and skills.  For example, an outcome-based statement would be “I want to work in my home state as a legal services attorney, focusing on immigration and domestic violence issues.”  A skills-based statement would be, “I want to do a combination of litigation and policy advocacy work, with a substantial amount of client interaction.”  Specificity is important, as it not only helps you to articulate a concrete goal, but it also serves as the foundation for building your strategic plan. 
2. List obstacles/challenges.  This section should also address outcomes and skills.  Building off the example above, the challenges could include the following: “The legal services organization in my home state just did layoffs, I have yet to argue a motion in court, and I only speak English.”  Other categories of possible obstacles could include logistics (e.g. “I need to have an income now,”) attitude (e.g. “I refuse to look for a non-legal job,”) and networking (e.g. “What’s an informational interview?”).
3. Brainstorm potential strategies for addressing challenges.  Like any brainstorming session, no idea should be left unexplored, no matter how idealistic or obvious.  Often this is how truly innovative strategies are formed.  For example, only speaking English definitely presents a challenge to getting hired to do immigration work for a legal services organization.  Possible solutions for remedying this problem could range from the extreme of moving to another country for a language immersion experience to the relative ease of buying the Rosetta Stone program of your choice.
4. Prioritize strategies based on feasibility and marketability.  You should be able to prioritize the strategies that are feasible for you based on your personal circumstances (e.g. cash flow, geographic restrictions, family responsibilities), but you may want to talk to your law school’s public interest career advisor for input on determining which strategies to pursue based on marketability.  Your advisor will have knowledge of the hiring criteria and skills that public interest organizations value most.  By addressing both internal and external factors, hopefully you will be able to create a list that is both realistic and well-suited to your targeted position or organization.
5. Develop an action plan.  Once you have identified your priority strategies, think through the specifics of how to make them happen.  Generally, an action plan should include the following three components: tasks (what), resources (what / how / who) and timeline (when).  Returning once again to our example, let’s assume you decide to make the bold move of going to South America for six months to learn Spanish.  Your action plan might look like this: 

•  
  • Tasks:  Research language immersion programs and costs.  Find out if there are any visa requirements or travel restrictions.  Make sure I can sublet my apartment.  Check with my student loans lender to see if deferment is a possibility. 
  • Resources:  Family members (cost).  Fellow classmates (program recommendations).  Mentor (encouragement).  Landlord (finding a subletter).  Personal savings account (cost).  Temporary job (cost).    
  • Timeline:  One month from now: Complete research on programs.  Two months from now:  Speak to at least two graduates of the program and figure out travel logistics.  Three months from now:  Decide on program.  Four months from now: Arrange to have domestic issues taken care of, including apartment sublet and loan deferment.  Five to six months from now:  Move and start program.

             [On a related note, the PSLawNet Blog recently posted about Spanish language immersion programs.]

***

There is no question that the current employment climate is difficult for public interest law students and graduates.  But jobs are out there, and you will do yourself a tremendous service by taking a methodical approach to finding the right position for you.  Good luck!

Are you a legal nonprofit involved in community education, community organization, legal advocacy, or the provision of direct legal assistance?  You may want to visit Stanford Public Interest Law Foundation’s website to find out more about their grants.

The Stanford Public Interest Law Foundation funds law-related projects which involve community education, community organization, legal advocacy, or the provision of direct legal assistance. Your organization may apply for funding in any amount, although we have traditionally provided grants between $2,500 and $10,000. We give priority to projects that integrate legal work with broad-based organizing strategies aimed at fundamental social change and directed toward one or more of the following objectives:

1. Representing groups traditionally underrepresented by the legal profession;
2. Altering the underlying causes of injustice, poverty, and disenfranchisement;
3. Creating a society free from racism, sexism, heterosexism, and economic exploitation and supporting the rights of disabled people, immigrants and refugees, lesbians and gay men, people of color, women, workers, youth and the elderly;
4. Promoting public health and environmental quality by working to change the root causes of environmental degradation.

We especially encourage and give greater weight to proposals with which Stanford Law School graduates are involved. Stanford Law School provides separate summer funding for students who wish to work in non-paying public interest or governmental summer jobs. Applicants are encouraged to accept Stanford Law students for summer internships. Additionally, we may ask some grantees whether they would like to visit Stanford Law School to make presentations about their work to students. Please note that such trips will not be mandatory and that all travel expenses will be covered.

Yesterday the commy-pinko liberal website The Huffington Post bestowed it’s “Today’s Greatest Person” honor on a truly deserving advocate: Anneliese Gryta, an Equal Justice Works Fellow working at Advocates for Basic Legal Equality (ABLE) in Toledo, Ohio.  Most folks, when they think of “civil legal services,” think of lawyers helping low-income clients who are facing homelessness, domestic abuse, medical problems, and the like.  But a more recent innovation in delivering legal services to low-income communities involves a focus on community economic development issues – aiding small businesses and nonprofit organizations which are the commercial backbones (and keys to revitalization) in low-income neighborhoods.  This is where Annaliese has made herself an expert in the Great State of Ohio.

    After graduating from law school in 2008, Anneliese immediately set out to help. With the Equal Justice Works AmeriCorps Legal Fellowship, she began her work helping small businesses with legal aid and clinics. For those untrained in the legal intricacies of starting a business, help from seasoned attorneys can be invaluable.

…

In her second fellowship with Equal Justice Works, Anneliese is aiming even higher–helping businesses acquire the loans they need to get off the ground, with a focus on the economically disadvantaged.

“In this economy, in a place like Toledo with such a high unemployment rate you may have to create your own job,” she said. “I wanted to do something that treated the cause of poverty–lack of resources, lack of finances, lack of credit, lack of education in how to handle money.”

Her newest project involves founding two microloans funds for Toledo-based businesses. Assets Toledo helps with very small loans up to $5,000 for graduates of the business training program they also run, with a special focus on those with little credit history.

This is terrific, and inspiring, news.  Annaliese has made use of Equal Justice Works’s AmeriCorps Legal Fellows program and it’s traditional fellowship program to build expertise in economic development issues affecting Ohio communities.  Well done. 

BONUS!  Appropo of nothing else than the fact that this story involves Ohio, we present you with our favorite song about the Buckeye State: Damien Jurado’s Ohio.

One year and 350 posts later, we’re positively thrilled that the PSLawNet Blog has transitioned from an uncertain experiment to a going concern!  The Blog was viewed almost 50,000 times last year, and more importantly our readership grew consistently from the beginning of 2010 to the end.  We’ll use this birthday post to do two things: 1) thank our contributors and colleagues, and 2) lay out our goals for the blog in 2011.

First, we must thank the extraordinarily talented and accomplished guest bloggers who have contributed to our “Expert Opinion” series.  Our guests have included some true luminaries in the public interest arena (e.g. Orleans Parish Public Defender Derwyn Bunton), up-and-coming public interest stars (Todd Belcore, now an Equal Justice Works Fellow in Chicago), as well as law school administrators (like Georgetown Law’s public service dean Barbara Moulton and Temple Law School’s dean JoAnne Epps) who have public interest backgrounds and now promote those careers for students.  We also owe a huge debt of gratitude to former PSLawNet Fellow Katie Dilks, the founding co-editor of the Blog, and to all of the other public interest bloggers (see our Blogroll at right) who work diligently to keep our community informed and connected.

Second, we want to highlight some of the content you’ll be seeing in 2011.  The PSLawNet Blog covers two separate but overlapping content areas: general news coming from the public interest community, as well as resources for finding and landing public interest jobs.  To those ends, here’s what will appear regularly on the Blog: 

• The PSLawNet Jobs Report will run every Monday.  The Report – like this one posted yesterday – will offer updates on the number of new listings posted on PSLawNet, feature one or two really attractive listings among the new ones, and highlight one of the dozens of career resources which are freely available on PSLawNet.
• The PSLawNet Public Interest News Bulletin will run every Friday.  The Bulletin – like this one posted last week – summarizes public interest news stories from legal and non-legal media throughout the country.  (Why is keeping up with this news important for law students and recent grads?  It will help you immensely when networking and interviewing for jobs.  A job candidate who’s aware of recent developments in a certain field and who has a contextual knowledge of how that field works and who the primary actors are will be memorable to interviewers.)
• Our Expert Opinion series isn’t missing a beat.  Look out for a blog post on job-search strategic planning this week, and a post on networking tips next week.
• In addition to these three running features, we’re going to ramp up our posting of news stories, event announcements, and job resources during the week so that the blog has even more consistent, robust content offerings.

Thanks for reading, and please let us know if there’s anything you’d like to see on the PSLawNet Blog.  Happy 2011!

– Steve Grumm and Meredith Flowe