University of North Carolina School of Law is searching for a public interest career counselor for its Career Services Office to advise law students and alumni interested in public interest careers. Additionally, the counselor will develop and market Career Services Office events, programming and seminars.

This is a great opportunity for public-interest enthusiasts and people who are interested in nonprofit management.

Check out the complete listing at PSLawNet (login required – free registration if your law school is already subscribed!)

By: Steve Grumm

One of the more interesting post-recession trends in the public interest legal arena has been the growth of full-time volunteer attorney
positions within nonprofit and government agencies. It has not been unusual, historically, that public service law offices would recruit volunteers to bolster their staffs amid swollen caseloads. But in the recession’s wake we’ve seen larger-scale efforts to recruit un- or under-employed attorneys for full-time stints ranging from 6 to 18 months. Budget cuts and caseload pressures felt by employers have given birth to creative staffing solutions, while the anemic legal job market has left thousands of recent law graduates
looking for ways to gain practice experience. Although there are certainly some upsides to this trend, some worry that these unpaid positions could become institutionalized, leaving some debt-laden, public service-minded law grads with a rocky financial path to traverse immediately out of law school.

Over the coming months I will look at the emergence of volunteer attorney positions in different types of public service law offices.   I began in this month’s NALP Bulletin with a piece on the rise of the “Uncompensated Special Assistant U.S. Attorney.”

[W]ith Uncle Sam poised to squeeze his fiscal belt even more tightly, federal prosecutors across the country are looking for creative, effective, staffing solutions.  The Department of Justice (DOJ) implemented a hiring freeze in January of this year.  Given the current political climate, in particular the recent passage of sweeping federal deficit-reduction legislation, federal prosecutors’ budgets are likely to, at best, hold fast.  According to one Assistant U.S. Attorney whose office has recruited for uncompensated Special Assistant U.S. Attorneys (SAUSA), given the circumstances it makes perfect sense for U.S. Attorneys’ Offices to mine a talented – and nearly free – source of labor.

 A review last month of several “SAUSA Uncompensated” job listings on the DOJ’s Office of Attorney Recruitment and Management website was helpful in sketching out the nature of uncompensated SAUSA positions and applicant eligibility criteria…

MFY Legal Services, Inc., a 48-year-old nonprofit public interest law firm is looking for a staff attorney for its Neighborhood Preservation Project (NPP) to represent low-income New Yorkers in eviction prevention and tenant rights matters. Caseload will balance advice and individual representation with law reform advocacy and impact litigation on issues affecting affordable housing and tenants’ rights.

MFY Legal Services, Inc. provides free legal services to low-income residents of New York City in the areas of housing, public benefits, civil and disability rights, employment, consumer, foreclosure and family law.

MFY Legal Services has a 45-person staff comprised of attorneys, paralegals, social workers and support staff. It is a diverse, unionized, and collegial workplace.

For more information on MFY’s staff attorney position or to find out how to apply, check out the complete listing on PSLawNet.

NALP is accepting nominations for the 2011 PSLawNet Pro Bono Publico Award, which recognizes the extraordinary contributions that law students make to under-served populations, the public interest community, and legal education by performing pro bono or public service work. 

Eligibility: The Pro Bono Publico Award is available to any second- or third-year law student at a PSLawNet Subscriber School. The recipient will be honored during an Award Luncheon at NALP’s Public Service Mini-Conference on Thursday, October 20, 2011 at the Washington, DC office of Arnold & Porter, LLP. The Award recipient will receive transportation to Washington, a one-night stay in an area hotel, a commemorative plaque, and a small monetary award.

Award Criteria: Law students are judged by the extracurricular commitment they have made to law-related public service projects or organizations; the quality of work they performed; and the impact of that work on the community, their fellow students, and the school. Though a student’s involvement in law school-based public interest organizing and fundraising is relevant, actual pro bono and public interest legal work will be the primary consideration.

Nominations must be received by Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 5pm Eastern Time. View/download the nomination form here.

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  Greetings from a rainy, gloomy Washington, DC.  This is perhaps appropriate, as most everyone inside the Beltway is mindful that almost 10 years have passed since the September 11th attacks.  Things here livened up a little bit this week with the Republican presidential candidates’ debate and last night’s presidential address, the combination of which suggests that the 2012 election season is already upon us.  Thirteen months of this.  Oh, what unmitigated joy. 

This week in public interest news: the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau hits the century mark; a handful of law schools create “incubation programs” for aspiring solos, and at least two of them are serving low-income clients; some much-needed matching funding for Pisgah Legal Services; an eleventh-hour layoff aversion in the Sacramento D.A.’s office; Vermont Law School’s doing its part to aid flood victims; the Mass. Bar Association goes all medical-legal partnership on us;  UVA Law’s Innocence Clinic scores some big wins;  read about a not-so-good proposal to change Tennessee’s indigent defense system; an in-depth look at pro bono programs within large, Windy City law firms; Utah prosecutors support bolstering indigent defense; how a huge, potential LSC $ cut will impact Legal Services of Southern Missouri; an anonymous, non-lawyer drops $2 million on the Maine Bar Foundation’s’ doorstep (metaphorically).  My money’s on Steven King. 

• 9.8.11 – I’ve been feeling my joints creak since I turned 35 in August, but the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau is 100.  That’s really old.  WBAL has details on the community birthday party that MDLAB is hosting in Charm City tomorrow.

• 9.7.11 – the National Law Journal looks at a handful of law schools that have created “incubation” programs which provide in-kind support and mentoring for recent grads who aspire to solo practice but want to hedge against the insecurity of going it entirely alone.  Why am I mentioning this?  Two of the schools, the Univ. of Maryland and CUNY, have built a public interest dimension into their programs: “At CUNY, incubator participants do a significant amount of…”low bono” work. They earn $75 an hour for providing legal representation to underserved communities…, paid for by contracts with New York City. The work provides the new attorneys with experience and exposure, and provides representation to people who otherwise could not afford an attorney….  The University of Maryland’s solo incubator…also promotes civil justice. Participants…assist on grant-funded cases through Civil Justice Inc., a nonprofit law office that serves low-income clients….”  

• 9.7.11 – some good news for Pisgah Legal Services in North Carolina.  It may not seem that having $17K in county grant money restored is newsworthy.  But the money constitutes matching funds for domestic-violence grants.  So it’s important.  The Times-News reports: “The Henderson County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to give Pisgah Legal Services money it needs to match domestic-violence grants, essentially reinstating the funding that they denied the regional nonprofit in June.  While the grant was requested by Pisgah Legal Services Executive Director Jim Barrett to match domestic violence prevention grants his organization has secured through the Governor’s Crime Commission, it is nearly the exact same amount — $16,833 — that Barrett previously asked the board for during county budget talks.”

• 9.6.11 – layoffs averted in the Sacramento DA’s office.  And we can thank Big Oil.  Sort of.  KCRA reports:  “Three months ago, [District Attorney Jan] Scully said budget cuts were forcing her to lay off 64 people, eliminate several units and stop prosecution of most misdemeanor crimes.  Now, Scully said a $24.5 million settlement in a lawsuit against Chevron for violating the state anti-pollution laws is making the difference.”  The DA’s office will get 6.5 million from that pot of money.

• 9.6.11 – news from the Great Wet North.  Vermont Law School, which itself fell victim to post-Irene flood damage, has been doing its part to help its neighbors, according to the National Law Journal: “The law school’s land use clinic and its South Royalton, Vt., legal clinic have teamed up to assist residents in filling out applications for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Students are on hand daily in the school’s law library to help people complete emergency paperwork.  The law school has designated two staff members to work full time on relief efforts and is allowing staff members to receive full pay while volunteering.”

• 9.6.11 – the Massachusetts Bar Association has gotten into the medical-legal partnership game with a new pro bono initiative, according to a piece in The Republican:  “To address the intertwined health problems and legal needs of such vulnerable patients, the Massachusetts Bar Association and Massachusetts Medical-Legal Partnership network have joined forces to launch the MBA Pro Bono Prescription.  This pioneering effort unites health-care teams and lawyers toward a shared goal of strengthening struggling communities. The MBA Pro Bono Prescription aims to increase the supply of lawyers who can prescribe legal remedies to help avert both legal crises and health emergencies.”  (For the law students in our readership, you can learn much more about medical-legal partnerships, which have been steadily increasing in number across the country, via the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnerships.  The basic goal is for poverty lawyers to work with other social services providers in providing more holistic services to clients, and ideally addressing root causes of medical and legal problems to avoid their recurrence.)

• 9.6.11 – the Cavalier Daily reports that the University of Virginia School of Law’s Innocence Project has done well in the overturned conviction department, first removing a man from Death Row and then having his other, related convictions tossed: “Twelve University Law students helped overturn the wrongful drug and weapon conviction of Northern Virginian man Justin Wolfe last week, bringing an end to a decade-long struggle for freedom. The decision comes more than a month after the students, as part of the Law School’s Innocence Project Clinic, helped convince a federal judge to dismiss Wolfe’s murder-for-hire conviction and death sentence.  The clinic, part of the Innocence Network, is an organization which works to overturn wrongful convictions of prisoners in Virginia who could be proven innocent — many of whom are convicted as a result of ineffective legal counsel or flawed police techniques.”

• 9.4.11 – an op-ed in The Tennessean appropriately skewers a really bad idea for saving cash on the state’s indigent defense funding:   “The state’s indigent defense fund’s cost has grown from $19.9 million to $37.5 million since 2004. There were 126,000 legal bills submitted by attorneys to represent poor clients last year. Lawmakers cried “whoa!” and asked the courts’ administrative office to figure out how to save money.  What they came up with is a proposal that has been widely poo-pooed by attorneys, judges, experts and professional groups. It would set up a bidding system in which attorneys or law firms would get the right to represent the indigent for a flat fee if they are the lowest bidder. All the sudden, in Tennessee, justice would be akin to road contracts or buying computers.”  (“Poo-pooed” did not pass spellcheck, but frankly I have no interest in learning how to spell it.) 

• 9.4.11 – the Chicago Lawyerhas a long, detailed piece surveying the pro bono models at several of the Windy City’s large law firms: “In recent years, as pro bono leaders in Chicago law firms worked to increase pro bono participation, they began to integrate pro bono…into the operations of their firms. Many of these programs now serve as separate practices, often with their own staff and policies….  While some…firms still encourage lawyers to select their own projects, other firms take a more focused approach, searching for specific opportunities to help those in need while training young associates. They also adopt and offer holistic services to nonprofit organizations and secure finance or real estate matters for transactional lawyers.”  Firms highlighted in the article include Katten, SNR Denton, Holland & Knight, DLA Piper, Winston & Strawn, and Mayer Brown, among others.  Chicago Bar Foundation executive director Bob Glaves, a friend of the PSLawNet Blog and a superb advocate for the local public interest community, is quoted in the piece.  This provides an opportunity for me to note that the Cubs record is 62-81.  Hi, Bob!

• 9.2.11 – three county prosecutors in the Beehive State take to the pages of the Salt Lake Tribune to argue, wait for it, for bolstering Utah’s patchwork of county indigent defense systems:  “Because prosecutors are committed to doing justice, we support a strong and vigorous indigent defense system. We stand ready to work together with all interested parties to meet our constitutional obligations to do justice as effectively and efficiently as possible.”  But there’s a catch, of sorts.  The authors are writing in the wake of an ACLU of Utah Report, Failing Gideon, which called for a statewide fix for what is now an uneven county-by-county system.  The three prosecutors prefer a local approach, as they don’t think a statewide solution is feasible in the present economic climate. 

• 9.1.11 – the Ozarks First website looks at how the House’s proposed 26% cut to Legal Services Corporation will impact the local LSC grantee, Legal Services of Southern Missouri.  LSSM executive director Douglas Kays “says proposed federal cuts would translate to about $500,000” lost.  “‘We help about 2,500 people a year [out of 10,000 applications for assistance, on average],’ says Kays. ‘We’d probably have to reduce that by 500 or 600’.”

• 9.1.11 – Ready, set, $2million.  The Bangor Daily News reports unexpected good news on the legal services funding front in Maine: “The Maine Bar Foundation has announced the receipt of a $2 million gift from an anonymous donor. The endowment, the first of its kind for the foundation, is dedicated to providing support for people in need of legal assistance in Washington and Hancock counties, according to a press release issued Thursday…. The foundation will set up an endowment with the gift and use the interest to pay for legal services.”  This has got to feel good for the bar foundation after some disappointing IOLTA years.

By Lauren Forbes

As the school year gets underway (have you caught your breath?), it is always smart to think about what’s ahead–and utilize resources in order to take the smartest approach. This could not be more true than when it comes to job seeking.

There are many resources on PSLawNet that job seekers can add to their tool boxes to make the job search go as smoothly as possible.  These job search fundamentals include tips on cover letters and resumes, networking, and interviewing. Whether it is a fall or summer externship or the post-grad job of your dreams, one can never go wrong in seeking advice.

Happy hunting!

Hello, PSLawNet Blog readers!  NALP is conducting a survey to get a sense of the public interest job market.  We’ll publish a free report with our findings later this Fall.  We hope this will be helpful to law students, lawyers, and other stakeholders in the public service community. Please pass along the below to public interest and government law offices.  Thanks. 

The National Association for Law Placement (NALP) is conducting a brief, anonymous survey of nonprofit and government public-interest law offices throughout the country about 1) recent law student and attorney hiring and 2) hiring expectations for the immediate future. We will use the data to produce a report about what the public interest employment market looks like now and how it may change in the near future. NALP will release the report later this fall. The report will be made freely available online. The report will NOT identify any responding organizations by name. We hope the report will benefit the public interest legal community as well as law students and attorneys who are on public interest career paths. Please participate in the brief, online survey by clicking here. The response deadline is Wednesday, 9/28/11.  Please contact Steve Grumm with any questions: sgrumm@nalp.org.

By Lauren Forbes

Calling a Managing Director! As a national immigrant youth-led organization, United We Dream Network (UWD)’s mission is to achieve equal access to higher education for all people, regardless of immigration status. We aim to address the inequities and obstacles faced by immigrant youth and to develop a sustainable, grassroots movement led by immigrant youth, documented and undocumented, and children of immigrants. We use leadership development, organizing, policy advocacy, alliance building, training, and capacity-building to pursue our mission at the local, state, and national levels.

UWD’s mission is to build power through local, regional, and national convening and leadership development opportunities; to provide the tools and resources to immigrant youth leaders to organize and grow their movements at every level; to create meaningful alliances with other national immigrant and education rights organizations and ensure there is a voice for immigrant youth at the national level; to strengthen anchor organizations of UWD; and to support emerging groups and provide capacity where organizing is needed but nonexistent.

This position includes full benefits as provided by the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), the fiscal sponsor for UWD. The Managing Director will be an employee of NILC working for UWD. Organization policies and benefits packages are subject to change during annual open enrollment at NILC and/or when this position transitions to employment directly by UWD.

The position is expected to be based in the Washington, DC, area. However, the location may change depending on outcomes of upcoming UWD strategic planning processes.

Click into the listing on PSLawNet for application instructions (login required).

By: Steve Grumm

“Your municipal bureaucracy shall not come between me and my Korean BBQ taco food truck!” is something George Orwell never said.  But if Orwell, whose thinking has for years been strongly influential in libertarian circles, were here today….who knows?

Here’s a great Washington Post article, “In food truck fights, libertarian law firm takes a stand,” about the efforts of the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public interest firm, to stand up against what it views as over-regulation of food carts/trucks.

[The Institute] launched its new National Street Vending Initiative early this year in Texas and has since expanded it to Atlanta (where city officials had decided to reserve all public property for a single vending company) and Chicago (where aldermen have proposed rules so severe, they could cut off vending in the entire downtown area). The institute even released a report, “Streets of Dreams,” which reviews vending regulations in the country’s 50 largest cities, including Washington.

I’d need to know more about the regulatory ins and outs to form an opinion, but since soft pretzels are a food group to me, my heart (and stomach) stand with the vendors.

By: Steve Grumm

There’s an interesting piece in today’s National Law Journal about a handful of law schools that have established incubation programs for recent grads who want the independence of hanging their own shingle without the insecurity of going it entirely alone:

[The City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law] offers low-cost office space in midtown Manhattan and staff support for up to two years to a select number of graduates aiming to establish themselves as solos or launch small firms. The program offers more than office space; participants have access to a large network of experienced solo practitioners who function as mentors, and they enjoy an internal support network among their colleagues in the incubator, which helps to reduce the isolation many solo practitioners experience.

…

CUNY’s program was the first of its kind when it debuted in 2007, but now law schools around the country have launched solo incubators, and more are on the way. The University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law unveiled its solo and small-firm incubator last fall, and the University of Maryland School of Law introduced its incubator in January.

The Charlotte School of Law plans to have its Small Practice Center up and running next summer. Faculty and administrators at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, Georgia State University College of Law and the University of Dayton School of Law are among those considering adding similar programs.

CUNY and Maryland both enjoy reputations as being schools with a strong emphasis on public interest work, so perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that their incubation programs incorporate some aspect of public interest practice.

The few solo incubators that are up and running employ slightly different models. Several have a clear civil justice emphasis, while others are more business-oriented. They vary in length from six months to as long as two years.

At CUNY, incubator participants do a significant amount of what [the program’s director, Fred Rooney,] calls “low bono” work. They earn $75 an hour for providing legal representation to underserved communities throughout New York, paid for by contracts with New York City. The work provides the new attorneys with experience and exposure, and provides representation to people who otherwise could not afford an attorney, Rooney said. Incubator attorneys take on their own cases in addition to the contract work.

The University of Maryland’s solo incubator, which lasts between six and 10 months, also promotes civil justice. Participants work in an office across the street from the law school and assist on grant-funded cases through Civil Justice Inc., a nonprofit law office that serves low-income clients.