by Kristen Pavón

I don’t think so.

However, some students are frustrated by the “abundance of paperwork” and volunteer hours they have to put in to get their check. Some are even going so far as labeling the requirements an exploitation of student labor.

Apparently, some law schools require summer stipend recipients to do between 5 and 10 hours of volunteer work on campus and at fundraising events [to raise dinero for future stipends].

From U.S. News

Many law students and J.D.’s report that their public service internships were fulfilling, and schools’ websites celebrate students’ and alumni’s decisions to serve the public. But some say that the internship applications come with too many requirements, warning aspiring public servants to carefully consider whether to participate. . . .

A student at Cardozo, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, says he didn’t mind the abundance of paperwork he had to fill out to apply for the public interest stipend he received last summer. But as an “already stressed out” 1L, he didn’t think he should have had to do office work for the school and cold call alumni. . . .

[Leslie] Thrope [director of Cardozo’s Center for Public Service Law] says the stipends help students develop legal skills and transform people’s lives, but Cardozo can’t afford to fund them without students volunteering at an annual auction that raises funds for the stipends. “[T]he requirements are right up front when a student chooses to participate,” Thrope says.

In my opinion, offering 10 hours of your time to help out the law school so that another public interest enthusiast can have an opportunity to do good work is not a biggie.

*As an aside, if you do have your heart set on doing public interest work during the summer and have yet to find the bankroll to do so, check out our Summer Funding Page. There are over 50 funding sources listed!

What do you think? Would you apply for a summer stipend with a few strings attached during your 1L year?

Yesterday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder spoke at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library & Museum in Austin, Texas about the Voting Rights Act and the reality that there are jurisdictions across the country that use “both overt and subtle forms of [voter] discrimination.”

Watch a video of his speech here. Or read his speech here.

Positive Resource Center is looking for a staff attorney to join its team. Positive Resource Center is a community-based organization that provides Benefits Counseling and Employment Services to people living with HIV/AIDS and/or mental health conditions.

The Staff Attorney will provide legal representation to low-income clients with HIV and/or mental health issues in order to guarantee disability income and health insurance benefits.

Interested? Check out the listing at PSLawNet!

Human Rights Initiative is a non-profit located in Dallas, TX that is committed to providing high-quality legal services free of charge to people who have suffered from human rights abuses. HRI is currently seeking full-time legal interns for its Summer internship program.
HRI strives to provide every legal intern with invaluable experience in immigration and nationality law and international human rights issues. Interns will provide support to either the Asylum, Advocacy, or Women and Children’s programs.

Interested? Check out the listing at PSLawNet!

Calling all bike-ridin’, vegan-eatin’, no-leather-wearin’, tree-plantin’ earthy types!  Vermont Law, one of the powerhouse educational institutions for environmental law, has released its Top 10 Environmental Watch List, 2012 Edition.  Here’s a tease:

1. With Republicans Attacking the EPA, 2012 Could Be a Turning Point for Environmental Regulation…
2. EPA and White House Clash over Ozone Standards…
3. Powder River Basin’s Abundance of Coal at the Epicenter of Energy Development…

Equal Justice Works is hosting a live, free webinar this Friday. Mark your calendars!

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

December 16, 3:00 – 4:15 p.m. EDT

A must-attend for anyone with high student debt working for the government or a nonprofit, this free webinar explains how you can benefit from the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, the most significant law affecting public service in a generation.

From this interactive webinar, you will learn and be able to ask questions about:

• Understanding your Federal loans
• How to qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness
• How the Income-Based Repayment plan works

Click here to view a schedule of EJW’s free, live webinars that teach you how loan repayment assistance and relief programs work, and to register for an upcoming session.

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey is seeking qualified applicants for the position of Assistant or Associate General Counsel in the Office of Senior Vice President and General Counsel. The level of this position will be determined based upon the experience of the selected candidate.

The practice areas in which this attorney may work include commercial transactions, contracting and procurement, regulatory and compliance, and litigation. Experience in a higher education or health care environment is desirable.

Chartered in 1766, Rutgers is New Jersey’s flagship public research and land-grant University with a budget of approximately $1.9 billion and in 1989 was invited to join the Association of American Universities (AAU), an association of the nation’s leading research universities.

Interested? Check out the listing at PSLawNet!

by Kristen Pavón

Last week, NALP and ALI-ABA hosted the 2011 Professional Development Institute here in D.C.

The conference was full of programs on best practices for new lawyers, business skills for lawyers, using personality tests and assessments for professional development, social networking and pro bono programs.

On Friday morning, Jim Sandman, LSC president, and Caren Ulrich Stacy, president of Lawyer Metrics, spoke to attendees about how and why professional development and pro bono need each other.

They focused on four main reasons why strong pro bono programs should be implemented and maintained in law firms: 1) filling a growing need, 2) attorney satisfaction and retention, 3) skill development and 4) client relations.

Here are a few of the highlights:

• Lawyers value real work on real cases the most for professional development, according to a NALP Foundation survey. And pro bono cases can provide this “real work.”
• Lawyers have more control with pro bono cases  than on the commercial side.
• Pro bono work also helps with client relations because attorneys gain trial experience, which boosts their creditability with potential clients.
• Real world example of how pro bono can boost client relations: DLA Piper allows in-house counsel at Verizon (its client) to join its pro bono structure. This way, DLA attorneys work side by side with in-house counsel, learn from each other and improve client relations.
• Law firms need to put their money where their mouth is when it comes to pro bono programs. Attorneys need to have meaningful billable hour credit for pro bono work.

Thoughts?

The Skadden Foundation has listed its Class-of-2012 fellows.  Twenty-eight fellows, hailing from 16 law schools, will begin their projects next year.  Seven schools had multiple fellowship awardees: Berkeley (2); Columbia (2); Harvard (6); NYU (2); Penn (2); Stanford (3); and Yale (2).  Other schools from which fellows come include CUNY, Georgetown, Michigan, and Rutgers-Camden.

For comparison’s sake, prior Skadden Fellowship classes shaped up as follows:

• 2011:  29 fellows from 21 law schools;
• 2010: 27 fellows from 20 law schools;
• 2009: 28 fellows from 14 law schools;
• 2008: 36 fellows from 16 law schools.  

Congrats to the Class-of-2012 fellows!  The fellowship award is an extraordinary achievement. 

By: Steve Grumm

We may soon find out.  Tomorrow the Missouri Supreme Court will hear arguments in a long-simmering case about whether the Missouri Public Defender Commission is empowered to close offices to new cases on account of high caseloads.  While this decision will of course impact only Missouri’s indigent defense system, the problem of under-funded, overwhelmed defenders offices exists in many jurisdictions.

From the Springfield News-Leader:

Public defenders say they were operating under the rules set up after a previous Supreme Court decision.

But multiple interpretations have surfaced as to what the previous Supreme Court ruling, called the Pratte decision, actually means.

The Missouri Public Defender Commission’s opinion is that the Pratte decision reaffirmed its authority to set rules to combat high caseloads. It also said public defenders couldn’t reject cases based on category, such as turning down all probation violation cases.

In the Pratte opinion, one of the suggestions justices made was to consider closing the offices to new cases when caseload limits were reached, as other states have done.

But the sides disagree about whether that text gave the authority to close offices or was merely a discussion of options.

The new case before the Supreme Court could clarify how the court expects public defenders to deal with high caseloads.