By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  This week:

• Oklahoma prosecutors running their own probation program, which generates revenue…and controversy;
• a report from the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation reviews the economic benefits and efficiencies stemming from the legal services community’s work;
• is the NOLA public defender’s office going to lay off attorneys?;
• a Chicago high-school teacher is moonlighting as a legal aid lawyer (he’s licensed) and running clinics out of local schools;
• in Wisconsin, legislation proposed to increase prosecutor pay;
• a Canuck pro bono lawyer proposes to boost legal aid funding through a pay or play system.  Surprisingly, the “play” doesn’t involve hockey;
• Private-bar family lawyers in Texas disagree with efforts to make pro se forms available to low-/moderate-income people;
• the legal services funding crisis in the Grand Canyon State;
• at West Virginia Law, a new student clinic will sit at the intersection of land use and natural resource extraction/conservation;
• the legal services funding crisis in Atlanta.

And here are the summaries:

• 1.20.12 – here’s a teaser from a password-protected Wall Street Journal article: “As district attorneys nationwide try to cope with shrinking state budgets, Oklahoma prosecutors have seized on a novel—and increasingly controversial—money raiser: running their own probation programs. The state allows prosecutors to recommend that instead of going to jail or prison, offenders receive special supervision by district attorneys’ offices, which collect a $40 monthly fee from offenders. These programs, which have soared to 38,000 participants from 16,000 in 2008, are now larger than the state prison system’s traditional probation program, which often involves drug testing and mandatory counseling and covers 21,000 offenders.”  I don’t have a subscription, so I can’t read the rest of the article.  But I wonder what ever the potential problem could be…

• 1.19.12 – the economic case for supporting legal services: “Massachusetts civil aid programs generated an estimated $53.2 million in new revenue and cost savings to the commonwealth last year, according to a new report issued today by the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation. Of that amount, $27.7 million came in the form of new federal revenue, the report found. The state appropriation for MLAC in FY11 was $9.5 million. In addition to new federal revenue, MLAC estimated the work of its grantees saved the state millions of dollars in social services by keeping clients out of the emergency shelter system, courts and emergency rooms. The data was reported to MLAC by the 16 legal aid programs it funds in the commonwealth.”  (Report from Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly.)

• 1.19.12 – from the New Orleans Times-Picayune: “The Orleans Parish public defender’s office is in dire financial straits and will be forced to lay off about 26 employees in coming weeks and implement numerous other cuts, the agency’s head told New Orleans City Council members Wednesday. Derwyn Bunton said his office is faced with a budget shortfall of about $1 million and is reeling from a downturn in revenue. The office instituted a hiring freeze late last year, has suspended payments to its conflict panel lawyers and capital defense lawyers, and doesn’t appear to be able to make payroll by month’s end, Bunton said. He forecast that 14 full-time employees will need to be laid off, along with 12 members of the conflict panel.”

• 1.17.12 – a Chicago high-school teacher is also a lawyer, and he’s set up free clinics to provide advice and counsel to low-income clients.  From the Chicago News Cooperative: “Soon after Dennis Kass started teaching history at a small Little Village high school four years ago, he put his law degree to use dispensing free legal advice to students and their families after school. That modest beginning has evolved into the Chicago Law and Education Foundation, a free clinic that operates monthly at eight other city high schools.”  The foundation has barely any operating funds, and “[m]uch of the clinic’s work is referrals. The foundation has partnerships with the DePaul Immigration/Asylum Clinic, Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, and First Defense Legal Aid.”  Kass hopes to raise enough funds to hire one staff attorney.

• 1.18.12 – companion bills in the Wisconsin legislature to boost prosecutor pay and stem attrition.  But there’s a hitch.  From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: “Last year, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs surveyed 146 current and former assistant district attorneys and concluded that many leave the job – or plan to – because of the prospect of being stuck for years at entry-level salaries. The report called the turnover rate among prosecutors ‘alarming.’  The bills would establish a 17-step plan, with each step representing one-seventeenth of the difference between the starting pay and top pay for the job.”  And here comes the hitch: “The proposals don’t, however, provide money for the raises desperately sought by the state’s 330 or so prosecutors.”  The story goes on to recount the battle between prosecutors and the governor’s office about attempted furloughs, and provides some data on prosecutor pay.

• 1.16.12 – Canada!  A “pay or play” proposal to support access to justice in the Great White North (as reported by S-law): “As part of his or her annual professional membership fees, a lawyer pays a $300 ‘A2J Contribution’ (an amount roughly equivalent to the average hourly rate among Canadian lawyers) that is earmarked for direct funding of the province’s legal aid and public interest legal organizations. If a lawyer provided and recorded one or more hours of legal aid, pro bono or public legal education service in the previous year— as administered and verified by specific organizations— then his or her A2J Contribution is waived. Thus lawyers “pay or play” to promote access to justice.”  The proposal’s author, Jamie MacLaren, is an active pro bono lawyer and AtJ advocate in British Columbia.

• 1.16.12 – it occasionally happens that solo and small-firm lawyers, who do fee-paying work for low and moderate income clients, butt heads with the public interest community about which clients are able to pay for services and which aren’t.  Something along these lines is playing out in Texas, but with a focus on pro se forms intended for low-income Texans.  From the Texas Lawyer: “The State Bar of Texas Family Law Section wants to put the brakes on draft forms for pro se divorce litigants and is calling for the State Bar to rein in the Texas Access to Justice Commission (TAJC). With both sides claiming to speak in the interests of litigants — and rumblings about protecting lawyers’ livelihoods — the Texas Supreme Court will have to take sides.  In one corner are the TAJC and the high court’s Uniform Forms Task Force, which believe the forms will help people — especially low-income individuals who cannot afford lawyers — obtain divorces on their own. The forms will be a better tool for people who already use forms from the Internet and elsewhere, they say.  In the other corner are the Family Law Section and the Texas Family Law Foundation, which oppose the forms and claim their use: could hurt the interests of people who use them to file for divorce; will not be limited to low-income Texans; could harm the livelihoods of solos and small-firm family lawyers; and may expand into other practice areas besides family law.”  

• 1.16.12 – From the Tucson Citizen: “At a time when the demand for legal assistance is on the rise, Arizona’s legal aid organizations are preparing for one of the largest funding losses in decades. In mid-November, Congress agreed to a 14.8% reduction to Legal Services Corporation (LSC) funding that will result in a $1.6 million loss to Arizona’s three legal aid organizations. Arizona’s legal aid organizations, Community Legal Services, DNA People’s Legal Services and Southern Arizona Legal Aid, have been on the front lines of the State’s economic battles since the recession’s beginning…. According to a report released this week by the Arizona Foundation for Legal Services & Education, legal aid, for some, has meant assistance in preventing foreclosure, defending against predatory lenders, or victims of domestic violence needing help in obtaining an order of protection. The report is the culmination of a six month long public survey hosted by the Foundation to better understand the legal needs of Arizona’s population. The Foundation’s Executive Director, Dr. Kevin Ruegg, explains, ‘Our intent for the report, before the news of the federal funding reduction, was to help the general public understand the meaning of legal services. Since the news of the cuts, the report has taken on a whole new meaning – It isn’t just the meaning of legal services that was defined. The report clearly explains the impact in this loss of funding’.”  Here’s a link to the report.

• 1.16.12 – at West Virginia Law, a new student clinic will sit at the intersection of land use and natural resource extraction/conservation. From the Register-Herald: “A new law clinic at West Virginia University, funded by millions of dollars in legal settlements between environmental groups and coal companies, will focus much of its effort on the New and Gauley river watersheds.  The first four law school students at the Land Use and Sustainable Development Law Clinic in Morgantown begin their work this week…”

• 1.13.12 – the Atlanta Legal Aid Society’s board president pens a Journal-Constitution op-ed capturing the group’s dire financial straits: “Every day, Legal Aid lawyers solve problems that threaten their clients’ lives. Last year, the client caseload totaled 26,283, a 21 percent increase since 2007.  But…a tragedy is brewing. The money needed to provide this all-important ‘hand up’ is disappearing. In the case of Atlanta Legal Aid, two major funding sources have decreased dramatically. The first is Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts, or IOLTA.  Second, Atlanta Legal Aid recently learned that the federal funding that represents close to one-third of its budget is decreasing nearly 15 percent.  Atlanta Legal Aid has already cut costs to the bone. Staff is leaner; benefits have been reduced. Salaries remain a fraction of those paid to lawyers in private practice. And less than 10 percent of Atlanta Legal Aid’s budget goes to administration and fundraising…. Unless other sources of funding are found, Atlanta Legal Aid will be forced to cut attorneys and staff. Legal Aid will have no choice but to turn away more individuals and families in dire need of their legal services.”