By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers. We should take our wisdom where, and as, we find it.  This thought has reoccurred to me several times this week.  The reason: an astoundingly well-timed bit of wisdom emerged from unexpected quarters a few days ago.  It reminded me that when I am actively seeking wisdom, I tend to pursue the high-minded – hunting among the works of philosophers and poets for the perfect collection of words, constructed in perfect syntax.  But I wonder how much wisdom I miss in the everyday course – messages that evade me because I’m not listening, or too casually dismiss the messenger.

I should be more careful about judging messengers.  After all, I frequently must convince friends – and they tend to be highly sophisticated female friends in this particular case – of Yoda’s sublime brilliance.  (Yes, that’s a “d” and not a “g”.)  “His words are recitations of timeless wisdom,” is typically what I lead with.  Their counterpunch always goes, “How adolescent are you to invest anything at all in bumper-sticker distillations of Eastern philosophy as rendered through a muppet?  A muppet!!”  Well, stand by Yoda I do.

So I’ll remember the Yoda example, and I’ll remember what happened to me earlier this week.  The high-minded are not the only keepers of wisdom.  So whether from Epictetus (“Wealth consists not of having many possessions, but of having few wants”), or Anjelou (“Life loves the liver of it”), or Yoda (“Always in motion the future is”), or Yogi (“Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours”), I will take my wisdom where, and as, a I find it.

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Oh, and as for the news: this week we’ve got several items about funding woes plaguing indigent defense programs.  Note too that NALP released our public interest employment market snapshot report, based on findings from a Fall 2011 survey of employers’ expectations about hiring law students and attorneys.  Here’s the rundown:

• new ruling requiring public defenders at bail hearings has Maryland PD’s office looking for $;
• layoffs at the NOLA defender’s office;
• keeping with a theme, the Delaware indigent defense program needs $ to pay appointed counsel;
• foreclosure prevention program in NY State may not be re-funded;
• just released: NALP’s public service employment market snapshot report (a fair amount of bad news, but also advice from employers about what they look for in job candidates); 
• Univ. of Detroit-Mercy Law clinical offices have new digs, and I really hope they kept the pole intact;
• Texas showdown over creating pro se forms for low-income people;
• continued uncertainty over indigent defense funding in the Bay State;
• scarce indigent defense resources again…this time…Nebraska;
• DC-based civil rights lawyers find work in nonprofits, government, and for-profit practices;
• disturbing numbers on veterans and homelessness;
• the impact of LSC cuts on Legal Services of South Central Michigan;
• ditto, this time Mid-Missouri Legal Services Corporation;
• Depressed yet by all this funding news?  Try this to lift your spirits;
• Mandatory pro bono in Minnesota?
• new graduate bridge program at Pace Law School.

Here are the summaries:

• 2.2.12 – downside: not enough public defenders in Maryland.  Upside: maybe they’ll hire more public defenders in Maryland.  From the Baltimore Sun: “The state would have to hire 284 new public defenders to comply with a recent Court of Appeals ruling requiring lawyers for indigent defendants at thousands of annual bail hearings, according to an affidavit filed Thursday by Maryland Public Defender Paul DeWolfe. ‘I have determined that the Office is unable to comply with the court’s mandate at this time in light of its current resource constraints,’ DeWolfe wrote in the eight-page, sworn document, filed in the state’s highest court. It accompanied a motion asking that the new requirement, outlined in a Jan. 4 opinion, be stayed for at least six months, until Aug. 1.  The Maryland Court of Appeals refused an earlier request to suspend the order, however, noting that judges ‘cannot declare that [defendants] have a statutory right to counsel at bail hearings and, in the same breath, permit delay in the implementation of that important right’.”

• 2.2.11 – bad news out of NOLA.  From the Times-Picayune: “Pleading poverty, the Orleans Parish public defender’s office has laid off about 10 percent of its staff of lawyers along with other employees in the latest move to trim a shortfall in the office’s $9.5 million budget The layoffs, accompanied by salary cuts for managers and supervisors, follow an earlier decision by Chief Public Defender Derwyn Bunton to cut off payments to private attorneys who work death penalty cases and conflict cases where the public defender’s office can’t represent a client, often because it already represents a co-defendant.

• 2.2.12 – cash needed from the Delaware legislature to pay appointed counsel.  From The News Journal: “The state’s public defender warned lawmakers Wednesday of an impending shortfall of funds to pay for private lawyers who represent defendants in cases where the public defender’s office has a legal conflict of interest.  At a hearing on his division’s budget request before the Joint Finance Committee, Public Defender Brendan O’Neill said the Office of Conflict Counsel will almost certainly require between $450,000 and $650,000 in additional funding this fiscal year, on top of the $3 million budgeted.” 
  • Historical Fun Fact: the word “Delaware,” which is the name of a state, river and bay, is mistakenly thought to be of Native American origin.  “Delaware” actually refers to this English aristocrat.  In addition to the state/river/bay, early European settlers even decided to (re)name the Lenape Indians as “Delaware Indians.”  How thoughtful. 

• 2.1.12 – New York State may discontinue funding a foreclosure prevention program that provides housing counseling and legal services to help homeowners in need.  From a Gannett story: “Non-profit groups that provide counseling and legal services to homeowners at risk of foreclosure and some lawmakers are urging Gov. Andrew Cuomo to include $25 million in the state budget to continue the state Foreclosure Prevention Services Program…. Cuomo did not include money for the program in his proposed budget for the 2012-13 fiscal year, which begins April 1. Without funding, the Foreclosure Prevention Services Program will shut down, lawmakers and the non-profit organizations said.” 

• 2.1.12 – NALP (hey, that’s us!) releases 2011-12 Public Service Legal Employment Snapshot report.  The report offers data-driven insight into the law student and attorney hiring climate in the public service arena. In September, 2011 NALP surveyed government and nonprofit law offices to gather data on summer 2012 law-student hiring expectations; attorney hiring forecasts in 2012; and information on recent and anticipated layoffs. NALP also gathered employers’ insights on how job candidates can stand out in a tight market and on practice areas that may grow in the near future. The Snapshot Report is available here.

• 2.1.12 – the law school clinics at the University of Detroit Mercy will have a cool new home.  From Crain’s Detroit Business: The University of Detroit Mercy School of Law will repurpose the historic Engine No. 2 firehouse downtown to accommodate the school’s 10 legal aid-clinics…. In the UDM clinics, law students and faculty provide about 1,500 Detroiters annually with immigration, foreclosure and veterans affairs legal assistance. ‘Our new facility is going to be much more accessible – right out there, visible to the entire Detroit community,’ Dean Lloyd Semple said. “We expect this will increase the demand for our services’.”

• 2.1.12 – a couple of weeks ago we noted a skirmish between the Texas Supreme Court and the state bar over the creation of pro se forms for use in family court.  Here’s the latest from the Courthouse News Service: “The Texas Supreme Court rejected a request by the Texas State Bar to stop work on uniform divorce forms for use by pro se litigants.”  The forms are intended to help low-income Texans who couldn’t get help from legal aid because of resources shortages.  But as noted in a Texas Lawyer article some private-bar family law lawyers had concerns along these lines: “[They] 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.”

• 2.1.12 – Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly reports on continued tension and funding uncertainty surrounding the Bay State’s indigent defense system, which employs both public defenders and appointed private counsel.  It’s noteworthy that Gov. Deval Patrick is pushing to raise the percentage of cases handled by public defenders, which would likely require hiring a large number of new attorneys.  But to some degree this is tied up on legislative wrangling as well. 

• 1.31.12 – another story driven by scarce indigent defense resources, but in this instance we’re also dealing with the “longtime rivalry between Omaha and Lincoln.”  These two quaint Nebraskan cities as the Jets and Sharks.  Who knew?  From the Omaha World-Herald: “A major spat is brewing at the State Capitol over how best to provide lawyers for indigent people charged with felony crimes.  On one side is the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy.  It is a state-financed shop of six defense attorneys charged with taking on felony cases for counties that don’t have their own public defenders or face conflicts of interest in using their own county-paid defenders.  On the other side is Douglas County, which argues that the commission was set up to help cash-strapped rural counties without attorneys and that it isn’t necessary in populous Omaha, which has plenty of private attorneys willing to work as contracted defense attorneys.”

• 1.29.12 – a short Washington Post article profiles the work of civil rights attorneys in the District, noting that a good number practice in boutique law firms rather than in government or nonprofit law offices. 

• 1.27.12 – Some disturbing numbers on veteran homelessness, which illustrate why it will continue to be critical for the legal services community to engage veterans as well as the Department of Veterans Affairs (sometimes adversarially). From Government Executive online: “Veterans are significantly more likely to be homeless than civilian adults, and these homeless vets are getting steadily older and sicker, researchers reported on Friday.  The new study predicts that the Department of Veterans’ Affairs’ health care system could be deluged with at least some of these sick and homeless vets…. ‘Male veterans were almost 50 percent as likely and female veterans were almost twice as likely to be homeless as nonveterans in the general population,’ [Prof. Jamison] Fargo’s team wrote in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ‘Among the population in poverty, male veterans were more than twice as likely and female veterans were more than three times as likely to be homeless as nonveterans’.”

• 1.27.12 – last November’s Legal Services Corporation funding slash will impact Legal Services of South Central Michigan to the tune of about 8% of their budget, From the Battle Creek Enquirer: “Last year the agency, which employs 55 lawyers and has a budget of $5.9 million, represented 27,619 people in 11,000 cases involving domestic violence, landlord-tenant disputes and obtaining access to health care and government programs.  But a 15 percent cut from the federal government and a decrease in money from the state will trim the Legal Services budget by $440,000.”  Legal Services’ Battle Creek office will likely run a budget deficit in 2012 and is trying to avoid staff cuts.

• 1.27.12 – the Columbia Missourian picks up on the Legal Services Corporation’s announcement last week about budget and staff cuts at programs throughout the country, and hones in on the Show Me State: “Mid-Missouri Legal Services Corporation…faced a $135,000 deficit in November when it prepared its budget for 2012. The 14-member staff reduced a full-time attorney to half-time and laid off a half-time attorney”.  Despite this and an almost 50% cut in IOLTA proceeds, caseloads at Mid-Missouri have risen 60% since 2008.

• 1.27.12 – Judith Sandalow, executive director of the Children’s Law Center here in DC, pens a touching piece about why legal services lawyers never give up.  Sandalow, writing in the Huffington Post, recounts the work of a CLC attorney who, after being appointed as the guardian at litem of a girl who was abandoned at birth and again later by an adoptive parent, refused to give up on the girl even after she gave up on herself.  Today, “Charline,” once a homeless dropout, is a high school graduate and moving forward with her life.  She is “one less statistic and one more success story,” thanks in large part to her tireless GaL. 

• 1.XX.12 – “Mandatory pro bono gets another look” is the title of this Minnesota Lawyer article which begins thusly: “Dwindling financial aid for free legal services has prompted a return to the argument that time, rather than money, is the best solution…”  The article’s password protected and I don’t have access, but FYI.

• November, 2011 – our friends at Pace Law School called our attention to their launch of a “school-supported law firm geared toward guiding students in their first years of practice.”  From the New York Law Journal: “The Pace Community Law Practice is set to open in September 2012…and will employ between five and seven recent Pace graduates. The new lawyers will offer low-cost legal assistance in areas including immigration, family and housing law while attending seminars on obtaining and billing clients, malpractice insurance and setting up a law office.  Jennifer Friedman, director of the Public Interest Law Center at Pace, who has been spearheading the project, called the initiative a “legal residency program,” similar to a medical residency, “providing intensive supervision and support” for the new attorneys.  Ms. Friedman said the economy, and the poor market for legal services jobs, played a role in the decision to start the project.”