I want to hear your thoughts on this one. According to an article on MPR News, some job seekers are fearful of going back to work and that fear is sabotaging their change at landing a job. Here are the highlights:

“Part of the sabotage is in the work search itself,” she said. “Not following up, not being as aggressive as I should be.”

Marie also concedes that she has applied for jobs with companies where she didn’t have a good chance of being hired, and doing a half-hearted job with her cover letters.

“If I don’t have the energy there, or enthusiasm there, I think it sort of comes through,” she said.

Marie, who recognized her self-sabotage about a month ago, thinks she knows why she’s doing it. At 58, she’s worried employers will think she is too old. She fears rejection, and self-doubt makes her feel depressed. . . .

Many have angst that is easy to relate to, said Mary White, a job counselor in St. Paul who works for the non-profit organization HIRED, which provides resources for job training job search.

White said lots of people dread change, so it is unsurprising some would fear entering a relationship with a new employer after a traumatic layoff. . . .

With the pressure on, Marie is trying hard to overcome her negative mindset. Despite decades of taking on big responsibilities at work, she still feels insecure. But her volunteer work at a nonprofit is helping.

Read the rest of the story here. Have you found yourself sabotaging your job search? If so, is it because of fear?

The Legal Aid Society of Mid-New York, Inc. seeks a dynamic staff attorney with experience or interest in family law to work in our Binghamton, New York office. LASMNY program area covers thirteen counties: Broome, Chenango, Cayuga, Cortland, Delaware, Herkimer, Jefferson, Lewis, Madison, Oneida, Onondaga, Oswego and Otsego. In addition, LASMNY operates a statewide Farmworker Law Project from its New Paltz office.

The staff attorney will provide direct and comprehensive legal services to eligible clients including advice, negotiation, motion practice and litigation. Additionally, the staff attorney will represent clients primarily in family law cases, including custody/visitation, paternity, support violations, family offenses and abuse/ neglect matters.

Sound like a good fit for you? Check the listing at PSLawNet!

By: Steve Grumm

Moving every 2-4 years can be bad enough.  But it’s even more difficult on attorneys who move periodically with their military spouses.  Imagine taking bar exam after bar exam so you can practice in the jurisdiction where your military spouse has been transferred.  I wonder if BARBRI offers an equivalent to frequent-flyer miles.

Well, the ABA supports lessening the burdens on lawyer-spouses of servicemembers.  Here’s an excerpt of a press release from the Military Spouse JD Network:

HISTORIC ABA VOTE TO REMOVE LICENSING BARRIERS FOR MILITARY SPOUSE ATTORNEYS

New Orleans, Louisiana — February 6, 2012 — The policy making body of the American Bar Association voted today to support changes in state licensing rules for military spouses with law degrees. With this vote, the ABA recognized the licensing barriers facing lawyers who move to a new jurisdiction with their military spouse, on average every two to three years. The approval of Resolution 108 puts the nation’s largest and most influential professional organization for lawyers squarely on the side of enhancing employment opportunities for military spouses.

“The ABA leadership understands how time consuming and expensive it is for military spouses to obtain a law license every time they move,” said Mary Reding, an Air National Guard spouse and co-founder of the Military Spouse JD Network. “The bar examination process often costs thousands of dollars and takes many months to complete. As a result, many military spouses find it impossible to obtain a license during the limited time they are stationed in a new jurisdiction.”

The ABA’s Resolution encourages state licensing agencies to allow lawyers who are licensed and in good standing in another jurisdiction to practice law while they are present in the state because of military orders.

So, how does one get into the public interest field? How do you find out that public interest law is what you want to do?

Well, a Ms. JD  contributor chatted with the Assistant Director at the University of Washington Center for Public Service Law who answered these questions and more… Read it here!

The Just Health Foundation (Just Health) is searching for a group of summer volunteer associates to conduct research, write articles, and conduct community outreach. We need legal support in many areas of the law including employment, immigration, human rights, disability, estate planning, transgender rights, health policy, and family law.

The Just Health Foundation is a new non-profit organization with a mission to improve health by building an online medical-legal partnership. Lawyers in traditional medical-legal partnerships improve health by advocating for patients' health care rights. With the support of a legal advocate these patients are more likely to gain access to care and can increase the effectiveness of care received.

Selected applicants will be placed with legal specialists who will provide mentorship, training and guidance. By using this collaborative research platform, students will have the opportunity to network with our panel of experts and receive extensive training in the assigned area of law.

Find out more at PSLawNet!

From the ABA Journal:

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder today announced two new Justice Department programs aimed at helping to bolster indigent defense services at the state and local levels.

Between them, the two programs will make up to $2.4 million in federal funding available to research projects studying the barriers that prevent criminal defendants from receiving effective legal assistance, and to support direct efforts to break down those barriers.

“These initiatives represent an unprecedented level of support—from this Justice Department and from the administration as a whole—for reforming America’s legal system, and improving its ability to serve those who find quality representation to be out of reach,” said Holder in a luncheon speech at the Seventh Annual Summit on Indigent Defense Improvement presented by the ABA Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants. The summit was held in New Orleans during the ABA’s 2012 Midyear Meeting.

Holder announced that the National Institute of Justice, a part of the Office of Justice Programs, will begin officially soliciting applications within the next few weeks for grants to support research on fundamental issues of access to legal services, including the need for quality representation, at the state and local levels. He said the institute will commit up to $1 million to support these grants.

Public Counsel Law Center is the largest pro bono public interest law firm in the nation. Founded in 1970, Public Counsel is dedicated to advancing equal justice under law by delivering free legal and social services to the most vulnerable members of our community, including abused and abandoned children, homeless families, senior citizens, and victims of consumer fraud. Our professional staff, along with thousands of volunteer lawyers, law students and legal professionals, assists over 30,000 low-income children, youth, adults, and families, as well as eligible community organizations each year.

Public Counsel is currently seeking a staff attorney for its Juvenile Justice Education Advocacy Legal Clinics at the Kenyon Juvenile Justice Center and at the STAR court (a specialized collaborative court for youth involved in prostitution) at the Compton Juvenile Court. The attorney will be responsible for all aspects of these clinics’ operation, including managing referrals, conducting intakes, providing education and special education advocacy, and tracking outcomes.

Interested? See the full listing at PSLawNet!

by Lauren Burke, Esq.

Lauren Burke is the co-founder of Atlas: DIY, developing immigrant youth, and the immigration attorney at the New York Asian Women’s Center. Lauren is a former Skadden Fellow at The Door, where she worked with Chinese child survivors of human trafficking. Since graduating from NYU Law in 2009, she has worked with over thirty law students in a direct and clinical capacity and loves sharing the advice she learned from tripping (literally!) in dozens of legal interviews.

1.    You Didn’t Do Your Homework

If you can pass civil procedure you can certainly take five minutes to look at an organization’s website and at least learn their mission statement! No excuses, just do it. I’ll quiz you on it, I will!

2.    You Dismiss My Training

Organizations are not particularly interested in training you for an entire summer if the biggest impact you think you will have down the road is “taking on a few pro bono cases” or that you’d like an internship “to get class credit.” We want to see how you are dedicated to the field, or, at least, want to apply our training and work to help others in need.

3.   You Take Me Too Seriously

It’s actually ok to relax in the interview and let your personality show. We’ll be working together late in the night working on an appellate brief and THEN get a call that a client was arrested…again! So we’re looking for people we can click with on a personal and professional level.

4.    …Or You Don’t Take Me Seriously Enough!

Yes, I’m 28 and a female but that doesn’t mean working with me isn’t tough or that I’ll beg for any law student to come crawling my way. You may be older and in many respects wiser but don’t forget who is interviewing whom.

5.    You Fabricate Your Language Skills

Conversational means you know how to say more than “what is your name” and “how old are you.” Proficient articulates that you can get the job done, literally, in the language you use. Don’t think you’ll get off without being tested, I often bring others who speak a language I need to test prospective interns’ chops.

6.    You Patronize the Clients

I’d rather not hear about how all you want to do is “help the poor people” and how having a law degree (or half of one)  makes you superman.  We love what we do but we also recognize why we are here and it’s largely because we love the population. You should want to learn as much, if not more, from the clients as you are able to provide and to recognize that in the interview.

7.    You Take a One-size Fits All Approach to Public Interest

I love an intern with variety but housing foreclosure for the elderly applies a different skill set than youth in foster care. Do issues  and talents overlap? Absolutely! But I want you to be able to speak about and articulate why this particular internship speaks to you.

8.    You Didn’t Ask Me Any Questions

If a law student doesn’t have questions at the end of an interview, I worry about their intellectual curiosity and genuine devotion to the position. Students should come to every interview armed with at least one follow up, “where do you find your client base” works in most situations!

9.    You Confused the Name of My NGO

This maybe goes with number one but, again, do your homework! Sanctuary for Families is different than Safe Horizons, and Advocates for Children is not the Administration for Children’s Services. Print out a page of each NGO you are interviewing with and highlight key items, review this sheet before each interview and you should be good to go!

10.    You Didn’t Show Up

Interviews at these fairs are lightning fast and you’ve got to make an impression (and not the kind where the interviewer is left sitting at a table alone staring into space.) Even if you have a job offer that you would like to take, contact the employer in advance of your interview so that they have a chance to talk to someone else. You never know who you’ll want to interview with in the future and trust us, we talk!

Did you miss last month’s educational debt webinars? Have no fear, EJW is hosting 3 more this month! Learn about the upcoming sessions below and register here!

Here are the deets:

Plan Before You Borrow: What You Should Know About Educational Loans BEFORE You Go to Graduate School

Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2-3 p.m. EST

Interested in government or public interest work after graduating? This webinar will help you plan ahead and make sure you can take full advantage of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, the most significant law affecting public service in a generation.

The webinar will teach you about:

– Taking out the right kind of loans

– Consolidating or reconsolidating your previous student loans

– How the College Cost Reduction and Access Act can free you to pursue a public interest career

 

How to Pay Your Bills AND Your Student Loans: Utilizing Income-Based Repayment

Thursday, Feb. 16, 2-3 p.m. EST

Saddled with high student debt? This webinar reviews Income-Based Repayment, a powerful provision of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act that allows anyone with high debt relative to their income to reduce their federal student loan payments.

This interactive webinar will teach you:

– How to understand your federal loans

– How Income-Based Repayment works and if it is right for you

– How to sign up for Income-Based Repayment

Get Your Educational Loans Forgiven: Public Service Loan Forgiveness

Thursday, Feb. 23, 2-3 p.m. EST

For recent graduates with jobs in government or at a nonprofit, this webinar explains how to make sure you immediately begin fulfilling requirements to qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness so that your educational debt will be forgiven as soon as possible.

You will learn about:

– The importance of having the right kind of Federal Loans

– What you need to do to qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness

– How long it will take to have your educational debt forgiven

If you missed the webinars, you can watch them over and over and over! You can also download the slides!

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The free two-part webinar series, co-sponsored by NALP and Equal Justice Works, provides both law students and CSO professionals with insight on the key elements of the summer public interest job application process. Attorneys with years of application review experience highlight what you should and shouldn’t do; explain how and why public interest application materials may substantively differ from law firm materials; and explore the dynamics of personal interactions in interviews and networking situations.

Check them out here.