The National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) is seeking a law student intern for Summer 2012 to assist the Division of Civil Legal Services. NLADA, founded in 1911, is America’s oldest and largest nonprofit association devoted to excellence in the delivery of legal services to those who cannot afford counsel. For 100 years, NLADA has pioneered access to justice at the national, state and local level through the creation of our public defender system, development of nationally applicable standards for legal representation, groundbreaking legal legislation and the creation of important institutions such as the Legal Services Corporation.

The successful candidate will be responsible for assisting the Civil Legal Services Division’s Quality and Program Enhancement initiative and ongoing efforts to identify federal funding opportunities for legal aid.  

View the full job posting for this (unpaid) internship position on PSLawNet (login required).

By: Steve Grumm

From OneNewsNow:

The nonpartisan League of Women Voters and two groups for prisoners’ rights have filed a lawsuit in a San Francisco appeals court, arguing that criminals should allowed to vote in the June primary election. The lawsuit challenges a note from Secretary of State Debra Bowen’s office that says low-level criminals shifted from state prison to county jail under the state’s prison realignment process are ineligible to vote.

…

Backers of the lawsuit say the state constitution only prohibits individuals who are in prison or on parole for the “conviction of a felony” from voting, and they claim that does not fit for low-level offenders under the realignment.

This Friday, I’ll leave you all with a motivating piece. CNN writer Tom Cohen published a great profile on President Obama’s Harvard law professor and social justice “maverick,” Derrick Bell.

Here are a few highlights :

. . . [M]any who knew Bell [he passed away last October] through his legal and teaching career express admiration for his life’s achievements and his academic prowess.

“Bell’s pursuit of racial and social justice and his dogged critique of liberal incrementalism in universities and elsewhere was like a persistent wind that changed the landscape of law schools and influenced the larger academic world as well,” wrote Harvard law professor Lani Guinier and Texas School of Law professor Gerald Torres in a remembrance of Bell published in the “Chronicle of Higher Education.”

“He worked in so many ways: a mentor to many of today’s leading academics, a master teacher whose commitment to his law students was unquestioned and unmatched, and a provocative scholar and critic,” Guinier and Torres continued. “He was a celebrated maverick before that word lost its luster.”

Guinier had particular reason to honor Bell. In 1998, she became the first black women granted tenure as a Harvard Law School professor, six years after Bell’s departure over that issue.

Bell was a founder of critical race theory, which examined the intersection of race, power and law in a harsh portrayal of American society as one dominated by class and racial conflict. . . .

“He [Bell] wrote and spoke with powerful authenticity about race in ways that alienated not only many an adversary but also many a friend, some who even begged for his silence,” Sexton said. “But he knew that the cost of silence to his soul could exceed the sacrifice of good opinion and material goods to himself.”

To Sexton, Bell “knew that he was meant to strive, to struggle, and to push — there would be no short cuts.”

“Yes, Derrick rocked the boat,” he continued. “He also shook the tree, yielding fruits of exceptional scholarship that nourished the discipline of law and thousands of colleagues, students and friends, whom he inspired to teach each other the law and to stand up, speak out, and find joy and satisfaction in stretching the boundaries of justice.”

You can read the rest here. You can also read the NY Times’ obituary for Mr. Bell here.

Have a great weekend!

The Appeals Division of the New York City Housing Authority Law Department is seeking one intern for a seven to eight-week period this summer.  The Appeals Division represents the Housing Authority in proceedings before state courts in response to Article 78 proceedings challenging administrative determinations, Article 81 guardianship proceedings, and appeals from housing court orders.

The intern will:

• Assist Division attorneys involved in high-volume motion practice and appellate work
• Draft notices of entry, stipulations of adjournment, and affidavits in support of applications for adjournments
• File motions, answers, judgments, and other documents
• Obtain documents from court files
• Obtain adjournments, including making applications before a referee
• Prepare papers for service and filing
• Research legal issues related to eligibility for public housing and Section 8 benefits, housing court proceedings, and Article 81 guardianship proceedings; and draft research memoranda
• Other duties as assigned in these and related areas

To learn how to apply, see the listing at PSLawNet!

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  Along with teaching us to embrace and cultivate a sense of searing guilt for the remainder of our earthly days, the nuns in my Catholic elementary school imparted to their pupils much common-sense wisdom.  One such bit of wisdom is “fall back, spring forward”, a phrase which reminds me what I’m supposed to do with my clocks twice a year.  So, a reminder to spring your clocks forward by one hour tomorrow night.

Speaking of our earthly days, this afternoon I’m joining my family at Arlington National Cemetery to bury a great aunt and uncle, the latter having been a retired Air Force pilot.  This will be a solemn, but not a sad, event.  Aunt Kay and Uncle Jim, who were married, died late last year after long, happy lives together.  Uncle Jim was one unique cat, and his life story offers an object lesson in cherishing every waking moment.  I knew him as an older man who sky-dived, scuba-dived, and bungee-jumped into his 70s.  My dad knew Uncle Jim as his mom’s gregarious younger brother who, on holiday leave from the military, would sweep into their house like a hurricane – showering gifts on the kids and ribbing my grandfather, a Philadelphia fireman whose German-American roots left him wanting quieter, more sedate family interaction.

Uncle Jim knew what sacrifice in life meant, and he endured hardships.  But I can truthfully write that only once did I see him without a smile on his face for any more than a few seconds.  That was at his wife’s funeral last October.  He died weeks later.  Throughout his life Uncle Jim seemed to know better than most that, come what may, our clocks spring forward faster than we may wish.  So we must seize every single moment as they try to pass us by.   

This week:

• Maryland’s public defender law getting a rewrite, but litigation about the right to counsel still likely to follow;
• Kentucky prosecutors and public defenders might need a stiff bourbon to deal with the next state budget;
• Badger student pro bono gets a boost;
• why mandatory pro bono ain’t the solution;
• in the U.K, proposed legal aid cuts run into a House-of-Lords buzz saw (a phrase that is fun to write and not often written, I’d wager); 
• chickens coming home to roost in battle between U. Md. legal clinic & state lawmaker;
• pardon this! A proposed law school clinic on executive pardon power;
• Presidential Management Fellows application snafu draws attention of lawmakers;
• show me more funding! LSC cuts will impact Legal Services of Eastern Missouri;
• juvenile justice developments in the Buckeye State. 

The summaries:

• 3.9.12 – “Lawmakers have reached a compromise to rewrite Maryland’s Public Defender Act to accommodate a Court of Appeals decision that found criminal defendants weren’t given proper access to attorneys.  The consensus amendments, if passed early next week, would not require judges to work weekends and would dramatically reduce the number of people arrested for crimes with shorter jail terms.  Lawmakers are looking at changing the law ahead of a mandate from the Court of Appeals that would require public defenders to be available within 24 hours after an individual is arrested.”  (Story from the Gazette.)

• 3.8.12 – in the “just because it could have been worse doesn’t mean it’s now good” department,” Kentucky’s next biennial budget isn’t likely to please local prosecutors or public defenders.  From Gannett: “The proposed state budget pending in the General Assembly has local prosecutors…concerned.  The House of Representatives in the Kentucky General Assembly passed a proposed budget…that would cut most state agencies by 8.4 percent… The Senate will take up the budget next week and will likely make some changes.  The House’s budget opted not to make the further cuts proposed by Gov. Steve Besher to prosecutors and public defenders but also won’t restore their funding cut out of this year’s budget. If this budget passes…it will mean a further backlog of cases and potential reduction in staff, prosecutors said.”

• 3.7.12 – the University of Wisconsin Law School will bolster pro bono programs through two grants from the state bar.  One grant will help launch a free, law-school staffed legal clinic for veterans.  The second will support the law school’s new Pro Bono Society, which will engage law students and alumni pro bono efforts.  Here’s more from the State Bar of Wisconsin.  

• 3.7.12 – the Pro Bono Institute’s Esther Lardent makes the “pragmatic and philosophical” case against mandatory pro bono as a solution to our country’s access-to-justice crisis.  Here is Lardent’s blog post on the Association of Corporate Counsel website.  

• 3.7.12 -House of Lords = Radical Progressive Revolutionaries(?)  Civil legal aid advocates in the U.S. are not the only ones facing waves of government funding cuts.  The present UK government is trying to push through measures that would considerably slash legal aid funds.  But the House of Lords, which hitherto I’d thought was a legislative body preoccupied mainly with things like croquet and ascots, is pushing back.  They are dealing blow after legislative blow to the government’s justice bill, as reported by the Independent. 

• 3.6.12 – a Maryland lawmaker opposed to the work of the U. of Md.’s law school environmental clinic has thrown down the funding gauntlet.  We’ve covered the particulars of this ongoing battle before (see my colleague Kristen’s great summary here, and more here).  This is the latest from the Nat’l. Law Journal: “State Sen. Richard Colburn has proposed a budget amendment that would pit the state’s two public law schools against each other, transferring $500,000 from the University of Maryland, which houses an environmental law clinic that has angered some Republican lawmakers, to the University of Baltimore School of Law, to start a law clinic that would represent farmers.   Colburn and state leaders including Gov. Martin O’Malley have spoken out against the environmental law clinic for representing plaintiffs in a pollution lawsuit against a local chicken farm that supplies Perdue Farms Inc. They contend that publicly funded law clinics should not file suits that hurt state businesses.”  It’s a fascinating story raising questions around academic free expression, use of state education funds, combating pollution, and the power of local business interests large and small.    

• 3.5.12 – Pardon this!  A novel idea for a law school clinic. From Pro Publica and the Wash. Post: “For years, lawyers, faith-based groups and students have helped file petitions for inmates seeking to cut short lengthy prison sentences. But there have been no comparable resources for felons who sought pardons after serving their time.  That may soon change. In response to stories published in December by ProPublica and The Washington Post, former Maryland governor Robert L. Ehrlich (R) plans to launch the nation’s first law school clinic and training program devoted to pardons.  Ehrlich’s proposal takes aim at the inequities identified by ProPublica’s investigation into the dispensation of presidential pardons over the past decade.”  [The investigation showed disparities in pardons granted based on race and whether a petitioner had congressional support.]    

• 3.5.12 – a snafu with the Presidential Management Fellows (PMF) program application process has raised larger questions for Republican lawmakers.  From Government Executive: “The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has asked Office of Personnel Management officials to explain a recent [PMF] program mishap.  In a March 1 letter to OPM Director John Berry, Reps. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Dennis Ross, R-Fla….sought more information related to a Jan. 23 incident when OPM mistakenly sent acceptance emails to 300 semifinalists who hadn’t qualified for the [PMF] program. About a quarter of the 1,186 semifinalists received the erroneous letters. Later that day the same applicants received another email informing them there was an error in the system.  In the letter, Issa and Ross expressed concern that the notification mistake was ‘indicative of larger IT failures at OPM,’ including the agency’s recent troubles with retirement processing and USAJobs.gov.”  A Washington Post commentator wonders if the PMF issue is a mole hill rather than a mountain. 

• 3.3.12 – the Missourian looks at the impact of recent Legal Services Corporation funding cuts on Legal Services of Eastern Missouri.  [Nitpick: the article misstates the latest LSC funding cut, by saying LSC’s appropriation was chopped from $350m to $210m.  In fact the appropriation now stands at just under $350m, having been cut last November from about $404m.] 

• 3.3.12 – juvenile justice developments in the Buckeye State.  From the Dispatch: “Juveniles in Ohio who are arrested for offenses that could land them in a detention center or youth prison can waive their right to legal representation without ever speaking to a lawyer.  That will change if a proposal by the Ohio Supreme Court goes into effect. The new rule would require juvenile defendants to meet with a lawyer before choosing not to use one.”

And since we’re closing with Ohio, I leave you with Mark Kozelek’s achingly beautiful Carry Me, Ohio.

by Kristen Pavón

This is it! The PSLawNet Blog has hit an important milestone — our 1,000th post!

We launched The PSLawNet Blog back in January 2010 and since then, we’ve worked tirelessly to bring you information on emerging news and developments in the public interest law arena, featured job opportunities from our abundant public interest legal jobs database and useful professional development and job search tips.

Our reach has grown over 150 percent since our blog’s inception and we have you to thank for that. Thank you for stopping by, following us, and reading our posts.

We look forward to celebrating many more milestones with you!

by Kristen Pavón

Yesterday, Forbes staff writer Kashmir Hill posted an interesting article on schools and prospective employers requiring students/prospective employees to fork over their Facebook passwords.

Here’s a snippet:

. . . The ACLU announced that it is helping a Minnesota high school student sue Minnewaska Area Schools after school officials forced her to hand over her Facebook password so that they could search her private messages for an alleged conversation with another student about S-E-X. Because the school is a public institution, the ACLU alleges this violated the student’s constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches. Meanwhile, MSNBC reports on prospective prison guards in Maryland being forced to hand over their Facebook passwords during job interviews and college athletes who are forced to friend their coaches on the social network. The Maryland Department of Corrections wanted to check applicants’ pages for any signs that they’re affiliated with a gang, while coaches want to make sure athletes are behaving (and not violating any NCAA rules).

I asked our Twitter followers if they’d be willing to give their Facebook passwords to prospective employers. My guess is that no, you guys are not willing to give prospective employers that kind of behind-the-scenes action.

Well, read on, readers.

Those of you offended by the idea of a prospective employer simply looking at your public-facing Facebook page must now be curled up in the fetal position, rocking back and forth, and crying at the horror of it all. In fact, says privacy attorney Behnam Dayanim of Axinn Veltrop Harkrider, there is no legal protection for you, at this point, if an employer asks for your Facebook password during a job interview. You can (and you should!) say no, but private employers have the right to ask for it and can choose not to hire you if you refuse.

“Legally, the employer has a strong position. You can say no, but there’s no element of duress there. If you don’t get the job, you’re no worse off than you were before,” says Dayanim. “That said, as a policy matter for the employers, I think it’s a bad idea.”

You can read Hill’s article in its entirety here.

Anyone else oh-em-gee-ing over this? So, what are your thoughts? Would you comply with an employer’s request for your password?

Luckily, I don’t have a personal Facebook page. I am a reformed Facebook obsessionista — I quit the social networking site back in 2009 because the level of over-sharing became intolerable and more than ever, I’m glad I did.

How many of you have thought about dropping off the Facebook grid?

The ACLU of Arizona and its Foundation operate jointly as private, non-profit organizations devoted to protecting civil rights and civil liberties. To achieve our mission, we litigate a broad range of constitutional cases in federal and state court on issues including, immigrants’ rights, racial profiling, police misconduct, prisoners’ rights, free speech, religious freedom, education, juvenile justice, and reproductive freedom. We also engage in legislative lobbying and public education to advance civil liberties principles statewide.

Under the direction of the Legal Director, the Staff Attorney will litigate cases and participate in non-litigation advocacy to advance civil liberties in Arizona. The Staff Attorney’s responsibilities include serving as lead and co-counsel on a variety of civil liberties cases; working in conjunction with National ACLU lawyers; investigating, developing and litigating cases at the trial and appellate level in federal and state courts.

The Staff Attorney also has non-litigation advocacy responsibilities, including: public speaking, media interviews, outreach and “know your rights” presentations, and writing op-eds, newsletter articles and reports. The Staff Attorney will work with the ACLU Foundation of Arizona Legal Panel and assist with recruiting and working successfully with cooperating attorneys.

Learn how to apply at PSLawNet!

by Kristen Pavón

Happy International Women’s Day!

This year’s UN theme for International Women’s Day is Empower Women – End Hunger and Poverty, but really, it should be Empower Women…to Talk About Our Reproductive Health & Policy here in the U.S.

Yesterday, Virginia’s Gov. Bob McDonnell signed a law requiring abdominal ultrasounds for women seeking abortions, which will become mandatory starting on July 1.

Last week, conservative talk radio personality Rush Limbaugh attacked a Georgetown law student for her opinions on women’s reproductive rights expressed at a congressional hearing. Limbaugh singled out another “overeducated” woman on his show yesterday (seriously, he called her overeducated).

What’s going on???

And today, Huffington Post contributor Doug Bandow had this to add:

Law school is typically a time of financial stringency. I know, since I also attended law school (though many years ago). I drove a 1966 Corvair, rented a room in a private home, and worked part-time. I don’t remember the cost of contraception being a major issue then, but if it had been I wouldn’t have expected “society” to pay for it.

Obviously Sandra Fluke lives in a different world. As, unfortunately, does President Barack Obama.

It should be obvious that, as Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman was fond of observing, “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” Whether the pill, IUDs, condoms, or other, contraceptives must be developed, manufactured, and distributed. Someone has to cover that cost. Since contraceptives make sex easier for those who don’t want babies, one normally would expect that those who want to have sex to pay for them. After all, you get the personal pleasure of the act. Your wallet — and that of your partner — should get stuck with the corresponding financial pain.

Nor does calling contraception “preventive care” make it so. Sex is a great thing. But even 20- and 30-somethings, like Ms. Fluke, can survive without it. (Shock, horror, disbelief, I know, but still true!) What is more “essential” — getting a mammogram, colonoscopy, or chemotherapy, having bypass surgery or trauma care, or … making sure you can have a good time essentially without risk (at least of an unwanted pregnancy)? If you answered the latter on my final exam, you would earn an “F.”

Contraception also isn’t what is normally thought of as an insurable “event.” The purpose of insurance is to guard against the small chance of a big loss. You get insurance to cover the cost of treating a deadly disease or responding to a life-threatening accident, not to pay for bandages to cover a small cut or aspirin to ameliorate a headache. It especially makes no sense to insure against an event which you control — like how often you have sex, and therefore how often you use contraception. Imagine auto “insurance” which covered the cost of every gas fill-up. . . .

Sandra Fluke apparently wants to have sex freely and without risk. That’s hardly a surprise, and she’s certainly not alone in that desire. But it is still no reason to conscript the rest of us to pay.

You can read the rest of his diatribe here.

…..andddd discuss.

From the National Law Journal:

The political wrangling over a University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law clinic’s involvement in environmental litigation against a local chicken farm does not appear to be settling down.

State Sen. Richard Colburn has proposed a budget amendment that would pit the state’s two public law schools against each other, transferring $500,000 from the University of Maryland, which houses an environmental law clinic that has angered some Republican lawmakers, to the University of Baltimore School of Law, to start a law clinic that would represent farmers.

Colburn and state leaders including Gov. Martin O’Malley have spoken out against the environmental law clinic for representing plaintiffs in a pollution lawsuit against a local chicken farm that supplies Perdue Farms Inc. They contend that publicly funded law clinics should not file suits that hurt state businesses.

The agricultural law clinic at Baltimore would be “dedicated to assisting farmers in the state with estates and trusts issues, compliance with environmental laws and other matters necessary to preserve family farms,” the proposed amendment reads.

If the University of Baltimore chose not to establish the clinic, the $500,000 would not revert to the University of Maryland. Instead, it would go to the state’s general fund.

Read more here.

Thoughts?