Credit: TrailerFoodDiaries

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  Greetings from Austin, TX, where NALP’s Annual Education Conference will adjourn manana.  Over 1400 people, all told.  I’ve spent much of my time this week wandering about in a state of sleep deprivation with the law-school public-interest career advisors and clinicians who comprise NALP’s Public Service Section.  I realized once again how fortunate I am to work with a group of such selfless folks. Big high-five to Jessica Kitson, who’s just stepped down as the section chair.  Big Warning to incoming chair Leeor Neta: you’re stuck with me for a year.

Yesterday, Texas RioGrande Legal Aid attorney (and Equal Justice Works fellow) Adriana Rodriguez keynote-ed our public service luncheon.  Adriana’s doing impactful work, in an under-served area, at a time when low-income client needs are swelling.  If the next generation of access-to-justice advocates is anything like Adriana…well…I’ll rest easier.      

This week on the access-to-justice front:

• ABA on AtJ;
• Senate bill would boost LSC funding; House bill would slash LSC funding;
• Veto of legal services funding in Florida;
• Cornhuskers!  Omaha prosecutors and defenders to get salary bump;
• Asking legal services clients to pay it forward;
• Access-to-justice news from England;
• Florida’s high court to weigh in on public defender caseload woes;
• Maryland legislature scales back court ruling on right-to-counsel in criminal matters;
• Pro bono news from DC, Denver and North Carolina.

The summaries:

• 4.18.12 – ABA president William T. Robinson, III weighs in the importance of promoting access to justice.  (Op-ed in The Hill.)

• 4.18.12 – Good news/bad news.  Good: Senate appropriations committee pushed forward a bill that would fund LSC at $402 million in FY13.  This would basically bring the appropriation back to the level it was at before an FY12 cut slashed it to $348 million.  Bad: a house subcommittee bill would slash funding further, to $328 million.  (LSC announcements about the Senate and Housebills.)
  • On a related note, earlier in the week the Maryland State Bar Association’s president made the case for LSC (writing in the Baltimore Sun).

• 4.18.12 – state funding for legal services in Florida falls victim to Gov. Rick Scott’s veto.  “A $2 million veto by Gov. Rick Scott will mean fewer attorneys to represent low-income residents through foreclosure proceedings, domestic violence hearings and consumer fraud cases, legal aid officials and a top Democrat lamented Wednesday. A day after the governor vetoed $142 million from the budget, officials at an organization that provides legal help for low income Floridians said Scott’s decision will mean a 25 percent reduction in the number of attorneys available for legal assistance in the coming year. A year later, the number of available attorneys will drop even further.” (Story from the News-Press.)
  • More coverage from Ocala.com: “Legal Aid Funding Cut Hurts”

• 4.18.12 – a salary bump for prosecutors and public defenders in Douglas County, Nebraska.  (That’s Omaha.)  Salary specifics in the World-Herald.    

• 4.17.12 – Legal Aid Services of Oregon’s Roseburg office is asking clients to pay it forward.  “Legal Aid provides Douglas County with a vital service. They have a mission to give legal services to as many people as possible, but they knew they couldn’t do it alone.  So, they’ve started a new program. ‘The pilot program was our answer to the question of how to achieve justice for the low income communities we serve, with the resources we already have,’ said Sharon Lee Schwartz, the LASO Regional Director.  For every hour those at…LASO put in on a case, they’re asking the clients to do the same.  But not necessarily with legal work.  Those in the program can donate their time to non-profits, help someone with yard work, basically put their skills to work for the community.”  (Full story from KPIC.)

• 4.17.12 – a pair of stories from Blighty:
  • in the UK, a reversal by the government should open up legal aid access to more domestic violence victims. (Story from the UK Press Association.)
  • 4.17.12 – “The annual LawWorks & Attorney General Student Awards were held recently, in the elegant surrounds of the House of Commons, to recognise the outstanding pro bono achievements of students and law school staff throughout the United Kingdom.” (Story from LawCareers.net .)

• 4.16.12 – “The Florida Supreme Court will hear arguments June 7 in a dispute about whether the Miami-Dade County public defender’s office can refuse to represent some clients because of excessive caseloads.”  (Story from the News-Press.)

• 4.13.12 – from the Baltimore Sun: “The Maryland General Assembly passed bills this month that effectively reverse a Court of Appeals ruling that would have required public defenders for indigent defendants at thousands of initial bail hearings held before court commissioners each year. The legislation instead requires lawyers for poor people at reviews of those hearings, which occur less frequently and take place in front of a judge — sometimes days later. That means some of those arrested and denied bail or unable to afford it could spend a weekend or longer in jail awaiting representation.”

• 4.13.12 – not sure if this was a pro bono conspiracy or not, but the local Business Journal publications in DC, Denver, and North Carolina ran articles on pro bono work in their respective communities.  They’re all password-protected, though.  Boo.
  • Denver!
  • North Carolina!
  • DC!

The Director of Policy provides policy leadership and programmatic support to the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC). The director develops and spearheads strategic advocacy efforts on immigration-related issues primarily at the federal level. The director of policy coordinates NIJC’s policy initiatives to reform the immigration system. In addition, the Director of Policy is responsible for coordinating the policy reform elements of NIJC’s Detention, Democracy, and Due Process (D3P) Project, a national campaign for detention reform. The Director of Policy will work with representatives of immigrant and refugee rights advocates, legislators, other policy makers and the media. The Director of Policy assists with the drafting of grant reports and project proposals and contributes to cultivating and maintaining donor relations.

Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) is dedicated to ensuring human rights protections and access to justice for all immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers.

NIJC provides direct legal services to and advocates for these populations through policy reform, impact litigation, and public education. Since its founding three decades ago, NIJC has been unique in blending individual client advocacy with broad-based systemic change.

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

By: Steve Grumm

Greetings from Austin.  This morning I tweeted some points from a “government lawyer careers” program.  (You can follow me @SteveGrumm, my colleague Kristen @KristenPavon, and our PSLawNet feed @pslawnet.)  I’ll quickly summarize them here, too.

• The Texas Attorney General’s office employs 700 lawyers.  Job openings occur frequently and are found at www.workintexas.com.  Job seekers should be licensed to practice before applying.  The AG doesn’t follow the practice of law firms which hire associates before they’ve sat for/passed the bar.  You have to have a license at the outset to be considered for an AG’s office job.
• On the federal level, one half of the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission’s (EEOC) workforce is now eligible to retire.  So when the federal-government hiring freeze starts to thaw, there should be openings for lawyer jobs and other positions.
• All three of our panelists agreed that GPA is not the most important criterion in a candidate’s application.  Experience and demonstrated commitment to public service go a long way toward overcoming a shaky GPA.

The NYC Campaign Finance Board is looking for an attorney to enforce the City’s campaign finance law.

The Campaign Finance Program was designed to limit the role and influence of private money in the political process. Candidates who participate in the Program can qualify to have private contributions that they receive matched with public money. In exchange, the candidates agree to full disclosure of their campaign finances, as well as to strict contribution and spending limits. The Program is voluntary, and candidates who participate agree to a full audit of their finances.

Qualifications are a law degree and at least one year of legal experience after admission to the bar. Must be detail-oriented, creative and have strong analytical and writing skills. Excellent academic credentials and experience in government a plus.

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

The California Rural Legal Assistance, Salinas Basic office is seeking applicants to fill a Directing Attorney slot. This full-time position is available immediately and applicants will be considered until the slot is filled.

Reporting to the Executive Director and the Deputy Director, the CRLA Directing Attorney is responsible for the overall provision of legal services to the low income client community in the service area and the day to day operations of the local field office.  This includes supervising, training and motivating local office staff to provide the highest quality legal services in accordance with CRLA program guidelines, the ABA Standards for Providers of Civil Legal Services and the Code of Professional Responsibility. Spanish fluency is preferred.

California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA) is a statewide rural legal services organization with 16 field office located as far north as Marysville and as far south as El Centro. Its Central Office is located in San Francisco.

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

By: Steve Grumm

Here’s a piece by the Brennan Center about a law which, interestingly, funds the indigent defense program via fees paid by those who are convicted after being represented by a public defender:

In Louisiana, people who are represented by a public defender and are later convicted must pay a $35 fee to augment funding for public defenders even though they have already had a judicial determination made that they cannot afford an attorney. The fee creates a system that undermines the Constitutional right to conflict-free counsel by forcing attorneys to rely on their clients’ convictions for much needed funding. The existing fee already acts as an illogical tax on indigent defendants. And now there are two bills before the Louisiana House that would raise the fees on people who are likely unable to pay.

One question this piece doesn’t address is how many jurisdictions in addition to Louisiana also use a fee system like this one.

The Youth Advocacy Department (YAD) is pleased to announce that it is hiring a staff attorney to be part of its YAD office based in Salem that provides representation of juveniles in Essex County.    

The Youth Advocacy Department, the juvenile defender department of CPCS, is committed to ensuring that every indigent child in Massachusetts has access to zealous legal representation in delinquency and youthful offender cases from a diverse and ever improving community of juvenile defenders consisting of both private appointed counsel and staff public defenders. YAD provides leadership, training, support, and oversight to the indigent juvenile defense bar in Massachusetts.  Each trial office integrates the work of attorneys, a social service advocate, and an administrative assistant to fully address the legal and developmental needs of our clients.

Staff attorneys provide zealous legal representation on delinquency, and youthful offender, cases using the Youth Development Approach.  As appropriate, they provide post dispositional advocacy and support to DYS committed youth, as well as school based advocacy.  Staff attorneys also work on projects related to improving legal representation and outcomes for court involved children

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

By: Steve Grumm

Hello, dear readers.  This week Kristen and I are staffing NALP’s annual conference in Austin, Texas.  Dozens of law school public interest career advisors and public interest employers will attend.  They will share the latest on lawyer hiring, professional development, and other news affecting public interest law students and lawyers.

Programming focused on the public interest arena includes:

• Beyond the Beltway: Opportunities in Federal, State, and Local Government
• Running a Successful Field Placement Program: An A to Z Primer on the Academic and Practical Grounding for Career Services Professionals
• Beyond the Basics: Leveraging Employer, School, State, and Federal Loan Repayment Assistance Funds
• DOJ Decoded: Answering Questions and Debunking Myths about Getting a Job and Getting Ahead at the Department of Justice
• Hypothetically Speaking: Preparing Students for Prosecutor and Public Defender Interviews
• Judicial Clerkships as a Career Accelerator
• Careers in the Military: Panel Presentation with Representatives of the Sister Services
• Children’s Rights, Parental Rights, and Juvenile Justice, Oh My!  How Knowing the Nuances Can Get Your Students Jobs
• Learning by Doing (Good): Pro Bono and Lawyer Professional Development

Kristen and I will be blogging and tweeting this week to share what we learn.  If you have any specific issues you’d like us to address while we’re at the conference, leave a note in the comments section.  Also, follow us on Twitter at:

• @PSLawnet
• @KristenPavon
• @SteveGrumm
• Follow all NALP Conference developments via the hashtag #nalp12

By: Steve Grumm

I didn’t get a chance to blog about this last week.  A National Law Journal op-ed entitled “Jump off the Private Prison Bandwagon”, penned by Vivian Berger, sounds a critical note on the growing industry in which private companies contract with government to run prisons.

On March 1, a broad coalition of public interest organizations wrote to the governors of every state, urging them to decline a bid from Corrections Corp. of America to buy up public prisons and turn them into private facilities. Significantly, this proposal from the largest for-profit prison company in the country did not come without strings attached. It stipulated that the seller must have a minimum of 1,000 beds, agree to let CCA operate the institution for no less than 20 years and guarantee to keep the prison at least 90 percent occupied. In light of the mass incarceration epidemic — with 5 percent of the world’s population, our nation confines 25 percent of all prisoners — the last thing we need is to expand an industry invested in maximizing the number of inmates.

…

The private institutions’ infiltration of the custody market has not produced the advantages touted by proponents and, worse, has yielded deleterious results. Various studies have failed to uncover evidence that for-profit imprisonment saves money. To the extent it does, such savings appear to come at the price of inmate well-being. Justice John Paul Stevens, dissenting in Correctional Services Corp. v. Malesko (2001), which declined to allow a Bivens action against a halfway house’s private operator, correctly noted: “Because a private prison corporation’s first loyalty is to its stockholders, rather than the public interest, it is no surprise that cost-cutting measures jeopardizing prisoners’ rights are more likely in private facilities than in public ones.”

Given the large numbers of nonviolent offenders presently imprisoned, and given current questions about the effect of mass incarceration on society, it’s also important to include discussion of where the incarcerated go and how they are treated.

Fordham’s Community Economic Development Clinic is offering a Teaching Fellowship starting August 2012.  The Fellow will work with experienced CED practitioner Brian Glick.  S/he will help supervise students in client representation and co-teach the CED Clinic seminar and is expected to participate actively in the life of our clinical program and law school.  We expect the Fellow to be with us for two years.

Fordham’s CED Clinic represents New York City groups fighting for social justice in low-income communities of color and low-wage, predominantly immigrant workforces.  As their general counsel the clinic helps sustain effective organizations and build institutions–health clinics, childcare centers, worker-owned enterprises–that empower their participants while providing desperately needed services and opportunities.  The clinic supports neighborhood efforts to shape development, limit gentrification and win community benefits agreements.  It also assists small grassroots groups with incorporation, bylaws and tax exemption.   Students learn transactional business lawyering in a nonprofit social justice setting.

To learn more about the position and to apply, see the full listing at PSLawNet!