By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  A few items of general interest before we get to the news:

1. Last week I posed the first-ever Friday Trivia Question.  My execution was flaw…ful.  I asked folks to name the three English words beginning with “dw-“.  The source of authority for this question was my own, vague memory of having been asked the question in or around 2007.  The words I wanted were “dwarf,” dwell,” and “dwindle.”  A troublemaker from Cornell Law School whom I shan’t name Karen Comstock emailed to offer “dweeb” as an answer.  Frankly I hadn’t heard the word “dweeb” since this happened.  But, on account of my abiding sense of fairness, I dusted off a dictionary.  And I beheld an entry for “dweeb.”  Finding this entry was as surprising to me as first having found a dictionary.  So, “dweeb” is fair game.  And I am one. 
   • This experience taught me to take my trivia questioning more seriously.  Next week the Friday Trivia Question will become a fixture.  Yay for us.
2. Staying with the themes of education and edification, PSLawNet released our 2012 Summer Reading List yesterday.  We asked a handful of NALP members and some other public interest lawyers for both fiction and nonfiction reads that may be of interest to students on summer break.  Not surprisingly we ended up with a terrific list with options for public interest advocates of all ages, shapes, and sizes.  Thanks to those who pitched in.
3. Lastly I wish to note how profoundly undemocratic is the District’s professional baseball team when it comes to ticket sales.  The Nationals made news earlier this year when they schemed to avoid having their seats filled with Phillies fans during the series in DC this weekend.  Why would any team wish to keep Phillies fans out?  We’re so pleasant.  DO YOU HEAR ME??  WE’RE SO DAMNED PLEASANT!!!  Anyway, I have some respect for the sheer moxie of it, but this is probably not a gauntlet the Nats should have thrown down in front of Phils fans.  We’ll soon find out.        

There’s much public interest news to review this week.  In brief:

• pro bono required to practice in NY State;
• ‘Nova Law grad secures a Fulbright to work on anti-trafficking issues;
• a Louisiana measure to boost defender funding may fall short;
• both the Philly DA and PD are seeking more $ from City Council;
• why the veto of state funding for legal services in Florida is bad;
• ditto;
• “Another Crisis Looming for Legal Aid?” in Connecticut;
• also in Connecticut, how the state’s dealing with a huge DV caseload;
• how serious a problem is law grads’ educational debt?;
• politics and policy affecting Houston’s nascent public defense program;
• Wisconsin pro bono rules relaxed to allow lawyers to help after natural disasters.

The summaries:

• 5.1.12 – pro bono will soon be required for a license to practice in New York.   The AP reports: “New York will become the first state to require lawyers to do 50 hours of pro bono work as a condition for getting a license starting next year, Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman said Tuesday.  With about 10,000 people passing the New York Bar Exam annually, Lippman said that means about a half-million hours of free legal work yearly, mostly from law students. That should help fill ‘the justice gap’ for the poor, working poor ‘and what has recently been described as the near poor’ whose needs have risen sharply in a tough economy, he said.”
  • additional coverage from the New York Law Journal;
  • a New York Times editorial is supportive.
  • reaction and questions from folks in the legal services and law school communities, including the question about how these thousands of pro bono hours will be administered, tracked, etc. (from the Lower Hudson Valley Blog).

• 5.1.12 – a graduating Villanova Law student’s passion for working on anti-trafficking issues has netted him a Fulbright scholarship.  John Rafferty’s work has taken him from the Navy to a public interest scholarship at Villanova Law, and will next move him to Quito, Ecuador to work with the International Organization on Migration.  Pretty impressive.  (Story in the Main Line News.) 

• 5.1.12 – In Louisiana, a bill which raises court filing fees to generate extra funding for public defenders’ offices was diluted via an amendment in the house.  It may not provide enough funding for some offices to avoid layoffs and close budget gaps.  (Story from the Daily Iberian.)

• 5.1.12 – in Philly, both the public defender and DA are seeking additional funding from City Council as the body puts together the next fiscal year’s budget.  “Chief Public Defender Ellen Greenlee says the mayor’s proposed budget gives the Defender Association the same money for the fiscal year beginning July first that it has this year.  Greenlee says that’s unacceptable and without new money for almost two dozen new attorneys the office cannot continue.”  Story from WHYY. 

• 5.1.12 – Community Legal Services of Mid-Florida’s board chair explains why Gov. Rick Scott’s veto of funding for legal services will hurt the state.  “This is not a partisan issue. A Republican-controlled legislature passed the Florida Access to Civil Legal Assistance Act in 2002. Republican lawmakers have provided funds each year — up to $2.5 million — for the FACLA program.  Scott’s veto means that the number of legal aid attorneys statewide will drop from 400 to fewer than 280 next year, and the number will shrink even more in 2014 — even as the demand for services is growing….  On top of that, Florida TaxWatch (which is no friend of government spending) conducted a study in 2010 that found that for every $1 the FACLA program spent, nearly $14 in economic activity was generated. That means that the $2 million that Gov. Scott didn’t think was needed would not only have provided desperately needed legal assistance for the poor, but would also have generated nearly $28 million in economic activity.”  (Op-ed in the Daytona Beach News-Journal.)

• 4.30.12 – the funding plight of Tampa-based Bay Area Legal Services: “Funding for Bay Area Legal Services, which helps the poor navigate the civil court system, is at an all-time low, forcing the agency to reach into the legal community for help.  An unprecedented $1 million in cuts this year translates to a 14 percent reduction from last year’s budget. Nearly every funding source, including federal, state and local contributions and a trust fund set up by The Florida Bar Foundation, has reduced its contribution.”  (Story from Tampa Bay Online.) 

• 4.30.12 – a piece in the Connecticut Law Tribune homes in on the fiscal woes confronting legal services providers in the Nutmeg State., asking “Another Crisis Looming for Legal Aid?”  (I would argue that there’s been a sustained crisis since about 2009.)  As for state IOLTA funding, while it topped out at $20 million in 2007, it’s projected to produce less than $ 1million this year.

•  while Connecticut’s legal services providers feel funding strains, the states courts feel hte strains imposed by the domestic violence caseload.   Stakeholders met recently to explore “the unique pressures that upward of 28,000 domestic-violence cases per year exert on prosecutors, public defenders, family-relations counselors, victim’s advocates and judges in the state courthouses. Statewide, 30 percent of all criminal cases arise from domestic violence.”  Courtrooms with DV-only dockets have been helpful in boosting efficiency.  Story from the Hartford Courant. 

• Are school loans the next “debt bomb”?  I could do without the headline hyperbole, but a law management expert lays out the frightening student debt numbers that have become the norm for today’s grads and wonders what impact the weight of this burden will have.  (Here’s the Minnesota Lawyer piece.) 

• a two-part series by a Houston Chronicle columnist looks at the lawyer who most staunchly opposes the operation of Harris County’s new public defense office.  The assigned-counsel system was in place for years in Houston. It worried some observers who saw cronyism and unfairness in its administration.  But even as the public defense office has taken root, some judges still refuse to refer cases there.  Part one and part two.

• we’ll end where we began: pro bono.  Wisconsin’s high court has loosened restrictions on pro bono practice rules with the intended effect of allowing more pro bono lawyers to act in a natural disaster’s wake.  From the State Bar of Wisconsin: [The approved petition] “will amend Supreme Court rules by allowing out-of-state lawyers to practice pro bono temporarily in Wisconsin after a after a major disaster in Wisconsin.  The rule will also allow such lawyers to provide legal services in Wisconsin related to the lawyer’s practice in a jurisdiction affected by a major disaster.  The petition, filed jointly by the Board of Administrative Oversight and the State Bar of Wisconsin, is patterned after a model rule adopted by the American Bar Association after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita….”