By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, folks.  Well, not too happy.  Yesterday, we at NALP released the 2012 Public Sector & Public Interest Attorney Salary Report.  These already-low salaries, when taking inflation into account, have remained close to stagnant in the recent past. (Civil legal aid lawyers start at about $43,000 annually while assistant prosecutors’ and defenders’ starting salaries hover around $50,000)  But of course the amount of debt that today’s junior attorneys carry has swollen.  Thus, a public interest attorney’s income pie has stayed the same size, but a much larger piece of it now goes to debt service.

Loan repayment (and in some cases, forgiveness) programs can mitigate this circumstance.  Those grads positioned to maximize repayment/forgiveness options may not experience financial discomfort.  But not all types of loans qualify for inclusion in repayment programs.  And there is uncertainty about the viability of today’s loan repayment regime – a constellation of government-, school-, and employer-run repayment plans.  Finally there is the law graduate’s frustration of having to take on a massive amount of debt, only then to have it reduced.  Here’s the important question: with low, stagnant salaries, with the rising cost of legal education, and with a terribly tight job market, how difficult is it becoming for tomorrow’s lawyers to pursue public service career paths?

This question will not yield a simple, yes-or-no, across-the-board answer.  Circumstances are different for every law student.  But we can identify the key variables involved in the analysis. I’m going to focus on this as I do some writing in the next few weeks.  I am so far from having the market on wisdom cornered that I sometimes can’t find the market.  So please be in touch with your thoughts, insights, questions, etc.  I’m at sgrumm@nalp.org or 202.296.0057.     

Some interesting miscellany before the week’s public interest and access-to-justice news:

• in the nonprofit world, the Chronicle of Philanthropy released its list of the 400 largest nonprofits, accompanied by several analysis pieces.  Much of the content is password-protected.  But there is valuable data/insight in the accessible areas too, and one can get a sense of how the recession did, and continues to, impact the nonprofit world.
• on the job-market front, resume advice is ubiquitous, and some of it is so bland – “make it look clean” – as to be useless.  However, this blog post – 10 Reasons Your Resume Isn’t Getting You Interviews – on the U.S. News website is better than most of the content I come across because it compels job-seekers look critically at how their resumes are constructed.

Okay, on to the public interest and access-to-justice news.  In very, very short:

• coverage of NALP’s public interest salary report;
• IL attorney general directs more funding to legal aid for housing work;
• pro se resources in the Aloha State;
• the ABA’s weeklong celebration of pro bono takes place next week;
• OK legal aid providers also getting funds to do housing work;
• A look at law student pro bono in Minnesota (and New York);
• A Wall Street legal clinic?  Seton Hall’s Investor Advocacy Project;
• ~$7 million contract to provide legal aid to disabled New Yorkers up for grabs;
• An Innocence Project clinic launches at West Virginia Law;
• An Oklahoma nonprofit law office serving “modest means” clients expands;
• super music bonus

The summaries:

• 10.18.12 – here’s some coverage of the above-noted NALP public interest salary report:
  • From the ABA Journal
  • And from the National Law Journal

• 10.18.12 – “Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan (D) announced Oct. 18 that $620,000 in funding from the national foreclosure settlement has been awarded to Illinois Legal Aid Online. The attorney general’s grant will be used to develop web-based resources to assist Illinois homeowners and legal professionals dealing with foreclosure, including online training programs for legal staff and attorneys working with Illinois residents facing foreclosure. The grant also will be used to develop and enhance educational websites intended for homeowners and renters affected by foreclosure.”  (Story from the Rock River Times.)

• 10.17.12 – Aloha.  This article covers the opening of one Hawaiian courthouse self-help center for pro se litigants, but more importantly highlights a statewide trend toward bolstering pro se resources. (Here’s the article in the Maui News.)

• 10.16.12 – the ABA’s “Pro Bono Celebration” week is next week.  There’s much happening on local, state, and nationwide levels to promote pro bono’s importance.  Here’s an ABA overview, and here’s the official Celebrate Pro Bono website, which serves as a central repository for event listings and resources.

• 10.16.12 – “Oklahoma’s $18.6 million mortgage settlement with five big lenders will pay for legal services for people trying to manage a mortgage, avoid foreclosure and keep their homes — no matter the lender — in a new partnership between the state attorney general’s office and Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma.  Attorney General Scott Pruitt said Monday that Legal Aid received $1.27 million from the settlement to hire, train and reassign 15 attorneys and seven paralegals to help homeowners with mortgage modifications, refinancing, short sales, housing counseling and navigating the foreclosure process in a program called Resolution Oklahoma.”  (Story from the Oklahoman.)
  • and here comes a terrible segue into an unrelated topic. While we’re on Oklahoma, Woody Guthrie was born there. And here’s a Chronicle of Higher Education article looking at Guthrie’s legacy 100 years after his birth.  He was Bob Dylan long before Bob Dylan was Bob Dylan.  (I think of Guthrie as the first punk-rocker.)  And he exerted enormous, reaching-beyond-the-grave influence on the evolution of American music.  Good read.

• 10.16.12 – in light of the just-implemented New York State rule requiring 50 hours of pro bono service to get a law license, the Minnesota Daily looks at law student pro bono in the Gopher State. “All four Minnesota law schools — the University of Minnesota, Hamline University, University of St. Thomas and William Mitchell College of Law — provide legal volunteering opportunities through a partnership with the Minnesota Justice Foundation.  MJF is a nonprofit organization founded in 1982 by law students in Minnesota. It provides students with a database of volunteer opportunities as well as advising from a staff attorney at each school…. The only Minnesota school to require legal volunteer work is Hamline University School of Law — a rule that was put in place last year.”
  • speaking of the New York rule, here’s a Reuters piece noting that the rules broad definition of “pro bono” means that there might not be much “new” pro bono generated because many externship, clinical, and volunteer projects already performed by law students will satisfy the rule.

• 10.15.12 – a look at the work of Seton Hall Law’s Investor Advocacy Project, a clinic that helps low- and moderate-income investors who’ve been wronged. “”We provide advocacy for those investors who would otherwise be unable to secure adequate representation,” says David M. White, a law school faculty member and director of the…Project. The contingency fees charged by lawyers would alone eat up most of any possible recovery.  The clients are not big-time investors. They bought annuities, instruments like insurance policies. Or invested settlements from injury claims. Or the proceeds from the sale of their homes. White says the investments involved in these cases do not exceed $100,000.”  (Article from the Star-Ledger.)

• 10.15.12 – “Three groups have proposed taking over federally funded advocacy and legal protection of disabled New York residents who are in the care of the state and its nonprofit contractors.  Syracuse University, Disability Advocates Inc. and a coalition of six legal aid groups that now provide many of the services statewide under individual contracts have filed proposals. The six are the Legal Aid Society of Northeastern New York, Legal Services of Central New York, Legal Services of the Hudson Valley, Nassau Suffolk Law Services, Neighborhood Legal Services and New York Lawyers for the Public Interest.  The selection is expected following public hearings, which have not been set yet.”  The funding amounts for about $7 million annually.  (Story from WNCT.)

• 10.12.12 – the West Virginia University Innocence Project has opened its doors as a law-school clinic in the Mountain State.  (Story from the Gazette-Mail.)

• 10.11.12- a nonprofit law office serving clients who have too much income to qualify for legal aid – which is not saying much because the income limit is typically 125% of federal poverty guidelines – but too little to afford full-scope representation is expanding in the Sooner State. (Story from KOAM.) 

• Music!  It’s a gray day here in D.C.  So how about something mellow?  Here’s Ryan Adams (not to be confused with Bryan Adams) performing “Desire”.