By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, folks, from a blustery Washington, DC.  Two items of general interest before moving into to the public interest news:

• A development concerning state bar admissions and immigration status: “An organization calling itself the DREAM Bar Association (DBA) is launching a national campaign on behalf of undocumented immigrants who want licenses to practice law after meeting all state requirements.  Sergio Garcia, a [California-based] law school graduate who has an application for legal residency pending, traveled…to Washington, D.C. to join other undocumented law school graduates and law students for a Nov. 13 press conference. Garcia’s right to a California law license is under consideration by the state Supreme Court.”  More interestingly, the U.S. DOJ opposes admission to the bar for undocumented persons.  (Read the full New American Media article.)
• For the data wonks among us, the Census Bureau has released a report contrasting the latest official measures of U.S. poverty against the measures that are produced by the “Supplemental Poverty Measure.”  The SPM is uses a different (and more modern, frankly) methodology to measure poverty. 

Okay, on to the public interest news (of which there is much):

• Mandatory pro bono in the ABA’s law school accreditation standards?
• LRAP expansion in CO
• Clinic funding at SUNY Buffalo
• Rolling out a new foreclosure prevention program in OR
• Cy pres in PA
• Pro hac vice in NY (Vivat lingua Latina!!!)
• Controversial expansion of pro se form use in TX
• Possible defender layoffs in NOLA
• Editorial supports bolstering NY’s indigent defense program
• Federal courts fear the fiscal cliff
• MO’s defender program chief fires back against a prosecutor’s criticism
• Extending an indigent defense funding mechanism in MN
• Sandy’s hobbled some NYC legal aid providers
• CT prosecutors & defenders to see pay bump;
• MI’s state house okays bill to create statewide indigent defense program
• Atlanta’s Justice Café provides flat-fee services to moderate-income clients
• Super Canuck Music Bonus!

The summaries:

• 11.16.12 – Our headlining public interest item this week involves a group of proposals to modify an ABA law school accreditation standard so as to include a pro bono requirement for law students.  There are several slightly different proposals in the mix.  I haven’t had time to analyze them in any depth, but here are links to the proposals, courtesy of David Udell of the National Center for Access to Justice(who co-authored one of the proposals):
  • David Udell (National Center for Access to Justice) and Deborah Rhode (Stanford Law)
  • Erwin Chemerinsky (Dean, UC Irvine Law)
  • Bob Gillett (Legal Services of South Central Michigan)
  • David Stern (Equal Justice Works)
  • Jo-Ann Wallace and Don Saunders (National Legal Aid & Defender Association)

• 11.15.12 – LRAP expansion in Boulder.  “University of Colorado regents Thursday approved expansion plans for a law school program that helps graduates pay off their student loans if they take modest-paying public service jobs — especially in the state’s rural areas. The nine-member Board of Regents unanimously approved future plans for the law school’s loan repayment assistance program, which includes an ambitious $10 million fundraising goal to support an endowment.”  (Story from the Daily Camera.)

• 11.15.12 – a SUNY Buffalo Law School clinic is raising money to fund two positions for students to focus on aiding victims of domestic violence.  (Full story from the Buffalo Law Journal.)

• 11.15.12 – a new foreclosure prevention program in Oregon.  “Free legal assistance is now available to eligible low-income homeowners and renters facing foreclosure, Oregon Housing and Community Services announced today.  The state agency has contracted with Legal Aid Services of Oregon (LASO) to develop and deliver the new program.”  (Story from the Statesman Journal.)

• 11.15.12 – the expansion in the use of cy pres funds to support legal aid in PA is a very welcome development for Pittsburgh’s Neighborhood Legal Services Association.  “[T]he Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently promulgated new rules that encourage the use of unused funds in State cases to help provide legal services to low-income Pennsylvanians. The rules require that 50% of residual funds be designated to Pennsylvania’s Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts (PA IOLTA), a non-profit program that provides funding for civil legal aid. The remaining 50% either go to the PA IOLTA Board or to other charitable organizations such as NLSA that promotes the interests of the lawsuit’s objectives.”  (Blog post from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.) 

• 11.14.12 – New York is allowing out-of-state lawyers to provide pro bono assistance to Sandy victims on a pro hac vice basis.  (Story from Thomson-Reuters.) 

• 11.14.12 – “Despite widespread outcry among family lawyers, the Texas Supreme Court yesterday approved a set of pro se divorce forms for indigent couples with no children or real property. The high court will accept public comments about the forms through Feb. 1, 2013, and may modify the forms in response.  In explaining its decision, the high court wrote in its Nov. 13 order that it ‘is confident that these forms will be a useful tool in addressing the burgeoning population of litigants who cannot afford representation and are unable to obtain representation through a legal service provider….’  [I]n a dissenting statement, Justice Debra Lehrmann wrote that she’s concerned the court’s endorsement of the forms will increase pro se litigation by people who can afford lawyers, and it may ‘lull people who could and should receive the benefit of experienced counsel into believing that the form will adequately protect their interests’.”  (Story from the Tex Parte Blog.)

• 11.13.12 – facing continued fiscal struggles, including a possible 33% funding cut in city funding, the NOLA public defender’s office may lay off attorneys.  From Gambit: “The office receives most of its $7 million annual operating budget from a combination of state funds and local court fines, but the local cut will mean the office — which represented about 80 percent of the city’s criminal defendants in thousands of felony and misdemeanor cases last year — will have to fire eight lawyers from its current staff of 55….”

• 11.12.12 – the Albany Times-Union editorial board comes down squarely in favor of statewide indigent defense reform to get away from the current, patchwork county-by-county system.  The board also puts in a plug for continued support for civil legal aid.   

• 11.12.12 – federal judges and court administrators worry that a ride off the so-called “fiscal cliff” could imperil the court system, or at a minimum slow up the wheels of justice.  (Story from the National Law Journal.)  

• 11.11.12 – the head of Missouri’s indigent defense program fires back against a prosecutor’s  allegations of failed leadership.  “Eric Zahnd, president of the Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, has declared there is no Missouri State Public Defender caseload problem, just an imaginary crisis created by the leadership of the public defender system [“Much public defender work should be contracted out,” Oct. 29].  As proof, he points to the latest audit of the public defender system.  The audit he trumpets, however, does not support his conclusions…. Prosecutorial table-pounding does not change the facts found by each and every one of [recent studies]: Missouri’s public defender system has too many cases and too few lawyers to meet its constitutional obligations. Their findings are in fact supported by the findings of the audit, which states that ‘increases in the MSPD’s growth in caseload has outpaced its growth in staffing resources’ and that over the past 20 years, public defender caseload has increased by 70 percent as compared to staffing, which has trailed at a 58 percent increase.”  (Full piece in Missouri Lawyers Weekly.)  

• 11.9.12 – The Minnesota Lawyer on indigent defense funding: “The Minnesota Board of Public Defense has asked that an increase in attorney registration fees to fund its office be extended through 2015.  The Supreme Court authorized an increase in 2009 and renewed it in 2011.  But Minnesota’s public defenders are handling caseloads that are 170 percent of state and national standards. The petition states that the board will ask the Legislature for funding but does not expect to receive enough to meet its needs, particularly with respect to advanced technology.  When the court approved the last fee increase, it said it would not do it again because the Legislature and the governor should provide adequate funding for the public defender system.  The complete notice is available here. http://www.mncourts.gov/?page=3862&item=56448. A hearing is scheduled for Jan. 15 and comments are due Jan. 7.”

• 11.9.12 -Sandy didn’t just create more legal aid clients; she hobbled some legal aid providers: “As thousands of New Yorkers struggle to recover from Superstorm Sandy, three major legal aid providers seeking to help victims have been hampered by their own storm-related damage.  Legal Services NYC, the New York Legal Assistance Group and the Legal Aid Society were shut out of their downtown offices when Sandy struck last Monday and have been operating out of satellite offices or spaces borrowed from other non-profit groups and large law firms.”  Mad props to the NY/NJ legal aid lawyers who fought through their own Sandy setbacks to keep up with casework and intake.  I’m happy to write that there are too many of you to name.  (Story from Thomson-Reuters.)    

• 11.9.12 – Connecticut prosecutors and public defenders are getting a pay bump.  Huzzah!  “A recent national study has found that pay for prosecutors and public defenders has barely budged since 2004. The situation is only a little better in Connecticut, where the public sector attorneys last got a raise in 2009. But that’s about to change. Next summer, Connecticut prosecutors and public defenders are slated to receive a 3 percent raise, adding about $1,850 annually to the current entry level salary of $61,900. Veterans with 10 years experience will see salaries increase from about $91,600 to about $94,000.  Jack Doyle, a prosecutor and president of the Connecticut Association of Prosecutors, the bargaining unit for the 250 prosecuting attorneys in the state, calls the raise overdue. He notes that other state workers have, overall, averaged 3.5 percent annual pay increases over the past decade….  The state’s public defenders, who are not union members and have no say in pay negotiations, get the same raises as prosecutors because of state law that requires equal pay for the two agencies.”  (The Connecticut Law Tribune article is password-protected.) 

• 11.8.12 – The Michigan House approved a bill that would create the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission.  HB 5804 would create a 14-member board that would oversee the state’s underfunded indigent defense system.  The bill passed 71-36 after two substitutes.  According to the version that passed the House, the commission is charged with ensuring adequate funding for defense attorneys, which the bill describes as ‘equal partners with the prosecution, law enforcement, and the judiciary in the criminal justice system’.”   The bill’s gone to the Senate for consideration.  (Blog post from Michigan Lawyers Weekly.)

• 11.7.12 – the latest example of the growth in flat-fee work for clients of modest means: “Many middle-income people seeking a divorce can’t afford to hire a lawyer but aren’t poor enough to qualify for legal aid. Michael and Shelia Manely hope to fill this gap with a new kind of family law firm, the Justice Café.  Located a block from the Fulton County, Ga., Superior Courthouse, the Justice Café will charge $75 an hour for a la carte help in divorces and other family law matters, with no retainer up front, unlike most family law firms.”  (Full story from the Daily Report.)

Music!  Northward to Canada for a great tune from the Tragically Hip.  (Thanks to PSJD Blog friend Bob Glaves for the recommendation.  Good stuff, Mr. Glaves.)