It pays to be smart about student loan debt, especially for public interest advocates! Take a look at this message from our friends at Equal Justice Works:

Educational debt has become a crippling burden for far too many, and especially for those who want to pursue careers in public service. Equal Justice Works provides in depth information on loan repayment assistance programs and relief programs like Income-Based Repayment and Public Service Loan Forgiveness to help everyone pursue the career of their dreams.

The big news this month is that our new student debt eBook is available in the Kindle Store! Take Control of Your Future is a comprehensive guide that offers information and guidance from a student’s initial borrowing through repayment and eligibility for relief programs like Public Service Loan Forgiveness. We go into the details borrowers need to understand and the exact steps they need to take to manage their educational debt and take control of their future.

 We were also busy last month writing our U.S. News blog the Student Loan Ranger. We examined the competition traditional colleges and universities might face from Silicon Valley in the near future, looked at a new report from The Institute for College Access and Success on the continued rise in student debt and discussed how student debt is increasingly affecting generations of Americans.

Every month, our free, live webinars also provide a comprehensive overview of the debt relief options available for students and graduates – including Public Service Loan Forgiveness and Income-Based Repayment – and provide viewers with the opportunity to ask questions. Click here to view a schedule of our webinars and to register for an upcoming session.

Our current sessions include:

How to Pay Your Bills AND Your Student Loans: Utilizing Income-Based Repayment

Thursday, November 15, 3-4 p.m. EST

Saddled with high student debt? This webinar reviews Income-Based Repayment, a powerful provision of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act that allows anyone with high debt relative to their income to reduce their federal student loan payments.

This interactive webinar will teach you:

– How to understand your federal loans

– How Income-Based Repayment works and if it is right for you

– How to sign up for Income-Based Repayment

 

Get Your Educational Loans Forgiven: Public Service Loan Forgiveness

Thursday, November 29, 3-4 p.m. EST

For recent graduates with jobs in government or at a nonprofit, this webinar explains how to make sure you immediately begin fulfilling requirements to qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness so that your educational debt will be forgiven as soon as possible.

You will learn about:

– The importance of having the right kind of Federal Loans

– What you need to do to qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness

– How long it will take to have your educational debt forgiven

Founded in 1971 at Georgetown University Law Center, the Institute for Public Representation (IPR) is a public interest law firm and law school clinic. IPR practices in three areas of public interest law: media law and policy, civil rights, and environmental protection law. Each practice area has a faculty director and one or two graduate fellows who supervise a group of six law students each semester.

IPR is currently accepting applications for a Media Policy Fellow/Staff Attorney to help determine which projects to undertake and to supervise the law students working on those projects. From the PSJD job listing:

The Fellows work with the students on improving their lawyering skills, especially legal writing. They guide students in conducting legal and factual research, review student drafts, make suggestions for improvement, and help students prepare for oral presentations. The Fellows also have opportunities to engage in their own oral and written advocacy.

The Fellowships offer valuable experience for both recent law school graduates and those with clerkship or other work experience who are interested in public interest practice. The Fellows work on complex and cutting-edge cases, many of which involve First Amendment challenges or other constitutional issues. They assume a great deal of responsibility at an early stage of their careers for these cases. They work directly with client organizations and coalitions to develop strategy. They meet with Commissioners, agency staff, Congressional staff, and other policy makers. They get to experience first-hand the interplay between Congress, federal agencies, and federal courts.

Applicants interested in clinic teaching also gain valuable teaching experience. They receive training in clinical teaching and spend much of their time teaching students in a one-on-one setting. They take an active role in planning and teaching the classroom components of the clinic. As part of the Georgetown Law community, Fellows also have opportunities to attend conferences and workshops and to get to know other faculty and graduate fellows.

Successful applicants will have a demonstrated interest and experience in media law, telecommunications, privacy, freedom of speech or related fields. In addition, IPR is looking for someone with a strong commitment to serving the public interest and experience teaching or supervising legal work. For more information about the Fellowship, view the full listing at PSJD.org (log-in required)!

Hey, law students: Is democracy for sale?

Public Justice, a national public interest law firm dedicated to advancing the public good, wants to know your opinion. Public Justice has been hosting their annual law student writing competition for 40 years. The recently revamped contest, which used to focus only on environmental justice, now covers a wide array of social justice issues. By entering the competition, law students are offered the opportunity to investigate and offer solutions to injustices relevant to the topic. This year’s competition is, quite fittingly, all about democracy:

For the 2013 contest, writers should address the question, “Is Democracy for Sale?”

• Have Citizens United‘s holdings run amok?
• Legal challenges left to Super Pacs?
• Can funding disclosure be required?

Prize: $5000 and free 2013 Public Justice membership

Any student currently enrolled in an accredited American law school may enroll in the contest. Each entry must be submitted through a faculty advisor. All entrants must fill out and submit an intent-to-enter form by January 31, 2013 (see link at bottom of page) and mail, fax or e-mail it to: Hogan/Smoger Access to Justice Essay Contest, Public Justice Foundation, Attention: Cassandra Goings, 1825 K St. NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20006. Fax: 202-232-7203. E-mail: cgoings@publicjustice.net.

DEADLINE

Essays must be received by March 31, 2013.

ELIGIBILITY OF ESSAY

If the essay is prepared for academic credit, it is eligible only if submitted for credit during the 2012-13 academic year. If the essay was neither prepared nor submitted for academic credit, it is eligible only if prepared for this contest during the 2012-13 academic year. If the essay was prepared as part of paid legal work outside of law school, it is not eligible for this contest.

To enter the contest, students must submit an intent-to-enter form by January 31, 2013. For more information on contest deadlines, eligibility and rules, visit the 2013 Hogan/Smoger Access to Justice Essay Contest page!

Are you a new attorney interested immigration and family law? If so, it’s time to saddle up! Today’s Job o’ the Day is with the Bernardo Kohler Center in Austin, TX, and they’re looking to expand their work on behalf of abused, abandoned, and neglected immigrant juveniles.

From PSJD’s job listing:

We specialize in legal representation, focusing on immigrant victims’ services and immigrant vulnerable populations. The B.K.C.’s work concentrates on four main program areas: (1) abused, abandoned, and neglected juveniles; (2) victims of human trafficking; (3) crime victims; and (4) asylum seekers.

Job Responsibilities: The staff attorney will be primarily responsible for family law representation with our Casitas program, with some additional job responsibilities including:

• Filing of Petitions for Conservatorship and/or Termination in Suit Affecting the Parent-Child Relationship (“SAPCR”);

• Seeking available immigration-related findings for the Subject Child within the SAPCR to support a petition for Special Immigrant Juvenile status;

• Filing Petitions for Special Immigrant (Juveniles) with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services;

• Additional family related filings with the Court, such as adoptions, divorces, and protective orders;

• Program development for implementing and managing family law matters within the greater B.K.C. organization; and

• Additional assistance on immigration matters as appropriate.

Successful applicants will have one year of experience representing clients in immigration or family law, Spanish fluency and Texas bar membership, among other qualities. To view more information on application instructions, salary and qualifications, check out the full listing on PSJD.org (log-in required)!

If legally empowering immigrant woman and girls is your thing, today’s Job of the Day could be for you! The Tahirih Justice Center is a nonprofit advocacy organization dedicated to protecting women and girls seeking justice in the United States from gender-based violence. Through direct legal services, client-based public policy advocacy and public education, Tahirih uses a holistic approach to address the needs of their clients.

From the PSJD job listing:

The Tahirih Justice Center is a national non-profit organization that supports the courage of immigrant women and girls who refuse to be victims of violence by providing holistic legal services and advocacy in courts, Congress, and communities. Through pro bono holistic legal services and public policy advocacy, Tahirih protects women and girls seeking protection from gender-based human rights abuses such as domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, female genital mutilation, honor crimes, and forced marriage. Tahirih is a Bahá’í-inspired organization and works to create a world where women and girls can live in safety and with dignity. Winner of the 2010 Meyer Exponent Award which recognizes outstanding nonprofit executive directors and the 2007 Washington Post Award for Excellence in Nonprofit Management, Tahirih has a staff of 35 with offices in Falls Church, VA; Houston, TX; and Baltimore, MD.

The Family Law Attorney provides in-house legal representation to Tahirih clients with family law matters in the Virginia Court System. She/He supervises the family law department’s paralegal and legal interns as necessary and oversees the family law department’s service seeker, intake and case acceptance processes.

Tahirih’s ideal candidate will have 2-5 years of family law experience, knowledge of immigration law, experience working with female survivors of trauma. For more information on qualifications, salary and application instructions, view the full listing at PSJD.org (log-in required).

By: Steve Grumm

Hi, folks. We at NALP have just opened collection on our 2012 public interest employment market survey.  (Response deadline: 11/30.)  The survey will provide us with information about current and future hiring expectations in nonprofit and government law offices, with respect to both summer law students and attorneys.  Please spread the word to your contacts at U.S.-based nonprofit and government law offices by forwarding this blog post or using the below language.  Thanks much!

The National Association for Law Placement (NALP) is conducting a brief, anonymous survey of U.S.-based nonprofit and government public-interest law offices about 1) recent law student and attorney hiring and 2) hiring expectations for the immediate future. We will use the data to produce a report about what the public interest employment market looks like now and how it may change in the near future.

NALP will release the report in January 2013. The report will be made freely available online. The report will NOT identify any responding organizations by name. We hope the report will benefit the public interest legal community as well as law students and attorneys who are on public interest career paths.  Please participate in the short survey by clicking here.  The survey deadline is Friday, 11/30/12.  If you have questions please contact Steve Grumm, NALP’s director of public service initiatives, at sgrumm@nalp.org or 202.296.0057.

Interested in protecting tenants and homeowners facing foreclosure in New York? If so, check out today’s Job o’ the Day:

The Legal Aid Society of Mid-New York, Inc. has a staff attorney position in Utica, New York, for the Home Ownership Protection Program (HOPP). The staff attorney will serve Oneida, Madison, and Herkimer Counties. LASMNY is seeking an experienced attorney admitted to practice in New York State. The staff attorney will be responsible for providing a full range of legal representation and counseling to individuals facing foreclosure of their home and to tenants facing homelessness as a result of a foreclosure.

The following factors, among others, are considered as qualifications for the position:

• Academic training and performance;
• The nature and extent of prior legal experience;
• Knowledge and understanding of the legal problems and needs of the poor; prior working experience in the client community or in other programs to aid the poor;
• Ability to communicate with persons in the client community,
• Cultural similarity with the client community.

For more information on salary and application instructions, view the full listing at PSJD.org (log-in required)!

By: Steve Grumm

Bloomberg News

Happy Friday, folks.  If you were affected by the storm earlier this week, I hope you are safe and well.  Sandy delivered a painful reminder of our fragility.  One of the world’s most developed, sophisticated population centers found itself completely subject to nature’s whim.  Humbling.  And tragic for too many people.  On the legal front, the National Disaster Legal Aid website is serving as a resource both for those seeking help and those wishing to render it.  And while the news coverage has focused on the New York/Jersey region, it’s noteworthy that the storm’s impact has been felt far and wide.  I heard from a Cleveland-based legal aid lawyer who’s gone the week without electricity.     

For some post-Sandy escapism, here’s word that a new Star Wars movie is in the making (and that George Lucas is selling his empire to Disney).  Since I grew up loving the original trilogy and watching too many saccharine 80s sitcoms, I’m tempted to greet this development with unmitigated joy.  But I’ve got real questions about the franchise that inflicted Jar Jar Binks upon the world turning itself over to the company that gave us The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea.  Be warned, Disney: take good care of this galaxy far, far away.  

This week in very, very short:

• Texas counties pooling resources to provide indigent defense in capital cases
• Mandatory pro bono, Singapore style
• Low-paid FL prosecutors and defenders
• Pushback on pushback on Income Based Repayment
• More on NY’s new 50-hour pro bono rule
• Missouri prosecutor minces no words in assigning fault for indigent defense system woes
• NOLA PD may see big cut in city funding
• We can hear you now.  Corporate lawyers should be freed up to do more pro bono, says Verizon general counsel.
• Even Harvard’s public interest minded law students face a difficult career path
• Great work from Iowa Legal Aid, but times are tough
• Low-paid Pittsburgh prosecutors and defenders
• New masters-in-law course in animal law
• Recent hiring by the Land of Enchantment’s (great state nickname!) public defense program
• Online ATJ in IL
• Super Music Bonus!

The summaries

• 11.1.12 – in Texas, counties banding together to provide capital defense counsel: “Parker County commissioners recently voted to join the Regional Public Defender for Capital Cases program, an action that could save the county thousands of dollars during the prosecution of expensive capital murder cases.  The program, funded through the Texas Indigent Defense Commission, represents defendants who are charged with the offense of capital murder and are eligible for the death penalty but cannot afford to hire their own attorneys.  The organization helps participating smaller counties meet the legal requirement to provide access to counsel for those defendants by providing a core team of four — two…attorneys, a mitigation specialist and a fact investigator — as well funds for an investigation…. Of the 240 counties eligible for the program … 193 have agreed to participate so far.”  (Story from the Weatherford Democrat.)

• 11.1.12 – I work hard to offer a global worldview, dear reader.  So here we have news about a potential move to mandatory pro bono in Singapore.  Only 16 hours, though, which is odd.  Here’s some detail from Today Online: “Lawyers could soon be required to contribute a minimum of 16 hours of free legal services, as part of a high powered committee’s proposal to make it mandatory for practitioners to provide legal aid to low-income and disadvantaged Singaporeans….  The scheme will cover legal assistance in four broad areas: Criminal legal aid, civil legal aid, community mediation including other voluntary services in the Subordinate Courts, and legal advisory work to institutions and charities.”

• 10.31.12 – “Florida prosecutors and public defenders can’t keep over-worked young lawyers very long without at least a break-even pay raise to offset the state’s 3 percent pension deduction, lawyers told state budget planners at a public hearing Wednesday….  ‘We have two kinds of assistant state attorneys today,’ said Buddy Jacobs, general counsel for the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association. ‘We have those that are leaving and those that are looking.’  Jacobs said 56 percent of assistant prosecutors are five years, or less, out of law school, and that the typical young prosecutor starts at $40,000 a year — with $80,000 to $100,000 in college debt…. The state attorney offices have had about 15 percent turnover in each of the past two years, he said.”  (Story from the Florida Current.)

• 10.31.12 – student debt expert Heather Jarvis pushes back on a report that was itself critical of the Income Based Repayment program: “The New America Foundation released ‘Safety Net or Windfall:  Examining Changes to Income-Based Repayment for Federal Student Loans’… arguing that changes to Income-Based Repayment (IBR) should be better targeted towards low-income borrowers rather than “high-income borrowers with graduate and professional degrees.”   The analysis in the report clearly demonstrates what advocates have long known is a weakness in the IBR program—the lowest-income student loan borrowers need more and different help.  But the wealthy certainly do not benefit the most from Income-Based Repayment.  Wealthy students and families have money to pay for education, do not need to rely on student loans, and neither need nor will receive many benefits from Income-Based Repayment.  We have a debt-based system of access to higher education.  Unless or until that changes, student loans enable middle- and lower-income students and families to pay for…advanced degrees.  Middle- and lower-income students…must borrow substantial amounts or decide not to pursue advanced graduate and professional degrees.”
  • Speaking of student debt, the federal “Pay As You Earn” regulations were finalized this week.  PAYE makes two significant changes to the Income Based Repayment program. It first lowers the debtor’s monthly contribution from roughly 15% of disposable income to 10%.  Second, it knocks down the 25-year forgiveness period to 20 years.  (Distinguish this, however, from the Public Service Loan Forgiveness provision, which forgives eligible loan balances after 10 years of payments into IBR.)  (Here’s some coverage from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.) 

• 10.31.12 – New York’s newly implemented 50-hour pro bono requirement for admission to the bar just will not leave the news.
  • New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman delivered remarks to a DC-based audience earlier this week.  The Blog of the Legal Times has coverage: “The pro bono requirement, which is the first of its kind for a state bar, is ‘conceptually unassailable,’ Lippman said, even as he acknowledged concerns raised by law schools and legal services providers about how it would work in practice. He also said that the requirement was not a precursor to a mandatory pro bono requirement for the bar, another concern within the legal community.  Lippman said he hoped other states would consider similar requirements
  • And from the New York Law Journal, we learn that the chief judge expects that few bar applicants will be exempted from the rule’s requirement.

• 10.30.12 – pulling no punches regarding Missouri’s troubled indigent defense system, the state prosecutor association’s president blames the indigent defense program’s leaders, not overwhelming caseloads, for the program’s woes: “Simply put, the current public defender system is broken beyond repair because its top brass has surrendered in the face of its challenges. The only suggestion the public defender leadership ever offers is that they need more money. When the state budget is already stretched too thin, Missourians deserve a better solution….  We need to consider a new model where we reserve state-paid public defenders for the most serious felonies, such as murders and sexual offenses, while contracting representation of misdemeanors and low-level felonies to private counsel who could do the work more efficiently.  (Op-ed in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.)

• 10.30.12 – the city of New Orleans is funding the district attorney’s office at just slightly less than it did last year, but the public defender’s office will see funding slashed by 33% (from $1.2 million to $800,000.)  Here’s the story from the Times-Picayune. 

• 10.29.12 – loosen up state practice rules so that in-house counsel – who may not be licensed in the states in which they physically work – can do more pro bono.  This is the case made by Verizon general counsel Randal Milch in a Corporate Counsel op-ed.

• 10.29.12 – the Harvard Crimson looks at the difficulties confronted by public service minded law students when they choose between a relatively robust law-firm recruiting system and the more difficult path to public service, which involves a tight, low-paying job market.

• 10.29.12 – a piece on Iowa Legal Aid trumpets the organization’s work on behalf of thousands of vulnerable Hawkeye Staters, but closes on a somber note: “All of that work is being done with fewer people, though. Iowa Legal Aid served nearly 17 percent fewer people than in 2010 because of reduced revenue and reductions in staff. At the end of 2011, the organization had 12 fewer attorneys and 8 fewer support staff than it had at the beginning of 2010. Funding from the Supreme Court was reduced to $172,000 for 2012, which is down from the $828,572 grant received three years ago, and federal funding was cut by 15 percent.”  (Full piece in The Hawkeye.)

• 10/29/12 – citing NALP data, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette looks at how low pay harries the Steel City’s junior prosecutors and defenders, forcing some to moonlight in order to make ends meet.

• 10/28.12 – the pet industry is booming – Big Pet? – and Lewis & Clark Law School has created a masters-in-law certificate program for tomorrow’s animal rights/law lawyers.  From the Columbia Tribune: “Enrollment in the yearlong program [which has an initial class of six students] is expected to grow to 15 or 20 students in three to five years, said attorney Pamela Frasch, assistant dean and executive director of the [school’s Center for Animal Law Studies].”

• 10/26/12 – New Mexico’s public defender program has done a fair amount of recent hiring.  That’s tapering off but they’re still looking for lawyers.  From the Las Cruces Sun-News: “Vacancies in the agency have declined from 20.8 percent in 2011 to 15 percent today.  Moreover…the chief public defender…said she expected vacancies to drop to 8 percent by January.  Her department is filling 70 jobs, she told the Legislative Finance Committee this week. In raw numbers, the public defender has 211 attorneys and 182 support employees. [The chief defender] said she had begun to reduce the vacancy rate because the Legislature increased her budget by $1.2 million last session. Overall, the [program’s] budget is $40.14 million. It stood at $42.6 million in 2010, then legislative cutbacks began because of the national fiscal crisis.”

• 10.26.12 – this Government Technology story is ostensibly about the launching of a successful online, self-help legal aid website in one county.  But it points to a larger trend in Illinois toward empowering low- and moderate-income residents with online legal resources.  

Music!  This week I’m having all kinds of trouble not listening to Centro-matic’s “Patience for the Ride.”  If I had to guess, I’d say the song has to do with the Enron fallout and similar instances of corporate malfeasance.  But as with all well-written songs, it draws upon more universal themes.  And I hear “Patience for the Ride” as an anthem for public interest lawyers who face long odds and powerful opponents.  The song also contains a somehow-unpretentious use of the word “eleemosynary”.  That’s straight badass, is what that is.

Legal Aid of Northwest Texas, a nonprofit organization with offices all over the state, provides free civil legal services to eligible low-income residents in 114 counties. The downtown Dallas office is currently looking for a recent law graduate to fill a staff attorney position in the Housing, Consumer Protection, and Economic Benefits Unit.

From the PSJD job description:

LANWT seeks a dynamic, self-starting attorney who has vision, initiative, and a demonstrated commitment to public interest law to fill a staff attorney position in the Housing, Consumer Protection, and Economic Benefits Unit of its downtown Dallas office. In addition to providing daily representation in non-family civil legal matters, the successful candidate will demonstrate a commitment to identifying and taking advantage of opportunities for strategic advocacy and to engaging in outreach to and collaboration with low-income persons, including community groups that are made up of or serve the indigent. LANWT particularly seeks an attorney who can spearhead the systemic advocacy for low-income consumers of the Dallas office, as well as accept cases for and collaborate with the Unit’s existing special projects in public housing advocacy, wage-and-hour litigation, and representation of the homeless.

A staff attorney must be able to gather evidence, advise clients about their rights, draft legal documents, and conduct civil lawsuits. A staff attorney must interview clients and witnesses with cultural competence, as well as handle other tasks in representing clients. A staff attorney represents clients in court and before quasi-judicial or administrative agencies of government. The staff attorney also interprets laws, rulings, and regulations for clients and the client community.

The deadline to apply is tomorrow, 11/2/2012! For more information on salary, qualifications and application instructions, view the full listing at PSJD.org (log-in required)!