By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, ladies and gents.  Depending on whom you speak to, it’s the beginning of winter or the end of the world.  I’m hoping for the former.  I’m one of the weirdos who loves our coldest season.  With that said, I’ve realized that embracing the Mayan doomsday scenario has considerably eased the guilt I feel in consuming the holiday junk food that seems to follow me everywhere I go.  So I’ve been an end-of-the-worlder for purposes of cookies.  Though I suspect there will soon be a reckoning.

Cookies aside, I wish you all a joy-filled, relaxing holiday season.  Travel safely if you are on the move, and enjoy time with family and friends.

We’re light on access-to-justice news this week.  In very, very short:

• salary differences between an Ohio county’s prosecutors & public defenders;
• improvements in Sin City’s indigent defense program;
• a call for pro bono as a requirement for a bar license;
• the continuing saga of Missouri’s indigent defense program;
• $1 million supplemental approp. to LSC for Sandy relief work?.  

This week:

• 12.20.12 – “Sitting on opposite sides of a courtroom, employees of the Clinton County [Ohio] Public Defender’s office and the Clinton County Prosecutor’s office often square-off judicially. Some of the attorneys, all employed by the same county, have much in common — knowledge of local cases, law degrees, years practicing — but in other ways, such as their salaries, they are treated very differently. ‘It’s almost universal across the state in terms of salary and resources available,’ said Tim Young, director at the office of the Ohio Public Defender. ‘Public defenders regularly make 10 to 30 percent less [than prosecutors] when they have the same amount of time in practice of law, and essentially the same work on opposite sides of the room’.”  (Story from the News Journal.)

• 12.20.12 – an op-ed looks at recent improvements in the Clark County (i.e. Las Vegas area) NV public defense program, particularly its juvenile defense unit, which was once seen as emblematic of a failed indigent defense system.  (Piece in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.)

• 12.17.12 –  UC Irvine Law dean Erwin Chemerinsky wants pro bono as a precondition for attorney licensing: “New York’s new requirement for pro bono work as a condition for admission to the bar should be a model for other states to copy. Last May, Jonathan Lippman, chief judge of New York, announced this proposal. On September 12, the New York Court of Appeals adopted a requirement that, effective January 1, 2015, admission to the New York bar will require an applicant having completed 50 hours of pro bono service. This is to be applauded: Pro bono work helps to meet the enormous unmet demand for legal services, provides law students valuable legal training and hopefully instills a lifelong habit of public service.  At a recent meeting, an American Bar Association committee considering possible changes to accreditation standards seemed unreceptive to the idea of requiring all law schools to insist on 50 hours of pro bono work from their students. But that won’t matter if states follow New York’s lead and require pro bono work as a condition for admission to the bar.” (Full piece in the National Law Journal.  For some more background on the recent, unsuccessful push to have the ABA’s law school accreditation body include a pro bono requirement in accreditation standards, feast your eyes on this here hyperlink.)

• 12.14.12 – the latest in the ongoing controversy surrounding Missouri’s indigent defense system: “State lawyers have joined forces with private attorneys in the dispute over being involuntarily assigned criminal cases to lessen the burden on Missouri’s overworked public defenders.  Attorney General Chris Koster is asking judges in Boone and Callaway counties to waive several court orders appointing state workers as pro bono lawyers for criminal defendants facing jail time and unable to afford their own legal counsel. Koster’s office is representing at least six state employees opposed to the move, court records show.  The Associated Press obtained the public court filings from attorneys concerned about the practice.  (See the full AP story here.)

• 12.19.12 – “This week, the Senate is considering a $60.4 million emergency disaster supplemental funding bill to assist victims of Hurricane Sandy in the recovery efforts. The bill includes $1 million for [the Legal Services Corporation], to support LSC grantees in the areas significantly affected by Hurricane Sandy for storm-related services. The funding for LSC matches the request submitted by the White House on December 7.  This is the first time since 1993 that a supplemental appropriations bill has included funding for LSC after a disaster. If passed, the supplemental funding would be used to give programs the necessary mobile resources, technology, and disaster coordinators to provide storm-related services to eligible clients.  LSC-funded programs in the areas most severely affected by Hurricane Sandy reported significant office damage and prolonged power outages. They are struggling to provide legal assistance to thousands of storm victims.  Supplemental disaster funding will help LSC’s grantees provide essential legal aid to low-income individuals and families.”  (News from LSC.)

Music!  Since winter is upon us, let’s go north to listen to my favorite Nova Scotian rock band.  This is Sloan with “Losing California.”