by Christina Jackson, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives & Fellowships

Happy Friday!  We are getting ready for the NALP Annual Conference, and there are some great public interest programs.  New this year – the Social Justice Walking Tour.  We’re really looking forward to celebrating public service in Seattle.

Spotlight on Outstanding Public Servants: If you know someone we should honor, drop me a line.

Here are the week’s headlines:

•  Google Public Policy (summer) Fellowship application now available;
• Rutgers-Newark law school starts unique fellowship offering low cost legal help;
• Goodwin Procter receives ABA’s 2014 National Public Service Award;
• NY State officials taking indigent defense funds for other purposes;
• Spotlight on Public Service Servants: Maria Keller;
• Super Music Bonus!

The summaries:

March 23, 2014 – The Google Policy Fellowship program offers undergraduate, graduate, and law students interested in Internet and technology policy the opportunity to spend the summer contributing to the public dialogue on these issues, and exploring future academic and professional interests.  Fellows will have the opportunity to work at public interest organizations at the forefront of debates on broadband and access policy, content regulation, copyright and creativity, consumer privacy, open government, government surveillance, data security, data innovation, free expression and more. More information about the program is outlined here.  The deadline for applications is April 14, 2014.

March 23, 2014 –  “Rutgers School of Law-Newark has launched a program to ease graduates into the legal profession. The program, believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, is paying new law school graduates $30,000 to spend a year working in an on-campus law firm serving low- and moderate-income New Jerseyans.  Under [Associate Dean Andy] Rothman’s guidance, the newly minted lawyers take on criminal, divorce, custody, special education, estate, landlord-tenant and other cases for clients who make too much money to qualify for free legal help. The Rutgers Law Associates Fellowship Program charges clients $50 an hour, a fraction of the $250 to $300 hourly rate many private attorneys charge.”  The program began with six fellows.  “The fellows agree to stay for a year, with the option of remaining with the firm for a second year with a $40,000 salary.”  (nj.com)

March 24, 2014 – “Goodwin Procter, a national Am Law 50 firm, has been selected by the Business Law Section of the American Bar Association as the law firm recipient of its 2014 National Public Service Award. Initiated in 1994, the annual honor recognizes delivery of significant pro bono legal services that demonstrate a commitment to providing assistance to the poor in a business context.”  “In selecting Goodwin Procter, ABA Business Law Section’s Pro Bono Committee Chair William Woodward said the Section ‘carefully considered the firm’s dedication to the development and delivery of innovative pro bono services that have provided legal counsel to nonprofit organizations and microbusinesses in aid of community development on an ongoing basis.'”  (Business Wire)

March 25, 2014 – “Over the past six years, the [New York State’s] elected officials have yanked close to $50 million from a fund designated for indigent legal services.  While the ‘sweeps,’ as they are called, have not had immediate impact on a fund designated for indigent defense, those lost millions may be needed in future years as counties across New York try to provide constitutionally sound legal services for the poor. And the practice speaks to a larger issue, advocates for indigent defense services say: A continued unwillingness by state officials to confront a patchwork system of indigent legal aid.”  The state’s Indigent Legal Services Fund pays for the Office of Indigent Legal Services and provides grants across the state to counties to improve public defense services.  (Democrat and Chronicle)

Spotlight on Outstanding Public Servants: No matter your age, you can make a difference.  Just ask 13-year old Maria Keller.  She was one of recipients of this year’s Jefferson Awards for Public Service.  Founded in 1972 by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Senator Robert Taft, Jr. and Sam Beard, the Jefferson Awards is America’s highest honor for public service.  Ms. Keller won her award for her nonprofit Read Indeed.  Ms. Keller has always loved reading and at age 8 was shocked to find out some kids don’t have access to books.  So, she started by organizing a book drive and made a donation of a thousand books to a children’s shelter.  “From there she told her parents she wanted to collect and donate a million books to kids in need by the time she was 18.  This past fall the Orono Middle School student reached her goal, five years early.”  Her “new goal is to distribute books in every state in the country and in every country in the world.  For more information on her organization or how to donate books go to Read Indeed online or check out their Facebook page.”  Congratulations Maria!!  (CBS Minnesota)

Super Music Bonus! How could you not love a song called “Happy?”  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMmbEF017Zc

Every two years, NALP (the National Association for Law Placement) conducts a salary survey of legal aid and government attorneys at prosecutor and public defender offices. The 2014 survey is currently making its rounds throughout the public interest law community, and is incredibly important in determining the fiscal climate for attorneys in the public sector.

Please spread the word within the public interest law community.  The survey response deadline has been extended to March 28th.  

You can complete the survey now online or download the PDF – please use either one method or the other. All information will remain confidential. All participants will receive a free electronic copy of the report.

This summer, Equal Justice Work’s AmeriCorps JD program is accepting applications for funding from law students spending their summer providing legal services to disaster victims or veterans. If you’re looking for a way to finance your summer public interest work, check out this opportunity and more on the PSJD Summer Funding guide. Deadlines are approaching fast, so don’t wait!

BONUS : Watch Equal Justice Works AmeriCorps Fellow Jennifer Aronson discuss how she helped a homeless veteran draft his will:

by Christina Jackson, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives & Fellowships

Happy Friday!  And Happy Spring to you!

Spotlight on Outstanding Public Servants: If you know someone we should honor, drop me a line.

Here are the week’s headlines:

• Quinnipiac University School of Law’s Civil Justice Clinic receives $5,000 AT&T grant;
• WY organizations partner to increase legal aid;
• DC legal services groups awarded $3.4 million;
• MO AG sues fake legal aid;
• Legal Aid Ontario tackles access to justice in family law;
• Wake Forest Law helps cancer patients;
• ABA stipend available for law students working with the homeless this summer;
• Spotlight on Public Service Servants: ABA’s ProBAR celebrates 25 years;
• Super Music Bonus! This week – a video bonus.

The summaries:

March 15, 2014 – “The Quinnipiac University School of Law’s Civil Justice Clinic has received a $5,000 grant from AT&T Connecticut in support of its pro bono legal services work in the community.  This is the third year that the clinic has received funding through the AT&T Excellence in Pro Bono Legal Service Award and Fellowship. The funding provides a stipend to a student fellow who spends 10 hours a week working in the clinic, supervising other law students and researching ways to expand the scope of the clinic’s work.  In the Civil Justice Clinic, law students work under the supervision of full-time faculty members Sarah Russell and Kevin Barry, representing low-income individuals who cannot afford counsel, and work on public policy projects to benefit disadvantaged communities.”  (The Courant)

March 15, 2014 –  “The Wyoming State Bar announced that it will partner with the Wyoming Center for Legal Aid on an initiative called ‘I’ll Do One.’ The goal of the initiative is to encourage lawyers licensed in Wyoming to commit to at least one pro bono case.”  Attorneys who want to volunteer should go to www.wyomingbar.org.  (Casper Journal)

March 17, 2014 – “Twenty legal services projects across the District of Columbia will receive more than $3.4 million this year in publicly funded grants.  The annual Access to Justice Grants are funded by the D.C. Council and distributed by the D.C. Bar Foundation.”  “The foundation awarded approximately $250,000 more in grants this year than in 2013. The single largest grant, $589,500, went to a joint project by Bread for the City and the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia that provides in-court legal services to clients in landlord and tenant matters.”  “This is the eighth year the D.C. Council has funded grants for local legal service organizations. The D.C. Bar Foundation also makes a set of separate grants each year based on money it raises from attorneys and the Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts program.”  (Legal Times)

March 18, 2014 – “Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster filed a lawsuit on Friday against a Florida-based legal services company that allegedly misled Missourians by claiming it was affiliated with state Legal Aid offices.  Yoram Rozenberg, doing business as Legal Aid and The Legal Aid Society, allegedly advertised to Missouri consumers that the businesses were associated with Legal Services of Southern Missouri when that was not the case. Legal Services of Southern Missouri serves low-income and elderly citizens, typically with no charge.  Rozenberg allegedly took payments from at least one Missouri consumer for legal work that was not performed by a licensed Missouri attorney. Rozenberg’s businesses allegedly advertised in the Springfield phone books using a local phone number and falsely indicated affiliation with Legal Services of Southern Missouri.”  The suit seeks restitution and a bar against Rozenberg doing business in Missouri.  (Legal NewsLine)

March 19, 2014 – “Legal Aid Ontario (LAO) is developing a slate of programs and services to address the unmet legal needs of unrepresented family litigants as part of a larger, long-term strategy to improve access to justice for low-income Ontarians.  ‘Research shows that as many as 50 per cent of people in the family justice system try to solve their problems on their own because of limited available resources,’ says John McCamus, Chair of LAO. ‘Thanks to $30 million in additional provincial funding, LAO is in a position to expand on our current family services, while dedicating new resources to clients with family law needs.'” Currently, LAO has 15 family law projects in development which make use of the additional provincial funding.  LAO will continue consulting with stakeholders on avenues for resolving family law disputes.  (Digital Journal)

March 19, 2014 – “A new partnership between Wake Forest University School of Law and Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center will connect cancer patients in need of legal assistance with more than 40 law students participating in the school’s pro bono program.   Patients at the Comprehensive Cancer Center will be able to receive free legal assistance in areas such as advanced directives and other medical legal services, with the students supervised by attorneys from Wake Forest Baptist and Wall, Esleeck and Babcock in Winston-Salem.”  (The Business Journal)

March 20, 2014 – Law students interning with an organization that works with homeless clients can apply for a stipend.  The Curtin Justice Fund Legal Internship Program is seeking motivated law student interns to apply for stipends available for the Summer 2014 Program. The Program will pay a $2,500 stipend to three law school students who spend the summer months working for a bar association or legal services program designed to prevent homelessness or assist homeless or indigent clients or their advocates. The application deadline is Monday, March 31, 2014.

Spotlight on Outstanding Public Servants: The South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project (ProBAR) is a project of the American Bar Association that provides legal information, pro se assistance and pro bono representation to thousands of immigrants and asylum-seekers detained in remote South Texas each year by the United States government.  Congratulations on 25 years of great work, and here is to many more!!!  Their celebration video is our Super Video Bonus for this week.

Super Video Bonus!

Every year, we honor law student pro bono with the PSJD Pro Bono Publico Award. Any 2L or 3L who attends a PSJD subscriber school and has significant pro bono contributions to underserved populations, the public interest community and legal education is eligible for nomination.

This week, the 2013-14 PSJD Pro Bono Publico Award winners have been guest blogging about law student pro bono and their public interest commitments. Today, we’re featuring the grand prize winner and Emory University School of Law student Martin Bunt, a veterans’ rights advocate who co-founded the student-run Volunteer Clinic for Veterans.

Read Martin’s take on why veterans’ service organizations need to unite and work together below!

I recently went to a briefing in Atlanta on state and federal funding available for veterans and the organizations that benefit them with Sion New, the next student director of the Emory Law Volunteer Clinic for Veterans. Also present at the briefing were churches, summer camps, medical organizations, mental health organizations, veteran job training organization, veteran general support organizations, the American Red Cross.

This was not the first time I had attended a get-together of this type. To see the amount of organizations serving veterans is truly heartening. There are so many people who wish to serve veterans. However, what others and I realized at the meeting is that the amount of organizations serving veterans creates both an opportunity and a problem. The opportunity is the ability of organizations serving veterans to partner with each other to provide “whole package” services to veterans in need. The problem is how do organizations become aware of all the other organizations in their area that they should partner with to serve veterans?

Organizations that serve veterans and other organizations need to solve this problem. We cannot fully accomplish our goal of helping those we serve without working together.

Each service an organization provides is a piece of a puzzle. For example, the VCV provides legal services in the areas of discharge upgrades and VA benefits. But we only provide legal services.

The following hypothetical explains how this could fail to fully help a veteran who comes to us:

A veteran named Brad, for example purposes only, comes to our Clinic for help appealing a denied VA rating for PTSD. Brad believes that his PTSD is connected to his two tours in Iraq between 2003 and 2006. Since Brad was discharged he got married and has two kids. After service Brad realized that his temper flared easily and he often woke with nightmares of a battle where he lost three of his friends to mortar and RPG fire. Brad works at a job that underutilizes the skills he learned as a soldier and therefore he does not enjoy going to work. His temper and lack of sleep recently caused him to lose his job and has severely strained his marriage. From interviews with Brad, it is clear that he has struggled as a veteran to find a purpose and the structured lifestyle that the military gave him.

The VCV can advocate on Brad’s behalf and win a PTSD rating for him from the VA. But monthly disability checks will not help Brad get his life where he truly wants it. He needs a purpose, he needs counseling, and he needs help with his family. Just from the community of organizations I met this past week in Atlanta, Brad can get all the help he needs.

Purpose

A new organization in Atlanta, the Phoenix Patriot Foundation, individually tailors programs that get veterans involved in serving their community and learning new skills to provide these services. Brad will discover a niche in helping his community with a skill he already possesses or will learn. This service will in turn lead him down a path to a job that he truly enjoys.

Counseling

Multiple organizations present at the briefing provided individual PTSD counseling. These private organizations are effective and needed supplements to the VA’s efforts to provide PTSD counseling to veterans. Brad would receive individual counseling and mentoring on different methods to manage his tempers and sleep better at night.

Family

Camp Twin Lakes is a Georgia based organization that has a Wounded Warrior program that offers weekend getaways for veterans and their families at Camp Twin Lakes different camps around Georgia. During these getaways veterans and their families not only get a wonderful vacation but attend marriage and family counseling.

After Brad receives all of the services offered by these organizations he would truly be a different man: He would be receiving the VA benefits he has earned; he would have a new purpose by utilizing his skill sets to serve his local community and in turn discovering a new, more suitable career; He would learn to control his temper and sleep better at night; His marriage would be on a much better footing. Brad would find all the pieces to the puzzle of life falling into place.

This example demonstrates why service organizations must work together in a community to aid those they serve. I believe a great solution to service organizations discovering each other is to create a central website that lists all service organizations by targeted population and services offered. This does not yet exist in Atlanta, but I believe it will happen soon. Leaders of all service organizations have a duty to work together to help those that we serve receive the “whole package,” we are failing them if we do not.

Every year, we honor law student pro bono with the PSJD Pro Bono Publico Award. Any 2L or 3L who attends a PSJD subscriber school and has significant pro bono contributions to underserved populations, the public interest community and legal education is eligible for nomination.

This week, the 2013-14 PSJD Pro Bono Publico (PBP) Award honorees will be guest blogging about law student pro bono and their public interest commitments. Today, we’re featuring  Emory Law student Rachel Erdman, who helped PBP Award winner Martin Bunt create a student-run veterans’ rights clinic.

My name is Rachel Erdman, and together with Martin Bunt I co-founded the Emory Law Volunteer Clinic for Veterans. When people hear about my work with the Clinic, they generally assume that like Martin, I want to work in military law or in the public sector. When I explain that I’m going into intellectual property law at a large firm, I get confused looks. I’m often asked, “But then why are you so involved with pro bono work in veteran law?” The answer is simple: Attorneys aren’t limited by their area of law or firm size. Pro bono work is for everyone!

I did not seek out my biggest pro bono project, the Volunteer Clinic for Veterans. Instead, the Clinic found me. When Martin approached me at the end of 1L year, I had already accepted two other officer positions in extremely active student groups, and I knew that I would likely be on journal.  “I want to start this Clinic, but I can’t do it alone,” he said. “Will you help me?” There were a thousand reasons to say no. I didn’t have the time, it wasn’t in my area of focus, and we didn’t have a clear idea as to how I could even contribute. But in the end, pro bono work relies on us being able to open our hearts and say yes. You will always be glad that you did.

As attorneys and law students, we have the unique skill-set to help people in need, no matter what our background. Oddly enough, it was my background in science and systems that proved invaluable to the Clinic. Unlike Martin, I do not possess the admirable ability to walk into a room and immediately engage people in conversation. I typically end up turning red and mumbling something vaguely offensive, so I left the networking up to my co-founder. Instead, I quietly created the student-side infrastructure that one of the largest veteran’s clinics in the country needed to operate, all entirely for free. No matter what your background, you’ll always find an area that needs your skills.

Going into the private sector doesn’t mean that we can’t also volunteer. When I decided to pursue a job in Big Law, my public-sector law friends joked that I had turned to the dark side. But Big Law attorneys can play a critical role as pro bono advocates. Pro bono work is a never-ending flood of people in need. The attorneys that dedicate their lives to helping others simply can’t do it alone. They need allies in firms of all sizes and in every field of law.

Think of the Salvation Army standing outside of a store, ringing their bells with the big red buckets during Christmastime. If just one person in a group of people walking past these buckets tosses in their change, other people in the group are more likely to follow. The same applies to a firm. When people are involved in pro bono work, other attorneys in the firm are more likely to be interested. If pro bono interest is strong enough, the firm will even change its policies to make volunteering easier, such as allowing some pro bono hours to count towards the billable hour requirement, or organizing fundraising and charity events. Pro bono advocates in the private sector can therefore play a huge rule in shaping the pro bono community.

So next time you find yourself wondering whether you should take on a pro bono project, don’t be discouraged by your background or your area of law. The pro bono community is full of attorneys that would be more than happy to guide and mentor you. And most importantly, the people that you help don’t care about your background or if you’re in Big Law or from a tiny firm – they’re just happy that you said yes.

* Photo taken by Atlanta photographers LeahAndMark & Co.

Every year, we honor law student pro bono with the PSJD Pro Bono Publico Award. Any 2L or 3L who attends a PSJD subscriber school and has significant pro bono contributions to underserved populations, the public interest community and legal education is eligible for nomination.

This week, the 2013-14 PSJD Pro Bono Publico Award winners will be guest blogging about law student pro bono and their public interest commitments. Today, we’re featuring Merit Distinction honoree and Seton Hall University School of Law student Karol Ruiz, an advocate for undocumented immigrant children who helps host of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) clinics for her community.

Read below for Karol’s post on community lawyering and how she uses it to help undocumented immigrant students.

Many attorneys and law students enter the profession of law to answer a call to serve from deep within ourselves.  In my work, I follow the wisdom of Lao Tzu, who said, “A leader is best when people barely know she exists, when her work is done, her aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.”  I first learned this valuable lesson from my mentor, Wind of The Spirit Immigrant Resource Center co-founder Diana Mejia, a humble yet commanding community leader.  She never uttered Lao Tzu’s words; she lived them.  The best teachers lead by example.

Following in her footsteps, I joined the struggle to end the discriminatory practice of barring admission to undocumented immigrant students at my alma mater, the County College of Morris.  As a former undocumented student, my lobbying began in 2008 with the painful sharing of my personal story before the college board of trustees.  With the help of then New York University law student interns, Camilo Romero and Sara Cullinane, my advocacy evolved to include the legal and economic arguments against the college’s discriminatory practices.  Soon after, others galvanized to share their own stories.  In 2010, immigrants and allies from all over New Jersey filled the college gymnasium, clamoring for immigrants’ rights to higher education before the board, the county freeholders, the press, and even the anti-immigrant groups opposing the end to the discriminatory practice. We succeeded not only in changing the policy, but in raising awareness in our community and building a network of activists.  The law students involved in the movement inspired me to apply to law school.  Together, we inspired our entire community to work toward reform of state and national immigration laws.  It takes a village.

Read the rest of this entry »

Every year, we honor law student pro bono with the PSJD Pro Bono Publico Award. Any 2L or 3L who attends a PSJD subscriber school and has significant pro bono contributions to underserved populations, the public interest community and legal education is eligible for nomination.

Every day this week, the 2013-14 PSJD Pro Bono Publico Award winner and honorable mentions will be guest blogging about law student pro bono and their public interest commitments. Today, we’re featuring Merit Distinction honoree and University of California, Berkeley School of Law student  Ioana Tchoukleva, a prisoners’ rights advocate and creator of the student-run Post-Conviction Advocacy Project (PCAP). 

Read Ioana’s take on non-linear public interest career paths and how she balances her domestic and international legal work:

First year of law school, you are told that your 1L summer job matters — it will put you on the path to your dream job and somehow magically prepare you for the rest of law school. The following year, you are told that your 2L summer job basically determines where you will work after graduation, so you better choose carefully! In fact, throughout law school you feel a latent anxiety that underlies every move you make. For many, at the core of that anxiety lies a fear of not doing the right thing, of being behind in one way or another, of missing out on opportunities. This feeling of “not being good enough” runs deep and affects students in a variety of ways that reverberate way beyond law school.

Read the rest of this entry »

by Christina Jackson, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives & Fellowships

Happy Friday!  And Happy St. Patrick’s Day to everyone.  We’re now in spring break season, and if you’re looking for a service project to undertake, we’ve got you covered.  If you’re in the US, check out probono.net.  In Canada?  Go to Pro Bono Students Canada.

Spotlight on Outstanding Public Servants: If you know someone we should honor, drop me a line.

Here are the week’s headlines:

• Growing number of TX lawyers are “Banking on Justice”;
• Federal defenders could fill jobs lost under sequestration;
• Spotlight on Public Service Servants: Today in History – the FBI debuts the 10 Most Wanted List;
• Super Music Bonus!

The summaries:

March 10, 2014 – Lawyers and bankers in Texas are teaming up to increase funding for legal aid.  “The Prime Partner program, which provides funds for vulnerable Texans seeking justice, is gaining momentum. Prime Partner banks agree to pay higher interest on lawyers’ trust accounts to support legal-aid assistance for the poor, explained Betty Balli Torres, executive director, Texas Access to Justice Foundation. Prime Partner banks agree to pay 1 percent on IOLTA (Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts) accounts so they can increase funding for civil legal aid in this state. The ‘I Bank on Justice’ component is really lawyers and law firms that move their accounts into Prime Partner banks in order to support legal aid,” Torres explained.”  (Public News Service)

March 11, 2014 –  “Federal defender offices, which lost approximately 400 employees because of last year’s mandatory budget cuts known as sequestration, have enough money in this year’s budget to begin backfilling most of those positions, court officials said Tuesday.  Following the biannual meeting of the Judicial Conference of the United States, Chief Judge William Traxler Jr., chairman of the judicial conference’s executive committee, said Congress’ fiscal year 2014 appropriation to the judiciary would allow officials to backfill about 350 jobs in federal defender offices.”  (Legal Times)

Spotlight on Outstanding Public Servants: On this day in 1950, the Federal Bureau of Investigation institutes the “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list in an effort to publicize particularly dangerous fugitives. The creation of the program arose out of a wire service news story in 1949 about the “toughest guys” the FBI wanted to capture. The story drew so much public attention that the “Ten Most Wanted” list was given the okay by J. Edgar Hoover the following year. As of 2011, 465 of the criminals included on the list have been apprehended or located, 153 as a result of tips from the public.  (History.com)  The List recently made the news when number 10 was captured.  Only 8 women have appeared on the List.  The current List is all male with the least recent addition on the List since 1987.

Super Music Bonus!  Some Celtic music.  Enjoy!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoktesLkHy8

by Ashley Matthews, PSJD Fellow

Landed an awesome internship this summer, but in desperate need of funding? PSJD is here to help!

We just updated our Summer Funding Resource pages, available in the Funding & Debt section of the site’s Resource Center. Click here for a list of organizations that offer funding for internships located anywhere. For summer funding resources for work in a specific geographical region, click here.

Most of the deadlines fall in March and April, so head over to the Resource Center right away! These lists are continuously updated as the organizations renew their application cycles. PSJD is always checking for new deadlines. Stay tuned to the site for new updates!