PSJD Public Interest News Digest – February 23, 2018
Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives
Hello there, interested public! The big news this week includes big decisions from the Attorney General of California and the Philadelphia DA’s office, as well as a report publishing the results of a worldwide survey on access to justice.
And speaking of surveys…
- NALP is still collecting responses for the 2018 Public Service Attorney Salary Survey. We’ve extended our deadline through Friday, March 2nd to collect as many responses as we can. To ensure the eventual reports is as useful as possible, it would be so helpful if everyone could share the survey link (www.psjd.org/salarysurvey) with their networks and encourage organizations to contribute to this study. In particular, we could use more responses from public defenders in Midwest. (If you’re curious, here are some more details about this study, from the last time we published this report.)
Until next week,
Sam
Disaster Legal Aid
- The Miami Herald reported on the ongoing misery of low-income Floridians caught beneath the fury of Hurricane Irma and beyond the reach of legal services.
Student Loans
Pro Bono Services
- In Maryland, the Administrative Office of the Courts submitted its report on the “Current Status of Pro Bono Service Among Maryland Lawyers (2016)”: “Approximately 53 percent of the lawyers practicing full-time in the state helped people of limited means…Maryland boasts one of the highest rates of pro bono activity in the country.“
Access to Justice – Civil
- The World Justice Project published “Global Insights on Access to Justice,” research which “presents data on how ordinary people around the world navigate their everyday legal problems.” The data for the United States is summarized on page 53: 48% of survey respondents experienced a legal problem within the last two years, and only 23% of those turned to an authority or third party to help resolve the problem.
- In Idaho, the former State Supreme Court Chief Justice (ret. 2017) advocated for state-level funding for Idaho Legal Aid in the Idaho Press-Tribune.
- In New York, New York Law School’s Center for New York City Law published a thorough overview of NYC’s new right to counsel law for low-income tenants facing eviction.
- In Maryland, the editorial board of the Daily Record advocated for the right to counsel in housing cases for Baltimore residents. [NB: The full article is behind a paywall.]
Access to Justice – Criminal
- In Texas County, Missouri, the Missouri State Public Defender entirely privatized its services; state lawmakers are engaged in ongoing debate over whether to privatize the state’s public defender system in response to challenges of unconstitutional failures to provide adequate representation.
Criminal Justice Reform
- In Philadelphia, PA, the city’s new district attorney announced that his office has dropped all criminal marijuana possession charges that aren’t coupled with intent to deliver or sell, and that this will be the office’s new policy going forward.
- In California, the State Attorney General declined to appeal a ruling finding that a defendant’s ability to pay must be taken into account when setting bail, “adding his voice to the growing statewide push to overhaul a money bail system that criminal justice advocates argue is discriminatory to poor Californians.“
- In British Columbia, the Women’s Legal Education & Action Fund (West Coast LEAF) criticized the province’s new budget for failing to adequately fund legal aid.