Archive for June, 2018

PSJD Public Interest News Digest – June 29, 2018

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public. Lots of news this week. I’ll let the pieces speak for themselves.

See you around,
Sam

Immigration

Student Loans

Pro Bono

Environmental Law

Legal Technology

Public Interest Funding

Criminal Justice Reform

Music Bonus!

Bruce Springsteen, “American Land”

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Job’o’th’Week (Fellowship Edition)

Help Wanted

Photo: Brenda Gottesman – CC License

Legal Fellowship, Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law

The Organization

The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law is a public interest law firm that protects and advances the civil rights of adults and children with mental disabilities. For nearly four decades, our lawyers and policy staff have brought impact litigation, participated in Supreme Court cases, lobbied Congress and federal agencies, and worked with state-based legal advocates to ensure the rights of people with mental mental disabilities to self-determination, employment, education, housing, and health care and mental health services. Our cases are primarily brought under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Medicaid Act. We are active in the Leadership Conference for Civil Rights and other D.C-based coalitions. The Bazelon Center envisions an America where people who have mental disabilities make their own life choices and are supported in participating fully in their communities.

The Position

  • The Bazelon Center regularly seeks applicants for Skadden, Equal Justice Works, and other applicable fellowships. Candidates interested in a fellowship project in any of our core areas of advocacy, including criminal justice systems reform or children’s mental health and education systems reform, are encouraged to submit a preliminary proposal for consideration. Please review our website to learn more about our current advocacy efforts.
  • QualificationsApplicants should be rising third-year law students or recent law school graduates with excellent academic credentials and strong research and writing skills. Related experience and/or judicial clerkship experience is a plus.

Do you have a passion for helping others?  See the full-post on PSJD.

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Job’o’th’Week (Internship Edition)

Litigation & Law Fall Intern

Help Wanted

The Organization:

Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) is the nation’s leading women’s health care provider, educator, and advocate, serving women, men, teens and families. For over 100 years, PPFA has done more than any other organization in the United States to improve women’s health and safety, prevent unintended pregnancies, and advance the right and ability of individuals and families to make informed and responsible health care decisions.

The Position

The Public Policy Litigation and Law Department of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) seeks second (2L) and third year (3L) law student interns for its New York and Washington, D.C. offices for full-time or part-time internships for academic credit during the Fall Semester of 2018.
Interns can expect to work closely with PPFA attorneys on a wide variety of litigation responsibilities, including, legal research and analysis; drafting memoranda, pleadings, affidavits and briefs; factual development for ongoing or developing litigation; and communicating with clients.
Ready to make a difference? Check it out your here on PSJD.

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PSJD Public Interest News Digest – June 15, 2018

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! It’s been quite a week, with major developments in Access to Justice, Student Loans, and Immigration. In Colorado and Connecticut, the right-to-counsel-for-eviction-cases movement seems to be gaining ground. Meanwhile, Wisconsin is engaged in some soul-searching about its pay rate for private attorneys assigned indigent defense cases. And in DC, the DoE’s Inspector General accused the Department of slow-walking applications for student debt forgiveness while Senators Warren and Rubio introduced a bill to protect the professional licenses of student loan borrowers in default. Last but far from least, General Sessions issued an immigration ruling with a dramatic impact on asylum seekers.

See you around,
Sam

Immigration

Student Loans

Law & Technology

Access to Justice – Civil

Access to Justice – Criminal

Criminal Justice Reform

Music Bonus!

Barbara Streisand, “Children Will Listen” (Into the Woods)

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Job’o’th’Week (Experienced Edition)

Policy Director 

Help Wanted

The Organization

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Kansas is a non-profit and non-partisan organization dedicated to preserving and advancing the civil rights and legal freedoms guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The ACLU of Kansas works in the state legislature, the courts, and local communities to protect the rights of all people living in Kansas. The organization’s work includes efforts to strengthen and defend First Amendment rights, voting rights, reproductive rights, racial justice, LGBT rights, immigrants’ rights, stopping government surveillance, and reforming the criminal justice system. The ACLU of Kansas often works in broad-based coalitions made up of individuals and organizations from across the political, partisan, and ideological spectrum. The ACLU of Kansas is an affiliate of the national American Civil Liberties Union, has an annual budget of approximately $1 million, and has more than 30,000 supporters across the state. The headquarters of the ACLU of Kansas is in Overland Park, Kansas, with a field office located in Wichita, Kansas.

The Position

The ACLU of Kansas seeks a dynamic, creative, self-motivated team player to serve as its Policy Director. The Policy Director will oversee the organization’s broad-based policy program at the state and local levels with a focus on building organizational capacity around our racial justice work, including voting rights, immigrants’ rights, and smart justice reform. Reporting directly to the Executive Director, the position is based in Overland Park. During the Kansas legislative session, this staff person will be expected to be in the state capitol in Topeka on a regular basis (usually Tuesday-Thursday).

Ready to fight for civil rights and liberties? Check out the posting on PSJD.

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PSJD Public Interest News Digest – June 8, 2018

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! The past week has been an eventful one, particularly concerning Federal agency action (and responses to such action by other government and civil institutions). Additionally, the Movement Advocacy Project (MAP) released a report on the changing dynamic between state legislatures and local authorities. You’ll find these tidbits first, ordinally, below. Along, of course, with other news of interest.

See you around,
Sam

Federal Government

State & Local Government – Civil Rights

Legal Employment

Immigration

Access to Justice – Civil

Access to Justice – Criminal

Criminal Justice Reform

Music Bonus!

Mumford & Sons, “Not in Nottingham” (Disney Cover)

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Job’o’th’Week (Fellowship Edition)

Help Wanted

Photo: Brenda Gottesman – CC License

Teleford Taylor Human Rights Clinical Teaching Fellowship

The Organization

The Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law is a leader in legal education, located in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. The law school is renowned for its program in intellectual property, which includes the FAME Center for Fashion, Arts, Media and Entertainment Law. Cardozo Law has a long tradition of public advocacy and is the birthplace of the Innocence Project and the home of our Center for Rights and Justice.  Cardozo offers a world-class faculty and encourages creative thinking and innovation in the legal profession. Cardozo provides students with a strong foundation in legal theory combined with practical hands-on experience in a variety of areas including criminal law, civil rights law, and business law. The school prides itself on creating a vibrant and warm community for faculty, staff and students.

The Position

The Fellow will work in the Benjamin B. Ferencz Human Rights and Atrocity Prevention Clinic and in the Cardozo Law Institute in Holocaust and Human Rights (CLIHHR). Reporting directly to the Clinic and Institute Director, responsibilities will include co-supervising clinical projects, developing seminar lesson plans, teaching in the clinic seminar, mentoring students, researching and writing, and planning and implementing Clinic and CLIHHR events. The position is ideal for a candidate with a strong interest in clinical teaching and in the substantive areas of international human rights law, international refugee law, and international criminal law.

The Benjamin B. Ferencz Human Rights and Atrocity Prevention Clinic is a semester-long clinic in which students represent individuals and institutional clients in international human rights cases and projects selected within a framework of atrocity prevention. The overall objective of the Clinic is to provide students with first-hand experience in the range of activities in which lawyers engage to promote respect for human rights and the diverse ways the law is utilized to prevent atrocity crimes and promote justice and accountability for mass atrocities. In order effectively to bridge theory and practice, the Clinic is divided into several pedagogical components: a weekly seminar, case and project work, and skills training. In the spring semester, the Advanced Human Rights and Atrocity Prevention Clinic continues the work of the fall Clinic with a select group of students.

Do you have a passion for human rights?  See the full-post on PSJD.

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