The Organization

The Governance Studies program at Brookings aims to be the leading, independent voice in the domestic policymaking sphere though analyzing policy issues, political institutions and processes, and contemporary governance challenges.  Lawfare, founded as a small blog in 2010, has grown to become one of the nation’s most trusted sources of information and analysis on issues of national security law, covering a broad range of issues from cybersecurity and terrorism investigations to war powers and government surveillance. 

The Position

This two-year fellowship is dedicated to covering congressional activity on national security issues in the Lawfare space. The Fellow will have the opportunity to join the Lawfare editorial team and contribute toLawfare’s unparalleled analysis of complex challenges in the US national security arena, specifically as it intersects with Congress and legislative politics.  This includes: writing thoughtful summaries and analyses of passed and proposed legislation for publication on the site, translating complex, technical documents for wider audience consumption, participating in relevant events, and discussing topics on the Lawfare podcast.  As a part of the editorial team, the Fellow will collaborate with multiple stakeholders to edit works for publication and generate ideas for site content in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment.  She/he will also have the opportunity to do independent research within the Governance Studies program at Brookings.

A minimum of Master’s degree is required.  Demonstrated expertise in national security policy, and a basic knowledge of and strong interest in congressional and legislative politics.  The successful candidate will have a rare combination of superlative writing and editing skills, familiarity with Congress and congressional procedure, and experience reading and analyzing legislation.  Candidates should have 1-3 years post-graduate experience in legislative affairs, national security, and/ or legal procedure. He/she should also be able to work well as a part of a team, thrive in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment, and react quickly to changes in the news cycle.

View full job posting here: https://www.psjd.org/opportunitydetails?OppID=84917

Legal Fellowship, The Singer Connecticut Public Service Fellowship Program

The Organization

Connecticut Bar Foundation

The Singer Connecticut Public Service Fellowship Program was established for the purpose of offering opportunities to recent law school graduates to gain practical experience working for Connecticut civil legal aid providers. The program is administered by the Connecticut Bar Foundation, whose mission is to further the rule of law and assist in efforts to improve the administration of justice in Connecticut.

The Position

The Fellowship Program offers recent law school graduates (or those who expect to graduate by July 1, 2019) the opportunity to engage in the practice of law with a 501(c)(3) civil legal aid organization having at least one office in Connecticut which provides legal services to the underserved population of Connecticut. Candidates are sought from a broad spectrum of backgrounds who reflect the diversity of residents of Connecticut’s cities, towns and rural communities served by the state’s legal aid providers. The work of the legal aid providers encompass a wide range of legal issues, including but not limited to family, domestic violence, landlord-tenant, housing, education, employment, immigration, government benefits, healthcare, and elder law. The aspirational goal of the Singer Connecticut Public Service Fellowship Program is to retain Fellows to practice public interest law in Connecticut upon completion of the Fellowship.

See the full job post on PSJD. 

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! Major news this week includes changes to Apple’s approach to dealing with data requests from government authorities, ABA plans for disaster aid to regions affected by Hurricane Florence, and the ACLU’s release of 50-state policy blueprints for reducing mass incarceration. There’s lots more besides, though! Read on below.

See you around,
   Sam

General Interest

• The Pacific Legal Foundation’s VP for Litigation called out Senator Whitehouse (D-RI), via an op-ed in The Hill, for a line of questioning during Judge Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings that seemed to question the legitimacy of impact litigation: “They … look for cases around the country that they believe they can use to bring arguments before the court … to hire a client whose case they could take to the Supreme Court with a purpose to make a point … and it causes me to think that sometimes the true party in interest is actually not the named party before the court, but rather the legal group that has hired the client and brought them to the court more or less as a prop in order to make arguments trying to direct the court in a particular direction… .” (As quoted in The Hill.)
• Nonprofit Quarterly discussed the latest internal controversy within the ACLU, over its decision to file an amicus brief in support of the NRA’s First Amendment lawsuit against the State of New York in the context of how “nonprofits [must] navigat[e] a new world of donor activism and political upheaval.” (The NPQ piece draws heavily on a more in-depth article on the ACLU’s internal debate published last month in Slate.)

Immigration & Refugee Issues

• In Virginia, the Legal Aid Justice Center filed a class-action federal lawsuit “challeng[ing] the sheriff’s policy of honoring…requests from U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement to hold immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally after they were due to be released on state charges.”
• In Washington, DC, “Mayor Bowser announced that her Administration will provide Immigrant Justice Legal Services (IJLS) grant funding to 15 community-based organizations that offer legal services for immigrants in Washington, DC.”
• In Florida, “[t]he University of Central Florida Legal Services Department, which is known for helping students with speeding tickets and underage drinking charges, plans to add immigration services to its list of legal troubles it can aid students with.”
• The LA Times reported on the difficulties the Trump Immigration’s asylum policies are creating for Christians from the Middle East.

Legal Technology

• Apple updated its Privacy Policy in advance of plans to launch an online portal for law enforcement requests for data “by the end of the year.”

Disaster Legal Aid

• The ABA Young Lawyers Division’s Disaster Legal Services Program announced plans to work with FEMA and local legal aid offices to provide legal assistance to disaster victims in the path of Hurricane Florence.
• In California, “a legal hotline is now available for people impacted by the Mendocino Complex fire.”

Student Loans

• The US House of Representatives passed the “Empowering Students through Enhanced Financial Counseling Act, H.R. 1635, which provides annual financial counseling for student loan borrowers.”

Access to Justice – Civil

• In Rhode Island, Operation Stand Down Rhode Island, an organization that provides social services to veterans, announced a full-time, year-round legal service…Legal Assistance for Warriors, or LAW.

Criminal Justice Reform

• The ACLU released “Smart Justice 50-State Blueprints” with policy recommendations that “show how each state can cut the number of people behind bars by half.”
• In Louisiana, an appeals court upheld a ruling below that the DeSoto Parish district attorney’s office acted unconstitutionally when it funded the public defender’s office with money from a pretrial diversion program.
• In Brooklyn, NY, the District Attorney announced “an initiative to help up to 20,000 New Yorkers wipe away pass records for marijuana convictions.”
• In Florida, two ACLU staff attorneys criticized a recent decision by the Chief Judge of Florida’s Fifth Judicial Court to remove two judges from Marion County Criminal Court after receiving a complaint from the county prosecutor asserting that the judges in question behaved favorably toward defendants. In the words of the ACLU, “[r]uling for the defense, or not doling out sufficient ‘punishment,’ is not legitimate grounds for removal. This would be true even if the judges were consistently getting it wrong on the facts or the law–but they weren’t. Florida’s appellate courts regularly affirmed these judges over [the county prosecutor]’s objections.”

Music Bonus!

Led Zeppelin, “When the Levee Breaks”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! Major news this week includes regulatory action from the Trump administration that would allow the government to detain children for the duration of their asylum proceedings, the resignation of a CFPB official charged with safeguarding student borrowers, and a Louisiana court’s class certification in a structural right-to-counsel  lawsuit brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center. For these stories and more, read on!

Meanwhile, in NALP news:

• Registration is now open for the 2018 NALP/PSJD Public Service Mini-Conference. Scheduled each year to occur immediately before Equal Justice Work’s Annual Conference and Career Fair weekend, the Mini-Conference is an ideal opportunity to meet and network with colleagues from across the country, attend substantive and skills-based programs, and interact with NALP staff members! The conference will take place on Thursday, October 25th, with additional programming for newcomers to the field on the evening of Wednesday, October 24th. 

See you around,
   Sam

Immigration & Refugee Issues

• According to TIME magazine, “the [Trump] Administration filed proposed regulation to terminate [a ‘longstanding court agreement that requires the government to release immigrant children after 20 days in detention’ and detain entire families for the duration of the legal proceedings that determine if they can stay. The rule, which will published (sic) on Friday, would also allow the federal government to transfer family units to facilities that are not ‘state licensed,’ which is currently required.” 
• In Boston, MA, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice filed a class action lawsuit “call[ing] on the federal government to compensate the estimated 2,500 children affected by the family separation policy and to establish a fund for mental heath care for children traumatized after being forcibly removed from their parents.”
• In Washington, DC, the Washington Post called attention to the fact that “unlike other cities that have created immigrant defense funds since Trump took office, Washington does not use tax dollars to help undocumented adults once they are detained by federal authorities and face deportation.”

Student Loans

• In Washington, DC, “[t]he consumer protection official charged with safeguarding student borrowers [resigned] in protest of the Trump administration, claiming it is siding with predatory lenders over consumers and enacting policies that will lead to ‘far-reaching harm.’“
• FiveThirtyEight.com reviewed the student loan crisis and federal proposals to fix it, using the hypothetical example of a Georgetown Law grad to underline the role of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program.

Legal Technology

• In California, “[s]tate lawmakers voted to pass a bill…ensur[ing] all California broadband customers have equal access to content on the internet. The law would be the strictest for internet providers in the United States, and put California at odds with the federal government.”
• The international law firm Dentons “announced last week that it is partnering with workflow platform provider Paladin to develop a system which will allow attorneys at law firms to discover pro bono opportunities without having to seek them out themselves.”

Access to Justice – Civil

• In San Francisco, CA, the San Francisco Public Press laid out next steps for the city’s right to counsel in evictions program, now that voters have approved plan to set up a program to provide universal representation in eviction cases by July 2019.
• In Sacramento, CA, Dean Schwartz of McGeorge School of Law wrote an overview of ongoing rural access to justice initiatives, framed by a forthcoming article in the Harvard Law & Policy Review.

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Louisiana, the Southern Poverty Law Center announced that “a [state] court has certified a class action lawsuit from the SPLC that challenges the constitutionality and funding structure of the state’s overburdened public defender system.”

Music Bonus

U2, “Where the Streets Have No Name”