PSJD Public Interest News Digest – November 9, 2018
Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives
Hello there, interested public! I won’t dodge. Things have been busy here at NALP, both with the PSJD Mini-Conference that happened at the end of October and with a number of projects in the office that I’m hoping to share with you all later this year. But also, it’s been hard to face the news the last few weeks and find a face to wear for all of you.
But the world continues to turn and the digest is back. Major news this week includes the likely demise of a successful and critical legal aid program in Ontario, ominous questions concerning the legitimacy of cy pres from the Supreme Court, a new, free, online caselaw library from the Harvard Law Library Innovation Lab, and a number of high-profile district attorney elections that went to candidates promising substantial progressive reforms.
See you around,
Sam
Immigrants & Refugees
- The Justice Department began using video hearings to have migrant children testify in immigration proceedings from detention, according to the Associated Press, “some attorneys and judges say[] that technical glitches…are actually making it much harder for teens in shelters to have a fair hearing.”
- In Seattle, WA, Seattle University suspended its externship program with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, “based on its current policies and practices.”
Access to Justice – Civil
- In Washington, Justices Roberts, Alito, and Kavanaugh made comments during oral argument in Frank v. Gaos that questioned the legitimacy of cy pres deals by extending reasoning from the Court’s recent holding in Janus v. AFSCME: According to law360, “Chief Justice John Roberts questioned whether it’s appropriate to hand out funds to charities–which may make political or other speech–that class members have not approved.” As the publication notes, “the scrutiny of these deals indirectly threatens a system that the American Bar Association estimates sends approximately $15.5 million every year to legal aid service organizations.”
- In Ontario, “[a] program that gets lawyers to volunteer their time to help people navigate the civil court system in Toronto and Ottawa is shutting down next month for lack of funding–even though a study shows it saves Ontario’s justice system more than $5 million a year.”
- A former president of the Ontario Bar Association launched a GoFundMe campaign in an attempt to save the program.
- In the Ohio News-Herald, the Managing Director of Ohio State University’s Student Legal Services program discusses the student-legal-services model.
Veterans Services
- In Washington DC, the Department of Veterans Affairs led other government agencies (including Labor, Justice, Defense, and the US Navy), “signed a joint statement aimed at improving access to free legal services for Veterans in need.”
Student Debt
- Citing reports from the Urban Institute and Brookings, Forbes reported that “40% of student loan borrowers may default on their student loans by 2023.”
- AboveTheLaw suggested “law students should join ROTC to help minimize their student debt.”
- In Washington DC, “[DC] Attorney General Racine and a coalition of 20 states called on U.S. Department of Education (ED) Secretary Betsy DeVos to help student borrowers who attended schools that abruptly closed have their loans discharged.”
- In Maine, lawmakers extended the state’s “Educational Opportunity Tax Credit” program, a state policy that offsets student loan payments for recent graduates who stay in the state, “making a similar offer to graduates from outside the state; in effect, trying to lure them to Maine.”
- In Newburgh Heights, Ohio, the mayor has proposed a program which would offer $50,000 in loan forgiveness to people who move to the town, buy a home, and stay for at least 10 years.
- In Washington DC, Bustle.com speculated that the influx of younger congress-members may create an institution more inclined to treat student debt reform as an urgent issue.
- In Milwaukee, WI, the state journal reported the story of a former student loan debtor who reports that the Department of Education began requesting additional payments months after he received official notice his debts had been paid.
Access to Justice – Criminal
- In Michigan, “[t]he Michigan Indigent Defense Commission is preparing to distribute $84 million in grant money to counties in an effort to provide fairer legal representation to those who cannot afford it.” (This disbursement will be the culmination of many months of work by the commission, documented in earlier editions of the digest.)
Criminal Justice Reform
- In jurisdictions across the country, voters elected district attorneys promising to reform their offices:
- In Dallas County, TX, John Creuzot won with a platform of police accountability and bail reform.
- In Bexar County, TX, Joe Gonzales won with a platform of cite-and-release for minor offenses.
- In St. Louis County, MO, Wesley Bell won with a platform of diversion and drug treatment.
- In Boston, MA, Rachel Rollins won with a platform of eliminating cash bail, dismissing minor offenses, hiring a more diverse staff of prosecutors, and collecting data to discover biases among her staff.
Legal Technology
- In Cambridge, MA, Harvard Law School’s Library Innovation Lab launched the CaseLaw Access Project: “a new free website [that] makes available nearly 6.5 million state and federal cases dating from the 1600s to earlier this year.”
- According to Gizmodo, “[i]n a company-wide meeting[], Amazon addressed its relationship with law enforcement agencies, including Immigrations Customs and Enforcement–its first direct response to employee concerns raised in June about the company’s often successful attempts to provide cloud infrastructure and facial recognition software for these government authorities.”
- The Chief Program Officer for the Pew Charitable Trusts wrote for governing.com on how “[t]echnology can help people who don’t have lawyers and make courts more efficient.”
- A new report, “Government Jobs of the Future,” examines how changes in technology might affect the types of roles humans play in the administration of government.
Music Bonus
Dolly Parton, “19th Amendment“