PSJD Public Interest News Digest – April 19, 2019
Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives
Hello there, interested public! I’m still settling in back at NALP’s offices after last week’s Annual Education Conference in San Diego, but the news continues, so here’s the scoop. Major stories this week include a new roadmap for local governments interested in impact litigation out of San Francisco and Yale, a huge proposed cut to Ontario Legal Aid that has left many service providers scrambling, and a strike by legal aid attorneys in New York City.
Oh, and the Washington Post reported that “OPM [Office of Personnel Management employees were briefed” on Trump Administration plans “in the final stages of review” to “pull[ the agency] apart and [divide] its functions…among three other departments.” So there’s that as well.
For all this and more, read on.
See you around,
Sam
Noteworthy Miscellany
Immigration, Refugee, and Citizenship Issues
- In Ontario, “[t]he Progressive Conservative government is slashing the budget of Legal Aid Ontario, including eliminating funding for refugee and immigration law services–a move lawyers with the organization call a ‘horrific’ decimation.“
- In New York, “[t]he New York State Office of Court Administration issued a new directive…that prevents [ICE] agents from making arrests inside courthouses without a judicial warrant or judicial order[.]“
- In California, “[t]he Ninth Circuit…temporarily lifted a California federal court’s [earlier] order that…halted the Trump administration’s policy of pushing asylum-seekers crossing the southwestern border back into Mexico.“
- In Washington DC, “President Donald Trump [said] he is strongly considering releasing ‘Illegal Immigrants’ into Democratic strongholds to punish congressional foes for inaction on the border–just hours after White House and Homeland Security officials insisted the idea had been rejected as fast as it had been proposed.“
- In Washington State, the Northwest Immigrants Rights Project “has agreed to pause its lawsuit challenging a government rule that punishes attorneys who offer limited representation to foreign citizens without formally appearing before the immigration court.” [The case is NWIRP v. Barr]
Student Debt & Loans
- JD Supra did a roundup of cases “across the country [in which] servicers are facing off against states and borrowers over the extent to which federal laws preempt state regulation of federal student loan servicers.“
- In Milwaukee WI, “Gov. Tony Evers’ budget proposal includes setting aside $50,000 to student developing a state authority to refinance student loans.“
- In Texas, “[t]he Texas Senate passed a bill…that would create a student loan repayment program for Texas peace offices [sic] who have served at least four consecutive years and commit to a career in law enforcement.“
- The Employee Benefit Research Institute reported that “[a] survey of 250 employers last year found that 32.4 percent offered or were planning to offer assistance programs in areas such as student loan debt consolidation, loan refinancing and student loan repayment subsidies[.] Among employers in this group, the most cited reason for offering help was to improve employee retention[.]“
- In related news, “Nashville-based fintech company Advance Financial has introduced a student loan repayment program in which the company will contribute up to $12,000 over the course of six years toward repayment of any employee’s student loans.“
- In other related news, Plan Sponsor profiled the various employer-sponsored repayment models that have become available recently.
- 401k Specialist Magazine reported that “[t]he latest Merrill Lynch/Age Wage study finds early adults[‘]…staggering levels [of student debt] have led to what the authors call ‘an evolved definition of financial success;’ 60% of early adults define financial success as being debt-free[.]“
- In Washington DC, “[t]he Department of Defense announced a change in policy this week that will allow the agency to work more closely with the Department of Education to make sure eligible service members get the student loan benefits they’re entitled to under law.” [Formal notice here.]
- The Department of Education issued a memo of “Recommendations [on] What Postsecondary Institutions Should Work to Avoid When Issuing Financial Aid Offers.“
- The Wall Street Journal reported that “[s]tudents of [historically black colleges and universities] are leaving with disproportionately high loans compared with their peers at other schools[.]“
Nonprofit Management & Hiring
- On the latest edition of the ABA Journal‘s “Legal Rebels” podcast, Luz Herrera of Texas A&M spoke about “how a low-bono practice can enable a lawyer to balance the desire to help people with making a living.”
- In North Carolina, the Governor signed Executive Order No. 93, “directing state government agencies to ban the use of salary history in the hiring process to address the gender pay gap between men and woman [sic].”
Legal Technology
- In Virginia, “[t]he legal community…is using a new online tool to better connect volunteer lawyers with low income people who need their help[:]” JusticeServer.org.
- In Washington State, “Microsoft Corp…rejected a California law enforcement agency’s request to install facial recognition technology in officers’ cars and body cameras due to human rights concerns[.]“
Access to Justice – Civil
- In Ontario, the Ontario Network of Injured Workers Groups (ONIWG) warned that “cuts to [] legal aid services…of this magnitude will be devastating to some of the most vulnerable people in Ontario.” (For more news about these legal aid cuts in Ontario’s proposed budget, see the Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Issues section, above.)
- In Washington DC, “panelists participating in the Legal Services Corp.’s Forum on Increasing Access to Justice described a massive disparity between the number of people facing evictions or home foreclosures across the U.S….But [a panelist] voiced optimism that growing bipartisan support for justice reform generally would bolster more ‘non-traditional’ housing and eviction intiatives[.]“
- In New York NY, “the legal aid attorneys and staff of CAMBA Legal Services (CLS) launched an indefinite strike. The workers of CLS won their union in May of 2018[.]“
- In New York NY, “advocates say that most low-income tenants still do not know they are entitled to a lawyer during eviction cases.” The city’s two-year-old right-to-counsel law “is currently being rolled out by zipcode [with] [c]itywide implementation [] expected by 2022.”
- In New York NY, “advocates say that most low-income tenants still do not know they are entitled to a lawyer during eviction cases.” The city’s two-year-old right-to-counsel law “is currently being rolled out by zipcode [with] [c]itywide implementation [] expected by 2022.”
Access to Justice – Criminal
- The Indiana Lawyer published a timeline of progress on the “Road to reform” as the state government has worked to improve its indigent defense system following a highly critical report from the Sixth Amendment Center in 2016.
- In Victoria County TX, the county is considering implementing a public defender program, “[r]ather than appointing individual lawyers and paying them one by one[.]“
- In Luzerne County PA, “the American Civil Liberties Union is ending a seven-year lawsuit over a lack of funding for public defense…because the quality of indigent defense in the county has improved significantly since 2012.“
Criminal Justice Reform
- In Dallas TX, “[o]ne of Texas’ largest police unions called…for the removal of Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot, who has announced plans not to prosecute certain low-level crimes.“
- In Brooklyn NY, “[i]n a memo this month to the state’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision…[District Attorney] Gonzalez announced that his office will ‘case our previous practice of ordinarily opposing parole[, instead] consent[ing] to parole at the initial hearing for all those who entered into plea agreements–as people do in 90 percent of cases–once they have completed their minimum sentence[.]“
- In Ferguson MO, Mother Jones profiled the work of District Attorney Wesley Bell, opining that “Bell has a particularly fine line to walk in his new position. As a prosecutor in a birthplace of the Black Lives Matter movement, he’s balancing significant pressure from the activists who helped elect him while he works within the system that inspired their anger in the first place.“
- In Chicago IL, “Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said she is still on track to begin wiping clean thousands of minor cannabis convictions in the coming months[.]“