Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! Hope the final days of this decade are treating you all well. Among the many retrospectives this week, you may find the one by Slate interesting, which describes the 2010’s as “The Decade Class Actions Were Gutted.” In the here-and-now, immigration and student loans stories continue to dominate, with a new federal lawsuit accusing the Trump administration of “weaponizing” the immigration court system and the Trump administration announcing its intention to take up student loan debt reform. 

In sunnier news, the right to counsel in eviction just received bipartisan federal attention in the Senate! As usual, these stories and more are in the links below.

See you around,
  Sam

Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Issues

• In Portland OR, “[l]egal service providers filed a federal lawsuit…challenging the ‘weaponization’ of the U.S. immigration court system. The filing is asking a federal judge in Portland to declare that the court system is illegal.”
  • Relatedly the Wall Street Journal ran an article under the headline “Immigration Tent Courts at Border Raise Due-Process Concerns”.
• In Washington DC, Human Rights First released a report on “escalating human rights abuses against asylum seekers returned to Mexico by the Trump administration” alleging that “Trump administration officials continue to knowingly send people who have asked for refugee protection to be kidnapped, exploited, beaten, raped and even killed in Mexico[.]”
• In Milford CT, “[m]embers of Unidad Latina en Accion renewed its call for the ban Thursday after ICE agents attempted to arrest a woman at Superior Court in Milford and demanded identification from a second woman who is in the United States legally.”
  • Relatedly, “[t]he Trump administration is defending U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement’s authority to arrest suspected unauthorized immigrants at Massachusetts state courthouses, telling a Boston federal court…that the agency can make its arrests anywhere.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In Washington DC, “[a] new report prepared by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) for Vermont senator and 2020 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders [finds that] millennials are financial worse off than their parents and may not have the opportunity to do better.” Specifically, “student loan debt is what really differentiates millennial finances from other generations, with millenials more likely to have student debt that exceeds their annual income.” (Full report available here.)
• Also in Washington DC, “[t]he Trump administration is considering ways to help Americans with their student-loan debt, according to senior administration officials, including by refinancing loans at lower interest rates and eliminating debt in bankruptcy.”
• Also also in Washington DC, “Education Secretary Betsy DeVos [] vigorously defended her decision to grant partial or no loan relief to tens of thousands of students who were misled by for-profit colleges, blaming the Obama administration for overpromising debt relief.”
• Again also in Washington DC, “[l]awmakers continue to berate Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Kathy Kraninger over failures related to the oversight of student loan servicers, blaming her for allowing the massive problems in the student loan system to ‘fester.’”
• The Motley Fool reported that “only 44% of millennials with student loans say they completely understood their repayment terms before officially taking them on. And more than 33% of younger borrowers admitted that they didn’t even understand some of the basics associated with student loans — concepts like monthly payments, interest rates, and refinancing.”
• The Urban Institute updated its Debt in America Interactive Map, which allows users to filter specifically for student debt.
• In San Francisco, MeasureOne released its “Private Student Loan Report, an industry leading research report leveraging MeasureOne’s custom analytics services. This 13th edition of the report again affirms that students and families continue to responsibly use private student loans to cover college costs.”
• In New York, Pillar, a personal finance app, “launched a new feature for the holidays called Boost. Boost is the first gifting platform for consumers exclusively dedicated to paying off student loan debt. With Boost by Pillar, a person’s friends and family can make payments towards their loved one’s student loans. Pillar automatically applies these crowdfunded payments directly towards the user’s student loan debt[.]”
• Forbes published a discussion about “the unexpected dangers of paying off student loans with your 401(k) savings”.
• The New York Times published a discussion of “‘income-share agreements,’ [] new financial instrument[s] being promoted by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.”

Legal Technology

• In Florida, an unauthorized practice of law case filed by “traffic-ticket goliath The Ticket Clinic” against the technology service TIKD, which “invite[s motorists] to ‘spend two minutes or less’ taking a photo of [their] ticket, uploading it and paying a fee based on the fine amount[,]” is heading to the Florida Supreme Court: “Justices set arguments for March 4 to help them decide whether the app should be allowed or shut down.”
• In California, “Verogen, a California-based forensic genomics company, acquired GEDmatch, a user-sourced DNA genealogy site. The acquisition suggests that GEDmatch’s transformation from a popular genealogy site to a crime-fighting tool is almost complete. The privacy implications will be enormous, even for those who have never considered taking a consumer genetic test.”
• In St. Louis MO, after studying “the state bars of Arizona and Florida[, which] employ programs that match attorneys with pro bono work via software[,]” the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis has begun developing its “Pro Bono Software Project”.
• OpenGlobalRights argued that “the wild west of online political campaigning threatens to damage our democracies irreparably[; and w]e should be turning to international human rights law to set [] boundaries.”
• In South Dakota, “[a] new online tool that links lower-income South Dakotans and lawyers seems to be much faster than the old way, where legal-aid staff directly took people’s initial information.”

Non-Profit & Government Management & Hiring

• In Washington DC, “under a bill that could become law this week [t]he United States government would be prohibited from asking job applicants about their criminal history at the start of the hiring process.”
• In Seattle WA, “the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington ordered the Department of Defense to turn over documents that it has withheld regarding the Trump-Pence administration’s ban on open military service by transgender people, including its purported justifications for the policy.”
• In Montgomery AL, “employees at Southern Poverty Law Center took the next step in their drive for unionization, successfully voting to join the Washington-Baltimore News Guild in a vote of 142-45. The vote comes after SPLC management declined to voluntarily recognize the union and hired legal counsel that raised fears about pushback against union efforts[.]”
• Phys.org published a study in which “sociology researchers [] analyze[d] 41 predominantly white organizations and their leaders [where t]hese organizations seek to address local, state, and national issues by organizing community members to help influence public policy.” Researchers found that “all else being equal, organizations with a leader of color were more likely to address racial issues internally and when shaping public policy.”

Access to Justice – Civil

• Slate.com published a retrospective on the 2010’s as “The Decade Class Actions Were Gutted.”
• In Washington DC, “[a] bipartisan group of legislators introduced a bill yesterday that would provide aid for renters facing eviction[.] ..In addition to providing funds to avoid eviction, the bill would also improve legal representation for tenants by supporting the expansion of landlord-tenant community courts, increasing the presence of social service representatives for at-risk tenants, and funding the Legal Services Corporation, a public-private partnership that provides legal services to low-income Americans”
• In Toronto ON, Toronto Life published an interview with three local attorneys in which they weighed in on the effect of Premier Ford’s cuts to legal aid.
• In New York NY, “the Mayor’s Office announced an expansion of the Right to Counsel program that provides free legal assistance to New Yorkers fighting eviction. The Right to Counsel program, implemented by a ZIP code by ZIP code approach, will be expanded to five more ZIP codes across the City.”
• In Puerto Rico, “[a] Puerto Rican bar association is challenging the commonwealth’s new pro bono requirements, arguing they violate attorneys’ constitutional rights including due process and equal protection.”
• The Center for American Progress published “5 Principles for Civil Justice Reform”.

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Wyoming, “[t]he Wyoming Legislature’s Joint Judiciary Committee advanced legislation…that would create a new state agency committed to representing children in juvenile court.”
• In Oregon, the Blue Mountain Eagle profiled “the Forensic Justice Project[, a] small Portland-based nonprofit…dedicated to helping defense lawyers understand, find and challenge scientific evidence introduced during trials.”
• In Buffalo NY, “[a]s part of a five-year program, the Legal Aid Bureau of Buffalo will receive enough state aid to increase its staff of defense attorneys from 24 to 50.”
• In Columbiana County OH, “[t]he non-profit organization of attorneys created to provide public defender representation in Columbiana County is getting more funding in 2020, which in the end will reduce the amount of money county commissioners have to spend on the program.”
• In Richland County OH, “[r]epresentatives of the Richland County Bar Association have indicated that the association could act this week to accept a compromise fee schedule for attorneys who represent indigent defendants and end their boycott of those cases, following a promise that the new fees will be reviewed again in mid-2020.”

Criminal Justice Reform

• In Los Angeles CA, “[t]wo candidates on the left are challenging [] the current D.A. One of the challengers [is] a former public defender for both LA County and the federal government.”
  • In a related news story, “[t]wo candidates running to become the district attorney of Los Angeles County are voicing support for decriminalizing possession of all drugs.”
• In Prince Edward Island, “Charlottetown and Summerside [are] asking the province to give police new power to seize property[.]”
• In New York, “[u]nder new bail restrictions [taking effect Jan. 1], judges will no longer be able to weigh the risk to public safety and order defendants jailed with bail unless they are charged with certain violent or sex felony charges. Instead, defendants will be issued appearance tickets in nearly all cases. The legislation also compresses the prosecution’s timeline for sharing information with defendants and their legal counsel.”
• In Philadelphia PA, “the state Superior Court has ruled [that the] Pennsylvania Supreme Court is the only appellate court with the authority to review a Philadelphia trial judge’s controversial decision to replace the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office with a special prosecutor in a probation violation matter.”

The Organization

A Heartland Alliance initiative, the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) provides direct legal services to and advocates for the immigrant, asylum seeker, and refugee communities. The NIJC is dedicated to ensuring these communities have access to justice and human rights protections. NIJC accomplishes its goals through the hard work of dedicated staff and pro bono attorneys in Illinois, Indiana, and Washington, D.C. To date, the NIJC provides legal services to more than 10,000 individuals each year with a success rate of 90 percent in obtaining asylum for its clients.

The Position

The NIJC seeks a staff attorney for its LGBT Immigrant Rights Initiative to provide representation to LGBTQ immigrants and asylum seekers as well as individuals living with HIV/AIDS. The attorney’s primary duties will involve conducting intake interviews, developing and implementing case strategies, representing individuals in hearings and interviews, maintaining professional relationships with relevant government agencies, social service organizations, and community organizations, and much more.

The ideal candidate will be able to remain calm in emotional situations; to communicate well in speech and in writing; to think analytically, creatively, and strategically; and to display passion and optimism in upholding NIJC’s mission.

See the full post on PSJD: https://www.psjd.org/opportunitydetails?OppID=98232

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! Big news this week included revised plans for legal aid funding out of Ontario and a Department of Education decision not to issue full refunds to student debt-holders who were victims of fraud by for-profit colleges. You may also want to give the first article in the immigration section a look. I’d say more, but unfortunately I have to run.

See you around,

  Sam

Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Issues

• BuzzFeed reported that “US Border Officials Are Issuing Fake Court Notices to Keep Out Immigrants Who Have Won Asylum[.]”
• Minnesota Lawyer reported that “[w]hile the government previously targeted immigrants with a criminal history, undocumented immigrants today are being put into removal proceedings even though they have no criminal record in the United States, lawyers say. As a result, a backlog of immigration cases is clogging the docket…across the country. Immigration attorneys say the sheer number of cases has outstripped their ability to help asylum-seekers. The [DOJ] has instructed immigration judges to pick up the pace of their cases.”
• In California, “[a]n immigration nonprofit accused [ICE] in [] federal court [] of preventing detainees from calling its hotline for reporting detention center abuses.” (Nonprofit Quarterly also covered this story.)
• In Utah, “a federal judge…decided.. [that p]eople born in the territory of American Samoa should be recognized as U.S. citizens[.]”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In Washington DC, “Education Secretary Betsy DeVos came under intense scrutiny from congressional Democrats on Thursday for refusing to fully forgive student loans for people who say they have been defrauded by for-profit colleges. DeVos has instead proposed a loan forgiveness plan based on earnings data.”
  • Meanwhile, “Secretary…DeVos…defender her decision to move ahead with partial loan forgiveness for students defrauded by for-profit colleges.”
• In Pennsylvania, the Penn Capital-Star published a profile of the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, titled “How an obscure Pa. state agency became one of the nation’s biggest student loan servicers.”
• The Chronicle of Higher Education profiled the various legal challenges to the Trump administrations’ efforts to “roll back student-loan oversight”.
• The Roosevelt Institute published an analysis concluding that “[t]he [US] Education Department could cancel all U.S. student debt itself–and without any action by Congress[.]”

Legal Tchnology

• In Washington DC, “Attorney General William P. Barr [] signaled that the Justice Department plans to [] explor[e] new legal tools to probe [tech] companies for their privacy abuses and the way they police content online.”
• In Fresno CA, “[t]he Fresno Public Defender’s Office and Uptrust the social justice text messaging communication platform, has [sic] announced a partnership to reduce the number of Failure to Appear (FTA) incidents, arrest warrants and technical violations in the county.”
• In Pennsylvania, “the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled [last month] that it is a violation of the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination to compel a defendant to disclose a password to allow policy access to a “lawfully seized, but encrypted, computer.”
• In New York NY, the city’s “Automated Decision System Task Force” “failed at even completing a first necessary step in its work: getting access to basic information about automated systems already in use, according to task force members and observers.”
  • Meanwhile, AI Now Institute published a shadow report last week that, according to CityLab, “has issued a stark warning cry about ‘the limitations of existing bureaucratic procedures’ to tackle automated decisions.”\
• Fast Company reported on “[a] new chatbot called Mona, designed for Facebook Messenger and Telegram, [that is designed to] get reliable information and services on[to] the same platforms that refugees are already using, and reach them on their own terms with information and services that they [can] use when they actually need it most[.]”

Non-Profit & Government Management & Hiring

• LegalNewsLine published a warning from a partner at ReedSmith that “[c]ity, county and tribal governments’ strategy of hiring private lawyers in opioid and other litigation is causing a ‘misalignment of the values’ between those entities and the traditional primacy of state attorneys general[.]”
• In Dallas-Fort Worth TX, “[u]nion representatives for Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas employees [picketed] the group’s board meeting.”
• In Houston TX, “[a] coalition of advocates, legal groups and a workers’ union [opposed] the district attorney’s upcoming budget request for 58 more prosecutors and questioning her commitment to justice reform.”
• Government Executive analyzed “All the Federal Workforce Provisions Tucked into the Defense Policy Bill[.]”
• In Alberta, the president of the Alberta Crown Attorneys’ Association described the province’s working conditions for prosecutors as “a state of continual crisis[.]”
• In Philadelphia PA, “Philadelphia Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, the 41-year-old pro bono legal services organization serving emerging artists and arts organizations, will return to being an independent nonprofit after more than a decade of being funded by the Chamber of Commerce of Greater Philadelphia’s Arts and Business Council.”
• The Environmental Integrity Project reported that a survey of “annual expenditures and staffing levels from fiscal year 2008 to 2018 for state agencies that protect public health and the environment [revealed that] state eliminated 4,400 positions at agencies responsible for protecting the environment.”
• The Arizona Republic reported that “[e]ven in a lengthy economic expansion, many nonprofits still have trouble providing social services and all the other support needed by the community…[as n]ationally, the pattern has been one of lower donations from middle-class sources.”

Access to Justice – Civil

• In Toronto ON, the province’s “attorney general [] cancell[ed] planned cuts to legal aid funding, but this year’s 30-per-cent budget cut is being made permanent.”
  • However, an opinion columnist at CBC argued that “despite walking back $30 million in planned cuts to Legal Aid Ontario (LAO), [Attorney General] Downey’s legislation is a Trojan horse for his ultimate goal — a cruel gutting of access to justice for the impoverished.”
• In Canada more broadly, the Globe and Mail reported that “[l]egal experts say the justice system is failing Canada’s working poor, many of whom are unable to afford lawyers and end up pleading guilty or representing themselves in court.”
• NextCity Magazine surveyed changes in local government to ask, “Is Tenants’ Right to Counsel on Its Way to Becoming Standard Practice?”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Wyoming, the State Public Defender, who “has warned the Legislature that her office is essentially in crisis due to heavy caseloads and struggles to retain attorneys,” “spoke in favor of Gov. Mark Gordon’s budget proposal for the 2021-22 biennium[.]”
• In Maine, “[t]he Main Legislature’s government watchdog agency [announced] a more thorough investigation into how the state provides legal services for the poor, with a specific focus on the oversight of the program and its procedures.”

Criminal Justice Reform

• In North Carolina, “[t]he State Judicial Council convened…to discuss judicial branch reforms and to push for increased funding…for improved case management, bail reform, and improved drug treatment courts…It was the first time the council had convened in five years[.]”
• In New Hampshire, “[Governor] Sununu appoint[ed a] former public defender to head [the] parole board.” The new Chairman, Jennifer Brooke Sargent, also has experience as a judge and a prosecutor.

The Organization

The New York State Office of the Attorney General (NY OAG) is both the “People’s Lawyer” and the State’s chief legal officer. The NY OAG not only guards the legal rights of New York citizens, but it also advises the State government and defends the State in proceedings. The NY OAG is charged with the statutory and common law powers to protect consumers and investors, charitable donors, the public health and environment, civil rights, and the rights of wage-earners and businesses across the State. The NY OAG also investigates organized crime and Medicaid fraud. The NY OAG is divided into five primary divisions: Appeals and Opinions, State Counsel, Criminal Justice, Economic Justice, and Social Justice. With over 650 Assistant Attorneys General and 1,700 employees, the NY OAG is one of the largest public interest law firms in the country.

The Position

The NY OAG seeks law students to participate in its full-time, paid summer internship program. Interested students may apply to specific divisions and regional offices for consideration. Students will assist in all phases of attorneys’ work, including legal research, court filings, discovery, and trial preparation.

The ideal candidates will have finished their first semesters of law school and demonstrate an interest in public service.

See the full post on PSJD: https://www.psjd.org/opportunitydetails?OppID=97912

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! Hope everyone had a chance to relax over Thanksgiving, because we’ve got a lot of ground to cover in another two-week span of news.

There’s an upcoming law review article arguing there’s a generational gap in the approach public interest lawyers take to their work (that’s the Editor’s Pick this week). Additionally, major changes to immigration law are underway as DOJ published memos limiting service providers’ ability to assist unaccompanied migrant children and the Supreme Court granted cert. on a case in which the federal government appealed a circuit decision striking down a statute criminalizing activity that “encourages or induces an alien come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such [behavior] is or will be in violation of the law” as overbroad in violation of the First Amendment. Meanwhile, Secretary of Education DeVos proposed spinning off the Department of Education’s student loan portfolio into a separate federal agency, the Miami Herald reported a “staggering exodus” of underpaid government attorneys in their city, and the Deputy Attorney General of the United States wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post expressing alarm over the recent trend toward “progressive prosecution” among city District Attorneys.

As always, these stories and more are linked below.

See you around,

Sam

Editor’s Pick: Rise of a New Generation of Legal Advocates

TheCrimeReport.org previewed arguments from a forthcoming law review article that Professors Luz E. Herrer (Texas A&M) and Louise Trubek (U Wisconsin) will publish in the New York University Review of Law and Social Change:

“ ‘Critical lawyers are creating an architecture that leverages their expertise to help clients and communities advance their social justice missions,’ the authors said. Their practices differ from the traditional non-profit public interest firms of the earlier generation that assumed justice would result if there [sic] law and lawyers were accessible.”

Should be an interesting read, when it comes out.

Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Issues

• In Washington DC, “[t]he Supreme Court has agreed to take up United States v. Sineneng-Smith, a case that involves an obscure provision in the immigration laws that imposes liability on anyone who “encourages or induces” someone to reside in the United States knowing that such residence is in violation of the law. Broadly written, this provision and the ultimate decision by the Supreme Court could have a devastating impact on the legal advocates community, not just sending a chill but grinding to a halt most of the legal work [they] do.” (More on this case from ScotusBlog.)
• Also in Washington DC, “[a] pair of recent policy memos issued by the U.S. Department of Justice places more limits on legal service providers offering assistance to unaccompanied migrant children[.]”
• Also also in Washington DC, “[a] new U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services policy will increase the price of citizenship applications by 83%. DACA renewals are also increasing to almost $800.”
• Again also in Washington DC, “U.S. Attorney William Bar denounced Oregon’s new rule that federal immigration agents must have warrants to make arrests on courthouse properties.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In Washington DC, “Education Secretary Betsy DeVos…said the government’s $1.5 trillion student loan portfolio should be someone else’s problem[:] …Ms. DeVos said it should be spun off into its own federal agency.” The DC bureau chief of The Intercept opined that “[t]his very much appears to be a [] scheme to block the next president from unilaterally forgiving federal student debt.”
• Also in Washington DC, “Senator [Rand] Paul introduced the Higher Education Loan Payment and Enhanced Retirement (HELPER) Act. His bill would allow Americans to take up to $5,250 annually from a 401(k) or IRA to pay their student loans, tax and penalty free.” (Here’s Sen. Paul’s press release and the text of the bill.)
• Also also in Washington DC, “[l]awmakers are calling for an investigation into a troubled student loan discharge program one day after an NPR report revealed that the program–meant to erase the student debts of borrowers with significant, permanent disabilities–wasn’t helping the vast majority of those who are eligible.”
• Again also in Washington DC, “consumer advocates filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, accusing these government agencies of failing to protect student loan borrowers.” (Here’s the complaint.)
  • Meanwhile, “Attorney General Phil Weiser has joined 20 other states in filing a brief in a federal case in support of public servants who were promised student loan debt forgiveness in exchange for 10 years of public service, but were denied that relief due to the U.S. Department of Education’s mismanagement of the program.” (See Weingarten et al. v. DeVos et al.)
• In Iowa, “Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren suggest[ed] her plan to eliminate student loan debt may address population losses in rural Iowa…’Folks who’ve got to meet that nut every single month are a lot more likely to head out to the two coasts. I hear this from families all over Iowa.’ ”
• The Wall Street Journal analyzed data recently released by the U.S. Department of Education to observe that “[t]he vast majority of law-school graduates carry debt loads that exceed their initial earnings[.]”

2020 Census

• In the United States, “[t]ribes, voting activists, urban American Indian organizations and attorneys are collaborating closely with the federal government as the 2020 census looms and taking the wheel on outreach efforts to make sure Native Americans don’t lose out on federal funding or the political benefits of an accurate count.”
  • Meanwhile, “[a] new lawsuit in New York accuses the Trump administration of starving the U.S. Census Bureau of necessary funding, likely causing an undercounting in the 2020 census of racial and ethnic minorities and depriving them of crucial federal funds. In a complaint on Tuesday, the Brooklyn-based nonprofit Center for Popular Democracy Action and the city of Newburgh, New York said the government arbitrarily and capriciously slashed resources to count blacks, Hispanics, immigrants, the homeless and other members of “hard-to-count” communities.”

International Law

• In Washington DC, “[t]he U.S. has revoked the visa of the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, weeks after warning it would take such an action against anyone from the ICC who is investigating allegations that U.S. personnel might have committed war crimes in Afghanistan.”

Legal Technology

• In Washington State, “Bellingham-based lawyer Ziad Youssef…has seen hundreds of people sign up for his company’s free online service, Busted911.com. If you’re a member and you’re arrested and taken to a local jail, you’ll receive a free call from a lawyer and your emergency contacts will be notified…If your name appears on a jail roster, a criminal defense lawyer is immediately notified to contact you and help you get released.”
• In Ontario, “a report by former Attorney General Chris Bentley [argued that b]ecause lawyers have a ‘monopoly’ on giving legal advice, consumers may be depreived of the faster, simpler and cheaper options potentially available via direct to consumer automated legal tools.”
• Law.com profiled the “New York City and Philadelphia[] public defender offices[, which] started rolling out digital forensic labs this year. The two cities are among the very few in the U.S. to find the budget and expertise for such an endeavor.”
  • Meanwhile, “New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has appointed a rising star in the field of law-enforcement technology to reboot the agency that oversees the city’s internet services and telecommunications[.]”

Non-Profit & Government Management & Hiring

• In Washington DC, “[l]awmakers…have just a few weeks to agree on a budget deal to keep the federal government open [and n]onprofits across the nation..are dreading another government shutdown especially after the last one left some organizations still struggling today.”
• In Miami FL, the Miami Herald reported “a staggering exodus over the past year among the ranks of prosecutors and state-funded defense lawyers in Miami-Dade County. With the economy humming, private law firms have expanded hiring attorneys prized for the invaluable trial experience gained in the grind that is Miami-Dade’s criminal courthouse…Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle and Public Defender Carlos Martinez will travel to Tallahassee next week to lobby the Legislature for a significant pay increase for their lawyers.”
• In San Joaquin County CA, “[t]he…Office of the Public Defender has been sued by a former employee alleging repeated sexual harassment, failure by management to adequately address her complaints, retaliation, and fear for her safety at work even after some of her allegations were substantiated by an independent investigation.”
• In Richmond VA, “[p]ublic defenders who represent nearly half of the people facing criminal charges in Richmond’s court system … [are] campaigning to get City Hall to provide the same kind of taxpayer-funded salary supplement that the city has long granted the attorneys who prosecute the alleged offenders and the Richmond Sheriff’s Office that jails those who are convicted.”
• In Philadelphia PA, “[a] majority of the attorneys at the Defender Association of Philadelphia have announced their intent to unionize in partnership with the United Automobile Workers, a manufacturing workers union that also represents legal aid groups.”
• In Manitoba, “defense attorneys are considering job action if the province doesn’t increase the amount it pays for legal aid.”
• In Alberta, “[t]he government of Alberta announced that it is doubling the number of Crown articling students, ensuring homegrown talent stays in Alberta.”
  • Meanwhile, “Alberta Justice is preparing to lay off 90 civil-law lawyers as its legal services division struggles to absorb a $20-million budget cut[.]”
• The Electronic Frontier Foundation argued that “[t]he .ORG top-level domain and all of the nonprofit organizations that depend on it are at risk if a private equity firm is allowed to buy control of it….[because] it would give Ethos Capital the power to censor the speech of nonprofit organizations (NGOs) to advance commercial interests, and to extract ever-growing monopoly rents from those same nonprofits.”

Access to Justice – Civil

• In Calgary AB, “[l]egal experts say the justice system is failing Canada’s working poor, many of whom are unable to afford lawyers and end up pleading guilty or representing themselves in court.”
• In California, “[a]…state bar task force crafting proposals to overhaul regulation of the state’s legal marketplace has drawn criticism from attorneys who believe some of its members evaluating whether to open up the legal industry to nonlawyer ownership and greater technology-driven legal services have conflicts of interest.”
• In San Antonio TX, after “the [] City Council earmarked $100,000 for a ‘Right to Counsel’ pilot program to offer legal help for renters facing evictions[, t]he city is in the midst of negotiating with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid to provide the services.”
• In New York, New York Attorney General Letitia A. James argued that “[p]roposals to streamline New York state’s sprawling and cumbersome court system are leaving out an often overlooked but critical part of the system: the state’s more than 1,250 randomly operated and loosely regulated town and village courts.”
• In Ontario, the Law Society of Ontario recently approved a budget “which reduced fees for lawyers and paralegals [but which] Nima Hojjati, the chair of the law society’s Equity Advisory Group, [argued] was a ‘missed opportunity’ to assist access to justice and that the profession should have been consulted.”
  • • Relatedly, “[a]n Ottawa defence lawyer sa[id] some the city’s most vulnerable people are feeling the effects of a court system that’s been “gutted” by a massive cut to Legal Aid Ontario’s [LAO] finances.”
• In Texas, “New Texas Lawbook data shows that even as corporate law firms in Texas earn record profits, they have not increased the amount of pro bono legal work they do on behalf of the poor and disadvantaged. Many law firms, in fact, are doing less pro bono work than they were just a few years ago. Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht estimated that between 20 and 30 percent of all Texans who seek help from legal aid offices in Texas are turned away because of staff shortages. “The situation is dire,” Hecht said. The state’s biggest and most successful firms, however, are not stepping up to ease the shortage.”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Austin TX, Community Impact published an update on ongoing work to create a public defender’s office for Travis County, authorized last August: “[w]hen the grant expires in 2024, Travis County will have a 67-person staff—about two-thirds attorneys—taking on 30% of indigent cases. The remainder will continue to be appointed private attorneys.”
• In Missouri, “state legislators say the state’s broken public defender system needs to be properly funded, but caution that budgetary and political concerns could get in the way.”
• In Utah County UT, “public defenders have taken on an average of 367 cases per attorney this year [while] public defenders in Salt Lake County handle between 140 and 160 caseloads annually [and] although annual funding has increased the county has not put forward money to hire new attorneys in nearly a dozen years.”
• In Spalding County GA, the “Board of Commissioners has once again tabled the indigent defense contract for State and Juvenile courts[.]”

Criminal Justice Reform

• In Philadelphia PA, “[District Attorney Larry Krasner‘s office] has quietly launched an interim version of an unprecedented ‘diversion’ program, in which prosecutors simply withdraw charges for those who show proof they’re in drug treatment.”
• The Center of Media Crime and Justice at John Jay College’s Crime Report covered a recent argument by Prof. Jeffrey Bellin (William & Mary) that “[t]he wave of so-called progressive prosecutors elected around the nation signals a return to the ‘checks and balances’ originally envisioned in the U.S. justice system[.]”
• The New York Times published a profile of “[a]lmost 60 local prosecutors across the country [who] have created special units…to review questionable convictions…tracking an increase in reform-minded prosecutors winning election in mid-size and large cities.”
  • Meanwhile, Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen argued in the Washington Post against “[a] small but troubling number of state and local prosecutors are vowing that they will not enforce entire categories of core criminal offenses, as part of a misguided experiment in “social justice reform.” A prosecutor has a vital role: to enforce the law fairly and keep the public safe. These purportedly progressive district attorneys, however, are shirking that duty in favor of unfounded decriminalization policies they claim are necessary to fix a “broken” system.”
  • Also meanwhile, the Washington Examiner argued that if you “strip away the “progressive” branding of the policies and the left-leaning personalities advocating on their behalf, and most of these initiatives are not intrinsically left-wing. Indeed, some even look downright [fiscally] conservative.”
• In Orange County CA, “[a] rapidly growing evidence scandal has swept the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and threatens to alter the criminal justice landscape[:] …Thousands of criminal cases…are potentially tainted after…internal reports revealing that hundreds of sheriff’s deputies sat on evidence and dozens of others lied about filing it.”
• In Queens NY, “[t]he Queens District Attorney’s Office reseased its list of cops who would be an issue on the witness stand[]–despite previously denying it had any lineup of ‘bad cops’[.]”

The Organization

Community Legal Services (CLS) is a civil legal aid organization dedicated to providing free legal assistance to low-income Philadelphians. CLS staff work in legal areas of debt and consumer protection, housing, family issues, employment, public benefits, criminal records, and elder issues. CLS services extend not only to individual representation and counseling, but also class action litigation, community education, and social services.

The Position

Community Legal Services seeks a staff attorney to aid low-income immigrant and Limited English Proficient communities. This position allows the attorney to become an expert in Language Access law through representation of clients and political advocacy. The attorney will be expected to create and implement Language Access Policies and Plans at public agencies, governments, and courts. The attorney will also have the opportunity to work in CLS’s various legal units to aid in the representation of immigrants and Limited English Proficient persons.

The ideal candidate will have experience in litigation, policy, and immigration. The ideal candidate will also have a passion for working with and representing low-income clients, particularly those who are Limited English Proficient or immigrants.

See the full post on PSJD: https://www.psjd.org/opportunitydetails?OppID=97932