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’[.]”