Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hi Interested Public,

Welcome to May. The first of the month saw widespread protests by members of the legal profession, set to coincide with “Law Day”. In an Executive Order, President Trump directed AG Bondi to secure “private-sector pro bono assistance” for law enforcement officers subjected to litigation “for actions taken during the performance of their official duties to enforce the law.” At the Department of Justice, dramatic changes in government priorities have led to significant staff turnover, while elsewhere the agency indicated it intends to itself assume responsibility for advising families separated at the border during the first Trump administration. Federal workers subject to reductions in force are discovering that their health benefits may have been affected even during periods when they were employed. The Department of Government Efficiency turned its attention to AmeriCorps, cutting off a wide variety of grants including (apparently) some grants for legal services; multiple states have sued in response. In Congress, recently-revealed legislation does not propose to cut PSLF entirely. In civil society, the Wall St. Journal reported that a private collective of prominent university leaders are discussing how to assert their institutions’ independence from the Trump Administration.

As always, these stories and more are in the links below.

Solidarity,

Sam

Editor’s Choice(s)

• Civil rights lawyers leave en masse as Justice Dept. mission shifts (Washington Post; 28 Apr 2025)

  “The division changed mission statements across its sections to focus less on racial discrimination and more on fighting diversity initiatives. And department officials reassigned more than a dozen career staffers — including section chiefs overseeing police brutality, disability and voting rights cases — to areas outside their legal expertise…The division had about 380 attorneys when Trump began his second term in the White House. Approximately half have left or said they will leave, according to people familiar with the division…Dhillon, in her appearance on Beck’s podcast, acknowledged that recent departures had — for the moment — affected the resources her division could bring to bear on its newly established priorities. “We’re going to run out of attorneys to work on these things at some point,” she quipped. Still, she added, the civil rights division was looking to hire new lawyers. “I care that they’re willing to take direction and zealously enforce the civil rights of the United States, according to their [sic] priorities of the president,” Dhillon said.”

• In Suits and Ties, Lawyers Protest Trump’s Attacks on the Legal System (New York Times; 1 May 2025)

  “In interviews, attendees in New York pointed to actions such as Mr. Trump’s targeting of law firms, wrongful deportations and the arrest of a Wisconsin judge on charges of obstructing immigration enforcement.”

  • Attacks on Judges Undermine Democracy, Warns Justice Jackson (New York Times; 1 May 2025)

    “ Across the nation, judges are facing increased threats of not only physical violence, but also professional retaliation just for doing our jobs,” said Justice Jackson, speaking at a conference for judges held in Puerto Rico. “And the attacks are not random. They seem designed to intimidate those of us who serve in this critical capacity.”

Federal RIFs

• Fired, rehired, and fired again: Some federal workers find they’re suddenly uninsured (NPR; 25 Apr 2025)

  “An attorney recruited to the Commerce Department’s CHIPS for America program in 2023, Waterfield had felt she was part of something monumental, something that would move the country forward: rebuilding America’s semiconductor industry. Instead, nearly two months after being fired in the Trump administration’s purge of newer — or “probationary” — federal employees, Waterfield is enmeshed in a bureaucratic mess over her health care coverage. It’s a mess that’s left her fearing her entire family may now be uninsured.”

• Federal employees removed by Trump would have easier pathway back to government service under Democratic bill (Government Executive; 1 May 2025)

Federal Funding Cuts

• Trump Administration Must Keep Funding Lawyers for Migrant Children, Judge Orders (Wall St. Journal; 29 Apr 2025)

  “The preliminary injunction from Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin allows the funding for legal representation for minor children to continue while the case proceeds.”

  • Agencies Appeal Order That Requires Legal Aid for Immigrant Kids (Bloomberg Law; 1 May 2025)

    • Trump administration withholding $436.87 billion in approved spending, top Democrats say (Reuters; 29 Apr 2025)

      “U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has so far withheld at least $436.87 billion of congressionally approved funding, the top Democrats on the U.S. Congress’ appropriation committees said on Tuesday…These findings will be publicly posted in a tracker tallying the minimum the committees believe the administration is freezing or fighting in court to block, a committee aide said.”

      • TRACKER: 100 Days In, Trump Blocks At Least $430 Billion Dollars in Funding Owed to American People (Appropriations Committee Democrats; 29 Apr 2025)

    • States Sue After AmeriCorps Cuts Leave Communities Scrambling (New York Times; 29 Apr 2025)

      “Many grants funded under a decades-old anti-poverty program, Volunteers in Service to America, or VISTA, were also cut, the nonprofit said, including all but two that run through the states.”

      [Ed. Note: The complaint in the suit details which grants have been cut, including legal services grants such as the “AmeriCorps Holistic Advocate Program”]

    • California AG Rob Bonta Urges Congress to Fund Legal Services Corporation (Davis Vanguard; 1 May 2025)

      “a bipartisan coalition of 40 attorneys general [urged] Congressional leaders to fully fund the Legal Services Corporation (LSC), according to a recent press release.”

    • DOJ Proposes Giving Legal Advice to Immigrants in Cases It Oversees (NPR; 1 May 2025)

      “After abruptly declining to renew a contract with a nonprofit to provide court-ordered legal assistance to families separated at the border under the first Trump administration, the U.S. Department of Justice has proposed providing that service itself. Experts worry that’s a conflict of interest that could put those families at risk of deportation and being separated again.”

Civil Society

• Elite Universities Form Private Collective to Resist Trump Administration (Wall St. Journal; 28 Apr 2025)

  “Leaders of some of the nation’s most prestigious universities have assembled a private collective to counter the Trump administration’s attacks on research funding and academic independence across higher education, according to people familiar with the effort. The informal group currently includes about 10 schools, including Ivies and leading private research universities, mostly in blue states. Strategy discussions gained momentum after the administration’s recent list of demands for sweeping cultural change at Harvard, viewed by many universities as an assault on independence.”

• Harvard University renames its DEI office as its battle with the Trump administration expands to more fronts (CNN; 29 Apr 2025)

  “Hours after Harvard University faced the Trump administration in court for the first time in its push to restore more than $2 billion in blocked federal funding, the nation’s oldest and wealthiest college made a symbolic bow to White House demands, renaming its diversity, equity and inclusion office.”

• Executive Order Targets Undocumented Students’ In-State Tuition (Inside Higher Ed; 2 May 2025)

• Trump executive order seeks law firms to defend police officers for free (Reuters; 29 Apr 2025)

  “President Donald Trump has directed the U.S. Justice Department to mobilize law firms to defend police officers unjustly accused of misconduct free of charge, marking the latest effort to steer the work of private lawyers to his administration’s ends.”

• Silicon Valley lawmaker pushes to open CSU’s first public law school at San Jose State (1 May 2025)

  “Cortese said creating the public law school would lower barriers to entry, as cost and location can turn people away from entering careers in public service — including first generation students and other underrepresented demographics.”

Student Debt & Other Student Concerns

• Republicans Will Cut Off Student Loan Forgiveness For Medical Residents Under New Plan (Forbes; 1 May 2025)

  “The good news for PSLF borrowers is that the House Republican draft reconciliation bill would not make other significant changes to the program, such as by capping loan forgiveness or cutting off borrowers at certain income levels. Some advocates had been concerned that additional restrictions on student loan forgiveness under the program would be included in the GOP bill. But that’s not the end of the story. This week, the Department of Education held its first public hearing as part of negotiated rulemaking, a lengthy process that allows the department to update, change, or repeal regulations governing federal student loan programs. And PSLF is explicitly a topic for negotiated rulemaking this year. The department is considering enacting new rules to implement President Donald Trump’s executive order in March that would cut off student loan forgiveness eligibility under PSLF for organizations that engage in certain “illegal” activities.”

• Government move on student loans could see housing affordability take another hit (Mortgage Professional America Magazine; 1 May 2025)

• Feds reveal how immigration squad targeted thousands of foreign students (Politico; 29 Apr 2025)

  “Beginning in March, as many as 20 Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, aided by contractors, ran 1.3 million names of foreign students through a federal database that tracks criminal histories, missing persons and other brushes with the law…But many of those hits flagged students who had minor interactions with police — arrests for reckless driving, DUIs and misdemeanors, with charges often dropped or never brought at all — far short of the legal standard required to revoke a student’s legal ability to study in the U.S. Nevertheless, ICE officials used that data to “terminate” the students’ records in an online database schools and ICE use to track student visa holders in the U.S. Those terminations led schools to bar students from attending classes — some just weeks from graduation — and warn that they could be at risk of immediate deportation.”

Conflicts Over Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility

• Grants tie Trump’s anti-DEI order to election security money (Washington Post; 29 Apr 2025)

  “Federal election officials are suggesting states must pledge to follow President Donald Trump’s directive curbing diversity, equity and inclusion programs as a condition for receiving $15 million in election security funding. The new requirement for the grants has sent Democratic secretaries of state around the nation scrambling to assess the financial, legal and operational implications of accepting the money from the independent, bipartisan U.S. Election Assistance Commission. The dispute is complicated by the vagueness of the revised federal grant agreement, which some state officials fear could be turned against them. The grant’s terms tell states they must promise to follow federal antidiscrimination laws but cite an executive order from Trump on DEI that Democrats oppose.”

• [Ed Note: I also refer readers out to NALP’s Weekly Industry News Digest, which has separate coverage of this topic]