PSJD Public Interest News Digest – February 9, 2018
Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives
Hello there, interested public! There are a few major stories this week, spread out across topics. Look for big changes to federal hiring on the horizon and important new research affecting the Immigration debate and the Student Loan debate. Before we get to that, though, I have another appeal to make:
- NALP has launched the 2018 Public Service Attorney Salary Survey. For the first time since 2014, we are studying salaries and benefits for attorneys at public service organizations across the county. To ensure that our eventual report (to be released later this year) is as useful as possible, I hope that everyone will help me by sharing the survey link (www.psjd.org/salarysurvey) with their networks and encouraging as many organizations as possible to contribute to this study. We are already hearing back from participating organizations eager to learn the results, so hopefully you would be doing your contacts a favor to pass this along. (Here are some more details about this study, from the last time we published this report.)
Until next week,
Sam
Federal Hiring
- OMB officials speaking anonymously revealed to reporters that the Trump Administration’s budget will include “the most ambitious proposal to overhaul the civil service in 40 years.“
DACA/Immigration
- The Texas Civil Rights project released a report providing the first detailed look at the effect of deportation policies on veterans. The report is titled “Land of the Free, No Home to the Brave: A Report on the Social, Economic, and Moral Cost of Deporting Veterans.“
- Public defenders held an impromptu protest after ICE agents detained an undocumented immigrant outside Bronx Criminal Court.
Disaster Legal Aid
- Pepperdine School of Law created a Disaster Relief Clinic to assist individuals affected by wildfires in California and hurricanes in Texas.
Legal Technology
- In Syracuse, NY, New York State has re-designated Syracuse University’s College of Law as a New York State Science and Technology Law Center.
Student Loans
- The CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia gave a speech on higher education in which he called student loan debt a “real threat” to American households.
- The Levy Institute of Bard college released a paper suggesting that universal student debt amnesty is the best way to tackle the student debt crisis.
- The Department of Education’s Office of the Inspector General released a report on the costs of income-driven repayment plans and loan forgiveness programs. Journalism covering the report stated that “participation in income-driven repayment and loan forgiveness programs have grown in recent years, and the government is expected to lend more money than borrowers repay.” Apparently, this trend may have knock-on implications for for viability of the Affordable Care Act.
- Meanwhile, fewer than 1,000 of the 7,500 people who have applied for Public Service Loan forgiveness thus far are expected to qualify.
Access to Education
- In New York, state legislators have proposed a bill to reverse a “Ban the Box” initiative enacted in 2016 by the State University of New York Board of Trustees. The bill “would require SUNY schools to include ‘a question on whether the applicant has been convicted of any violent felony offense’ on their applications.“
- At Harvard Law, professors held a public debate over the law school’s alleged disconnect with public interest efforts. (A student-authored report, “Our Bicentennial Crisis,” sparked the debate last fall.)
Access to Justice – Criminal
Access to Justice – Civil
- In Cleveland, Ohio, the Cleveland Tenants Organization closed down after 40 years of efforts on behalf of tenants in the city. The organization served thousands from the city and its suburbs annually.
- Legal aid organizations have begun to feel the pain of cuts in funding from United Way after a budget shortfall at the funder last Spring. Last week, Prairie State Legal Services (Bloomington, IN) discussed the effect of cuts on their operations.