PSJD Public Interest News Digest – August 7, 2020
Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives
Interested public. Another behemoth digest this week. Major stories include the growing chorus of concern about a coming wave of evictions, weighty deliberations at the ABA (see Editor’s Choices).
Take care of one another,
Sam
Editor’s Choice(s)
- In the United States, over 100 deans of law schools wrote to the Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, arguing that “[p]reparing law students to be lawyers requires that they should be educated with respect to bias, cultural awareness, and anti-racism,” and “collectively urg[ing] the Council to charge the Standards Review Subcommittee to study and consider enacting a requirement that every law school must provide training and education of its students with regard to bias, cultural awareness, and anti-racist practices.”
- In Chicago IL, “[a] resolution urging state courts of last resort to cancel in-person bar exams during the COVID-19 pandemic, and develop alternate plans to license candidates, will be considered by the ABA House of Delegates assembly.”
COVID-19 and Remote Legal Practice
- In Canada, an opinion piece in Canadian Lawyer argued that “[w]ith less money to spend, individuals may choose to forgo hiring lawyers and do their own legal work; To this end, lawyers should be open to alternatives to charging by the hour. Creating a fee arrangement that works for the client can provide more certainty that you will be paid for your work.”
- In Texas, “[r]emote appearances and filing through email are two of the technology improvements that COVID-19 has forced on the immigration courts, according to immigration lawyers and a judge.”
- In Louisiana, “[m]ore unexpected delays have brought on continuances to trials that were scheduled to take place over the past three weeks.”
- In Missoula County MT, “[a]ttorneys in Missoula’s state public defender’s office issued a letter to the local judiciary [] urging judges to cease in-person hearings until Missoula County is no longer designated a hot spot and confirmed COVID-19 cases have made a steady decline.”
Rule of Law
- In Hawaii, “[a]ttorneys argued before the Hawaii Supreme Court [] over how much lawmakers should allow the public to weigh in on legislation as laws are being drafted and voted on[, ] considering a lawsuit challenging the Legislature’s practice of stripping bills of their original content and substituting something entirely different.”
- In Washington DC, “[t]he leadership of the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Tuesday introduced a pair of bills aimed at expanding whistleblower protections for federal employees and preventing agencies from retaliating against feds who file information requests through transparency laws.”
- Also in Washington DC, “[P]resident Donald Trump [] placed Anthony Tata into a key Pentagon position after the Senate Armed Services Committee effectively doomed his nomination for a related role, side-stepping Congress and exploiting a legal loophole that may allow Tata to take the top job without Senate confirmation at all.”
- Also also in Washington DC, “President Donald Trump on Monday erroneously claimed that he had the authority to issue an executive order to restrict the growing number of states that are moving towards universal mail-in voting for the 2020 election due to the ongoing pandemic. Legal experts were quick to point-out that any such order would undoubtedly be unconstitutional, as presidential elections are run by individual states.”
- In Manhattan NY, “[the] district attorney’s office suggested that President Donald Trump and his business were under investigation over bank and insurance fraud, according to court documents filed Monday. The documents — filed as part of an ongoing legal battle between District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. and Trump over Trump’s tax returns — mention ‘public reports of possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization.’“
Legal Technology
- In New York NY, “[t]he Legal Aid Society, the City’s largest provider of criminal defense and civil legal services, announced today that it is partnering with Uptrust, the social justice communication platform, to reduce the number of Failure to Appear (FTA) incidents, arrest warrants, and pre-trial technical violations in New York City. The partnership will apply Uptrust’s innovative and unique two-way communication technology to reduce jail populations and save millions of taxpayer dollars.”
- In Forbes, a contributor argued that “rather than pass a generally applicable privacy statute [Congress] should explore the possibility that strong privacy rules might be one policy response to the lack of competitive alternatives in markets controlled by the dominant technology companies.”
- In Washington DC, “[a] federal appeals court [] upheld a district court’s finding that the federal judiciary had improperly covered certain expenses with PACER fees in a class action lawsuit challenging the user fees charged for access to court records.”
- In California, “[a] proposal to bolster the [California Consumer Privacy Act] has received enough signatures to qualify for November’s general election ballot.”
- In Chicago IL, “[t]he SAND Lab at University of Chicago has developed Fawkes1, an algorithm and software tool (running locally on your computer) that gives individuals the ability to limit how their own images can be used to track them. At a high level, Fawkes takes your personal images and makes tiny, pixel-level changes that are invisible to the human eye, in a process we call image cloaking. You can then use these “cloaked” photos as you normally would, sharing them on social media, sending them to friends, printing them or displaying them on digital devices, [etc.].”
- In the United States, “[p]rotests over racial inequality are exposing tensions between law enforcement access to digital data and citizen rights against unwarranted searches, which may force courts to grapple with how to protect people’s privacy.”
Non-Profit & Gov’t Management & Hiring
- In Maryland, “a district court dismissed a federal employee union’s lawsuit that claimed the Office of Special Counsel’s guidance on using the terms ‘impeachment’ and ‘resist’ at work violated free speech protections and was a misinterpretation of the Hatch Act.”
- Also in Maryland, “[i]n an effort to rein in caseloads, improve working condition and have a greater voice in the criminal justice system, the public defenders of Maryland are unionizing.”
- In Minnesota, “[t]he Minnesota Supreme Court concluded, in a July 29, 2020, decision*, that an unpaid student intern working at a local nonprofit was entitled to the same protection against discrimination found in the Minnesota Human Rights Act (MHRA) as paid employees.”
- In New York, “[the] state’s attorney general sued to dissolve the National Rifle Association on Thursday, alleging senior leaders of the non-profit group diverted millions of dollars for personal use and to buy the silence and loyalty of former employees.”
- In Chicago IL, the Chicago Sun Times’ Editorial Board published a piece arguing against “the new [Metropolitan Water Reclamation District] rules[, which] require individuals at nonprofits to register as lobbyists and record all discussions they have with officials at government agencies, even if that interaction is nothing more than answering the phone when an official calls for technical advice.”
- In Washington DC, “[a] Federal Labor Relations Authority regional director last week reaffirmed that federal immigration judges are not management officials and therefore can unionize, rejecting an effort by the Justice Department to decertify the National Association of Immigration Judges.”
Immigration, Refugee, & Citizenship Issues
- In New York, “the state’s nonprofits serving immigrants in detention revealed that not only were their contracts cut in late June, but that came on top of the state not reimbursing contracts from last fiscal year.”
- Also in New York, “[an appeals court ruled that a] judge [had] correctly struck down a new Department of Homeland Security rule that went into effect earlier this year denying green cards to legal immigrants who use Medicaid, food stamps and other forms of public assistance[.]”
- In Virginia, “[t]wo college students sued the Trump administration over a recent change in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that they say places a heavy financial burden on young people.”
- In Washington DC, after President “Trump issue[d an] election-year order on H-1B visas and federal contracts[, e]xperts say it is unclear what a new executive order issued by Donald Trump on federal contracting will accomplish, though it may be followed with additional measures to restrict companies that employ H-1B visa holders.”
Student Loans & Student Debt
- In Pennsylvania, “[a]ttorney General Josh Shapiro permanently shut down Equitable Acceptance’s efforts to operate in Pennsylvania, and is requiring the company to cancel nearly $200,000 in debt for its former Commonwealth customers.”
- In Washington DC, @realDonaldTrump tweeted that President Trump had “notified [his] staff to continue working on an Executive Order with respect to Payroll Tax Cut, Eviction Protections, Unemployment Extensions, and Student Loan Repayment Options.” Forbes analyzed what this statement might signify.
- In New York, “[t]he New York State Department of Financial Services sent a letter to U.S. Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on behalf of a multi-state coalition of student loan advocates urging the Secretary to take proactive steps to protect student loan borrowers.”
- In the United States, Benefits Pro published an article discussing how “[e]mployers recognize need for solutions that address employee student debt post COVID-19[.]”
Access to Justice – Civil & Economic
- In the United States, “[t]he clock is ticking for Americans who are struggling to pay rent amid the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. The $600-a-week enhanced unemployment benefits created in Congress’s CARES Act runs out on July 31. The federal eviction moratorium—which protected about one quarter of American renters—expired July 24. Many of the patchwork state and local eviction moratoriums have already ended, with more expiration dates on the horizon for others. The U.S. Census Bureau’s weekly survey of American households recently found that 26.4 percent of Americans have either already missed a rent or mortgage payment or have little to no confidence that they will be able to pay their next month’s rent on time.”
- In New York NY, “New York’s court system is expected to begin processing new eviction cases [] for the first time since March, and the Legal Aid Society is predicting 14,000 households will face eviction immediately.”
- In Rochester NY, “Rochester’s City Roots Community Land Trust, in partnership with the Yale Environmental Protection Clinic, released a guide — Confronting Racial Covenants: How They Segregated Monroe County and What to Do About Them.”
- In St. Louis MO, the Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis “explore[d] the influence that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on student debt, demonstrating the inequities that have let low-income households fall further behind and what this means for these households’ financial outlook.”
- In USA Today, Rep. Joe Kennedy III argued that “[w]e absolutely must extend the nationwide moratorium on evictions. But an emergency stopgap won’t be enough. We must fortify the legal rights and protections for all low-income Americans who encounter our civil justice system. And we must make sure those in need have access to those protections through legal representation.”
- In Massachusetts, “[a] group of tenant advocacy groups will not be able to intervene in a legal challenge to Massachusetts’ eviction moratorium, a federal judge ruled from the bench on Tuesday.”
- In Salt Lake City UT, “[e]victions could be coming over the next few months, after moratoriums ended and certain federal benefits have run out.”
- In Louisiana, “[t]he head of the New Orleans legal aid office says calls for help from people who have lost their jobs have increased more than 600 percent.”
- In Texas, “[s]ources say a potential surge in evictions looms as the next big threat to Central Texans related to COVID-19.”
- In Ontario, a “new omnibus bill, passed in July, introduce[d] more stringent tests which lawyers say will make it difficult to sue institutions through class-actions.”
- In Cook County IL, “[a] legal services group is asking a Cook County judge to address delays in domestic violence cases. Legal Aid Chicago filed a suit [] seeking mandamus relief against the clerk of the Cook County Circuit Court, arguing it has not received copies of orders of protection for its clients and that the clerk’s office has not made good on a promise to implement a timely delivery system.”
Access to Justice – Criminal & Decarceration
Criminal Justice Reform
- In Miami FL, WLRN reported that “an internal committee inside the prosecutor’s office makes decisions about how money raised from criminal defendants is spent[–a practice which] has raised questions of conflict of interest[.] Some groups that received tens of thousands of dollars in funding are closely connected to State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle.”
- In Minneapolis MN, police data revealed that “police stop and search a disproportionate rate of Black and East African drivers and their vehicles during routine traffic stops compared with other races.”