Please note that previous Public Interest News Bulletin stories are archived on PSLawNet.  Also, for a summary of news stories affecting the larger legal industry, see the  NALP Industry News Weekly Digest.

• 2.17.10 – West Virginia Record – Legal Aid of West Virginia and FamilyCare Health Centers have collaborated to form the state’s first medical-legal partnership, through which an LAWV attorney will be onsite part-time at medical clinics to provide legal assistance to low-income patients and to educate medical staff.  Medical-legal partnerships, originally put into operation in Boston, “integrate legal services into the health care setting to help low-income patients navigate the complex legal systems that often hold solutions to social, economic, and environmental determinants of health. For example, when a patient is entitled to obtain Supplemental Security Income and cannot pay for his medication without it, lawyers and doctors can effectively work together to help address the patient’s needs.”  Link to article.

• 2.16.10 – Business Week –   the Obama Administration is emphasizing accountability and performance-based metrics in its approach to managing the federal civil service.  Also vitally important, though, is ensuring that government’s higher ranks are populated with strong leaders.  “Although there are certainly many strong leaders in the Senior Executive Service, the government’s top tier of career executives, and the broader civil service, there is general agreement among senior leaders in the government and experts who have studied the issue that more attention needs to be placed on the selection, assessment, and development of leaders.”  Link to article.

• 2.16.10 – Dallas Morning News – DNA-based exonerations of those convicted of crimes raise a question about whether prosecutors’ limited resources should be devoted to tracing an improper conviction all the way back to a root cause, or whether the exoneration itself suffices to right the past wrong, ending a need for additional inquiry.  Link to article.

• 2.16.10 – American Lawyer Daily – in AmLaw’s “Deferred Associate Diaries” feature, a Class of 2009 law school graduate whose start date at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP was deferred provides an occasional update on his public service placement with the Public Interest Law Project’s Oakland office.  His most recent entry, made on February 16th, is here, and his first entry, made on December 23, 2009, is here.

• 2.15.10 – American Spectator – a former Georgetown University Law Center student who enrolled during the “golden era for well-paid corporate legal work,” reviews the phenomenon of deferred associates taking public service placements and speculates that, after their exposure to public service work, some deferred associates may seek to remain in those settings rather than returning to Biglaw.  Link to article.

• 2.15.10 – Rome News-Tribune (Georgia) – the Georgia Supreme Court just heard arguments in a case in which two men accused of a 2007 murder are seeking to have the charges dismissed because delays in the public defense system have resulted in the men remaining in jail without a trial.  One of the dilemmas the high court confronted was the possibility that delay and inaction on the part of a criminal defense lawyer might lead to an ironic result that ultimately would benefit their client because charges would be thrown out.   Link to article. 

• 2.14.10 – Herald-Palladium (Southwest Michigan) – the indigent defense system in Michigan, which now essentially is a patchwork of programs that vary county by county, is under attack from critics who “charge that the [state] legislature and governor are shirking their responsibility to pay for and operate a system that works.  The ACLU filed a class action lawsuit in 2007 to spur indigent defense reform, and a bill has been introduced in the state House to “create a state-run public defender system to enforce minimum standards.”  Link to article.

• 2.13.10 – Minneapolis Star Tribune – Dakota County, Minnesota is trying to help criminal defendants who “make too much to qualify for a public defender — but not enough to afford legal representation.”   County judges just approved a plan through which “lawyers will volunteer their services on arraignment day and stay available [at reduced rates] to any low-income person charged with a crime who has not hired a private attorney or has not qualified for a state-paid public defender.”  Link to article. 

• 2.12.10 – Casper Star-Tribune (Wyoming) –  a bill to create a statewide civil legal services system has gotten through state House’s Judiciary Committee and will be taken up by the full body.  Funding for the system would come from a proposed $10 increase in court filing fees.  The system was first proposed by the state’s Access to Justice Commission, under the leadership of Wyoming Supreme Court Justice James Burke.  During the Judiciary Committee hearing, many from the legal community expressed support for the new measure, but a representative for the state’s agricultural interests voiced skepticism on account of the possibility of a legal services program initiating litigation against farmers.  Link to article.