The Policy and Advocacy Associate for Women’s Human Rights assists the Women’s Policy and Advocacy Director in furthering AIUSA’s work on women’s human rights with advocacy, strategy development and event planning.

Under direction of the Women’s Policy and Advocacy Director, the Associate will be responsible for advancing the women’s human rights priorities of AIUSA. This brief entails the development, planning, and execution of advocacy initiatives contributing to AIUSA’s women’s human rights goals.

These priorities include but are not limited to:

• Ending violence against women
• Ensuring U.S. action in support of Afghan women
• Supporting women’s human rights defenders
• Ending human rights violations based on gender
• Defending women’s sexual and reproductive rights, including working to end maternal mortality
• Ending gender discrimination

Interested? Check the listing at PSLawNet!

The National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) is seeking a law student intern for Summer 2012 to assist the Division of Civil Legal Services. NLADA, founded in 1911, is America’s oldest and largest nonprofit association devoted to excellence in the delivery of legal services to those who cannot afford counsel. For 100 years, NLADA has pioneered access to justice at the national, state and local level through the creation of our public defender system, development of nationally applicable standards for legal representation, groundbreaking legal legislation and the creation of important institutions such as the Legal Services Corporation.

The successful candidate will be responsible for assisting the Civil Legal Services Division’s Quality and Program Enhancement initiative and ongoing efforts to identify federal funding opportunities for legal aid.  

View the full job posting for this (unpaid) internship position on PSLawNet (login required).

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  Along with teaching us to embrace and cultivate a sense of searing guilt for the remainder of our earthly days, the nuns in my Catholic elementary school imparted to their pupils much common-sense wisdom.  One such bit of wisdom is “fall back, spring forward”, a phrase which reminds me what I’m supposed to do with my clocks twice a year.  So, a reminder to spring your clocks forward by one hour tomorrow night.

Speaking of our earthly days, this afternoon I’m joining my family at Arlington National Cemetery to bury a great aunt and uncle, the latter having been a retired Air Force pilot.  This will be a solemn, but not a sad, event.  Aunt Kay and Uncle Jim, who were married, died late last year after long, happy lives together.  Uncle Jim was one unique cat, and his life story offers an object lesson in cherishing every waking moment.  I knew him as an older man who sky-dived, scuba-dived, and bungee-jumped into his 70s.  My dad knew Uncle Jim as his mom’s gregarious younger brother who, on holiday leave from the military, would sweep into their house like a hurricane – showering gifts on the kids and ribbing my grandfather, a Philadelphia fireman whose German-American roots left him wanting quieter, more sedate family interaction.

Uncle Jim knew what sacrifice in life meant, and he endured hardships.  But I can truthfully write that only once did I see him without a smile on his face for any more than a few seconds.  That was at his wife’s funeral last October.  He died weeks later.  Throughout his life Uncle Jim seemed to know better than most that, come what may, our clocks spring forward faster than we may wish.  So we must seize every single moment as they try to pass us by.   

This week:

• Maryland’s public defender law getting a rewrite, but litigation about the right to counsel still likely to follow;
• Kentucky prosecutors and public defenders might need a stiff bourbon to deal with the next state budget;
• Badger student pro bono gets a boost;
• why mandatory pro bono ain’t the solution;
• in the U.K, proposed legal aid cuts run into a House-of-Lords buzz saw (a phrase that is fun to write and not often written, I’d wager); 
• chickens coming home to roost in battle between U. Md. legal clinic & state lawmaker;
• pardon this! A proposed law school clinic on executive pardon power;
• Presidential Management Fellows application snafu draws attention of lawmakers;
• show me more funding! LSC cuts will impact Legal Services of Eastern Missouri;
• juvenile justice developments in the Buckeye State. 

The summaries:

• 3.9.12 – “Lawmakers have reached a compromise to rewrite Maryland’s Public Defender Act to accommodate a Court of Appeals decision that found criminal defendants weren’t given proper access to attorneys.  The consensus amendments, if passed early next week, would not require judges to work weekends and would dramatically reduce the number of people arrested for crimes with shorter jail terms.  Lawmakers are looking at changing the law ahead of a mandate from the Court of Appeals that would require public defenders to be available within 24 hours after an individual is arrested.”  (Story from the Gazette.)

• 3.8.12 – in the “just because it could have been worse doesn’t mean it’s now good” department,” Kentucky’s next biennial budget isn’t likely to please local prosecutors or public defenders.  From Gannett: “The proposed state budget pending in the General Assembly has local prosecutors…concerned.  The House of Representatives in the Kentucky General Assembly passed a proposed budget…that would cut most state agencies by 8.4 percent… The Senate will take up the budget next week and will likely make some changes.  The House’s budget opted not to make the further cuts proposed by Gov. Steve Besher to prosecutors and public defenders but also won’t restore their funding cut out of this year’s budget. If this budget passes…it will mean a further backlog of cases and potential reduction in staff, prosecutors said.”

• 3.7.12 – the University of Wisconsin Law School will bolster pro bono programs through two grants from the state bar.  One grant will help launch a free, law-school staffed legal clinic for veterans.  The second will support the law school’s new Pro Bono Society, which will engage law students and alumni pro bono efforts.  Here’s more from the State Bar of Wisconsin.  

• 3.7.12 – the Pro Bono Institute’s Esther Lardent makes the “pragmatic and philosophical” case against mandatory pro bono as a solution to our country’s access-to-justice crisis.  Here is Lardent’s blog post on the Association of Corporate Counsel website.  

• 3.7.12 -House of Lords = Radical Progressive Revolutionaries(?)  Civil legal aid advocates in the U.S. are not the only ones facing waves of government funding cuts.  The present UK government is trying to push through measures that would considerably slash legal aid funds.  But the House of Lords, which hitherto I’d thought was a legislative body preoccupied mainly with things like croquet and ascots, is pushing back.  They are dealing blow after legislative blow to the government’s justice bill, as reported by the Independent. 

• 3.6.12 – a Maryland lawmaker opposed to the work of the U. of Md.’s law school environmental clinic has thrown down the funding gauntlet.  We’ve covered the particulars of this ongoing battle before (see my colleague Kristen’s great summary here, and more here).  This is the latest from the Nat’l. Law Journal: “State Sen. Richard Colburn has proposed a budget amendment that would pit the state’s two public law schools against each other, transferring $500,000 from the University of Maryland, which houses an environmental law clinic that has angered some Republican lawmakers, to the University of Baltimore School of Law, to start a law clinic that would represent farmers.   Colburn and state leaders including Gov. Martin O’Malley have spoken out against the environmental law clinic for representing plaintiffs in a pollution lawsuit against a local chicken farm that supplies Perdue Farms Inc. They contend that publicly funded law clinics should not file suits that hurt state businesses.”  It’s a fascinating story raising questions around academic free expression, use of state education funds, combating pollution, and the power of local business interests large and small.    

• 3.5.12 – Pardon this!  A novel idea for a law school clinic. From Pro Publica and the Wash. Post: “For years, lawyers, faith-based groups and students have helped file petitions for inmates seeking to cut short lengthy prison sentences. But there have been no comparable resources for felons who sought pardons after serving their time.  That may soon change. In response to stories published in December by ProPublica and The Washington Post, former Maryland governor Robert L. Ehrlich (R) plans to launch the nation’s first law school clinic and training program devoted to pardons.  Ehrlich’s proposal takes aim at the inequities identified by ProPublica’s investigation into the dispensation of presidential pardons over the past decade.”  [The investigation showed disparities in pardons granted based on race and whether a petitioner had congressional support.]    

• 3.5.12 – a snafu with the Presidential Management Fellows (PMF) program application process has raised larger questions for Republican lawmakers.  From Government Executive: “The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has asked Office of Personnel Management officials to explain a recent [PMF] program mishap.  In a March 1 letter to OPM Director John Berry, Reps. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Dennis Ross, R-Fla….sought more information related to a Jan. 23 incident when OPM mistakenly sent acceptance emails to 300 semifinalists who hadn’t qualified for the [PMF] program. About a quarter of the 1,186 semifinalists received the erroneous letters. Later that day the same applicants received another email informing them there was an error in the system.  In the letter, Issa and Ross expressed concern that the notification mistake was ‘indicative of larger IT failures at OPM,’ including the agency’s recent troubles with retirement processing and USAJobs.gov.”  A Washington Post commentator wonders if the PMF issue is a mole hill rather than a mountain. 

• 3.3.12 – the Missourian looks at the impact of recent Legal Services Corporation funding cuts on Legal Services of Eastern Missouri.  [Nitpick: the article misstates the latest LSC funding cut, by saying LSC’s appropriation was chopped from $350m to $210m.  In fact the appropriation now stands at just under $350m, having been cut last November from about $404m.] 

• 3.3.12 – juvenile justice developments in the Buckeye State.  From the Dispatch: “Juveniles in Ohio who are arrested for offenses that could land them in a detention center or youth prison can waive their right to legal representation without ever speaking to a lawyer.  That will change if a proposal by the Ohio Supreme Court goes into effect. The new rule would require juvenile defendants to meet with a lawyer before choosing not to use one.”

And since we’re closing with Ohio, I leave you with Mark Kozelek’s achingly beautiful Carry Me, Ohio.

by Kristen Pavón

Yesterday, Forbes staff writer Kashmir Hill posted an interesting article on schools and prospective employers requiring students/prospective employees to fork over their Facebook passwords.

Here’s a snippet:

. . . The ACLU announced that it is helping a Minnesota high school student sue Minnewaska Area Schools after school officials forced her to hand over her Facebook password so that they could search her private messages for an alleged conversation with another student about S-E-X. Because the school is a public institution, the ACLU alleges this violated the student’s constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches. Meanwhile, MSNBC reports on prospective prison guards in Maryland being forced to hand over their Facebook passwords during job interviews and college athletes who are forced to friend their coaches on the social network. The Maryland Department of Corrections wanted to check applicants’ pages for any signs that they’re affiliated with a gang, while coaches want to make sure athletes are behaving (and not violating any NCAA rules).

I asked our Twitter followers if they’d be willing to give their Facebook passwords to prospective employers. My guess is that no, you guys are not willing to give prospective employers that kind of behind-the-scenes action.

Well, read on, readers.

Those of you offended by the idea of a prospective employer simply looking at your public-facing Facebook page must now be curled up in the fetal position, rocking back and forth, and crying at the horror of it all. In fact, says privacy attorney Behnam Dayanim of Axinn Veltrop Harkrider, there is no legal protection for you, at this point, if an employer asks for your Facebook password during a job interview. You can (and you should!) say no, but private employers have the right to ask for it and can choose not to hire you if you refuse.

“Legally, the employer has a strong position. You can say no, but there’s no element of duress there. If you don’t get the job, you’re no worse off than you were before,” says Dayanim. “That said, as a policy matter for the employers, I think it’s a bad idea.”

You can read Hill’s article in its entirety here.

Anyone else oh-em-gee-ing over this? So, what are your thoughts? Would you comply with an employer’s request for your password?

Luckily, I don’t have a personal Facebook page. I am a reformed Facebook obsessionista — I quit the social networking site back in 2009 because the level of over-sharing became intolerable and more than ever, I’m glad I did.

How many of you have thought about dropping off the Facebook grid?

By: Steve Grumm

The University of Wisconsin Law School’s pro bono progams will be bolstered by two grants from the state bar association’s Legal Assistance Committee.  A report from the state bar:

The State Bar Legal Assistance Committee has awarded Pro Bono Initiative grants to Dane County Veterans Legal Clinic to start a free legal clinic and to the U.W. Law School to recruit law students to work on pro bono matters.

The Dane County Veterans Legal Clinic received a grant to start a new free legal clinic for veterans in the Dane County area. The project is administered by the U.W. Law School’s pro bono program and is a collaborative effort with initial support from the Dane County Veterans Service Office, the State Bar of Wisconsin pro bono program, representatives from the Wm. S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital in Madison, and the U.S. Army Wounded Warrior Program. Volunteer attorneys and law students will staff the clinic at the local veterans service office in Madison. The project is modeled on a similar effort in Milwaukee. The clinic aims to launch by Veterans Day, Nov. 12, 2012.

The U.W. Law School received a grant to help launch its new Pro Bono Society. With the assistance of the law school’s new pro bono coordinator and an Americorps VISTA coordinator, the law school is implementing an ambitious effort to recruit and recognize law student pro bono efforts. The program recruits volunteer attorneys to work with law students on pro bono matters. Additional special events will be organized throughout the school year to engage more law students in pro bono service. Students completing 50 hours of pro bono legal services during law school will be inducted into the Pro Bono Society and receive special recognition at graduation.

by Kristen Pavón

This morning, I listened to a pretty informative ABA Journal podcast on “How to Craft a Resume that Recruiters Will Love.” While the recruiters focused on resumes for private law firms positions, some of the speakers’ advice also applies to public interest resumes.

1. Objectives are out — if you’re a senior lawyer, try a summary instead.
2. Including your hobbies and interests is a personal choice. Depending on what you include, it may help build rapport or it could hurt you.
3. Don’t use pronouns.
4. High school is ancient history — leave it off.
5. If your GPA is 3.0 or above, put it on your resume. (*I’m undecided on this one…)

The podcast speakers — legal recruiters — emphasized that lawyers are snooty and snobby about education (her words, not mine) and because of that, if you leave your GPA off your resume, employers will assume that it’s below a 3.0. Is this true? Is this true in the public interest world?

You can listen to the 25-minute podcast or read the transcript here.

Thoughts?

By: Steve Grumm

A PMF mishap we noted earlier, which resulted in 300 applicants being given (temporary) false hope, has caught lawmakers’ attention.  From Government Executive:

he House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has asked Office of Personnel Management officials to explain a recent Presidential Management Fellows program mishap.

In a March 1 letter to OPM Director John Berry, Reps. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Dennis Ross, R-Fla., chairmen of the committee and its Federal Workforce Subcommittee, respectively, sought more information related to a Jan. 23 incident when OPM mistakenly sent acceptance emails to 300 semifinalists who hadn’t qualified for the prestigious fellows program. About a quarter of the 1,186 semifinalists received the erroneous letters. Later that day the same applicants received another email informing them there was an error in the system.

In the letter, Issa and Ross expressed concern that the notification mistake was “indicative of larger IT failures at OPM,” including the agency’s recent troubles with retirement processing and USAJobs.gov.

Issa and Ross’ request included a description of “all issues that may have adversely affected a candidate’s ability to apply for the program,” as well as a timeline of changes that have been made to the fellows program, the retention rate for fellows and a list of formal complaints filed with OPM regarding the program. The agency has until April 13 to provide the information.

From the National Law Journal:

Lawyers finish school prepared to think like lawyers, but are they prepared to develop business and survive in a competitive economy?

Well, no, not usually. To remedy this situation, Fordham University School of Law brought in Silvia Hodges, who earned the first doctorate degree on record in legal services marketing. Last spring, she launched a course on the topic. While a far cry from the usual torts or constitutional law curricula, her class is essential. It aids law students in developing their personal brands.

Hodges encourages students to improve their value by blogging (among other things like taking courses in the area you want to practice in, joining associations and interest groups, etc.).

“Blogging is a great tool to help law students accomplish this [building your brand],” Hodges said. “Great posts show that you are familiar with the topic. You become part of the discussion, become known among those interested in the topic. Having valuable contacts online is part of becoming a thought leader. You get your name out, it gives you visibility and helps you with search engine optimization. Your name and content will pop up when people look for your topic. Hopefully, this will help you get hired.”

I agree that blogging on legal topics you’re interested in can help you land a job. However, because blog writing is not the same as legal brief writing, I would suggest researching blogs and blog writing styles before starting your own.

Do you have a blog? Are you thinking about starting one?

Did you miss EJW’s educational debt webinars last month? It’s all good — there’s 4 this month! Don’t miss them!

Educational debt has become a crippling burden for far too many, and especially for those who want to pursue careers in public service. Equal Justice Works provides in depth information on loan repayment assistance programs and relief programs like Income-Based Repayment and Public Service Loan Forgiveness to help everyone pursue the career of their dreams.

Click here to view a schedule of our free, live webinars that teach you how these programs work, and to register for an upcoming session.

Our current sessions include:

Special session presented by the New York State Bar Association and Equal Justice Works: What Every Public Interest Attorney Should Know About Public Service Loan Forgiveness

Wednesday, March 7, 3-4 p.m. EST

The Steven C. Krane Special Committee on Student Loan Assistance for the Public Interest (SLAPI) is hosting a free webinar on loan repayment for public interest/government attorneys and for public interest/government employers on March 7, 2012 at 3:00 p.m.  The webinar is collaboration with Equal Justice Works.

SLAPI was created in the summer of 2001 to review the impact of law school indebtedness on the ability of government and public service employers to attract qualified attorneys to undertake careers in public service, and to develop a plan to assist new attorneys in pursuing public service careers by reducing indebtedness.  SLAPI has two goals:  to continue to provide financial assistance to mid-level government and public interest attorneys – those out of law school 3 to 6 years – burdened with large educational debt (who are less likely to qualify for federal loan repayment assistance), and to help educate attorneys and employers on the developments in the loan repayment assistance landscape.

SLAPI awarded new loan repayment assistance grants – the first since 2008 – at the January 2012 Annual meeting and will award further grants in January 2013 (go here for more information).  SLAPI’s website also provides information about federal and state loan assistance repayment options.

Plan Before You Borrow: What You Should Know About Educational Loans BEFORE You Go to Graduate School

Friday, March 9, 3-4 p.m. EST

Interested in government or public interest work after graduating? This webinar will help you plan ahead and make sure you can take full advantage of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, the most significant law affecting public service in a generation.

The webinar will teach you about:

– Taking out the right kind of loans

– Consolidating or reconsolidating your previous student loans

– How the College Cost Reduction and Access Act can free you to pursue a public interest career

How to Pay Your Bills AND Your Student Loans: Utilizing Income-Based Repayment

Friday, March 16, 3-4 p.m. EDT

Saddled with high student debt? This webinar reviews Income-Based Repayment, a powerful provision of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act that allows anyone with high debt relative to their income to reduce their federal student loan payments.

This interactive webinar will teach you:

– How to understand your federal loans

– How Income-Based Repayment works and if it is right for you

– How to sign up for Income-Based Repayment

Get Your Educational Loans Forgiven: Public Service Loan Forgiveness

Friday, March 23, 3-4 p.m. EDT

For recent graduates with jobs in government or at a nonprofit, this webinar explains how to make sure you immediately begin fulfilling requirements to qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness so that your educational debt will be forgiven as soon as possible.

You will learn about:

– The importance of having the right kind of Federal Loans

– What you need to do to qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness

– How long it will take to have your educational debt forgiven

By: Steve Grumm

Here’s my modest proposal on how 3Ls can maximize their time while focusing on both bar prep and the career search after graduation:

For those 3Ls who will be studying for the bar and hunting for jobs after graduation, the keys to success may be distilled into one word: planning. Before graduation, 3Ls should work up an action plan to manage their summertime responsibilities.  There are (at least) four considerations for an action plan:

• Bar exam prep;
• The job hunt;
• Managing finances; and
• Maintaining sanity….