From the ABA’s Government and Public Sector Lawyers Division (GPSLD):

GPSLD’s National Awards: Honoring the Public Sector’s Best

The Government and Public Sector Lawyers Division’s annual awards program is designed to recognize the extraordinary achievements of public lawyers and to inform the general public about the outstanding work performed and the positive impact made by our nation’s public lawyers. The 2012 Awards will be presented on August 3 at the Fairmont Chicago Millennium Park, in conjunction with the ABA Annual Meeting.

The deadline for nominations for the 2012 Awards is Tuesday, April 3, 2012.

The Dorsey Award honors an outstanding public defender or legal aid lawyer. The Award was named for the late Charles H. Dorsey, Jr., long-time Executive Director of Maryland’s Legal Aid Bureau, Inc. and a champion of the poor and underprivileged.

The Hodson Award recognizes sustained outstanding service or a specific extraordinary accomplishment by a government or public sector law office. (This is not an award for an individual). The award is named in honor of the distinguished public service career of the late Major General Kenneth J. Hodson, a former Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Army.

The Nelson Award recognizes outstanding contributions to the ABA by an individual government or public sector lawyer. The Award was established as a tribute to the late L. Clair Nelson, who contributed his loyalty, time and extraordinary talent to the ABA.

by Kristen Pavón

This is it! The PSLawNet Blog has hit an important milestone — our 1,000th post!

We launched The PSLawNet Blog back in January 2010 and since then, we’ve worked tirelessly to bring you information on emerging news and developments in the public interest law arena, featured job opportunities from our abundant public interest legal jobs database and useful professional development and job search tips.

Our reach has grown over 150 percent since our blog’s inception and we have you to thank for that. Thank you for stopping by, following us, and reading our posts.

We look forward to celebrating many more milestones with you!

By: Steve Grumm

It’s not always easy to remain in public interest practice.  Debt is high.  Salaries are low.  Presently, many nonprofit and government law offices are fighting through funding woes.  Yet, public interest work can be tremendously fulfilling, challenging, and plain-old joyful.  Public interest lawyers live out their passions.  And junior public interest attorneys will find themselves working directly with clients and in courtrooms early in their careers – sometimes immediately.

At PSLawNet we spend much of our time aiding law students as they look for jobs – for points of access to those careers.  But it’s also quite helpful for students to know what their careers could look like a few years down the road.  What will be the challenges to remaining in public interest work? What opportunities does it present?

We encourage DC-area students to attend the Washington Council of Lawyers’s “Staying Public” event at 6pm on Wednesday, March 7.  Her are the particulars:

We hope you will join us for a presentation on how attorneys can stay in public interest work for the long haul, with discussions of financial considerations and options, avoiding burnout, and various career paths.

Featured Panelists:

• Jennifer Berger, Legal Counsel for the Elderly
• Jen Tschirch, Pro Bono Coordinator, Catholic University, Columbus School of Law
• Imoni Washington, DC Bar Foundation 
• Moderator:  Vytas V. Vergeer, Bread for the City

This free event is open to WCL Members, friends, colleagues, and the DC Public Interest Community. Law students welcome!

Location: Hogan & Lovells, 555 13 St., NW, Wash. DC 20004 (Metro Center)              

Date/Time: Tuesday, March 6, 6:00-7:30pm

Networking Happy Hour at Laughing Man Tavern to follow (right around the corner). 

Click Here to Register!

The Washington Bar Association is hosting its Ninth Annual Career Fair this weekend at the University of the District of Columbia School of Law. In addition to resume critiques and mock interviews, attendees will learn about the “ideal law clerk” and meet attorneys and judges from the area!

So, if you’re in the area, check it out. Here are the deets:

Saturday, February 25, 2012
9 am – 12 pm

4340 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.
Building 52
Washington, D.C. 20008

Find out more here.

By: Steve Grumm

It feels awfully un-rebellious to include an explanatory parenthetical in the post title.  But anyway, the conference is colloquially known as RebLaw.  Registration is open.  Sign up, spend the weekend in New Haven, meet public-interest-minded students, profs, and practitioners from around the country.  Some background:

RebLaw is the nation’s largest student-run public interest conference. Every year the conference brings together practitioners, law students, and community activists from around the country to discuss innovative, progressive approaches to law and social change.

We hope that RebLaw 2012 will be full of conversations that challenge not only the state of the law but also ourselves and our own preconceptions. We will strive to create a safe and nourishing community for all rebels, providing a variety of outlets to channel the passion and outrage we bring to the conference. By encouraging all forms of expertise and experience, we will value and amplify the creativity and insights we all possess. Grounded in a sense of where all of our work fits into broader movements, we will work together to hone our tools for change. RebLaw 2012 will be a success to the extent that it inspires courageous thinking, supportive relationships, and radical action.

Some logistical details:

What: The Eighteenth Annual Rebellious Lawyering Conference. The RebLaw Conference is an annual, student-run conference that brings together practitioners, law students, and community advocates from around the country to discuss innovative, progressive approaches to law and social change.
Where: Yale Law School, New Haven, CT.
When:  Friday, February 17–Saturday, February 18, 2012
Cost: Standard registration is $30. Registration is free for members of the Yale, UConn, New Haven, and Quinnipiac communities.

RebLaw Homepage & Registration: http://www.yale.edu/reblaw/index.htm

RebLaw Facebook page:  http://www.facebook.com/pages/RebLaw/198623836882539

The Skadden Foundation has listed its Class-of-2012 fellows.  Twenty-eight fellows, hailing from 16 law schools, will begin their projects next year.  Seven schools had multiple fellowship awardees: Berkeley (2); Columbia (2); Harvard (6); NYU (2); Penn (2); Stanford (3); and Yale (2).  Other schools from which fellows come include CUNY, Georgetown, Michigan, and Rutgers-Camden.

For comparison’s sake, prior Skadden Fellowship classes shaped up as follows:

• 2011:  29 fellows from 21 law schools;
• 2010: 27 fellows from 20 law schools;
• 2009: 28 fellows from 14 law schools;
• 2008: 36 fellows from 16 law schools.  

Congrats to the Class-of-2012 fellows!  The fellowship award is an extraordinary achievement. 

Here are a few legal advice clinics going on for our veterans in commemoration of Veterans Day, as well as some ongoing resources.

California

• San Diego Bankruptcy Law Firm is giving back to the San Diego Veteran community with a new bankruptcy service. The law firm has partnered with Thomas Jefferson School of Law Veterans Legal Assistance Clinic to offer free bankruptcy services to San Diego Veterans.

Colorado

• Nov. 11 – The fifth annual Northern Colorado Veterans STAND-DOWN from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Catholic Charities – The Mission, 460 Linden Center Drive, Fort Collins. The Colorado Bar Association will be offering free legal assistance to veterans, service members and their families.
• The Colorado Bar Association will be offering free legal assistance to veterans, service members and their families from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Citadel Mall on the upper level of the food court area near guest services, 750 Citadel Drive East. The event is hosted by the El Paso Bar Association.
• The Colorado Bar Association will be offering free legal assistance to veterans, service members and their families from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Matthews Center, 3030 Downing St., Denver.

New  York

• Free Services for Veterans at ‘Veterans Stand Down’ November 21,  which will be held at the 1st Marine Corps District Headquarters, located at 605 Stewart Avenue in Garden City, NY.

Oklahoma

• Tulsa County Bar Association will hold a free legal advice clinic for area military service members and veterans on Nov. 10 from 1:30 – 4 p.m. The clinic will take place at the Tulsa County Bar Center, 1446 S. Boston Ave., Tulsa.
• Nov. 11 – Free Legal Advice Clinic For Active Duty Military and Veterans — sponsored by the Carter County Bar Association, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Santa Fe Depot, 251 E. Main St.

Phoenix

• Nov. 11 – Muskogee County Bar Association’s free legal advice clinic — 9 a.m. to noon, Arrowhead Mall, 501 N. Main St., for all military service members and veterans.
  

Other Resources for veterans

• Texas Lawyers for Texas Veterans
• Oregon Veterans Resources
• VetsFirst
• New Jersey State Bar Association Military Legal Assistance Program
• ABA Coordinating Committee on Veterans Benefits & Services
• Lawyers Serving Warriors
• National Veterans Legal Services Program
• The Veterans Consortium Pro Bono Program
• The Military Law Task Force
• National Organization of Veterans’ Advocates

By: Steve Grumm

Below is a link to a short survey that NALP and the NALP Foundation are distributing nationwide to attorneys in nonprofit and government practice.  The “Law School Experiential Learning: Opportunities and Benefits” survey is designed to learn:

1. how many attorneys in government and nonprofit law offices took experiential learning courses (e.g., clinics, externships, skills courses) as law students; and
2. how these courses have contributed to the attorneys’ effectiveness in practice today.

The survey is part of an important discussion about how the legal education curriculum can be shaped to produce the best attorneys.  We are especially interested in receiving replies from attorneys who have been in practice for fewer than seven years, but encourage all attorneys to complete the survey.

• Survey link:                https://survey.vovici.com/se.ashx?s=17CFEB6018D8CBFC
• Deadline:                     December 9, 2011
• Time to complete:      5-10 minutes
• Distribute to:               Attorneys in nonprofit and government practice.  Please distribute this survey far and wide among colleagues.
• Confidentiality:           NALP and the NALP Foundation will never release any research that can be used to identify either an individual or an employer.  We also will not share an individual attorney’s survey response with their employer.

The survey results will be published in a comprehensive report, expected in Spring 2012. We performed a similar survey among law firm associates last year, and the 2012 report will include comparisons between the two groups’ experiences. 

Here is a link to a PDF version of the survey in case attorneys wish to review it before completing or distributing to others: http://tinyurl.com/6sufzr4.  (The PDF survey version is provided for review purposes only.  The online survey should be completed and submitted.)

If you have any questions about the survey, please contact Steve Grumm, NALP’s Director of Public Service Initiatives, at sgrumm@nalp.org or Judy Collins, NALP’s Director of Research, at jcollins@nalp.org.  We appreciate you taking the time to assist us in this important effort.

From a New York State Bar Association press release:

 Government and public interest lawyers burdened by student loan debt can apply for grants through the New York State Bar Association.

To be eligible for the Steven C. Krane Special Committee on Student Loan Assistance for the Public Interest grants, attorneys must have practiced for at least five years. Priority will be given to civil legal services attorneys. Each grant will be for a minimum of $2,000.

…

Applications are due November 30, 2011. Applications must be mailed to: SLAPI, New York State Bar Association, One Elk Street, Albany, NY 12207. Recipients will be announced in January.

For more information, please visit: www.nysba.org.slapi.

by Kristen Pavón

November is National Homelessness Awareness Month and to kick it off, the National Center for Family Homelessness hosted a policy briefing at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) here in D.C.

The briefing featured the following panelists:

• Christina Murphy, Director of Campaign to End Child Homelessness, The National Center on Family Homelessness
• Jeremy Rosen, Policy Director, National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty
• Asa Fanelli, President, Horizons for Homeless Children
• Sarah Bolton, Legislative Assistant, Office of Senator Patty Murray
• Amy Grassette, Consumer Advisory Board Member, The National Center for Family Homelessness

In addition to the program’s panelists, Assistant Secretary of Community Planning and Development for HUD, Mercedes Marquez, gave the opening remarks.

The amount of information given at the briefing was a bit overwhelming but also alarming, inspiring and motivating.

In particular, I was moved by Amy Grassette’s story. She spoke about her family’s hardship after losing their small business after 9/11. Her family experienced homelessness for almost 2 and a half years after losing their business. Amy gave us a great perspective in terms of the services she received while homeless and where she saw room for improvement.

Here’s a hodgepodge of my notes/thoughts/questions from the briefing:

• More than 34% of the homeless population are children (and this statistic is likely a low estimate because of under-reporting).
• For the 2009-2010 school year, there were 1 MILLION homeless youth (and again this number is probably low because some states do not report this data).
• The Opening Doors Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness has a goal to end youth and family homelessness by 2020 by focusing on the following services: access to affordable housing, jobs, mainstream services, and collaboration between agencies.
• The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty takes a human rights perspective to housing, meaning that housing is a basic right.
• There was a 20% increase in family homelessness between 2007 and 2010.
• Oftentimes, it costs less to offer families housing vouchers (so that families can live closer to schools) than provide transportation to school.
• The Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act can allow tenants to remain in their homes longer and more needs to be done to publicize this law.
• While housing is the foundation for a stable community and life, housing alone is not sufficient to end homelessness. Wraparound services are needed to be effective in preventing and ending family homelessness.
• Homeless children are at a higher risk for: physical and mental health issues, hunger and poor educational outcomes.
• One-third of homeless children have been forced to skip a meal.
• 85% of brain’s core structure is developed from birth to age 5, and because of this, it’s important to intervene early and provide mental health services, transitional services and early education childcare.
• There’s room for improvement in these areas: affordable, adequate & accessible housing; transportation services; childcare services; accessible, affordable, adequate healthcare; livable wages; education; and case management services.

On another note, if you’re in DC and a new law grad — you should check these kinds of events out. I learned about it from Twitter — of all places! @HUDnews tweeted about the program yesterday. It was a great networking opportunity — Keep your eyes and ears open!