The Legal Services Corporation has announced that three board nominations, made by President Obama last December, were approved by the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.

The three nominees are Sharon L. Browne, a principal attorney in the Pacific Legal Foundation’s Individual Rights Practice group and a member of the foundation’s senior management; Charles Norman Wiltse Keckler, who teaches civil procedure and evidence at Pennsylvania State University’s Dickinson School of Law, and Victor B. Maddox, a partner in the Louisville, Ky., law firm of Fultz Maddox Hovious & Dickens, PLC.

…

They join five other LSC Board nominees, announced August 6, 2009, awaiting Senate confirmation. They are Robert J. Grey, a partner in the Richmond, Va., and Washington offices of the Hunton & Williams law firm; John G. Levi, a partner in the Chicago office of Sidley Austin, LLP; Martha L. Minow, dean of the Harvard Law School; Julie A. Reiskin, executive director of the Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition, and Gloria Valencia-Weber, a professor at the University of New Mexico School of Law.

Ms. Browne’s nomination had stirred controversy in some legal services circles because of her and her employer’s positions on issues which were seen as antithetical to the legal services mission.  We documented opposition to her nomination from the National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) and others in a previous post.

 We begin this week’s Bulletin with a whole lot of news from Minnesota…

• 3.4.10 – MinnPost Website (Minnesota) – Mid-Minnesota Legal Assistance is seeking an order to restrain the state government from terminating the General Assistance Medical Care program, which provides healthcare for low-income adults without children.  The GAMC program’s termination was taken as an austerity measure as the state government tried to cut spending.  The legislature had attempted to restore the program, but that effort was vetoed by Gov. Pawlenty and an override attempt came up short.  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: the GAMC program had been scheduled for termination on March 1, but was extended through the month after another legal services organization  had threatened legal action.  Previous coverage of those developments is available here.]     

• 3.3.10 – Mankato Free Press (Minnesota) – the public defense system in Minnesota is facing serious cuts in state funding.  “Statewide, the Board of Public Defense [could lose, under a current funding proposal,] $3.3 million in funding in 2010-11 and another $4.8 million in 2012-13.”  The chief public defender for the state’s 5th Judicial Circuit worries that additional cuts to an already strained system would be “drastic” and would effectively prohibit defenders from giving their clients the time needed to properly defend a case.  “A study completed by Minnesota’s legislative auditor supports [this] argument.  The study found the state’s public defenders are handling too many cases.  Many have double the caseload recommended by state and national guidelines.”  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: the report referenced in the article was issued on 2/16/10 by the Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor.  It is available here.]

• 3.2.10 – MinnPost Website – with fewer than three months left in the Minnesota state legislature’s session, both the state bar association and the legal services community are pushing their agendas.  The Minnesota State Bar Association is seeking funding to shore up a strained court system, while Mid-Minnesota Legal Assistance’s legislative arm is pushing for borrower/consumer protection legislation.  Link to article.

 And now, let’s turn to news from places that are not Minnesota:

• 3.2.10 – San Jose Mercury News (California) – Santa Clary County officials have authorized $1 million to flow to the county public defender’s office in order to staff misdemeanor arraignment hearings.  “The lawyers’ presence in thousands of misdemeanor arraignments a year will end an unusual system that has for decades barred many indigent defendants from easy access to legal advice … Public Defender Mary Greenwood said she will immediately hire three additional lawyers and support staff to represent jailed misdemeanor suspects and those first facing misdemeanor domestic violence charges. The new lawyers would staff the county’s busiest misdemeanor arraignment sessions.”  Link to article. 

• 3.2.10 – Philadelphia Inquirer  – among local nonprofits sharing in $331,000 in grant money from the Philadelphia Foundation are Community Legal Services and Legal Aid of Southeastern Pennsylvania, both of which received funding to support their foreclosure prevention programs.  Link to article. 

• 3.1.10 – Herald News (Massachusetts) – Richard McMahon, a longtime legal services attorney and manager in Massachusetts, has been appointed executive director of South Coastal Counties Legal Services.  Link to article.

• 3.1.10 – Detroit News – while divorce rates in the Detroit metro region have slightly declined during the recession, among those that are filed the number of parties going pro se has risen notably.  “These do-it-yourself divorces are crowding legal aid offices and court dockets and slowing proceedings with incomplete paperwork and tutorials judges must deliver from the bench. And as more couples represent themselves, many are losing out on property and custody claims that are legally theirs, judges and attorneys say.”  Thomas M. Cooley Law School’s Family Law Legal Aid Clinic saw requests for help from low-income clients jump from 57 in 2008 to 104 in 2009.  Family law advocates are exploring solutions, which range from making filing forms more accessible to allowing limited scope representation in order to lower legal fees.  Link to article.

• 3.1.10 – The Hill’s “Congress Blog” (Op-ed) – Low-income tenants across the country face evictions and harassment from landlords and developers.  This is partly the result of the recession’s effect on the housing market.  “Too often, when landlords find themselves in foreclosure, their tenants are forced onto the street with little or no notice.”  A key to protecting tenants’ housing rights is for Congress to reauthorize the Legal Services Corporation by passing the Civil Access to Justice Act.  The bill, which has the support of many social justice advocates, would 1) increase LSC’s annual budget appropriation to $750 million from the current $420 million (at present, 1 in every 2 people who seek help from LSC grantees are turned away due to lack of program resources), 2) do away with a restriction on LSC grantees from filing class action lawsuits on behalf of their clients, and 3) eliminate restrictions on how grantees use non-LSC funds to carry out their missions.  Link to op-ed written by Emily Savner of the Brennan Center for Justice.  [Ed. Note: the op-ed references a Brennan Center report called Foreclosures: A Crisis in Legal Representation and, while not explicitly naming it, appears also to reference LSC’s Documenting the Justice Gap in America report, which was updated in 2009.]

• 2.28.10 – Florida Times-Union (Editorial) – the Florida Bar has launched a “One Client, One Attorney, One Promise” campaign in order to bolster pro bono by encouraging lawyers to take at least one pro bono case this year.   “There’s no shortage of people who need legal help in this age of high unemployment, foreclosures and bankruptcies. Clients who need legal help of some kind are first screened by legal aid agencies before being referred to attorneys who agree to take on the cases without charge….Lawyers take a lot of flak on the joke circuit, but they also do a lot of charity work that goes unrecognized.  The Bar’s campaign is a good way for more lawyers to cast their profession in a positive light.”  Link to editorial.

• 2.27.10 – North Platte Telegraph (Nebraska) – Lincoln County Public Defender Robert Lindemeier joined, at the invitation of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, a Department of Justice Symposium aimed at addressing resource gaps in indigent defense programs across the country.  Lindemeier noted that poor clients not having access to effective counsel is a problem in Nebraska and nationally.  He was “impressed with Holder’s goals, saying that the U.S. Attorney General appears to believe that if the justice system is going to have a strong law enforcement and prosecution system in place, then to ensure justice is served means to make sure that the indigent criminal defense system is equally strong.”  Link to article.  Ed. Note: additional coverage on the DOJ’s Access to Justice Initiative from National Public Radio is available here. 

• 2.27.10 – Billings Gazette – the new Billings Adult Mental Health Court, a diversionary program intended to help defendants with mental disabilities or disorders, makes a priority of helping participants to “creat[e] new bonds to the community through education, employment or volunteer service and treatment programs…”  For court officers who facilitate the program, some of the traditional adversarial edges are dulled as prosecutors, public defenders, judges and others review cases and review participants’ treatment options.  Link to story.  [Ed. Note: not explicitly mentioned in the article is that, aside from providing participants with the best resources to remain integrated with society and avoid the criminal justice system, the mental health court could promote financial efficiencies for courts and detention facilities.  According to a chart accompanying the story, “[b]etween 50 and 70 percent of the [Yellowstone County Detention Facility’s] population suffers from a mental illness or co-occuring disorder, such as addiction.  Further, “[a]s much as 40 percent of the general housing costs at the jail are spent on mentally ill people incarcerated on misdemeanors.”]

• 2.26.10 – New Orleans Times-Picayune – New Orleans District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro and Chief Public Defender Derwyn Bunton agree on a proposal to change the way that cases are assigned to courtrooms in the parish’s criminal court system.  During a City Council hearing, both the top prosecutor and defender spoke in favor of making the change, but noted that the courthouse’s judges, who retain ultimate authority for the case assignemnt system, have been cool to the proposal.  Cannizzaro and Bunton believe that changes would increase efficiency by allowing attorneys to stay with cases from beginning to end, rather than having to pass them off to colleagues and jump from courtroom to courtroom to keep up with their dockets.  One reason they support a change: It may open doors to federal dollars.  Some federal grants require that “the same defense attorney or prosecutor stay on [a] case from beginning to end.”  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: late-January Times-Picayune coverage of the issue is found here.  Also, the PSLawNet Blog conducted a short interview with Mr. Bunton (on unrelated matters) in January.]

• 2.26.10 – Boston Globe – in Massachusetts, a group of legal immigrants is suing the entity that administers the state’s healthcare program, charging that the state’s decision to deny health coverage on account of their immigrant status violates state and federal equal protection principles.  The move to exclude or limit coverage options for legal immigrants under the Massachusetts landmark Commonwealth Care health plan was a budget-cutting measure.  The executive director of Health Law Advocates, which sued the state on behalf of legal immigrant clients, contends that, “You can’t violate people’s constitutional rights just because you don’t have the funds.”  Link to article.

Have you considered a clerkship in a tribal court? The National Tribal Court Law Clerk Program [Ed. Note – the link is currently not working, we’ll update it just as soon as we can] was just launched by University of Colorado Law School, the National Native American Law Students Association, and the National American Indian Court Judges Association. The site is trying to facilitate the summer internship process for tribal courts, and the number of internships should continue to grow.

Equal Justice Works conducts a webinar series on student debt relief, and they’ve scheduled a new one on Public Service Loan Forgiveness for next Tuesday, March 9 at noon EST. You can read more about the webinar and sign up on the EJW site, as well as check out all their other student debt resources (including old webinar recordings).

Participate in the National Association for Law Placement’s 2010 Public Sector & Public Interest Attorney Salary Survey.  Every two years, NALP conducts this unique survey to gather important data on attorney salaries, benefits packages, and loan repayment assistance programs.  Public interest law offices have relied upon data from past surveys in resetting salary scales, negotiating union contracts, implementing loan repayment programs, and in other ways.

Who should participate?

• Civil Legal Services Organizations
• Public Defender’s Offices
• District Attorney/Local Prosecutor’s Offices
• All other nonprofit, public interest law offices (e.g. those organizations that promote civil liberties, human rights, advocate for the homeless, etc.)

A hard copy of the survey was mailed to public interest organizations throughout the country on January 28, 2010.  The survey is also available electronically here: https://vovici.com/wsb.dll/s/9c6eg423bc.    (Please complete either the hard-copy or electronic version, not both.)  All survey participants will receive a free electronic copy of the report when it is released later in the year.  The survey response deadline, which was 2/23/10, has been extended to 3/19/10.

Please contact Steve Grumm, NALP’s Director of Public Service Initiatives, with any questions: sgrumm@nalp.org or 202-296-0057.

The response deadline for this one-of-a-kind, national survey is approaching.  Please spread the word in the public interest community.  Below is some background info and a link to the online version of the survey… 

Public Interest Law Offices: please participate in the National Association for Law Placement’s (NALP) 2010 Public Sector & Public Interest Attorney Salary Survey.

What is the Survey?

Every 2 years, NALP conducts this unique survey of public interest and government law offices to gather important data on attorney salaries, benefits packages, and loan repayment assistance programs.  Public interest law offices have relied upon data from past surveys in resetting salary scales; negotiating union contracts; advocating for legislative changes to salaries and expansions of loan repayment programs; and more.

The survey is endorsed by the Legal Services Corporation, the National District Attorneys Association, the National Legal Aid & Defender Association, and others.

Who should participate?

• Civil Legal Services Organizations
• Public Defender’s Offices
• District Attorney/Local Prosecutor’s Offices
• All other nonprofit, public interest law offices (e.g. those organizations that promote civil liberties, human rights, advocate for the homeless, etc.)

How to Participate

It is very easy to do.  The survey is now being mailed by hard copy to public interest law offices throughout the country.  It is also available electronically here: https://vovici.com/wsb.dll/s/9c6eg423bc.    (Please complete either the hard-copy or electronic versions, not both.)  All survey participants will receive a free electronic copy of the report when it is released later in the year.

Please contact Steve Grumm, NALP’s Director of Public Service Initiatives, with any questions: sgrumm@nalp.org or 202-296-0057.

Reminder: all content from past editions of the Bulletin is archived here on PSLawNet.

• 2.11.10 – Press Release from Office of Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna – using proceeds from a court settlement stemming from an unfair-lending-practices lawsuit against Countrywide Financial, the attorney general will direct $1.8 million to restitution, debt counseling, and other support services for Washington homeowners.  Of that $1.8 million, $320,000 will go to the Washington State Bar Association “to fund the Home Foreclosure Legal Aid Project, which provides pro bono legal services to homeowners facing foreclosure.”  Link to full press release. 

• 2.11.10 – National Law Journal – the presiding judge of the Los Angeles County Superior Court warned that 300 staffers may have to be laid off in March on account of a $79 million deficit.  More layoffs could follow later in the year.  The president of the L.A. County Bar Association is arguing in favor of releasing funds from a construction bond account to shore up the court system, predicting long trial delays and a backlog if staffers are laid off.  Link to article.

• 2.10.10 – Boston Globe (Op-ed) – newly elected U.S. Senator Scott Brown (R., MA) was incorrect when he stated that “federal employees are making twice as much as their private sector counterparts” while he argued for a freeze on federal hiring and pay raises.  First, comparing salaries generally between the public and private sectors is misleading because there are no low-paying, minimum wage jobs in the public sector, and federal workers tend to be older and better educated than their private sector counterparts.  Further, “[d]irect comparisons show professionals in government routinely make far less than their private sector counterparts.”  Second, shrinking the federal workforce is an ill-considered proposal.  “The unintended result of such [hiring] freezes is to leave a federal workforce that is wildly uneven in its capabilities.”    Link to article.

• 2.9.10 – Minneapolis Star-Tribune – in an act of recession-era fiscal belt-tightening, Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty unilaterally “unalloted” $2.7 billion in state funding that had been budgeted to support various initiatives, including social services programs.  A Ramsey County judge had put the kibosh on the governor’s efforts, ruling that his move violated the constitutional separation of powers.  The governor, with support from three law professors, will take his case to the state’s high court in March.  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: this sequence of events exemplifies the tension between state (and local) governments’ efforts to right their own foundering fiscal ships while continuing to offer a social safety net for increased numbers of poor citizens.  As was reported on the MinnPost news site in late January, another target of unallotment was the state’s General Assistance Medical Care program.  After the Legal Aid Society of Minneapolis threatened a lawsuit, the state postponed the program’s discontinuation.]

• 2.9.10 – Hartford Courant [Op-ed] – Connecticut’s legal services programs have been walloped by a drop in IOLTA revenues and declines in other funding sources.  Now, the state judiciary, an initial supporter of state funding to shore up the legal aid infrastructure, “has proposed diverting $1.5 million of funds that were appropriated for legal aid to the poor to help cover a rescission of $7.8 million in the judicial budget.  The governor, General Assembly and judicial branch must find a way to ensure this $1.5 million reaches legal aid. Legal aid staff members have responded to the crisis with heart. Faced with pay cuts and uncertainty, they continue to fight for thousands of domestic violence victims, elderly people pressured by creditors, low-wage workers not being paid, disabled children seeking an education, disabled people seeking state and federal benefits.”  Link to piece.

• 2.9.10 – Baltimore Sun – the recent snowstorms in the mid-Atlantic have left more than snowdrifts piling up.  In Baltimore, and in counties throughout Maryland, court closures are clogging up the criminal justice system as hearings and trials back up while some defendants spend additional nights in jail until they can get to a judge for a bail hearing.  While some prosecutors and defense attorneys are doing all they can to keep up with trial prep, judges and court personnel must weigh a number of factors in making decisions on closures, including the ability of witnesses and jurors to safely travel to courthouses.  Link to article. 

• 2.9.10 – Vicksburg Post (Mississippi) – in Warren County, a proposal to create a public defender’s office has met with support from the local district attorney, who cited potential cost savings as the county would have to contract with fewer appointed counsel for indigent defendants.  Also, a consultant hired by the county to review its jail capacity noted that a public defender’s office may be able to expedite cases and keep more defendants out of jail, easing the burden on the jail facility.  Link to article.

• 2.9.10 – Oakland Tribune (California) – the Public Interest Law Project and Bay Area Legal Aid have sued the Alameda County’s Social Services Agency to stop the termination of a portion of some General Assistance welfare recipients’ benefit payment that is directed toward home rental expenses.  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: this is not the first time that public interest advocates have opposed General Assistance reductions imposed by Alameda County, which has been trying to take the General Assistance program out of the red by cutting benefits.  See San Francisco Chronicle coverage of the County’s legal victory regarding a three-month cap that it imposed on some General Assistance recipients who were deemed to be “employable”.] 

• 2.9.10 – National Law Journal –  Harvard Law School’s newly created Public Service Venture Fund will support graduates on public service career paths by dividing “$1 million per year among qualified graduates who start their own nonprofit organizations or seek jobs at government agencies or public interest groups.”  The addition of this program is one of a series of modifications that Harvard has made in its offerings to support aspiring public service lawyers.  The school has added a fellowship program to financially support grads who were unable to find work and who desired to work for one year in a public interest setting, and, due to budget constraints, it has temporarily done away with an initiative to waive third-year tuition for students who commit to five years of public service work upon graduation.  Link to article, and see Harvard’s announcement. 

• 2.8.10 – WSBT Television Station Website [CBS Affiliate in Indiana] – in April the Michigan Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of indigent defendants whose constitutional rights, the ACLU claims, have been violated because of Michigan’s poor indigent defense infrastructure.  Through the lawsuit, the ACLU “asks the state to step in and fix the problem: to make sure each county provides the funding, policies, and oversight so every defendant gets justice.”  Link to article.  [Ed Note: past coverage related to apparent troubles in the Michigan indigent defense network is available via the National Law Journal and the Michigan Citizen.]

• 2.8.10 – San Jose Mercury News (California)- the Santa Clara County District Attorney, who had appeared to direct her staff to take action amounting to a full boycott of a judge on criminal matters last month, has softened her stance a bit, indicating that it will not oppose the judge’s participation in some misdemeanor criminal proceedings.  The D.A.’s decision to boycott the Judge Andrea Bryan, which came after Bryan had ruled that a prosecutor from the D.A.’s office committed misconduct, was highly controversial in the local legal community.  Link to article.   [Ed. Note: past coverage by the San Jose Mercury News is available here.]

• 2.8.10 – Daily Record (Jacksonville, FL) – the Northeast Florida Medical Legal Partnership, one of a handful of advocacy programs that take a more holistic approach to serving low-income client communities, is expanding its services with the addition of Holland & Knight, LLP as a new organizational partner.  Link to article.

The National Association of Attorneys General’s NAAGazette offers a concise roundup of 2010 AG election activity – 31 states are holding AG elections – and a general overview of how attorneys general are elected/appointed in the U.S. states and territories:

The Attorney General is popularly elected in 43 states, and is appointed by the governor in five states (Alaska, Hawaii, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Wyoming) and in the five jurisdictions of American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. In Maine, the Attorney General is selected by secret ballot of the legislature and in Tennessee by its state supreme court. In the District of Columbia, the mayor chooses the Attorney General.

The National Legal Aid & Defender Association has rolled out a new website to provide technical-assistance resources, best practices, and interactive tools to leaders and managers of indigent defense programs.  The new National Defender Leadership Institute site is at: www.nlada.org/ndli.

• 1.27.10 – Dallas Morning News – the new Dallas Bar Association president, Ike Vanden Eykel, is making a priority of raising funds to benefit legal services through the Campaign for Equal Justice.  Vanden Eykel, who himself is one of the city’s elite, highly-paid, attorneys, “intends to strong-arm those at the top of the legal system so that those at the bottom of society can have access to it.”  Link to article.

• 1.26.10 – San Jose Mercury News – Santa Clara County District Attorney Dolores Carr has instructed prosecutors in her office to stop bringing criminal cases before Superior Court Judge Andrea Bryan.  Bryan “recently angered prosecutors by finding that a trial prosecutor committed numerous acts of misconduct.”  Carr is defending the decision as being based not just on this action by the judge, but on a pattern of actions.  And she notes that other prosecutors and public defenders have taken similar steps in other California courts.  Nonetheless, “experts in criminal law and ethics said the blanket boycott [of a particular judge]…is an abusive tactic that can damage the court system.”  Carr is running for re-election to her post.  Link to article.

• 1.27.10 – MinnPost Website (Minnesota) – Minnesota’s Department of Human Services decided on Wednesday to extend its General Assistance Medical Care coverage for low-income adults by one month.  The program had been scheduled to terminate on March 1 because funding for it was “unalloted” through cost-saving measures by Governor Tim Pawlenty.  The DHS decision came two days after the Legal Aid Society of Minneapolis threatened a lawsuit to stop the government from cutting the program off.  The legal aid program noted that “they would use the same arguments [in this effort] that were posed in a separate lawsuit that led a Ramsey County judge to rule that [the governor] overstepped his authority when he unalloted money for a state nutrition program.”  Link to article. 

• 1.27.10 – North County Times (Southern California) – a high-stakes courtroom battle played out in Vista, California, as a “senior member of the…public defender’s office argued to Superior Court Judge Harry Elias that there has been ‘a continuing pattern of failure’ by prosecutors to supply evidence that could be important to the defense.”  While this argument took place in the context of minor theft case, the “heavyweight allegations drew a heavyweight audience in the courtroom,” including high-level members of the Vista branch of the D.A’s office and a chief administrator from the D.A.’s headquarters.  The D.A. released a statement attesting to her office’s high ethical standards.  Noteworthy also is that prosecutors have accused Judge Elias of bias.  Link to article.

• 1.26.10 – KGNS TV Website (NBC Affiliate in Laredo, TX) [Video story and transcript] –  Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid has sued the state in “an attempt to force them to help starving families, many of which are here in Laredo.”  The lawsuit, filed in December against the Texas Health and Human Services Office, is “attempting to force [the office] to make quick decisions on the piles of pending Food Stamp Applications and bring in the manpower needed to complete the task.”  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: you may view past coverage of the suit from the Houston Chronicle (12/23/09) and Austin American-Statesman (12/18/09).]

• 1.25.10 – Los Angeles Times Money & Company Blog – President Obama is proposing changes to the College Cost Reduction & Access Act’s Income Based Repayment program that would lower the required monthly payment amount, and is also proposing an expansion of the CCRAA’s debt forgiveness program that would lower the pay-in period for qualified borrowers from 25 to 20 years.  Those in public service would still be eligible for forgiveness in 10 years.  Link to blog post.

• Government Executive Newsletter – the federal Office of Personnel Management unveiled a new version of its USAJobs website on Monday.  The new, cleaner looking version of the website “simplifies the site’s searching capability” and “also includes updates on the status of positions as well as a candidate’s application.”  Link to article.

• 1.25.10 – Blog of the Legal Times – the National Veterans Legal Services Program filed a class action lawsuit against the federal government in 2008, alleging that some veterans “were illegally denied disability benefits despite being diagnosed with severe cases of post-traumatic stress disorder that should have qualified them for free care.”  This week, NVLSP announced that through an agreement with the government, an “estimated 4,300 class members will be eligible for a faster review of their disability ratings, as well as a correction of their past and future benefits.”   Link to article.

• 1.25.10 – New York Law Journal [Article contributed by Jonathan Lippman, Chief Judge, State of New York] – the New York legal community, which “is at the vanguard of a nationwide increase in lawyer pro bono,” must remain proactive in the public interest arena because IOLA funding for legal services program has declined markedly.  One new tool to aid in providing legal services to New York’s most needy is the Attorney Emeritus Program, which allows retired lawyers in good standing who are at least 55 years old to take on “Attorney Emeritus” status, allowing them to provide pro bono services “under the auspices of qualified organizations, including legal services programs, bar associations and…volunteer lawyer programs.”  Attorneys Emeritus will be exempted from CLE requirements and will receive malpractice insurance coverage through the organization with which they volunteer.  Link to full piece.   [Ed. Note: the New York Times had covered the Attorney Emeritus program in an article on 1.6.10.] 

• 1.23.10 – “Delaware Online” Website – Delaware’s Community Legal Aid Society, Inc., is sharing $364,621 in grant money from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development with another nonprofit.  The Legal Aid Society will use the grant funding “to help finance investigations into alleged housing discrimination and to enforce the state Fair Housing Act…”  Link to article.

• 1.22.10 – New Orleans Times-Picayune – the Orleans Parish district attorney’s and public defender’s offices have agreed upon a plan to ramp up efficiency in the assignment and  management of criminal cases in the courthouse, but judges have not gotten on board yet.  In effect, the change in process would allow one prosecutor to remain with a criminal case beginning to end, avoiding the occurence of cases bouncing from one prosecutor to another.  The district attorney has cited a letter from judges, raising “unspecified concerns about due process for defendants if the…process was changed.”  An official with the Vera Institute for Justice, which has worked in support of the proposed plan, does not believe that it would “violate any state or federal standards.”  Link to article.