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!

by Kristen Pavón

The University at Buffalo Law School Women, Children, and Social Justice Clinic started a new project aimed at removing a common barrier to safety for domestic violence victims — not having a safe place for their pets.

Between 25 and 40 percent of battered women with pets feel they can’t escape abusive situation because they worry what will happen to their animals if they leave. Seventy-one percent of pet-owning women entering shelters reported that their batterer had harmed, killed, or threatened family pets.

Through the new Animal Shelter Options for Domestic Violence Victims project, UB Law faculty and students provide individuals with resources to secure the safety of their pets and work to raise awareness about the link between domestic violence and pet abuse.

The Clinic has also developed an online database with information on programs that can either house victims’ pets or have a direct referral system to agencies that will accept pets.

You can learn more about the Women, Children, and Social Justice Clinic’s work here.

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday Monday, dear readers. This is a special “72 Hours Late” bulletin edition.  The reason, of course, is that I spent the better part of last week preparing for the sublime glory of the Academy Awards.  I simply need to know whom Joan Rivers adores as Hollywood’s most glamorous promenade upon the red carpet.  This week we’ll return to the every-Friday schedule.  While we’re running with the movie theme, here’s a list of the all-time 10 best legal movie lines (from the people at Bloomberg Law).  And as for the public interest news:      

• A  proposal in the Buckeye State to move toward more state funding of the indigent defense program;
• Large-scale public defender layoff in NOLA forces legal luminaries into indigent defense roles;
• In Washington State, a class action alleging unconstitutionally overburdened indigent defense programs goes forward;
• Pay raises for Wisconsin prosecutors (and maybe public defenders) to support attorney retention;
• Yale Law School clinic files a federal suit challenging Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers;
• the boom in pro bono work by corporate counsel offices;
• plumbing the depths of Florida’s legal services funding crisis;
• continuing a national trend, a new veterans diversionary court in PA;
• to address swelling demand for legal services, stakeholders in Tennessee are serving clients by answering legal questions online;
• a Baltimore legal services provider partners with a social work school to provide more holistic services to clients.    

The summaries:

• 2.26.12 – a move to change the Buckeye State’s indigent-defense funding system.  From the Columbus Dispatch: “The County Commissioners’ Association of Ohio again has on its legislative agenda the issue of transferring the responsibility of providing indigent defendants with legal representation from the counties to the state…. Currently, counties set up their own ways of providing lawyers for indigent defendants, and they allocate money. The state then reimburses all counties at the same rate, which last year was about 35 percent. That’s down from the 50 percent the state promised when the system was set up in the early 1970s.

• 2.24.12 – a not-so-subtle message from the bench? It’s all hands on deck in the NOLA legal community as one judge calls upon high-profile lawyers for public defense work.  From the Times-Picayune: “Politicians, local media leaders and on-air pundits filed into a New Orleans criminal courtroom on Friday, under orders from a judge to take on the cases of poor defendants left without lawyers. Criminal District Judge Arthur Hunter, in a splashy move aimed at drawing attention to a wave of layoffs at the Orleans Parish public defender’s office, handpicked some of the city’s best-known lawyers to represent 32 defendants abandoned by the cuts.”  Those called into service included the state bar association president and the Times-Picayune’s publisher.

• 2.23.12 – from the AP: “A federal judge in Seattle says a lawsuit challenging the public defense systems in the cities of Mount Vernon and Burlington can proceed. Judge Robert Lasnik also granted the case class-action status Thursday.  The American Civil Liberties Union alleges that two part-time attorneys contracted by the cities fielded more than 2,100 cases in 2010. That’s although Washington state Bar Association guidelines specify full-time public defenders shouldn’t surpass 400 cases a year. The lawsuit alleges the cities fail to provide adequate resources to the public defender system.”

• 2.22.12 – from the State Bar of Wisconsin: “A bipartisan bill intended to retain experienced prosecutors by improving their compensation…advance[s] in the Legislature….  The legislation, 2011 Senate Bill 394 and Assembly Bill 488, establishes a pay progression program for assistant district attorneys (ADAs), but does not fund it in the current biennium, leaving that issue for a future Legislature to address in the next state budget….  On Feb. 15, legislators introduced a bill to create a similar pay progression system for assistant state public defenders.”  The public defender bill is not out of committee yet.

• 2.22.12 – “An immigration law clinic at Yale Law School has filed a federal class action lawsuit challenging the use of detainers by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and asked Wednesday that the suit be expedited now that ICE is rolling out Secure Communities in Connecticut statewide.”  (Story from the New Haven Register.)

• 2.21.12 – the Pro Bono Institute has gotten a lot of traction in American Lawyer Media publications of late.  Most recently, Corporate Counsel looks at the increase in pro bono work performed by, well, corporate counsel, with a focus on PBI’s work in the arena.

• 2.20.12 – a Miami Herald editorial plumbs the depths of the Sunshine State’s legal services funding crisis.  The state government does not fund legal services, so programs have long been dependent on IOLTA funds.  With the real estate market collapsed and interest rates at historic lows, IOLTA funding has been gutted by 80%.  This will lead to lawyer layoffs – “…some 120 of Florida’s 410 Legal Aid attorneys are expected to lose their jobs…” – and fewer clients served unless action is taken now to shore up funding.

• 2.17.12 – continuing a national trend, a suburban Philadelphia county is creating a veterans court to adjudicate some cases involving vets who run afoul of the law.  “Congressman Pat Meehan (R-7) hosted a roundtable discussion to iron out the details of Delaware County’s Veterans Justice Initiative. With representatives from the Veterans Administration…it was announced that a Veterans Treatment Court was ready to go in Delco…. The goal [is] the creation of a diversionary court track for non-violent offenders who served in the military.”  (Story from the Delco News Network.)

• 2.16.12 – “More than 100 low-income Tennesseans are receiving free legal assistance every month through the OnlineTNJustice.org website, but backers of the project want to serve more….  The initiative is a joint project of the Tennessee Alliance for Legal Services and the Tennessee Bar Association. The site allows clients to request advice about specific civil legal issues from volunteer lawyers and get their questions answered online.” (Story from the Tennessean.)

• 2.16.12 – a legal services office pairs with a graduate social work school to provide more holistic services to clients.  From the Public News Service: “The downtown Baltimore [Maryland Legal Aid Bureau] office has been trying something new: teaming up with social workers through the University of Maryland School of Social Work….  Legal Aid offices around the state want to replicate the Baltimore program, but it does require resources, and regular Legal Aid funding cannot be used for the social workers.”

The National LGBT Bar Association is sponsoring the Michael Greenberg Student Writing Competition. Here are the deets:

The Michael Greenberg writing competition scholarship recognizes and encourages outstanding law student scholarship on the legal issues affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex persons. The scholarship was established in memory of Michael Greenberg, former National LGBT Bar Association board member and Philadelphia attorney who died in 1996 from complications related to AIDS.

TOPIC: Legal issues affecting the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and/or Intersex community.
ELIGIBILITY: Students must be enrolled in an ABA-accredited law school during the 2011-12 academic year.

DEADLINE: Entries must be submitted before the competition closing date of May 20, 2012. All entries must be submitted via email to writingcompetition@lgbtbar.org. Please write “Michael E. Greenberg Writing Competition” in the subject line.

AWARDS:

First Place

• $1,000 cash prize
• Publication in the Journal of Law and Sexuality at Tulane University Law School
•  Registration, airfare (within the 48 contiguous United States) and lodging for the Lavender Law Annual Conference and Career Fair in Washington, D.C., which will take place from August 23-25, 2012.

First & Second Runner-up

• Registration for the Lavender Law Annual Conference and Career Fair in Washington, D.C.

FORMAT: Each entry should be a scholarly piece fit for publication in a law review. Entries should follow standard note format, including Bluebook (19th edition) citation form. All entries must be submitted in English. Each entry should be no longer than 25 single-sided pages with one-inch margins and 12-point Times New Roman font, double-spaced. The page limit includes footnotes. Footnotes should be single-spaced and 10-point font. Entries containing endnotes or including appendices or supplemental material will not be considered. Published papers or papers to be published in other publications during the entirety of the competition process are ineligible. Each individual may submit only one entry and group entries will not be accepted. Entries should be the sole work of the author and should not yet have undergone significant editing by others. Editing includes any significant revision as well as technical or substantive review of citations. Informal support, such as general comments on preliminary drafts, is allowed.

All entries must be submitted electronically in either Word or PDF format. Entrants must not include their name or the name of their school on the competition paper itself. Instead, participants must submit a separate cover page indicating their name, school, permanent address, telephone number, and a statement indicating that a preemption check has been completed as of the date of submission. We reserve the right to reject any submissions that do not conform to these standards, in particular those that list any identifying information on the submission directly.
QUESTIONS?
Please contact LGBT Bar Law Student Division Co-chair Ashley E. McGovern at writingcompetition@lgbtbar.org with any questions or concerns. Do not include any substantive information regarding your piece, as submissions are blind-graded by student co-chairs. For more information about the National LGBT Bar Association, please visit: www.lgbtbar.org.

By: Steve Grumm

Particularly in the Great Recession’s wake, there has been much discussion about whether and how to make fundamental changes to the way we train new lawyers.  But this debate far predates the recession.  Stakeholders in legal education have for several years been examining the current orthodoxy, especially in asking whether we should be de-emphasizing the “casebook” model in favor of additional experiential learning opportunities and teamwork exercises.

In 2006 Stanford Law School undertook several measures to alter its education model.  Six years later they’re eager to tell us about their progress.  Here’s an excerpt from a detailed press release highlighting SLS’s expansion of team-oriented coursework, clinicals, joint degree programs, etc.. 

Stanford Law School today announced the completion of the first phase of comprehensive reforms to its legal curriculum that began in November 2006—successfully transforming its traditional law degree into a multi-dimensional JD, which combines the study of other disciplines with team-oriented, problem-solving techniques together with expanded clinical training that enables students to represent clients and litigate cases while in law school.

Read the full press release here.

By: Steve Grumm

For several months now a Univ. of Maryland School of Law environmental law clinic has taken heat from some state legislators (and the governor) over its involvement in a lawsuit concerning chicken farming and potential pollution of local waterways.  The developments raise interesting questions about law clinics’ autonomy in taking cases.

From the National Law Journal:

The University of Maryland would have to pay as much as $500,000 toward the legal expenses incurred by a farm’s owners while fighting a lawsuit brought by the school’s environmental law clinic under legislation proposed by a Republican state lawmaker.

State Sen. Richard Colburn introduced the bill on Feb. 13. It was the latest development in a three-year battle between the environmental law clinic at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law and Republican lawmakers over the appropriate role of publicly funded clinics.

The clinic represents the Waterkeeper Alliance in the lawsuit against poultry giant Perdue Farms Inc. and a Hudson Farm, a local, family-owned chicken operation that supplies the company. The lawmakers fear that suit and others like it hurt the local economy and shouldn’t be backed with public money.

Happy Friday, dear readers.  Below you will see a lot of news, from Florida, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere about crippling cuts in legal services funding. It can be easy, when reading reports that focus on dry items like IOLTA yields and budget lines, to forget that those dollar figures have real impacts on real people: low income individuals and families who are struggling to get by, to say nothing of legal services staffers who have lost their jobs in budget cuts.  

A story summarized below tells of Legal Services of Greater Miami’s work on behalf of a veteran of operations in Afghanistan whose wartime injuries have left him with physical, mental and psychological after-effects.  After a year of advocacy, LSGM secured $1000 in monthly benefits for their client, who is married with children.  Reading of this impacted me powerfully.  I often jog by the Dep’t. of Veterans Affairs headquarters.  Engraved in stone on the building are these words from Abraham Lincoln, spoken during his second inaugural address in the midst of the Civil War: “To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan.”

To me, this quote speaks to our shared obligation to provide support for those who sacrifice in service.  Sometimes it falls to legal services lawyers to ensure that that obligation is fulfilled.  So when I think of legal services funding cuts, I think of fewer veterans who access benefits.  I also think of fewer domestic violence victims who achieve legal protection from abusers, and fewer children who receive medical care.  There are tolls exacted on real human beings when figures on spreadsheets shrink. 

This week:

• Maryland’s high court considers the financial burden of ensuring that indigent defendants have counsel at bail hearings;
• New Mexico voters to decide if public defense program should become independent agency;
• an ACLU suit over allegedly over-burdened public defenders in Washington State;
• the Legal Aid Society of Orange County spins off a for-profit entity to help pro se litigants;
• the White House FY2013 budget proposal includes a $402 million LSC appropriation;
• the PA governor’s budget proposal would significantly cut legal services funding;
• to close or not to close the San Joachin County, CA public defender’s office;
• how last November’s LSC cuts are impacting programs in the DC metro area;
• funding woes for Alabama prosecutors’ offices and courthouses;
• federal employee retirements jumped by 24% in 2011;
• speaking of Uncle Sam, a Presidential Management Fellowship application snafu dashes the hopes of 300 candidates;
• Yale Law School cuts back on LRAP program;
• the impact of legal services funding cuts in Florida;
• ditto, West Virginia;
• ditto, Connecticut;
• ditto, Detroit;
• but closing with good news(!), $2 million to the Arkansas Access to Justice Foundation.  

Here are the summaries:

• 2.17.12 – Maryland’s highest court decided Thursday to wait for more information before issuing a mandate that would require lawyers to be available to a defendant within 24 hours of arrest, when it is decided whether he or she will be detained or released.  [T]he Court of Appeals decided to consider responses, due March 5, to motions filed by the Baltimore City District Court Commissioners and state Public Defender Paul B. DeWolfe Jr. before issuing a mandate to enforce its Jan. 4 decision.  DeWolfe, whose office would need an estimated $28 million more annually to make public defenders available at initial bail and bail review hearings, told the court in asking again for a stay of at least 180 days that his office does not have and is unlikely to quickly obtain the resources to comply.”  (Story from The Gazette.)

• 2.16.12 – the question of whether to separate the state’s public defense program from the executive branch so that it operates as an independent agency will be on the November ballot in New Mexico.  (Story from the Daily Times.)

• 2.15.12 – the ACLU is litigating over alleged over-burdened defenders in Washington State.  From the Seattle Times: “Attorneys for the cities of Mount Vernon and Burlington are sparring with the American Civil Liberties Union over allegations that the Skagit County cities knew their public defenders were overburdened with cases. In a federal lawsuit, the ACLU says the two part-time attorneys contracted by the cities fielded more than 2,100 cases in 2010, even though Washington state Bar Association guidelines say full-time public defenders shouldn’t surpass 400 cases a year.” 

• 2.14.12 – there has been much talk in the Great recession’s wake about the rise in pro se clients and the potential value of unbundling legal services delivery.  This SoCal development is interesting: the Legal Aid Society of Orange County is spinning off a for-profit entity, Legal Genie Inc., a “web-based program which combines the power of self-help technology with access to unbundled legal services, enabling self-represented litigants to complete and e-file legal pleadings.” Here’s a press release.

• 2.13.12 – the White House’s FY2013 budget proposal includes a request for $402 million in LSC funding.  This would be an increase over the current $348 million funding level.  For its part, LSC is asking Congress for a higher sum than the White House is: $470 million.  But LSC has also expressed its understanding concerning the White House’s lower proposal, according to the Blog of the Legal Times.  

• 2.13.12 – “Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett’s proposed budget would keep general-fund money allotted to the judiciary the same as last year, but funding for civil legal services for the poor would be cut by $274,000….  Mr. Corbett has proposed that legal service s funded in a budget line within the state Department of Public Welfare be funded at $2.5 million, down from $2.74 million last year and down from $3 million two budget cycles ago.”  Story from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

• 2.13.12 –  in northern California, San Joaquin County is debating the financial efficiencies of a proposal to close the public defense office.  Here’s the story from the Record. 

• 2.12.12 – the Washington Post reports on how last November’s LSC cuts are impacting grantee programs in DC, MD, and VA.

• 2.12.12 – funding woes are plaguing Alabama courthouses and prosecutors’ offices, and there are more clouds on the horizon.  From the Ledger-Enquirer:  “District attorneys and court officials who rely on state funding are reeling from recent budget cuts that have strained Alabama’s judicial system. The squeeze is being felt in East Alabama counties and elsewhere, prompting circuit clerks to shrink their staffs and scale back hours of operation despite mounting caseloads.” As for Gov. Bentley’s new budget proposal, “District attorneys would [experience] 20 percent cuts. And while the courts requested increased funding next fiscal year, the governor’s plan would slash the total judicial system’s General Fund appropriation by some 26 percent, mitigated mildly by about a 9 percent increase in earmarked funds.”

• 2.10.12 – no attorney-specific numbers, but Government Executive reports that, “[f]ederal retirements increased 24 percent in 2011 from the previous year, according to new statistics from the Office of Personnel Management…. The appeal of buyouts and early outs to agencies grew after the failure of the joint select committee on deficit reduction to agree on a plan to reduce spending by $1.2 trillion triggered across-the-board automatic spending cuts. Those cuts are slated to take effect in January 2013 unless Congress repeals sequestration. While there are no official figures available yet on how many employees accepted such incentives in 2011, tens of thousands were offered, and agencies en masse are likely to offer another round of buyouts heading into fiscal 2013.

• 2.10.12 – a glitch in the Presidential Management Fellowship program application process gave false hope to candidates before crushing said hope.  From Government Executive: “A prestigious postgraduate fellowship program run by the Office of Personnel Management has acknowledged it sent acceptance letters to about 300 applicants by mistake in January. The [PMF] program had 9,077 applicants, nominated for the program by their graduate schools, for 2012. Of those, 628 were ultimately chosen as fellows and 1,186 were semifinalists. All semifinalists were invited to conduct in-person interviews.  Approximately 25 percent of the semifinalists received erroneous acceptance letters, according to Fox News.”  Boy, it’s just never good to be one of The 300. 

• 2.10.12 – “Faced with increased enrollment and rising loan costs, the Yale Law School is scaling back its loan forgiveness program. The Career Options Assistance Program, which partially subsidizes tuition loan payments for Law School graduates should they enter relatively low-salary careers, will require a larger student contribution from members of…incoming…classes…. Under the previous policy, law school alumni who earn less than $60,000 [annually]…are eligible to have their loans payments fully subsidized by COAP, while those earning more than $60,000 are expected to contribute a quarter of their income above that baseline. The new policy sets the baseline salary lower, at $50,000, and expects participants to contribute varying percentages of their income toward loan payments, based on a sliding scale…”  (Story from the Yale Daily News.) 

• 2.10.12 – the Miami Herald reports on how legal services providers in Florida have struggled with federal and state funding cuts.  Florida’s IOLTA program was flush with cash and the envy of other states until the recession. IOLTA funds have taken an 88% hit since 2008.  The Herald article touches upon the work that legal services providers do to support veterans and their families.  To me, this powerfully humanizes what it means when we talk in much drier terms of “IOLTA” and budget appropriation lines. 

• 2.10.12 – legal services layoffs in West Virginia.  From the Charleston Gazette: “West Virginia Legal Aid executives announced Friday afternoon that they have laid off 15 case handlers and closed their Logan County office in response to federal budget cuts that promise to saddle the program with a $1.2 million deficit by 2013.”

• 2.10.12 – NBC Connecticut looks at the funding woes plaguing Statewide Legal Services of Connecticut, which is the Nutmeg State’s sole LSC grantee.

• 2.10.12 – the impact of legal services funding cuts in the Detroit area, as reported by the Daily Tribune.

• 2.10.12 –  two million dollars from the recent blockbuster mortgage/banking industry settlement will go to the Arkansas Access to Justice Commission.  The Sun-Times has the story: “The Arkansas Attorney General’s office announced the news on Thursday, and funds distributed to the Commission will be used to provide access to civil justice for Arkansans affected by the mortgage crisis

From our peeps at Equal Justice Works:

Summer Corps will begin accepting online applications for the 2012 program on March 1, 2012.  The deadline to apply is March 23, 2012 at 11:59 p.m. EDT.  Late or incomplete applications will not be accepted. 

There are three steps you must take before completing an application:

• Make sure you are eligible to apply. Please see our member eligibility and criteria page for more information.
• Secure a qualifying project with a qualifying organization. To apply for Summer Corps you must first obtain a placement at a qualifying nonprofit organization. Equal Justice Works will not find a placement for you.
• Design a qualifying project. Summer Corps supports projects in which students provide primarily direct legal services to low-income and underserved individuals. Community outreach and education components are also encouraged. Projects where students are doing pure policy work do not qualify for Summer Corps.

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  I’m traveling home to Philadelphia, where I will eat soft pretzels, catch hometown band Marah, and see photographer Zoe Strauss’s Phila. Art Museum exhibit.  Before the public interest news summary, here are some other news items that have captured my attention of late:

• Here’s a Wash. Post piece on managing Millennial Generation (a/k/a “Gen. Y”) employees that cuts through the criticisms that some Boomers and Xers lob at their younger colleagues – “they’re entitled; they’re know-it-alls” – and provides concrete tips for boosting Millennials’ happiness – and their productivity – in the workplace.  Now that that’s solved, how do we stop Millennials from dressing like it’s the 1980s?  No one needs that again.
• Despite the relatively positive jobs numbers reported last week, the government sector is faring poorly.  From the Bureau of Labor Statistics:  “Over the past 12 months, the [government] sector has lost 276,000 jobs, with declines in local government; state government, excluding education…”  This doesn’t speak directly to lawyer jobs, and based on data from NALP’s recent public interest employment market report I don’t think lawyers bore the brunt of gov’t. job cuts.  But the lawyer-employment picture isn’t rosy.  For instance, over half of local gov’t. law offices (excluding prosecutors and defenders) which responded to our Fall, 2011 survey were in a hiring freeze.
• This Wash. Post piece on a mini-trend of Chinese language immersion programs in U.S. elementary schools makes me wish I’d reconsidered immersing myself in 4 years of high school Latin.   

Okay, this week’s public interest news:

• indigent defense reform in Massachusetts plods along;
• needed: indigent defense reform, plodding or otherwise, in NOLA;
• Maryland legal services providers facing bad funding news;
• 5 myths about pro bono;
• DOJ to put ~$2.4 million in grant funding toward improving indigent defense;
• a $200K gift for a Philly legal services provider;
• but an inland California provider is going month-to-month with expenses;
• in Wisconsin, low prosecutor pay = high prosecutor turnover;
• the 25-year evolution of clinical legal education is the focus of a new law review volume;
• survey results shed light on what kinds of pro bono cases law firm lawyers are taking. 

The summaries:

• 2.8.12 – indigent defense reform in Massachusetts plods along…kind of.  For the second straight year, Gov. Deval Patrick has called for public defenders to [represent more] indigent clients, but members of the board overseeing the state’s public defense system are pushing back, suggesting the plan may be too much, too soon.  The governor’s budget proposes to hire 281 new public defenders to handle 50 percent of the case work for indigent criminal and civil defendants. If adopted, the state would shift further shift away from a reliance on private bar advocates and Patrick believes the state will save nearly $10 million in fiscal 2013.”  The board is concerned that Patrick is pushing change too quickly.

• 2.7.12 – in New Orleans trial judges are figuring out what to do following the public defender’s announcement about layoffs which include senior lawyers with large caseloads. (Report from WDSU TV.) A few days back a Times-Picayune editorial put the NOLA PD’s financial straits into context: “Eight out of every 10 criminal defendants in New Orleans are poor enough to need a publicly paid defense attorney. That makes the severe budget cuts in the Orleans Parish public defenders’ office a crisis that threatens the progress in prosecuting crimes…. [The defender’s office] announced this week that a budget shortfall had forced [the] lay off [of] 27 employees, including 21 attorneys.”  That’s one third of the office’s attorneys. 

• 2.6.12 – bad news for civil legal service funding in Maryland.  The Baltimore Sun reports: “A major funder of legal services for the poor will shave its grants by at least 5 percent across Maryland — even after dipping into its reserves.  The 34 agencies that receive money from the Maryland Legal Services Corp. have been told to submit requests for grants next month that are 5 percent below current amounts because it is facing a ‘significant’ funding shortfall…. The…two main funding sources — the surcharge on court filing fees for civil cases and [IOLTA proceeds] — have been hit by the economy.

• 2.6.12 – writing in the National Law Journal, Pro Bono Institute prez Esther Lardent identifies and debunks “Five Myths about Pro Bono.”  The myths:
  •  Law firms only want “sexy” pro bono matters;
  • Pro bono at large firms is dropping precipitously;
  • In-house pro bono is a passing fad;
  • Pro bono can supplant legal aid;
  • It’s all about the hours.

• 2.6.12 – from the ABA Journal: “U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder today announced two new [DOJ] programs aimed at helping to bolster indigent defense services at the state and local levels….  [T]he National Institute of Justice…will begin…soliciting applications within the next few weeks for grants to support research on fundamental issues of access to legal services…at the state and local levels. He said the institute will commit up to $1 million to support these grants.  Holder also said that, later this spring, the…Bureau of Justice Assistance will solicit applications from state and local jurisdictions for grants that would support on-the-ground efforts to help assure that defendants have access to counsel at the earliest stages of criminal proceedings; provide support for members of the private bar in representing indigent defendants; reduce caseloads; and support oversight of public defender and assigned counsel systems. Up to $1.4 million will be dedicated to this grant program.”  Here’s some Nat’l. Law Journal coverage of AG Holder’s remarks on the importance of a solid indigent defense system, made at the ABA’s midyear conference.

• 2.6.12 – good – nay, great – funding news, for a change.  The Phila. Business Journal reports that Community Legal Services received a $200K gift from Philly law firm Raynes McCarty.  Congrats, CLS!

• 2.5.12 – a story about the work of the Legal Aid Society of San Bernardino included a troubling passage about LASSB’s funding: “[A recent grant ensured that LASSB] could make payroll one more week and have a little money left over….  The organization, with an estimated $2 million annual budget, almost constantly searches for money to pay 13 employees, operate its office and provide services throughout the county….  ‘We are living right now from paycheck to paycheck,’ [executive director Roberta] Shouse said. ‘My bookkeeper tells me that we do not have enough money to go until Dec. 31.’  Since 2007, Legal Aid’s number of clients has increased from 4,485 to 5,071. Meanwhile, the organization lost nearly $139,000 from 2010 to 2011. It expects to lose about $110,000 in funding this year.  (Story from the Press-Enterprise.) 

• 2.4.12 – here’s a detailed report on the serious problem of low prosecutor pay and high prosecutor attrition – cause, meet effect – in Wisconsin.  One departing prosecutor, leaving after 5 years, referred to her “dead-end job.”  The low pay has led to a staffing reality that a lot of public interest organizations see: “There are newbies, potential retirees and not much in between in prosecutors’ offices.  Forty-two percent of assistant [DAs] have been in the field for fewer than five years and a third have more than 17 years of experience…”  Legislative proposals allowing for raised pay levels are in the works, but in the current fiscal climate few are counting on quick solutions.  (Article from the Appleton Post-Crescent.)    

• February, 2012 – the current edition of the New York Law School Law Review focuses on the evolution of clinical legal education over the past 25 years – 13 articles by my count.

• February, 2012 – some survey reporting from the folks at Pro Bono.net sheds light on what types of cases pro bono advocates are taking: “Family law and immigration were among the most popular areas for pro bono work in 2011, according to the 229 Probono.net members who took a recent survey on “Your Year in Pro Bono.” The survey, conducted during December 2011, looked at which areas of legal need were of interest, and why. Family law emerged as a top priority, with more than 27% of those responding having handled a family law matter as their last pro bono case. Following was immigration, at 15%. Other areas of interest included asylum, housing and military and veteran’s affairs. The survey showed a strong commitment to pro bono, with 52% of respondents having taken on their last case in the last three months, and 69% within the last six months. Awareness of the growing justice gap seems to be driving this activity.”

From the National Law Journal:

The ABA’s House of Delegates voted unanimously on Feb. 6 to adopt a resolution urging the council to “ensure that the exam reflects what the exam is designed to measure, and not the test taker’s disability.” The vote came during the ABA’s midyear meeting in New Orleans.

The resolution called upon the council to make its policies clear to people with disabilities; to inform applicants of decisions in a timely manner; and to provide adequate time for appeals of denials of accommodations.

The delegates also took issue with a practice known as “flagging,” by which the council alerts law schools to applicants who have received extra time to complete the LSAT. The resolution was largely symbolic, as the ABA lacks power to compel the council to act. . . .

However, not everyone is totally against LSAC on this one.

University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law professor Laura Rothstein, who previously has served on the council’s task force on disabilities, responded in writing to the resolution and urged caution. Some undergraduate institutions “overaccommodate” students, she wrote.

She defended “flagging,” saying the council’s analysts have concluded that “it is not psychometrically sound to report test scores of accommodated tests (extra time) as being comparable to those taken under standard conditions.” . . .

The [Law School Admission] council has reported that it receives requests for accommodations from about 2,000 people each year and makes decision on a case-by-case basis. About 50 percent of those requests are granted in some form. The most common accommodations are a separate testing room, extra time to take the test and extra rest time between sections of the test. People with learning disorders account for the single largest group of accommodation seekers.

Read the rest here.