By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers, and greetings from the nation’s capital, where the First Lady is out and about with the regular people and those wiseacre rascals at the Onion have drawn the attention of Johnny Law.

This week in the public interest world: a Rainbow State legal services program merges with Appleseed; Cleveland Legal Aid Society gets a $ boost to help with an office move; the importance of maintaining government legal services funding here in DC; MLAB hits the century mark, and there’s no shortage of work; news about the new USAJobs site; training bilingual law students in proper legal translating/interpretation (great idea!); checking in with the Legal Services Corp.’s prez; AtJ in the Cornhusker State; a long-cherished UAW legal services programs is going the way of many other union benefits. 

• 9.28.11 – from a press release published in the Hawaii Reporter, we learn that a legal services program is merging into the national Appleseed network: “The Board of Directors of Lawyers for Equal Justice (LEJ) is proud to announce that LEJ is joining with 16 other public interest justice centers in the United States and Mexico affiliated with the Appleseed organization.  LEJ’s new name is the Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice.” 

• 9.28.11 – the Morning Journal reports on some good news for our friends at the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland.  Law firm largesse recently helped LAS relocate its Lorain County office.  Wickens, Herzer, Panza, Cook & Batista donated $40,000 to LAS to assist with the move and office operations.  (Name-partner Richard Panza is an LAS board member.)

• 9.27.11 – right here in the District, UDC Law Professor Matthew Fraidin makes the case for local government funding of legal services.  Writing in the Huffington Post, Fraidin highlights a recent death of a woman who had sought, pro se, a protection order against the alleged killer.  Fraidin uses this tragedy to illustrate the invaluable role that public interest lawyers play in guiding DV victims through a highly complex legal system.  (He notes the benefits of representation for alleged DV perpetrators, as well.)  As DC’s local elected officials are forming the budget, Fraidin argues, they must appreciate the value and importance of funding legal services.”

• 9.26.11 – the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau turns 100. Birthday present: tons and tons of clients. A Baltimore Sun article highlights the uptick in cases: Legal Aid, which employs about 150 lawyers around the state, has seen its annual caseload grow from less than 42,000 five years ago to nearly 70,000 in the fiscal year that ended in June.  The challenges faced by clients reflect the times. Unemployment insurance cases are up 150 percent in the last four years. Consumer collection cases — default on debt, Social Security attachments and the like — are up 30 percent.”

• 9.26.11 – the new (and promised-to-be-improved) USAJobs website is set to launch officially on 10/13.  From the Government Executive website, some important details about the transition: “Agencies will have to close all open job announcements before Oct. 6, when the system will be made unavailable to all applicants. The downtime will allow agencies to move data to the new platform built by OPM and create a level playing field for job seekers and human resources staff. According to agency officials, the system could be back up and running as early as Oct. 11.”

• 9.26.11 – here’s one from the “good ideas” department.  The Jacksonville Daily Record reports that a group of bilingual Florida Coastal Law students participated in the “Interpreting and Translating in a Legal Setting” training.  “Led by Elizabeth Cuevas, the Clinical Student Representative for the Florida Coastal Immigration Clinic, students learned the differences between interpreting and translating and their roles in helping clients through the clinical program and from possible outside agencies.” While working in legal services I relied on law students and support staff for interpreting and translation help with non-English-speaking clients.  It’s pretty easy to tell the difference between a trained interpreter and an untrained one, and working with someone who’s trained makes a huge difference.  

• 9.25.11 – the Washington Post checks in with Legal Services Corporation president Jim Sandman, who has taken the helm in stormy seas.  LSC faces congressional funding cuts and continued scrutiny of its grantee monitoring procedures. Sandman offers four of his goals moving forward:

• “Create an independent body to make fiscal operations more efficient;
• Focus on getting services to hard-to-reach communities;
• Prove legal aid is different [than other federally funded programs that are threatened with funding cuts.  In particular: providing citizens with equal access to justice is in keeping with our Constitution’s fundamental tenets.]
• Seek alternative revenue sources.”

• 9.25.11 – AtJ news from the Cornhusker State.  The Grand Island Independent – hey, I spent a night there in a roadside motel while driving cross-country in my beloved 1991 Honda Civic – reports on a widening justice gap.  “More Nebraskans than ever have the need for free legal aid, but the available funds and number of attorneys willing to take on a pro-bono case are limited, said a group of Nebraska Bar Association executive committee members who were traveling the state last week talking about the cause…. State bar president-elect Warren Whitted noted that “of 25,000 qualifying applications [for legal services], about 10,000 were able to be served [because of resource shortages]. Most of those cases involved domestic matters, landlord/ tenant disputes, and social security questions.”

• 9.24.11 – did you know that, for decades, free legal services were available to some GM autoworkers via their union contract?  Neither did I.  Does it surprise you that this benefit is going away as the UAW continues a fundamental restructuring of its relationship with American automakers?  Me neither.  The Detroit Free-Press reports that via a tentative labor deal, in 2014 a UAW-created legal aid program will come to an end: “The program, which operates separately from the UAW, employs about 200 attorneys and covers legal services, such as adopting a child, probate proceedings and real estate disputes.”  Similar programs for Ford and Chrysler workers could suffer the same fate.  

by Kristen Pavón

If you don’t already know, National Pro Bono Week is October 23 to October 29. Lots of great educational events are planned across the country to celebrate efforts to meet the legal needs of our most vulnerable populations.

Have you decided what you’ll do during the Pro Bono celebration?

If not, the ABA Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service has a comprehensive list of the events by state here.

Also, remember to join the national conversation on pro bono! Today’s question is: What suggestions do you have for law schools that would result in the graduation of students committed to access for all?

Here’s my response: First, law schools can offer more public interest-related courses, including poverty law, affordable housing and civil rights. Also, access to justice issues should be discussed and covered in every law school course, similar to requiring an international component to curricula. Additionally, law school career counselors should have specialized knowledge and training in public interest advising. Finally, law schools should make pro bono work a priority; students’ pro bono accomplishments should be widely promoted throughout the school and community.

Add your thoughts here!

Also, let us know below what you’ve got going on for Pro Bono Week.

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  Thanks for reading our weekly attempt to track goings-on in the business of public interest law – particularly developments that affect funding and employment – as well as news from the legal education world that impacts the way we train tomorrow’s public interest advocates.  If you are  also interested in keeping up with similar developments in the larger legal industry, check out NALP’s Industry News Weekly Digest.  Published every Friday morning, the digest is authored by NALP executive director Jim Leipold, one of the industry’s closest watchers, and a darned fine dresser (read: my boss). 

This week: some funding for a new Northeastern Law pro bono program; nonprofits bracing for impact from looming federal budget cuts; the University of Maryland’s law school also gets pro bono dollars; the 20^th century saw the dawn and significant evolution in public interest law practice; a new Chicago-area legal helpline for undocumented immigrants is fielding calls from across the nation; a California public defender seeks to undo county budget cuts (we suspect he’s not alone in this endeavor); from tragedy emerges a creative means to support a public defense program; the Dallas D.A.’s family violence unit faces a budgetary axe; and, significant changes to both the Massachusetts and Missouri public defense systems.

• 9.22.11 – good news for Northeastern Law students and Beantown micro-entrepreneuers.   According to the Boston Business Journal the law school “has been awarded a $500,000 grant by the U.S. Department of Commerce to set up a center at the school that will provide free legal services to local low-income or under-served entrepreneurs, the school said on Thursday.  The new center will focus on several emerging industries in Massachusetts including clean energy; green technologies; science and health technologies; and small and ethnically diverse businesses, according to Northeastern.”  One of the particularly nice things about these kinds of pro bono programs is that law students who participate will be able to develop transactional skills, which is not the norm with most pro bono opportunities.

• 9.21.11 – noting that the Legal Services Corporation’s congressional appropriation is on the chopping block, the Nonprofit Quarterly offers some broader perspective on how other nonprofit sectors which rely on federal dollars may fare in the FY12 budget process.  The picture’s not pretty.

• 9.20.11 – more good news on the law school pro bono funding front.  The National Law Journal reports that the University of Maryland’s law school received a $1 million grant from the Moser Family Philanthropic Fund to “establish the Moser Ethics in Action Endowment, which will fund projects and courses centered on ethics, pro bono and professionalism.”

• 9.19.11 – Chip Mellor of the libertarian Institute for Justice pens a Forbes.com piece looking at “Public Interest Law, Then and Now.”  In the early 20^th century both the NAACP and the ACLU “realized that without an effective and persistent courtroom presence, they would not be able to secure the rights and goals they sought. In the coming decades, their programs evolved and other organizations on both the left and the right launched their own public interest law efforts. As a result, the role of the courts and the nature of legal advocacy were transformed.”  As time passed, “public interest law came to involve more than just litigation. The tactics incorporated media relations and mobilization of the public. And it involved appearing in court representing a client and advocating a cause for the purpose of achieving larger social and legal goals.”

• 9.19.11 – from the Huffington Post: “The nation’s first 24-hour hotline for undocumented immigrants seeking information about deportation went live in Chicago Monday….  Created by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR), the Deportation Family Support Hotline is run by volunteers. During the monthlong trial, 67 volunteers responded to 173 calls from across the country seeking advice about deportation law, the Chicago Tribune reports.”  We’re not sure, but it doesn’t appear that law students are engaged as hotline volunteers.  This seems like a great opportunity for student pro bono work, however.

• 9.19.11 – in California, Riverside County’s public defender is asking county officials to reconsider budget cuts put into place earlier this year.  From the Southwest Riverside News Network: “Riverside County Public Defender Gary Windom is expected to ask the Board of Supervisors Tuesday for $1.4 million to cover a gap in his office’s budget that, if not closed, will result in layoffs.”

• 9.19.11 – here’s a creative way to support a public defender program.  According to the Arizona Daily Star the widow of an attorney who was killed earlier this year has donated his wardrobe to the “Yuma Public Defender’s Office so destitute defendants can increase their chances of having a fair trial” by looking presentable during courtroom proceedings.

• 9.19.11 – some dark clouds looming over the Family Violence Unit in the Dallas D.A.’s office.  According to KERA, the unit “could take a hit when County Commissioners approve a new budget tomorrow. KERA’s BJ Austin says state grant money is running out, and the county can’t pick up the cost….  Officials with the District Attorney say the loss of [the unit’s three positions] will make prosecution of domestic violence cases much slower.”

• 9.17.11 – Significant changes in the Massachusetts indigent defense system are moving forward.  The Taunton Daily Gazette reports: “Leaders of the state’s public defender system will soon detail a plan to hire more staff attorneys to represent the poor and contract less of that work to about 3,000 private lawyers across Massachusetts.  The cost of defending low-income people came under the spotlight on Beacon Hill this year when Gov. Deval Patrick proposed hiring about 1,000 new state attorneys and ending the use of private attorneys altogether…..  Patrick ultimately signed a state budget that makes less ambitious reforms. It requires at least 25 percent of cases with indigent defendants to be handled by state attorneys by next July, up from about 10 percent now.  [An official with the state’s public defense administration] said the plan will likely require hiring 346 new full-time employees, including attorneys, support staff, social workers and investigators.”

• 9.16.11 – change is also afoot in the Show-me State’s indigent defense system.  From the Columbia Missourian:  “The Missouri State Public Defender Office has changed the way it contracts with and oversees private attorneys to reduce the wait time for indigent defendants who need an attorney and increase the monitoring of private attorneys who take cases…. It’s been 22 years since the public defender system had enough lawyers to handle the number of cases it received. The gap between capacity and caseload grew through the ’90s and “escalated dramatically” from 2000 to 2009,” according to Missouri Public Defender System director Cat Kelly.

By Kristen Pavón

The ABA Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service is trying to revamp how we think about and how we deliver pro bono services. Additionally, the Committee wants to talk to people like you to let them know your ideas about increasing access to justice.

Twice a week, on Mondays and Wednesdays, they’re asking you questions about pro bono. Today’s questions are: 1) What methods have you found most effective in engaging law students in pro bono? and 2) What type of legal work have you found is both most appropriate for law students and helpful for clients?

My voice has already been heard today!

Here’s a snippet of my response: Speaking from a recent law graduate perspective, I gained the most useful legal experience from representing clients from the intake phase to the research, advice or representation phases with a structured sense of supervision — meaning I was able to think and analyze independently but then spoke with an attorney to put my proposals through a vetting process. . . .

To read my entire response and have your voice heard, click HERE!

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  This week’s Bulletin comes to you from a small beach cabin on Cape Cod, where the Internets are spotty but the ocean is gleaming beautifully in the morning sun.  Seemingly overnight, summer has given way to a brisk, lovely autumn morning.  Please pardon typos as I’m laboring with an intermittent Web connection and will call it a victory just to get this blog post published.  

This week: law students aiding a New York federal court in handling an influx of mediation cases; also in the Empire State, chief judge Jonathan Lippman is again on the warpath for more legal services funding; what a Legal Services Corporation funding cut would mean in Maryland, and why taxpayer $ should support legal services; big LSC news – Senate appropriators are contemplating a 2% dip in FY12 LSC funding; to narrow the justice gap, pro bono guru Esther Lardent calls for mandatory law school pro bono (among other measures); the Census Bureau’s release of alarming poverty data, and what it means for the legal services community; the state of legal services funding in the Glorious Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; a big medical-legal partnership conference is about to get underway in the Bay Area. 

• 9.16.11 – there has been much coverage lately in legal and national media about resource shortages confronting court systems throughout the U.S. The Southern District of New York is bringing on law students to help handle its caseload.  From the New York Law Journal: “The Southern District has enlisted three area law schools in a new program that will give participating students a practical exercise in client advocacy and managing expectations and help the court cope with an expected upsurge in mediations. Under the supervision of their professors, approximately 30 students at New York Law School, Seton Hall Law School and Brooklyn Law School will represent about 20 employment discrimination plaintiffs in court-referred mediations. They will meet with clients to ascertain their goals, prepare mediation statements and conduct negotiations before volunteer mediators. If a resolution is reached, the students will also help draft the settlement agreement. However, students will not represent plaintiffs in litigation if the mediation is unsuccessful.”

• 9.15.11 – more New York.  The state’s top jurist is once again leading the charge for state legal services funding.  More New York Law Journal: “With grim economic realities persisting in New York, Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman will renew his efforts beginning next week to drive home to the governor and the Legislature the need for greater state funding for civil legal services for the poor. The chief judge will preside over the first of four planned hearings Tuesday in White Plains along with Chief Administrative Judge Ann Pfau, New York State Bar President Vincent E. Doyle III of Connors & Villardo in Buffalo and A. Gail Prudenti, presiding justice of the Appellate Division, Second Department. Presiding justices of the other three departments will appear at later hearings in Manhattan, Albany and Buffalo.”

• 9.14.11 – in a Baltimore Sun op-ed, Legal Services Corporation board chair John Levi explains what’s at stake if LSC funding sees a significant cut in FY12, lays out the growing need for legal services among Terrapin Staters and Americans generally, and makes the case for supporting federal funding of legal services: “Across the country, civil legal assistance supports the orderly functioning of the civil justice system and access to administrative agencies throughout government. Large numbers of unrepresented parties in courts slow dockets and reduce efficiency in the administration of justice for everyone who needs to use the court system. Individuals unable to obtain advice may later be faced with far greater consequences than if they had been able to have their matters sorted out at an early stage.”

• 9.14.11 – the National Legal Aid & Defender Association is keeping us looped in about LSC appropriation  news on the Senate side.  Recall that a House FY12 proposal would slash LSC funding by over 25% (from just over $400m to $300).  Things are looking a little better in the Senate.  From NLADA: “The Senate Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies (CJS) appropriations subcommittee marked up its FY 2012 funding bill today. The bill includes $396 million for LSC, which is a 2 percent decrease from the FY 2011 level of $404 million. Full committee markup is scheduled for tomorrow, September 15. The House full committee recommended a FY 2012 level of $300 million. No appropriations bills have been cleared and appropriators are preparing a Continuing Resolution (CR) to keep the government running after the end of the fiscal year (September 30).”  Here’s an LSC press release about the subcommittee’s markup.  (Unfortunately, being out of DC and with limited Internets I’m not sure what’s happening with the full Approps. Committee.  I’ll tweet word as soon as I have it.) 

• 9.13.11 – the Pro Bono Institute’s Esther Lardent pens an opinion piece asking, “Is It Time for Mandatory Pro Bono?” in light of the ever-widening justice gap.  Her answer: not yet.  “For both philosophical and highly pragmatic reasons, I believe that mandatory pro bono should be the last possible resort.”  But Lardent does offer some options for increasing pro bono service, one of which is mandatory pro bono in law school.  “Including a substantial pro bono contribution to the American Bar Association law school accreditation standards — e.g., 150 hours during the course of law school as a condition of graduation — would create additional pro bono resources while promoting an appetite for pro bono and teaching tomorrow’s lawyers how to integrate pro bono into a busy schedule.”  Interesting stuff. 

• 9.13.11 – as has been well documented in the media, the U.S. Census Bureau released 2010 poverty data.  The data are – I won the Latin Scholar award in high school so you’re darned right I only use “data” in the plural – less than encouraging.  (Some findings below.)  John Levi, the aforementioned Legal Services Corporation board chair, issued a statement reacting to the data: “The U.S. Census Bureau released its official 2010 statistics on poverty this morning, and the data show that nearly one in five Americans qualifies for civil legal assistance at the legal aid offices funded by the Legal Services Corporation (LSC).  The number of Americans now eligible for legal services is staggering: more than 60.4 million, up 3.6 million from the prior year.  These 60 million Americans had incomes at or below 125 percent of the federal poverty line—$13,613 for an individual and $27,938 for a family of four.”  Here’s some data from the Census Bureau’s report:
• “The poverty rate in 2010 was the highest since 1993….  Since 2007, the poverty rate has increased by 2.6 percentage points.
• 15.1% of the population in 2010 was living in poverty.  That’s almost one in six people.
• “In 2010, the family poverty rate and the number of families in poverty were 11.7 percent and 9.2 million, respectively, up from 11.1 percent and 8.8 million in 2009.”
• Over 1 in 5 children lives in poverty.

• 9.11.11 – the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review uses remarks from former U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh about pro bono as a launching pad for a review of the legal services infrastructure  in the Keystone State.  Thornburgh “believes pro bono work should be included among the continuing education requirements Pennsylvania lawyers complete every year. It’s a suggestion he made in Boston last month at the first meeting of the 50-member pro bono task force created by the Legal Services Corp….”  The article goes on to look at recent legal services developments, including a letter from the state’s chief justice, imploring lawyers to do more pro bono work, and a 9% cut in state funding of legal services. 

• 9.9.11 – just a few hours from this blog post’s publication, a bigtime medical-legal partnership conference is taking place in one of our nation’s most beautiful locales.  From a press release: “The Bay Area’s most progressive healthcare and legal professionals, students and educators will gather at UC Hastings on Friday, Sept. 16 (8:30 a.m.-5 p.m.) to mark the first Medical-Legal Partnership conference on the West Coast. Their goal: to transform medicine and law practices to improve community health.  The all-day summit is part of the Medical-Legal partnership movement, a healthcare and legal services delivery model that improves health and well-being of vulnerable populations by integrating health and legal systems. The event has been planned by the Medical-Legal Bay Area Regional Coalition (M-BARC), a partnership that includes 10 Medical-Legal Partnerships with 18 medical sites.”

By Kristen Pavón

When it comes to taking on our nation’s growing access-to-justice crisis, the Pro Bono Institute’s President and Chief Executive Officer Esther Lardent is not willing to wait around for a solution to conveniently present itself, especially because she has sensed apathy outside the legal profession.

In a recent National Law Journal article, she proposed seven bold steps that can alleviate the gap between the need for legal assistance and the availability of free legal services for the poor (teaser: one is mandatory pro bono hours for law students, gasp!).

Lardent contends that the situation is now dire because of the “Great Recession” and budget cuts for legal services organizations and courts across the country. For Lardent, the last resort should be mandating pro bono service for attorneys. However, she has other interesting options. Here’s a quick rundown of her proposals:

1. Voluntary-plus pro bono. Assume all attorneys are willing to take on pro bono cases. Allow uninterested attorneys to opt out of the program, instead of recruiting individual attorneys.

2. Law student pro bono. In contrast to her prescription for attorneys, Lardent suggests law students be required to complete 150 hours of pro bono hours to graduate. She emphasized the value in awakening an appetite for pro bono work and engaging in a hands-on legal experience for students.

3. Pro bono as a criterion for leadership. Attorneys should have a consistent portfolio of pro bono work before becoming eligible for any leadership position.

4. Revise ABA Model Rule 6.1 (the volunteer pro bono publico provision). Rule 6.1 is too broad for Lardent. The definition of pro bono should be narrowed, and should only mean free legal work for low-income or disadvantaged clients (fun fact: Lardent co-authored Rule 6.1 in the 1990s).

5. Bar association contributions. These associations should actively support local legal services programs, financially and on the legislative front.

6. Make pro bono reporting meaningful. Put procedures in place so that accuracy, consistency, disaggregation and transparency are reflected in annual reporting.

7. Triage and simplification. Come up with an effective triage system that would include effectively diagnosing a client’s legal issues and treating them with the “best and least costly legal intervention.” This could include brief advice, education, unbundled assistance or full-fledged zealous representation.

Check out the article in its entirety here. To learn more about Esther Lardent, read her bio here.

What do you think? Do these seem like viable solutions to access-to-justice issues?

Please note that we’ve extended the nomination deadline to Monday, 9/19 at 5pm Eastern.

NALP is accepting nominations for the 2011 PSLawNet Pro Bono Publico Award, which recognizes the extraordinary contributions that law students make to under-served populations, the public interest community, and legal education by performing pro bono or public service work.

 Eligibility: The Pro Bono Publico Award is available to any second- or third-year law student at a PSLawNet Subscriber School. The recipient will be honored during an Award Luncheon at NALP’s Public Service Mini-Conference on Thursday, October 20, 2011 at the Washington, DC office of Arnold & Porter, LLP. The Award recipient will receive transportation to Washington, a one-night stay in an area hotel, a commemorative plaque, and a small monetary award.

Award Criteria: Law students are judged by the extracurricular commitment they have made to law-related public service projects or organizations; the quality of work they performed; and the impact of that work on the community, their fellow students, and the school. Though a student’s involvement in law school-based public interest organizing and fundraising is relevant, actual pro bono and public interest legal work will be the primary consideration.

Nominations must be received by Monday, September 19^th at 5pm Eastern Time. View/download the nomination form here.

By: Steve Grumm

With 3Ls on the job hunt and bar results coming out (soon) for recent grads I figured it worth resurrecting a webinar that NALP produced earlier this year, “Destination Public Interest: Landing the Ideal Public Interest Job.”  The one-hour webinar offers best practices and tips in the areas of cover letter and résumé drafting, as well as interviewing and professional networking.

Presenters:

• Charlene Gomes, Senior Program Manager, Law School Advocacy and Outreach, Equal Justice Works
• Steve Grumm, Director of Public Service Initiatives, NALP
• Jennifer Thomas, Director of Recruiting, Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia

NALP is accepting nominations for the 2011 PSLawNet Pro Bono Publico Award, which recognizes the extraordinary contributions that law students make to under-served populations, the public interest community, and legal education by performing pro bono or public service work. 

Eligibility: The Pro Bono Publico Award is available to any second- or third-year law student at a PSLawNet Subscriber School. The recipient will be honored during an Award Luncheon at NALP’s Public Service Mini-Conference on Thursday, October 20, 2011 at the Washington, DC office of Arnold & Porter, LLP. The Award recipient will receive transportation to Washington, a one-night stay in an area hotel, a commemorative plaque, and a small monetary award.

Award Criteria: Law students are judged by the extracurricular commitment they have made to law-related public service projects or organizations; the quality of work they performed; and the impact of that work on the community, their fellow students, and the school. Though a student’s involvement in law school-based public interest organizing and fundraising is relevant, actual pro bono and public interest legal work will be the primary consideration.

Nominations must be received by Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 5pm Eastern Time. View/download the nomination form here.

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  Greetings from a rainy, gloomy Washington, DC.  This is perhaps appropriate, as most everyone inside the Beltway is mindful that almost 10 years have passed since the September 11th attacks.  Things here livened up a little bit this week with the Republican presidential candidates’ debate and last night’s presidential address, the combination of which suggests that the 2012 election season is already upon us.  Thirteen months of this.  Oh, what unmitigated joy. 

This week in public interest news: the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau hits the century mark; a handful of law schools create “incubation programs” for aspiring solos, and at least two of them are serving low-income clients; some much-needed matching funding for Pisgah Legal Services; an eleventh-hour layoff aversion in the Sacramento D.A.’s office; Vermont Law School’s doing its part to aid flood victims; the Mass. Bar Association goes all medical-legal partnership on us;  UVA Law’s Innocence Clinic scores some big wins;  read about a not-so-good proposal to change Tennessee’s indigent defense system; an in-depth look at pro bono programs within large, Windy City law firms; Utah prosecutors support bolstering indigent defense; how a huge, potential LSC $ cut will impact Legal Services of Southern Missouri; an anonymous, non-lawyer drops $2 million on the Maine Bar Foundation’s’ doorstep (metaphorically).  My money’s on Steven King. 

• 9.8.11 – I’ve been feeling my joints creak since I turned 35 in August, but the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau is 100.  That’s really old.  WBAL has details on the community birthday party that MDLAB is hosting in Charm City tomorrow.

• 9.7.11 – the National Law Journal looks at a handful of law schools that have created “incubation” programs which provide in-kind support and mentoring for recent grads who aspire to solo practice but want to hedge against the insecurity of going it entirely alone.  Why am I mentioning this?  Two of the schools, the Univ. of Maryland and CUNY, have built a public interest dimension into their programs: “At CUNY, incubator participants do a significant amount of…”low bono” work. They earn $75 an hour for providing legal representation to underserved communities…, paid for by contracts with New York City. The work provides the new attorneys with experience and exposure, and provides representation to people who otherwise could not afford an attorney….  The University of Maryland’s solo incubator…also promotes civil justice. Participants…assist on grant-funded cases through Civil Justice Inc., a nonprofit law office that serves low-income clients….”  

• 9.7.11 – some good news for Pisgah Legal Services in North Carolina.  It may not seem that having $17K in county grant money restored is newsworthy.  But the money constitutes matching funds for domestic-violence grants.  So it’s important.  The Times-News reports: “The Henderson County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to give Pisgah Legal Services money it needs to match domestic-violence grants, essentially reinstating the funding that they denied the regional nonprofit in June.  While the grant was requested by Pisgah Legal Services Executive Director Jim Barrett to match domestic violence prevention grants his organization has secured through the Governor’s Crime Commission, it is nearly the exact same amount — $16,833 — that Barrett previously asked the board for during county budget talks.”

• 9.6.11 – layoffs averted in the Sacramento DA’s office.  And we can thank Big Oil.  Sort of.  KCRA reports:  “Three months ago, [District Attorney Jan] Scully said budget cuts were forcing her to lay off 64 people, eliminate several units and stop prosecution of most misdemeanor crimes.  Now, Scully said a $24.5 million settlement in a lawsuit against Chevron for violating the state anti-pollution laws is making the difference.”  The DA’s office will get 6.5 million from that pot of money.

• 9.6.11 – news from the Great Wet North.  Vermont Law School, which itself fell victim to post-Irene flood damage, has been doing its part to help its neighbors, according to the National Law Journal: “The law school’s land use clinic and its South Royalton, Vt., legal clinic have teamed up to assist residents in filling out applications for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Students are on hand daily in the school’s law library to help people complete emergency paperwork.  The law school has designated two staff members to work full time on relief efforts and is allowing staff members to receive full pay while volunteering.”

• 9.6.11 – the Massachusetts Bar Association has gotten into the medical-legal partnership game with a new pro bono initiative, according to a piece in The Republican:  “To address the intertwined health problems and legal needs of such vulnerable patients, the Massachusetts Bar Association and Massachusetts Medical-Legal Partnership network have joined forces to launch the MBA Pro Bono Prescription.  This pioneering effort unites health-care teams and lawyers toward a shared goal of strengthening struggling communities. The MBA Pro Bono Prescription aims to increase the supply of lawyers who can prescribe legal remedies to help avert both legal crises and health emergencies.”  (For the law students in our readership, you can learn much more about medical-legal partnerships, which have been steadily increasing in number across the country, via the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnerships.  The basic goal is for poverty lawyers to work with other social services providers in providing more holistic services to clients, and ideally addressing root causes of medical and legal problems to avoid their recurrence.)

• 9.6.11 – the Cavalier Daily reports that the University of Virginia School of Law’s Innocence Project has done well in the overturned conviction department, first removing a man from Death Row and then having his other, related convictions tossed: “Twelve University Law students helped overturn the wrongful drug and weapon conviction of Northern Virginian man Justin Wolfe last week, bringing an end to a decade-long struggle for freedom. The decision comes more than a month after the students, as part of the Law School’s Innocence Project Clinic, helped convince a federal judge to dismiss Wolfe’s murder-for-hire conviction and death sentence.  The clinic, part of the Innocence Network, is an organization which works to overturn wrongful convictions of prisoners in Virginia who could be proven innocent — many of whom are convicted as a result of ineffective legal counsel or flawed police techniques.”

• 9.4.11 – an op-ed in The Tennessean appropriately skewers a really bad idea for saving cash on the state’s indigent defense funding:   “The state’s indigent defense fund’s cost has grown from $19.9 million to $37.5 million since 2004. There were 126,000 legal bills submitted by attorneys to represent poor clients last year. Lawmakers cried “whoa!” and asked the courts’ administrative office to figure out how to save money.  What they came up with is a proposal that has been widely poo-pooed by attorneys, judges, experts and professional groups. It would set up a bidding system in which attorneys or law firms would get the right to represent the indigent for a flat fee if they are the lowest bidder. All the sudden, in Tennessee, justice would be akin to road contracts or buying computers.”  (“Poo-pooed” did not pass spellcheck, but frankly I have no interest in learning how to spell it.) 

• 9.4.11 – the Chicago Lawyerhas a long, detailed piece surveying the pro bono models at several of the Windy City’s large law firms: “In recent years, as pro bono leaders in Chicago law firms worked to increase pro bono participation, they began to integrate pro bono…into the operations of their firms. Many of these programs now serve as separate practices, often with their own staff and policies….  While some…firms still encourage lawyers to select their own projects, other firms take a more focused approach, searching for specific opportunities to help those in need while training young associates. They also adopt and offer holistic services to nonprofit organizations and secure finance or real estate matters for transactional lawyers.”  Firms highlighted in the article include Katten, SNR Denton, Holland & Knight, DLA Piper, Winston & Strawn, and Mayer Brown, among others.  Chicago Bar Foundation executive director Bob Glaves, a friend of the PSLawNet Blog and a superb advocate for the local public interest community, is quoted in the piece.  This provides an opportunity for me to note that the Cubs record is 62-81.  Hi, Bob!

• 9.2.11 – three county prosecutors in the Beehive State take to the pages of the Salt Lake Tribune to argue, wait for it, for bolstering Utah’s patchwork of county indigent defense systems:  “Because prosecutors are committed to doing justice, we support a strong and vigorous indigent defense system. We stand ready to work together with all interested parties to meet our constitutional obligations to do justice as effectively and efficiently as possible.”  But there’s a catch, of sorts.  The authors are writing in the wake of an ACLU of Utah Report, Failing Gideon, which called for a statewide fix for what is now an uneven county-by-county system.  The three prosecutors prefer a local approach, as they don’t think a statewide solution is feasible in the present economic climate. 

• 9.1.11 – the Ozarks First website looks at how the House’s proposed 26% cut to Legal Services Corporation will impact the local LSC grantee, Legal Services of Southern Missouri.  LSSM executive director Douglas Kays “says proposed federal cuts would translate to about $500,000” lost.  “‘We help about 2,500 people a year [out of 10,000 applications for assistance, on average],’ says Kays. ‘We’d probably have to reduce that by 500 or 600’.”

• 9.1.11 – Ready, set, $2million.  The Bangor Daily News reports unexpected good news on the legal services funding front in Maine: “The Maine Bar Foundation has announced the receipt of a $2 million gift from an anonymous donor. The endowment, the first of its kind for the foundation, is dedicated to providing support for people in need of legal assistance in Washington and Hancock counties, according to a press release issued Thursday…. The foundation will set up an endowment with the gift and use the interest to pay for legal services.”  This has got to feel good for the bar foundation after some disappointing IOLTA years.