By: Steve Grumm

The National Law Journal reports on a nice bit of news for my peeps in Penn’s Toll Public Interset Center – cash money!

The University of Pennsylvania Law School has a generous alumnus in construction mogul Robert Toll.

Toll and his wife, Jane Toll, donated $10 million to the law school in 2006 to bolster its public-interest initiatives. On Monday, the school announced that the couple has pledged an additional $2.5 million to expand those programs and finance loan forgiveness for graduates who take public-interest law jobs.

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  After some dreadful midweek humidity – and equally dreadful play by the visiting Philadelphia Phillies, who wasted my time by getting shellacked when I saw them play the Nationals on Tuesday but-I-digress-where-was-I? – oh, it’s a beautiful, late spring morning here in the nation’s capital.  As for public interest news…

This week: does a loosening of pro bono-related practice rules in two jurisdictions portend a trend?; two Texas high court justices implore the Lone Star legislature to appropriate much-needed funding for legal services; Florida gov. vetoes legal services funding; financial woes befall the New Jersey legal services community, and legislative help is needed; a look at hiring trends in the DOJ’s Office of Civil Rights; in Sonoma County, CA, prosecutors and defenders may see substantial budget cuts; a bittersweet birthday (60th) for Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas; Cooley Law School lends a hand to local servicemembers; 3 UNLV law students win a federal appellate victory in an immigration case; and, change in the Massachusetts indigent defense system?

• 6.3.11 – a piece on the Corporate Counsel website notes that attorney practice rules in both Virginia and Arkansas have recently been modified so as to make it easier for in-house counsel, who are often physically located in jurisdictions in which they are not barred, to perform prob bono.  The Corporate Pro Bono (CPBO) initiative, a joint undertaking between the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) and the Pro Bono Institute, had pushed for Virginia rule change and is pushing for similar progress elsewhere.  “Currently, only Virginia, Colorado, Delaware, and Pennsylvania have expressly allowed in-house counsel to perform pro bono work under their limited licenses. Nineteen other states and the District of Columbia have rules allowing practice through approved legal services organizations.”

• 6.2.11 – from the Texas Tribune: “Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson and Justice Nathan Hecht sent lawmakers a letter Wednesday, urging them to find $20 million during the special session to help needy people access civil courts….Without the funds, the justices wrote, 40 legal aid programs that help about 104,000 Texas families each year could be in jeopardy. As many as 75,000 Texans would be denied basic legal services. The legal aid services help domestic violence victims, military veterans wrongly denied benefits and families who are evicted from their homes despite having paid their bills. Nearly 5.7 million Texans qualify for legal aid.”

• 6.1.11 – not-so-great Scott.  The Florida governor vetoed a civil legal services appropriation that amounted to less than 0.015% of the overall budget package.  The Jacksonville Daily Record reports: “Among the $615 million in funding slashed from the state budget through vetoes from Gov. Rick Scott was $1 million for legal aid organizations statewide.  The Florida Access to Civil Legal Assistance Act helps to fund legal aid organizations throughout the state and the budget line item of $1 million was approved by both the State House and Senate.  Scott vetoed the item from the nearly $70 billion budget.”  Is this a fiscally prudent move?  Well, last year a Florida Bar Foundation study found that “for every dollar spent on legal aid by federal, state and local governments, a return of $4.78 is generated.  The funding also assists in the creation of more than 3,300 jobs throughout the state, it said.”

• 5.31.11 – an editorial in The Record laments the terrible state of civil legal services funding in the Garden State: “Funding cuts at Legal Services of New Jersey — which offers legal aid to those who cannot afford to pay — have resulted in fewer lawyers. So now 50 percent fewer cases are accepted for full legal representation. Lawyers turn down two of every three eligible people who need help. It is a civil justice catastrophe.”  While there is some movement in the legislature to generate funding for legal services via a court filing fee increase, it won’t be enough.  “We urge the Legislature and those in state government to find a steady funding source. Living in homeless shelters, triggering child protective services and ending up in the hospital with no health insurance costs more in time and resources than a legal aid lawyer.”

• 5.31.11 – the DOJ’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) is hiring more left-leaning lawyers during the Obama Administration than were hired during the Bush Administration.  Surprise!  Of course, this also tends to mean that more lawyers with civil rights practice experience are coming aboard.  And notwithstanding any cultural shifts, the hiring process for career positions seems to have been notably de-politicized. The New York Times, in advance of some House hearings about OCR, has a piece looking at newly available information about recent OCR attorney hires.  The Times also references a National Law Journal piece (password-protected to keep out the hoi-polloi – boo!) noting that almost half of the resumes of recently hired attorneys showed that they had prior civil rights experience.

• 5.31.11 – the recession even reaches wine country.  The Press Democrat reports that Sonoma County prosecutors and public defenders may be looking at 16% cuts to their respective appropriations as the county tightens its fiscal belt: The [county budget] proposal would reduce spending from the general fund…to $379 million, down 4 percent from the 2010-2011 figure of $395 million. It does so by taking a bigger bite out of law enforcement and justice services, the single largest destination for general fund dollars. Spending at those four departments, including the Sheriff’s, District Attorney’s and Public Defender’s offices and the probation department is set to drop by 16 percent.”  You might say their funding’s been corked.  And with that I’ve exhausted my vino vocabulary.

• 5.30.11 – Happy birthday, kind of.   The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram reports on Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas’s bittersweet 60th birthday.  Good news: the organization celebrates six decades of service to low-income Texans and has moved into a new headquarters building.  Bad news: LANWT has recently lost $350,000 in LSC funding (as a result of the cutback in the FY2011 budget) and another $350,000 in United Way funds.

• 5.29.11 – TV station WZZM’s website includes a story on Cooley Law School’s “Service to Soldiers: Legal Assistance Referral Program.”  “For the past four years, the program has been offering pro bono legal services for deploying and returning troops…. To date, Cooley has been able to help soldiers with 2,200 wills and power of attorney documents.”

• 5.28.11 – the Las Vegas Sun reports on a remarkable federal appellate victory achieved by UNLV law students representing a Honduran native in immigration proceedings.  “The students emerged from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals with an unexpected landmark immigration victory that means tens of thousands of people, maybe more, who are fighting deportation stand a greater chance of proving their U.S. citizenship…. The appeals court heard the case last year and set a precedent by ruling all individuals facing deportation should have access to their “alien files,” or A-files that the Homeland Security Department keeps on them. The ruling means they will be allowed to see documents such as adoption papers, applications for naturalization and correspondence with immigration authorities.  The ruling will stand if the government doesn’t appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court by May 31. Before, the government had only given A-files to those who tried to prove they are lawful permanent residents, also known as green-card holders or permanent resident aliens.”

• 5.27.11 – big things brewing in the Massachusetts indigent defense system.  An AP story reports that the Massachusetts “Senate passed measures designed to overhaul the state’s public defender program…yesterday as it debated its $30.5 billion state spending plan for the next fiscal year.  The public defender amendment approved by the Senate calls for public defenders to handle 30 percent of criminal cases involving indigent defendants.  [At present, about 90% of the Bay State’s indigent defense cases are assigned to private counsel.]  Supporters say shifting more cases to public defenders would save the state money, though opponents say those savings could be offset by the need to hire additional lawyers.”

By Lauren Forbes and Steve Grumm

Howdy, folks! Every Thursday, the PSLawNet Blog will post a compilation of some of our fave posts from the public interest blogosphere.  Here’s the first edition:

• Depaul Law Career Services posted some alternative career jobs it came across from the past week.
• The Pro Bono Institute’s “PBEye” blog (clever!) carries word of a June 7 webinar called, “The Evolving Law Firm Business Model and Its Impact on Pro Bono.”
• Michael Pratt, Chair of the ABA’s Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service chimed in with some reflections on the recent Equal Justice Conference.  Here’s Pratt’s post on the ABA Center for Pro Bono’s blog.
• Happy 50th Birthday to Amnesty International!
• Phew (for now at least), as the housing crisis in DC is averted.  Check out Washington’s Legal Clinic blog for the story.
• On the Equal Justice Works Blog, our statistically inclined buddy Bill Penn provides a valuable primer for aspiring poverty law advocates: how to define ‘poverty.’

By: Steve Grumm

Greetings, Dear Readers, and Happy Friday!  Having returned from the Equal Justice Conference, which featured some terrific programming and offered important insights about trends affecting the legal services and pro bono communities, I give you this week’s Bulletin, which is brimming over with news and developments from all corners of the public interest legal world.

Featured: Georgia’s top jurist goes to bat for legal services funding; hard times for Legal Services of New Jersey; a “corps” of newly minted lawyers to help  unclog the immigration system?; a prosecutor/public defender scuffle ends in a lawsuit; New York gets an IOLA funding windfall, but it’s notably “uninteresting”; former AG Gonzales “disappointed” in himself over politicization of hiring practices; the SEC and CFTC hang the “Help Wanted” sign for lawyers; funding for prosecutors and public defenders in one South Carolina county; stagnant prosecutor salaries are causing problems in Tucson; prosecutor funding ain’t great in Vegas, either; a piece on the public defender’s office in Terra Haute, IN; the Texas AtJ Foundation recognizes four banks as IOLTA all-stars; two LSC board members make the case for funding programs in Virginia and nationwide; in Tennessee, a legal services ED explains how even small federal funding cuts disproportionately impact the poor; questions about indigent defense funding in the Tarheel State.

• 5.26.11 – Carol Hunstein, chief justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia, writes in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about the funding crisis plaguing legal services providers in the Peach State, and calls upon state and federal legislators to shore up funding: Since 2006, the Georgia Legal Services Program has had to reduce its staff by nearly 10 percent and currently has the resources to help only a tenth of the people who call for legal aid. Georgia Bar Foundation funding for Georgia Legal Services has fallen from a high of $2.9 million in 2009 to $739,300 in 2011. Funding for 2012 could fall as low as $400,000.  In response to the crisis, the Georgia legal community has expanded its volunteer services and financial contributions… Despite these efforts, however, further budget cuts at both the state and federal level are threatening vital programs that provide equal access to justice for the most vulnerable Georgians.  The importance of the rule of law and access to justice cannot be ignored. I can only hope that our state and federal legislators recognize that these are core values that secure the success of Georgia’s families and communities.”

• 5.26.11 – from the New Jersey Law Journal: “Legal Services of New Jersey, with the support of the state’s judiciary and the State Bar Association, went cap in hand to the Legislature on Monday, asking for an increase in its proposed appropriation for the upcoming fiscal year…. Legal Services’ overall budget has dropped from $71.5 million in 2007 to $47.6 million last year, said the organization’s president and general counsel, Melville Miller. The sharpest drop in its source of funding came from the state. In 2007, the Legislature appropriated $29.6 million in 2007. But last year it appropriated only $19.9 million and Gov. Chris Christie has recommended the same amount for fiscal 2012.”  Miller noted that LSNJ has reduced its staff from 720 to 490, and 75 more position cuts may be necessary if no additional funding is forthcoming.  This constriction has drastically reduced LSNJ’s service capacity.  For more on LSNJ’s fiscal woes, see a similar piece that ran in the Newark Star Ledger on 5.23.11.

• 5.25.11 – writing in the National Law Journal, Stacy Caplow, director of clinical legal education at Brooklyn Law School, offers a solution to the “crisis” in the immigration system: a corps of law grads doing two years of service as immigration attorneys.  In laying out the system’s myriad problems, Prof. Caplow offers a startling statistic: as for immigrants in the NY area, “a nondetained immigrant represented by a lawyer had a 74% chance of avoiding deportation, whereas a detained immigrant without counsel had only a 3% rate of success.”  Wow.  Caplow’s solution: [L]et’s create a structured program for…law graduates to provide legal services to poor, unrepresented immigrants while developing skills and knowledge to improve the level of competency of the immigration bar….  We could call it Immig-Corps. I picture recent law graduates being trained and supervised over a period of two years, going to detention centers, to immigration court, interviewing, counseling and representing individuals facing deportation.”  Read the full piece for discussion of how to fund the program.  I’ve got some thoughts on these proposals – not the least of which is apprehension about the risk of downward pressure on already-low public interest attorney salaries.  But that must wait for a longer blog post.

• 5.25.11 – barristers’ brawl? Suffice to say, it started in a scuffle and ended in a lawsuit.  The Chicago Tribune has run a short piece about a lawsuit coming in the aftermath of a courthouse scuffle between a prosecutor and a public defender in Chi-town: “A fight last year between a Cook County prosecutor and a public defender has turned into a legal battle.  Michael McCormick, who was working as a Cook County assistant state’s attorney at the time, alleges in a lawsuit that Henry Hams, who was working as a public defender, followed him out of a courtroom in June 2010, threatened him and then jumped on his back and neck — twisting his neck and causing him to fall to the ground.”

• 5.25.11 – good news: New York State’s Interest on Lawyers Account (IOLA) fund got hefty cash infusion.  Bad news: very little of it comes from interest proceeds.  From the New York Law Journal: “The state’s Interest on Lawyer Account fund is making the same $21.3 million in grants for civil legal services to the indigent [this year compared to last], thanks to another infusion of funding from the courts.”  Interest proceeds remain down by 75% compared to 2007 levels.  Of the $21.3 million, only $6.5 represents interest proceeds.  The remaining $15 million is an appropriation from the judiciary’s budget.  But to end on another good note: “In addition to the $15 million funneled through IOLA, Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman included another $12.5 million in the state budget to support civil legal services.”  Judge Lippman presently holds the coveted title of “PSLawNet Blog’s Favorite State Jurist.”

• 5.24.1 – according to the Blog of the Legal Times, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales expressed “disappointment” in himself stemming from a scandal around political vetting of attorneys and law students who were competing for (non-political-appointment) positions with DOJ.

• 5.24.11 – also according to the Blog of the Legal Times, the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) are looking for some ESQs are various experience levels.  SEC has even retained a headhunter because it’s trying to quickly fill several openings.

• 5.24.11 – it looks like prosecutors in Berkeley will see some more funding from the county.  Huzzah!  After all, someone has to bring Swift Justice to all those good-for-nothing, commune-living, dope-smoking hippie rapscallions…wait…oh…Berkeley, South Carolina.  Our bad.  In any case, the Berkeley Independent reports: “Berkeley County Council has included funding to help assist the solicitor and public defender’s offices in its fiscal year 2011-2012 budget that will be presented to council next month.  Included in the budget is funding that would help Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson recoup more than $140,000 that was cut from her office’s budget due to the discontinuation of grants from the Department of Justice and the state’s Department of Public Safety.  Also included in the budget is $115,000 earmarked for the public defender’s office.  Without the funding, it is estimated that the county’s public defender’s office would have to close for two months next year or lay off two of its five attorneys.”

• 5.223.11 – stagnant salaries are leading to attorney retention troubles for one Arizona prosecutor.  From to the Arizona Daily Star: Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall has seen so many resignations and retirements over the past three years that 64 percent of her prosecutors have five years’ or less experience in the courtroom.  As with most county employees, LaWall’s staff hasn’t seen a raise in nearly four years, causing many to leave…. Pima County [which is the Tucson area] records indicate the 29 prosecutors hired at $57,000 between 2006 and 2009 are making roughly the same as the nine hired within the last year.”  The $57K starting salary is actually a solid figure, comfortably over the median, national starting prosecutor’s salary of $50K that NALP reported in 2010.  Nevertheless, the attrition of mid-level attorneys is double trouble: not only is the office losing folks who should move into leadership positions, it is also losing on the investment it made in training those attorneys.

• 5.23.11 – Las Vegas-based KLAS has a brief story about apparent underfunding in the local District Attorney’s Office: “While crime is at 2011 levels, the number of Deputy DA’s [is] at 2000 levels…. The DA’s Office handles all the cases coming through the Regional Justice Center, while the Public Defender’s Office handles around 40 percent. The DA’s say they’re concerned budget cuts prevented them from hiring new attorneys over the past three years, while the Public Defender’s Office continues to grow.”  Leaving aside the fact that a straight-up comparison of prosecutor and public defender funding is apples and oranges, we do hope that the District Attorney can address staffing problems.

• 5.22.11 – a Terra Haute Tribune Star article takes a close look at the work of the Vigo County Public Defender’s office, including its funding and service-delivery models, which blend a staff model with assignments to private counsel to represent indigent defendants.  The article also highlights how the recession has made it more difficult for many people to afford criminal defense attorneys, increasing demand for indigent defense services.

• 5.21.11 – a blurb in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal (great name!) notes that the Texas Access to Justice Foundation honored four local banks with Prime Partner awards for their support of civil legal services. BBVA Compass Bank, First Bank & Trust, PlainsCapital Bank, and Security State Bank were honored for participating in the state’s Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts program. They have higher interest rates on those accounts, and that interest supports legal assistance for low-income Texans.”

• 5.20.11 – writing in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, LSC board chair John Levi and board member Father Pius Pietrzyk argue that, now more than ever, adequately funding LSC is vital to ensuring access to justice for vastly increased numbers of low-income Americans, including Virginians.  LSC’s FY2011 appropriation included a cut of $15.8 million.  This cut’s timing was, well, very bad.  “LSC estimates that the number of people who qualify for civil legal assistance has increased by 17 percent since 2008. These Americans live at or below 125 percent of the federal poverty guideline — an income of $27,938 for a family of four. More than one million Virginians are eligible for LSC-funded services — almost 14 percent of the state’s population.”

• 5.20.11 – Yoder to the Associated Press: “Mistaken your views on funding cuts are!”  (World’s worst Star Wars reference?  Very, very likely.)  Dave Yoder is the executive director of Legal Aid of East Tennessee.  In a letter to the editor of the Knoxville News Sentinel, Yoder takes issue with an AP article that seemed to minimize the impact of recent federal budget cuts, particularly as regards programs helping the poor: “The article fails to point out that the cut in LSC funding was more than 5 percent…. The article fails to recognize that current federal funding is less than half of what it was, when adjusted for inflation, in 1981.  The article fails to point out that funding to LAET from Department of Housing and Urban Development for unlawful foreclosure and eviction prevention and from Department of Justice for domestic violence prevention has also been cut either directly or by the elimination of stimulus funding. The personal, social and economic short and long-term impact will be much greater on low income citizens and on our communities than suggested.”

• 5.18.11 – the Shelby County Star reports on potential funding cuts for indigent defense programs in the Tarheel State: “The state House recently approved the 2011-12 budget which reduces funding for court-appointed private counsel by nearly $11.3 million.  That reduction could mean a difference of as much as $30 per hour [in payments to appointed counsel, which one attorney estimated could fall from $75 to $45.]  Some legislators are also talking about establishing and staffing public defenders’ offices in some counties as a means to save money.

Greetings, dear reader. There’s lots to share this week including:  federal hiring reform stats; ACLU criticizing Michigan’s public defender system; the federal hiring freeze and its effect on DOJ hiring;  legal services funding woes; Connecticut Bar Foundation Distinguished Service Awards; an update on the success of the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Program; how budget cuts are impacting foreclosure assistance groups in New York City;  Charleston School of Law’s student pro bono requirements; a unique partnership between the Texas Tech School of Law and the Texas Task Force on Indigent Defense to improve legal representation for low-income populations; good news about Chicago Bar Foundation’s fundraising efforts;   Maine resident Cushman Anthony honored for his life’s work;  and breath testers in doubt in Vermont, affecting dozens of DUI cases.

This week:

• 5.18.11 – Government Executive’s FedBlog reports on federal hiring reform stats provided by the Office of Personnel Management this week.  Uncle Sam’s been making progress!  OPM reported that “91 percent of federal jobs are now filled based on resumes and cover letters (without a requirement for lengthy essays), up from 39 percent in 2009 … 96  percent of announcements no longer include a requirement to fill out knowledge, skills and abilities statements, [and] the governmentwide average time it takes to fill a position is now 105 days.”

• 5.18.11 – An article in Michigan Live reports that the ACLU is blasting Michigan’s public defender system, citing a 2002-03 Muskegon County armed robbery case as a prime example of the failure of Michigan’s system of court-appointed lawyers for criminal defendants who can’t afford to hire their own.  The ACLU claims that “evidence points to (the) innocence” of Alphonso Sones Sr., who is currently serving two multi-decade terms.  The ACLU recently released a report calling Michigan’s public defender system one of the worst in the nation, criticizing the state for leaving funding and oversight of criminal defense of the indigent to the 83 counties, many of whom leave their systems underfunded and badly run.  Sones’ attempts to overturn his conviction on the grounds did not represent him effectively have failed, but the ACLU seems unlikely to let Michigan public defenders off the hook any time soon.

• 5.16.11 – On Monday, the PSLawNet Blog featured a piece about the federal hiring freeze.  As the Federal Times reported, the Department of Justice is no exception.  The Justice Department’s hiring freeze — which was imposed earlier this year and even prevents the department from hiring to replace most attrition — remains in effect, and spokeswoman Jessica Smith said Justice isn’t sure when it will be lifted. Justice earlier this year said the freeze was necessary to avoid a sudden, dire budget crunch that would force employee furloughs. Smith said those concerns remain.

• 5.16.11 – Legal needs for the low-income are growing, but funding is shrinking for legal services.  The ProPublica Blog featured a piece on providers of civil legal services to the low income having to furlough their staff, triage their clients, and turn away more people in need as a result of the congressional budget compromise reached last month. The umbrella nonprofit group Legal Services Corporation had its funding cut by $15.8 million—about 4 percent of its most recent budget—as a result of last month’s budget compromise. You do reach a point where you can no longer absorb” the cuts, Edwina Frances Martin, said a spokeswoman for Legal Services NYC.  Martin said her organization gets about 14 percent of its budget from Legal Services Corporation and lost about $720,000 in the final federal budget. It’s planning cutbacks large and small—cutting the budget for food at trainings, leaving some empty positions unfilled and implementing furloughs in some field offices.  ProPublica goes on to discuss how Idaho, Virginia, New Jersey, and Maine are facing similar circumstances.

• 5.16.11 –  Featured in the Connecticut Law Tribune,  James Bowers,  Kate Stith and Hugh C. Macgill received Distinguished Service Awards from the Connecticut Bar Foundation last week.  While Bowers, Macgill and Stith have all followed different career courses as practitioners and professors of the law, their journeys began with the realization that justice is not free and access to it is not equal.  “For Bowers, a partner at Day Pitney who has defended high-powered people accused of white-collar crimes, that awareness began when he grew up in the South as a black man in a system built for white people.  For Stith, a Yale University professor and former assistant U.S. attorney in New York, it began with a research paper she wrote as a student at Dartmouth College on the first legal aid program in New Hampshire.  For Macgill, a professor and past dean of the University of Connecticut School of Law, it began early in his career and continues today.” The event also featured an impassioned speech about the need to fund legal services for the poor by New York Judge Jonathan Lippman, chief judge of that state’s highest court, who said, “No issue is more basic to our constitutional reason for being than providing equal justice for all.”

• 5.15.11 – Last month, the PSLawNet Blog highlighted the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Program, an effort by law students to help Iraqis seek refugee status.   This week, The Associated Press also featured the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), highlighting  law students who are helping to resettle Iraqi refugees refugees.  “I think it’s an excellent initiative,” said Larry Yungk, senior resettlement officer with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Washington.  Yungk also praised IRAP’s success.  “They’ve been effective. Certainly refugees are here in the United States because of work they did.”  IRAP has been especially effective in handling appeals of cases involving refugees rejected for resettlement in the U.S., having won 90 percent of them.  IRAP’s founder, Becca Heller, is especially proud of the case of a family resettled last fall in New Haven. The family’s application was originally rejected for failure to prove persecution, but IRAP appealed. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security overturned the decision based partially on a medical emergency involving a girl in the family suffering severe seizures, Heller said.  Since then, IRAP arranged for the girl to receive free medical treatment from a specialist and provided car pools to get the family to doctor’s appointments.

• 5.14.11 – The New York Times featured a piece about how budget cuts threaten foreclosure assistance–a dismal outlook.  In New York City, foreclosure-prevention programs have helped more than 3,000 homeowners facing foreclosure over the past three years.  The programs have been financed since 2009 by federal stimulus spending, but that money will run out by the end of this year. That has left lawmakers scrambling to try to find new state financing, while the small army of pro bono lawyers fighting foreclosures waits and worries.  “We are hardly at the end of the foreclosure tsunami,” said Vicki Been, co-director of the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at the New York University School of Law.  “There continue to be a lot of people losing their homes. The numbers have softened, but the crisis is not over.”

• 5.14.11 – a short piece the Post & Courier catches us up with the progress of the provisionally accredited Charleston School of Law, which has placed public service at the core of its mission.  The school, which opened in 2004 and is on the cusp of full accreditation by the ABA, requires students to perform 30 hours of public service before graduating.   Some students well exceed that mark.  Graduating student Allison Roberts performed 100 hours of pro bono work during here law school career, including a stint gathering facts about Khmer Rouge crimes in Cambodia.

• 5.13.11 – a unique partnership between the Texas Tech School of Law and the Texas Task Force on Indigent Defense to improve legal representation for low income populations in the state’s far flung, sparsely populated counties.  The Dallas Morning News blog reports that the Caprock Public Defender Office is the first of its kind in Texas, said Bryan Wilson, grants administrator for the Task Force. The project pairs a law school professor and students in a law school clinic with counties that have few if any attorneys available for court appointments.  “About a dozen counties in the Lubbock area covering a 40,000 square mile area, have signed up for the office to provide representation for misdemeanor and juvenile defendants.”  In Texas, like so many other states, the need is great.  PSLawNet Blog applauds partnerships like this one!

• 5.13.11 – In the Windy City, a piece in the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin discusses Chicago Bar Foundation’s fundraising efforts. The efforts have yielded positive results.  “Organizers of the Chicago Bar Foundation’s Investing in Justice Campaign said they are seeing ‘record-breaking success’ in this year’s effort to increase financial support for area providers of legal services to the poor.  During the fundraising campaign, which marked its fifth year with a kickoff in early March, more than 3,300 individual attorneys and legal professionals from 110 participating law firms, corporate legal departments and other law-related organizations contributed more than $1.3 million toward the effort, organizers said.”

• 5.13.11 – Last week, Cushman Anthony, who helped found Michigan Law School’s legal aid clinic, was honored for his life’s work.  Maine’s  Portland Press Herald described his 40-year career that focused on ensuring the rights of people who might not have the resources to hire their own attorneys or take on established power structures. “I went into law because I viewed that as a way to make the world a better place,” Anthony said recently. “I knew I was going to be trying to improve the world.”  Anthony succeeded, according to the Maine Civil Liberties Union Foundation, which on Thursday night presented him the 2011 Justice Louis Scolnik Award at a ceremony at the Harraseeket Inn in Freeport.  In his varied and accomplished career, Anthony was not only a clinician, he was a family law practitioner, a  state representative, and a lobbyist for Native American affairs.  Anthony  sums best sums up his life’s work in his own words: “I’ve always identified with the little guy.”

• 5.13.11 – The Vermont Digger reports that with breath testers in doubt, Vermont prosecutors are set to toss dozens of DUI cases after an investigation found a long list of alleged problems with breath testers. David Sleigh, a criminal defense attorney based in St. Johnsbury is partnering with Burlington lawyer Frank Twarog to use a client’s case and those of two other DUI clients to attack the credibility of DataMaster breath testers. The DataMaster breath testers are used by police and the state health lab that certifies and maintains them. Sleigh has witnesses prepared to testify that the health department used unorthodox methods to repair damaged DataMasters and to get them to “pass” routine performance checks over a period of years. The compromised testers raise legitimate questions about whether innocent drivers have been convicted ed of DUIs based on faulty evidence. Equally troubling, though, is the prospect of dangerous drunk drivers getting off the hook and back behind the wheel.

This week: cutbacks at Idaho Legal Aid Services; an interview with Disability Rights Advocates’ ED; Biglaw partners can play bigger role in funding legal services; in one Ohio county, a debate about a debate about creating a public defender’s office; gloomy, gloomy news on law school debt; shakeups in Shasta County’s (CA) prosecutor’s office; the nonlawyer at Legal Aid of West Virginia’s helm.

• 5.12.11 – funding woes are affecting Idaho Legal Aid Services, and more cuts are coming.  From a short AP story on the KMVT website: “Idaho Legal Aid Services, which has already cut hours of its staff and 21 attorneys, has a $250,000 hole in its $2.6 million annual budget. Leaders say employees across the state will take forced days off without pay starting on May 27. The move comes after a bill failed in the 2011 Idaho Legislature that would have shored up its coffers.”

• 5.11.11 –  The National Law Journal recently interviewed  Disability Rights Advocates’ Executive Director Ben Foss about the hot issues in disability law, his decision to become a lawyer and his appearance in a film documentary called Journey Into Dyslexia, now showing on HBO2. For Foss, a former director of access technology at Intel Corp, his recent transition hits home: “I’m severely dyslexic. I was in special ed all through school. My mom used to read out loud to me as a kid. When I went to college, that’s when it all caught up to me. I had to fax term papers home to my mom to have her read aloud to me so I could find my spelling mistakes. As a result, I’ve been part of the disability community for a long time….  [At Intel,] I decided I wanted to build technology for people with disabilities, which is something Intel hadn’t done before. I invented a device called the Intel Reader, which takes a photograph of any printed material and reads it aloud to you right on the spot. I invented it so that I don’t have to call Mom every time I run into syntax.”  Foss also highlighted a few pressing challenges in disability law right now that include access to the virtual world and all transportation systems and veterans with disabilities.

• 5.11.11 – On Wednesday, the PSLawNet Blog looked at a proposal, featured in The American Lawyer, to create a private-bar-funded “Lawyers Foundation” to support civil legal services.  In the piece, Aric Press argues that Biglaw partners could greatly advance the cause of access to justice by endowing and supporting a foundation to help fund both the Legal Services Corporation and other legal services projects.  Press notes that LSC’s funding outlook in Congress is uncertain, but particularly dire given the current fiscal state of affairs and the fact that the federal funder of legal services has enemies on the Hill. While this is a thoughtful proposal, and certainly an attempt to think creatively (which the PSLawNet Blog applauds), the private sector can’t let Congressional appropriators off the hook with respect to funding LSC.

• 5.11.11 – A little less conversation, a little more action? In an article by The Morning Journal, Ohio’s Lorain County Prosecutor’s Office said commissioners need to rethink how to study the pros and cons of whether the county should have a public defender’s office.  Discussion began last month between commissioners and the state public defender’s office to explore if there would be a cost-savings, as compared to paying court- appointed attorneys for indigent criminal defendants. Commissioner Ted Kalo has argued there would be a savings, but Assistant Lorain County Prosecutor Gerald Innes is sticking to his guns, contending that some sort of commission should weigh the cost saving options.

• 5.9.11 – Reader warning: the following news is frightening for those concerned about student debt.  An article in the ABA Journal reports that annual law school loans borrowed has jumped 50 percent since 2001. In the last academic year, law students borrowed an average of $68,827 for public schools and $106,249 for private educations.  Compare this with $46,499, or the average amount borrowed for the public school, and $70,147, average for a private school in the 2001-2002 academic year.  For many of us–PSLawNet Bloggers included, these are not just staggering numbers, they’re lived experiences. Wow-zah.

• 5.9.11 – In the Shasta County, California district attorney’s office, many prosecutors are not amused with recent office/case shuffling. And, as a result, The Record Searchlight reports that the restructuring of sorts have prompted one of its senior prosecutors who specialized in homicide cases to leave the office.  Stewart Jankowitz, who lost only one murder case in his approximately 15 years with the office retired last week.  Prosecutors are required to handle an assortment of cases, although some do have specific assignments, such as sex crimes, felony DUIs and white-collar crime, such as embezzlement.  Jankowitz stated that he did not delight in the idea of handling non-homicide cases after his many years of legal experience.  While many will miss him, it’s time to go.

• 5.8.11 – Charleston, West Virginia’s Gazette feature a piece about Adrienne Worthy, executive director of Legal Aid of West Virginia, oversees provisions for legal assistance for the low-income and disenfranchised.  Her story is about what motivates her: responsibility.  Legal Aid of West Virginia currently has 55 lawyers, a statewide staff of 120 and 12 regional offices, but Worthy is not a lawyer.  After graduating from undergraduate school, she answered an ad in a progressive ad bulletin looking for citizen activist canvassers, then for three years went  door-to-door every night from 4 until 9, five days a week, snow sleet or hail, to raise money and organize around environmental, consumer and utility issues.  She then worked at a library and for the WV Women’s Commission.  She knows she has marched to her own drummer in terms of jobs, but her commitment to find how she’s needed is unwavering.  “I am finding it harder to be motivated by the belief that real changes are going to happen,” Worthy says.  “I don’t understand the vision of what we are supposed to do with the changes proposed for the environment, our old and young people. I don’t know what’s going to happen to our clients here.”  She confesses that she’s thought about leaving, but gets inspired by clients who have overcome incredible odds and, through the help of legal services, have been able to make a difference.

Happy Seis de Mayo, dear readers!  This is the day when many Cinco de Mayo revelers reflect, remorsefully, on just how easy it is to drink margaritas on a nice Spring day.  Your PSLawNet Blog permitted himself no such indulgences, however, as he scrambled to produce this week’s News Bulletin after having spent the first half of the week hiking in the Grand Canyon and driving throughout rural California and Arizona, of which there is much.  But that’s not why you’re here.  Without further ado…

This week: Indiana University law students pitch in to help taxpayers in need; the head of the Pro Bono Institute argues for allowing in-house lawyers to more easily do pro bono; New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman wants to bolster the state’s indigent defense system; a new plan in LA courts to help low-income individuals facing evictions; the Press of Atlantic City worries about the Garden State’s legal services infrastructure; public interest contributions by Charlotte College of Law students; Alabama law students and lawyers rally to assist tornado victims; the importance of better salaries for Wisconsin prosecutors.

• 5.3.11 – April 15th–err, April 18th–meant a little bit more to some this year.  In Indiana, the IU Newsroom reports that there are some low-income, elderly, disabled, and limited-English speaking residents who are appreciative of the efforts of 29 students at Indiana University Maurer School of Law.  The students volunteered 230 hours of their time to aid in filing 63 tax returns.  The students participated in the VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) program, and thus were trained and certified by the IRS.  Participants estimated the refunds to be “many thousands of dollars.”

• 5.2.11 – In the National Law Journal this week, Esther Lardent contends that corporate lawyers should be allowed to provide pro bono services, unsupervised, in states where they work, even if not admitted there.   Many state rules allow in-house attorneys licensed in another jurisdiction to work for an employer-client, but do not allow those same attorneys to provide pro bono legal services.  Lardent argues that states that expressly  permit nonlocally admitted attorneys to undertake pro bono often handcuff them with restrictions that are “unnecessary, insulting and unjustifiable in the face of the crisis in access to justice.”   There are beacons of hope found in some states’ exceptions.   Recently, Colorado and Virginia changed rules for in-house pro bono work by removing problematic obstacles.  Perhaps other states will follow? Until then, we’ll need to keep thinking creatively to fill the widening gap between the legal needs of the low-income and disenfranchised and the assistance available.

• 5.2.11 – In New York, Judge Jonathan Lippman calls state’s routine failure to provide lawyers for poor criminal defendants being arraigned in local courts a problem that cannot be tolerated any longer. The New York Times reports about Judge Lippman’s speech at the State Court of Appeals, in which he cited that too many New Yorkers were needlessly spending nights in jail after appearing without legal counsel at criminal arraignments in small-town and village courthouses.  He vowed that the state would spend $10 million in an effort to improve the availability of legal defense provided to the poor. Acknowledging the ambitious timeline, Judge Lippman said that within a year he hoped to make it rare for criminal defendants to lack counsel at their first court appearances.  After all, we claim to be living in a modern, principled society governed by the rule of law.  Judge Lippman, a longtime favorite of the PSLawNet Blog for his advocacy on the civil legal aid front, seems to be concerned that such a society is actually realized.

• 5.2.11 – from the LA Times, we learn that a quartet of legal services providers is collaborating to bolster services to low-income persons facing evictions: “Thousands of residents in Los Angeles’ poorest neighborhoods will get new legal help in fighting high-stakes eviction cases involving slumlords and foreclosures under a pilot project approved by the state’s judicial leaders Friday.  The new Eviction Legal Assistance Center at Los Angeles County Superior Court’s downtown civil courthouse will provide legal representation to about 15,000 people facing eviction over three years, according to legal aid groups, which will be jointly running the center.”  The Inner City Law Center, Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA), Neighborhood Legal Services, and Public Counsel are joining forces to staff the new project.

• 5.2.11 – sobered by a recent report from Legal Services of New Jersey, the editorial board of the Press of Atlantic City (AC, by the way: great HBO show, great Springsteen song, lousy town) wonders whether slashing government funding for legal services may do more harm than good: “Even the most rabid of the budget-cutters, deficit hawks and don’t-dare-raise-my-taxes crowd must, at some point, think about what kind of nation we are creating” if budget cutting results in the poor being unable to meaningfully access the justice system.  The LSNJ report, released late last month, is indeed sobering.  And as the PofAC editorial notes, at a time of increased client need, LSNJ has been forced to downsize from 720 staff members to 490 in less than three years.  

• 5.2.11 – as we noted in a blog post earlier this week, the Charlotte Observer reports on pro bono and public interest work at the Charlotte College of Law: “Students must perform at least 20 hours of free legal work….  Since the for-profit school opened in 2006, students have performed 27,000 pro bono hours. Under supervision of lawyers, they’ve provided legal assistance to immigrants, the elderly, an entrepreneur program at Central Piedmont Community College and helped nearly 450 buyers of Beazer-built homes file claims from the company’s $50 million restitution fund.  With externships and internships, Charlotte Law students have donated 40,000 hours of legal service.

• 5.2.11 – the National Law Journal reports that advocates from all corners of Alabama’s legal community are coming together to offer pro bono services to victims of last week’s storms.  Those groups which have rolled up their sleeves include the Alabama State Bar, the Alabama Association for Justice, law firms, and the Univ. of Alabama School of Law.  Roll pro bono tide.  (Here’s a little more from the School of Law about a pro bono partnership they’ve forged with the state bar to aid tornado victims: “Disaster Relief Assistance Project will provide free legal services both on-site at local area aid centers and at the law clinic programs office at the University of Alabama School of Law…. Legal advice will be provided concerning public benefits and programs, insurance claims and processes, housing rights, and other civil matters related to the storm and the displacement that resulted from it.”)

• May, 2011 – Wisconsin State Bar president Jim Boll makes the case for adequately funding prosecutors’ offices and boosting prosecutor salaries so that the state can retain talented, experienced lawyers: “District attorneys (DAs) face significant challenges as their offices around the state continue to be inadequately staffed and underfunded…. A 2007 report issued by the Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau showed that prosecutor positions have been cut while prosecutors’ workload has continued to rise, forcing them to spend less time on each case or even to choose which offenses to prosecute…. Further exacerbating the problem is the lack of pay progression, which leads to high turnover and very few mid-level prosecutors…. Thus, DA offices are staffed by a small number of highly experienced attorneys and a large number of recently hired attorneys, with nearly no one in the middle…. The governor has taken a step in the right direction in his proposed biennial state budget by providing $1 million annually to increase retention of experienced assistant DAs in each year of the biennium. However, for the criminal justice system to function effectively the state must be willing to fund all the essential parts of the system.”

Only a few U.S. law schools – like CharlotteLaw – require pro bono work. Often, current students enter law school with a history of service. They did it in high school and college, and they believe in public service.  This week, The Charlotte Observer featured CharlotteLaw’s pro bono program.

It is not a secret that across the country, lawyers for low-income people are in short supply, so pro bono opportunities like the ones CharlotteLaw provides for students are extremely timely.

A 2009 “justice gap” report by the federal Legal Services Corporation shows that 80 percent of low-income people who need legal help can’t get it.

That’s why the American Bar Association requires that all law schools provide some mechanism for pro bono work for students, said Sylvia Novinsky, assistant dean for public service at the UNC Chapel Hill Law School.

“It’s really also a great way to gain some practical skills.”

Pro bono at CharlotteLaw is one of three pillars in the school’s mission statement.  Serving the underserved is an oft-repeated ideal taken seriously at CharlotteLaw, the only law school in the state that requires students to complete pro bono work to graduate.

For five days over spring break, 16 CharlotteLaw students traveled to Biloxi, Miss., to help attorneys at the nonprofit Mississippi Center for Justice, still advocating for victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and last year’s BP oil spill.

The students, supervised by Lew and MCJ attorneys, worked on a study on fair housing, explored access to healthy and affordable food. They also worked with residents on the controversial closing of a historically black elementary school. And the BP oil spill.

This week: what started as law student project to aid Iraqi refugees has evolved into a shiny new nonprofit organization; LSC cuts impact the grantee up in Maine; Legal Services of New Jersey’s 2011 Civil Justice Gap report is out; Wisconsin’s governor seems to like legal services about as much as labor unions; a week in the life of a deputy district attorney; the loss of government grants could mean the loss of prosecutors in North Carolina; is the Supreme Court going too easy on misbehaving prosecutors?; a grand jury tells Riverside County officials that they’re messing up the county’s indigent defense system; Jacksonville Area Legal Aid gets a $625K HUD grant to help Floridians in foreclosure; the docket’s backed up at the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.

• 4.27.11 – the National Law Journal reports on the story of a true grassroots nonprofit organization, created by law students,  that aids Iraqis seeking refugee status: “What began in 2008 as an effort by Yale law students to help Iraqis seek refugee status has evolved into a nonprofit organization with student chapters at nine law schools and three more on the way.  The growth of the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Program reflects both the commitment of law students to pro bono work and the overwhelming need of thousands of displaced Iraqis to secure refugee status, said recent Yale law graduate and project executive director Becca Heller.  The project…appears to be the only organization in the United States devoted to assisting Iraqis seeking to resettle in other countries.”  The Program already has chapters at 8 law schools besides Yale, and more are on the way. 

• 4.27.11 – up in Stephen King Land, the Maine Public Broadcasting Network reports on the negative impact that Legal Services Corporation funding cuts will have on the state’s LSC grantee program, Pine Tree Legal Assistance.  (PTLA stands to lose only $64,000 directly, but of course those federal dollars help PTLA leverage additional funding dollars.  Also, with rising client demand, every dollar counts.)

• 4.26.11 – Legal Services of New Jersey has released its 2011 Civil Justice Gap report, documenting the severe impact that the Great Recession has had on low-income client communities, the need within those communities for legal assistance, and the resource limitations that LSNJ is trying to work through to meet clients’ demand for services.

• 4.25.11 – this is the umpteenth time we’ve covered it, but here’s yet another article – this one from the Green Bay Press Gazette – about Wisconsin governor’s Scott Walker’s proposal to eliminate funding for civil legal services.  Essentially, filing fee proceeds, part of which now go to support legal services, would be reallocated elsewhere.  This is an interesting turn of events, as the exact same funding scheme – filing fee revenues – has been proposed to help support cash-strapped legal services programs in states like Texas and Nevada (and on a related note, the Minnesota Supreme Court is using attorney licensing fees to boost legal services funding).  And back in Wisconsin, the editorial board of hte Appleton Post Crescent ain’t happy with the funding cut proposal.

• 4.25.11 – want to learn a little more about a week in the life of a deputy prosecutor?  The Register-Guard of Eugene, Oregon follows Chris Parosa, a deputy district attorney in Lane County, for a few days to get a sense not only of what goes into his more public functions – like courtroom work – but the array of responsibilities that prosecutors have behind the scenes: making decisions on whether to charge arrestees, and sometimes explaining to crime victims that he can’t prove guilt in court.

• 4.25.11 – in North Carolina, the Post and Courier reports about the impact that government grant cutbacks can have on local prosecutors: “The Berkeley County solicitor’s office could lose two prosecutors within the next couple of months, unless the county comes up with an extra $143,651.  The Moncks Corner office is losing grants that are supporting two of its seven assistant solicitors. A Department of Justice grant for general prosecution expires at the end of this month. A state Department of Public Safety grant to prosecute criminal domestic violence cases expires at the end of June.  It’s another example of those state and federal budget cuts that leave local municipalities scrambling to make up.”

• 4.25.11 – in a National Law Journal op-ed Erwin Chemerinsky, a Supreme Court advocate and current dean of UC Irvine’s new law school, lays into the Supreme Court about a failure to adequately address prosecutorial misconduct cases: “The U.S. Supreme Court is oblivious to a serious problem in the American legal system: prosecutorial misconduct. Study after study has demonstrated serious prosecutorial misconduct at both the federal and state levels… Twice in the past three years the Court has considered lawsuits by innocent individuals who were convicted and spent years in prison because of prosecutorial misconduct. In both instances, the Court held that the victims could not recover. Together, these cases send a disturbing message that the Court is shielding prosecutors from liability. The result is no compensation for wronged individuals and a lack of adequate deterrence of prosecutorial misconduct.”  (Irrelevant Fun Fact: Chemerinsky taught the PSLawNet Blog’s BarBri constitutional law course.  “Big A, little 2, sub b…”.)

• 4.24.11 – in California, the Press-Enterprise reports on controversy surrounding the indigent defense system in Riverside County: “Riverside County supervisors failed to follow their own policies when awarding a new criminal defense contract earlier this year, a newly released grand jury report concludes. The report, made public this month and set to go before supervisors Tuesday, asserts the board’s action circumvented the recommendations of three Northern California public defenders brought on to evaluate competing bids. As a result, the grand jury is recommending that supervisors construct a bidding process that ensures transparency on future criminal defense contracts.”

• 4.22.11 – the Florida Times-Union reports on over a half-million dollars in HUD grant money going to a Florida legal services provider: “A $625,000 federal grant will help Jacksonville Area Legal Aid give legal assistance to people victimized by businesses promising foreclosure rescue services and debt relief aid.”

• 4.22.11 – the Washington Post reports on the swelling case backlog at the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, which hears appeals from vets who are denied benefits by the Veterans Administration: “The caseload at the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims has doubled in recent years, with the court deciding more than 600 cases per judge each year — far more than other federal appellate courts. Judges are working nights and weekends but say they still have difficulty keeping pace.”

The Iraqi Assistance Program, an effort by law students to help Iraqis seek refugee status, has grown immensely. This week, The National Law Journal reported that the program began in 2008 with 100 Yale Law students and now has student chapters at nine law schools and three more on the way.

The growth of the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Program reflects both the commitment of law students to pro bono work and the overwhelming need of thousands of displaced Iraqis to secure refugee status, said recent Yale law graduate and project executive director Becca Heller.

The project — which Heller projected could expand to as many as 20 chapters by 2012 — appears to be the only organization in the United States devoted to assisting Iraqis seeking to resettle in other countries.

The idea came about when Heller spent the summer after her 1L year in Tel Aviv. She learned about the problems facing Iraqi refugees, many of them stuck in limbo in Jordan and Syria, where they lack legal status. She traveled to Amman, Jordan, and met with six refugees.

“All were in heartbreakingly tragic situations,” she said. “They didn’t really understand the refugee process. I was sort of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and thought, ‘Law students can help with this.’ ”

Back at Yale, Heller joined forces with fellow law student Jonathan Finer, who was working to resettle some Iraqi interpreters he had met while embedded with the U.S. military as a reporter for the Washington Post.

They discovered myriad hurdles facing refugees — including a lack of understanding about the process; the numerous interviews they must complete; and the massive amounts of paperwork they must submit. Many refugees suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, and the prospect of repeated interviews — in which they must discuss why they are persecuted or unsafe in Iraq — can be difficult and painful, Heller said.

The project has secured the declassification through the Freedom of Information Act of more than 5,000 pages of government documents pertaining to refugee processing. Heller finds that these refugees are fighting so hard for their own survival and recognizes  that the United States has “special obligation” to take in Iraqi refugees displaced from the war.