Greetings from NALP’s annual conference in sunny Palm Springs, California.  Earlier today we sat in on a terrific program called “Counseling for International Public Interest Careers.”  Several dozen law school public interest career counselors were in attendance to pick up best practices and strategies for advising students and alumni.

One of the panelists, Akua Akyea of Yale Law School, laid out five qualities that successful candidates for international public interest jobs typically possess:

1. Substantive Knowledge of International Legal Issues – sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s important for law students who wish to work in the international arena to figure out  how they can soak in the most knowledge through classes, writing opportunities (journal, etc.), experiential learning opportunities, attending extracurricular lectures/programs, networking with faculty and practitioners, and of course, through summer work.
2. Demonstrated Commitment to Becoming an International Public Interest Advocate – this career path is not a backup plan.  Aspiring international public interest lawyers should take advantage of every opportunity they can get to build their credentials.  (See no. 1 above.)  It’s one thing to tell a job interviewer that you’re committed; it’s another to show that you’re living out that commitment through your legal education.
3. Language Skills – when the PSLawNet Blog practiced in civil legal services, he often found himself regretting that he never developed anything even approaching a proficiency with a second language.  (Some would say the PSLawNet Blog is still struggling enough with English.)  In any case, possessing  foreign language skills – or not – can make a break a candidate for an international public interest law job.  It’s not too late to build skills.  Look into foreign language offerings within your law school’s larger university system.  Some students even take temporary leave to pursue language immersion courses – or do it during the summer.
4. International Travel Experience – in two words: “Go abroad!”  Travel abroad – even for leisure – helps us to build awareness of different cultures, and it helps us to at least begin to understand what might be involved in integrating and working in a different culture.
5. Gain Relevant Work Experience – this will help you take care of tips 1 and 2, and at the same time you’ll figure out what kind of work setting is right for you, what areas of law/policy interest you, and where in the world you might like to work.

This week: changes to Ohio’s patchwork indigent defense system?; a medical-legal partnership in the City of Fountains (and now you know Kansas City’s nickname – you’re welcome); praise from law firm associates on the value of law school clinical and externships programs, according to new NALP report; legal services funding bills making headway in Texas legislature; “future of legal education” conference gives props to proposal that would teach law students to teach pro-se litigants; $200K in HHS domestic violence victim assistance grant leads to legal services partnership in Michigan; is Birmingham, Alabama’s money better spent on public defenders or appointed counsel?; Colorado Legal Services takes a $170K hit after federal budget compromise; make that figure $300K in Virginia; are law school clinics vehicles for advancing liberal causes?; law school scholarship opportunities for would-be Garden State prosecutors; Quinnipiac (we love that name!) law students run/walk to benefit injured U.S. servicemembers – kudos!; a libertarian proposal to create an indigent defense voucher system; tumult among the leadership of the Peach State’s indigent defense program.

• 4.21.11 – could Ohio see a change in its indigent defense system, with the state easing some of the funding and administrative burdens resting on county shoulders?  An article from the Elyria, Ohio-based Chronicle-Telegram (a/k/a the New York Times of Northern Ohio) sheds light on how a state legislative proposal could impact Lorain County’s appointed-counsel system (and, we would presume, other counties’ systems as well): “County officials have been reviewing whether creating a public defender’s office would save the county money over the approximately $1.8 million spent annually to pay court-appointed attorneys. Under the current system, the state reimburses the county around 30 percent of its annual expenditures for court-appointed lawyers. [County Commissioner Lori] Kokoski said under the proposal being reviewed in Columbus the reimbursement number would jump to 50 percent next year and climb by 10 percent each year until the state was fully funding a county public defender’s office.  She also said that the Office of the Ohio Public Defender would take over operating the county’s public defender’s office — if one exists — under the proposed change to state law.”  

• 4.20.11 – as we’ve noted before on the Blog, an exciting new Medical Legal Partnership has sprung up in Kansas City between Legal Aid of Western Missouri and Saint Luke’s hospital.  Health Leaders Media has a nice write-up: “Legal Aid began its first medical-legal partnership in Kansas City in 2007, but the Saint Luke’s partnership is the first to use legal staff working full-time at a medical site. Amber Cutler, an attorney with Legal Aid, said that has been critical to the success of the four-month-old project.   ‘On site is best, not only because we are more accessible to the patients, but because we are more visible,’ Cutler says…’It’s a critical component.’ … The Saint Luke’s medical-legal partnership is based on the I-HELP model. I stands for income and insurance issues; H is for housing issues; E is for ensuring patient safety in domestic situations; L is for legal status; and P is for power of attorney and guardianship.”  BONUS EASTER SEASON TRIVIA: St. Luke, known primarily as a Gospel writer, was very likely trained as a physician.

• 4.19.11 – law firm associates think law school clinics and externships were just gangbusters in preparing them for the practice of law.  As we noted on the blog earlier this week, a new NALP report indicates that present-day associates benefitted from participating in clinics and externships during their student days.  The report compares the various experiential opportunities to determine their effects on lawyer preparedness.  While only 30 percent of the associates reported participating in at least one legal clinic, almost two in three of these folks (63%) found the experience “very useful,” the highest value on a scale of 1-to-4.   Similarly, 36% of the associates said they took part in an externship or field placement, and 60% of them rated the experience “very useful.”  Pro bono programs and legal skills classes earned lower ratings from associates.  Here’s a link to the report, the 2010 Survey of Law School Experiential Learning Opportunities and Benefits.  And here’s some National Law Journal coverage of the report.

• 4.18.11 – the Texas Lawyer runs a detailed piece on two companion bills winding through the Texas legislature that would generate funding for legal services:  “Senate Bill 726 and House Bill 2174 would create new court costs and document filing fees to help fund indigent civil legal aid, indigent criminal defense and the implementation of electronic filing in all state courts.”  We checked up on the bills on 4/21 via the Texas legislature’s website.  They’re both reported has having passed in committee votes.  Faithful PSLawNet Blog readers will have seen coverage of these bills in past News Bulletins.  One of the most interesting dimensions is the bipartisan support to improve funding for the beleaguered legal services community.  Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht has been a champion for increased funding, and he’s a solid conservative.  Also, Rep. Will Hartnett, the sponsor of HB 2174, is a Republican who noted in the Texas Lawyer piece that legal services is not typically a Republican cause.

• 4.18.11 – at the intersection of technology, legal aid, and legal education sits a project proposal to have law students create self-help software for people who have legal problems but may not be able to afford an attorney.  The proposal, “Apps for Justice: Learning Law by Creating Software,” won accolades at the “Future Ed” conference, a recent gathering of stakeholders in the legal education world that explored ways to improve the way tomorrow’s lawyers are trained.  The National Law Journal covered both the conference and the “Apps for Justice” proposal, which is designed to help law students learn legal principles and processes as they create self-help software for pro se clients.  The “Apps for Justice” project proposal contemplates a grant from the Legal Services Corporation to fund pilots at 5 law schools.  (Here is a press release about Apps for Justice being honored at Future Ed.)

• 4.18.11 – A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services grant will help domestic violence victims with civil legal needs.  The Times Herald of Port Huron, Michigan reports: “Lakeshore Legal Aid and Safe Horizons, both based in Port Huron, are working together on an Access to Justice project, paid for with a $200,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  Safe Horizons was awarded the grant last fall to develop a program to help survivors overcome obstacles that often prevent them from getting help with civil matters. The effort includes hiring an advocate to help with navigating the legal system; hiring an advocate to help survivors access child care while dealing with court matters; hiring someone to train area lawyers willing to take on pro-bono cases; and contracting with Lakeshore Legal Aid to take on complex cases.”

• 4.18.11 -a question of how to allocate indigent defense resources in Alabama.  From the Birmingham News:  “Birmingham municipal judges paid private lawyers hundreds of thousands of dollars [$300K in 2009-10] to represent poor defendants, while the nonprofit agency that serves as the city’s longtime public defender claimed it could handle the full caseload and went unpaid for months.”  The presiding judge at Birmingham Municipal Court has defended the increased payments to appointed counsel, even as the court has had to dip in to general funds because the dedicated fund for indigent defense services was depleted.

• 4.18.11 – the federal budget compromise earlier this month means depleted funding for LSC grantee Colorado Legal Services, to the tune of $170,000.  From Law Week Colorado: Colorado Legal Services will lose $170,000 over the next seven months as a result of the congressional budget compromise, the Colorado Bar Association said today…. ‘This loss will have a serious impact on the program’s ability to meet the most essential legal needs of low-income, elderly, and disabled Coloradans,’ the bar association said in a statement.  Law Week publishes the full Colorado Bar Association statement here.

• 4.17.11 – the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports on how LSC budget cuts will affect grantee programs in Old Dominion:  Virginia’s legal aid chapters, which provide free legal representation to Virginia’s poor and working poor, were told this week by their federal funding source that they must immediately implement a 4 percent cut….The 4 percent cut [which LSC will have to absorb] will be passed along to the corporation’s 136 grantees, which resulted in a nearly $300,000 loss for Virginia.

• 4.17.11 – the right-of-center Washington Times runs a review about a book criticizing legal education in the U.S. as being, well, elite and leftist.  According to the review of Schools for Misrule: Legal Academia and Overlawyered America, law school clinics in particular are vehicles to make social change: “The advent of law school ‘clinics’ brought both foundation funding and pedagogical cover for ‘social justice’ projects. In reality, the professed goals of training lawyers and serving indigent clients often were eclipsed by the quest for ‘test cases’ and ‘social change.’ Poor people, it turned out, wanted legal services (divorce, traffic violations, misdemeanor defense) that had “little to do with changing society.” The clinics preferred to turn away such matters in favor of ‘high profile cases,’ so that the lawyers could ‘save thousands instead of a few.’ And in numerous cases, the ‘public interest’ remedies pursued by law clinics brought results harmful to the communities they professed to serve.”  Yikes!  While the PSLawNet Blog supports changes in the legal education model that would lead to skill-based training, we’re not sure that’s a fair characterization of clinical education writ broadly.  Political ideology aside, we think most clinics handle everyday cases involving evictions, public benefits terminations, domestic violence prevention, and other matters that directly impact clients’ health and economic security. 

• 4.17.11 – the New Jersey Star-Ledger reports on three law school scholarship opportunities for Garden State residents who are aspiring prosecutors.  The scholarships are sponsored by the state’s County Prosecutors Association, and the application deadline is June 23, 2011.  Click through to the article for more detail, but here are some basics:
• To be eligible for the Oscar W. Rittenhouse Memorial Scholarship, an applicant must be accepted for admission to a law school and must have an interest in becoming a prosecutor.
• The Harris Y. Cotton Memorial Scholarship is also for applicants accepted for admission to law school who want to be prosecutors with an emphasis on domestic violence or hate crime prosecutions.
• Applicants for the Andrew K. Ruotolo Jr. Memorial Scholarship must be accepted to law school or graduate school and exhibit an interest, and commitment to, enhancing the rights and well-being of children through child advocacy programs.

• 4.17.11 – Running for our men and women in uniform.  As we noted in the PSLawNet Blog earlier this week, four student groups at Quinnipiac’s law school sponsored a 5K run/walk to benefit the Wounded Warrior Project, which builds awareness and raises funds for severely injured servicemembers.  (Here’s the original story from the Quad News.)

• 4.15.11 – an indigent defense voucher system?  A blog post on the Right on Crime website looks at a conservative solution to the indigent defense resources crisis as articulated in a paper published last year by the Cato Institute.  From the blog post: “Late last year, The Cato Institute published an intriguing paper on indigent defense reform. It is an attempt to apply limited government principles to an exceptionally difficult criminal justice problem….  [T]he Cato paper suggests replacing the inefficient indigent defense system with a voucher system. Indigent defendants can be provided with vouchers — and perhaps a list of options – and they can select whomever they prefer. It is a market-based solution that emphasizes personal liberty and minimizes the role of government.”

• 4.15.11 – according to the Daily Journal, there are big changes affecting the embattled Georgia Public Defender Standards Council (which is the statewide indigent defense service): “…Georgia lawmakers voted to replace the [Council’s] current 15-member board with nine new appointees tapped by the governor, the lieutenant governor and the House speaker. The measure, which must be signed by Gov. Nathan Deal, also gives the [Council’s] director more power over whom the system hires.”  The Council has been in the legislative doghouse for some time, particularly among conservative lawmakers.  As noted by the Daily Journal one departing board member complained that “the measure only marginalizes the council, turning it into a mere advisory board while putting more power in the hands of the director, ex-prosecutor Travis Sakrison, who is the third leader of the group in the past six months.”  Indeed, he referred to the move as a “pig in a poke,” which we suspect constitutes fightin’ words in the Peach State.

Our good buddy Heather Jarvis has just launched the Ask Heather Jarvis website.  For several years now, Heather has been a national leader in working on solutions to the student debt burdens that weigh upon law grads, in particular those who pursue public interest careers.  

Our initial scan of the website suggests that Heather’s done a great job organizing educational resources for borrowers.  And she’s presenting a free webinar entitled “Public Service Loan Forgiveness in Five Easy Steps” on multiple dates/times in May.  Good stuff.

Tomorrows Lawyers Need More Than The Book-Learnin.

In recent years, there has been much debate about the traditional legal education model’s effectiveness in preparing new lawyers for the practice of law.  Well, in reality, various stakeholders in the legal industry have been debating this for years.  New life was breathed into the conversation by the 2007 release of the Carnegie Foundation’s report, Educating Lawyers: Preparing for the Profession of Law.  Among the report’s major recommendations was an increased emphasis on experiential learning in law school curricula.

Fuel was added to the fire when the bottom dropped out of the legal employment market in 2008.  Suddenly, in a hyper-competitive job market,  everyone was talking about whether law schools could produce more practice-ready practitioners by bolstering experiential learning programs.  The PSLawNet Blog has been very interested in this discussion because so many experiential learning programs have public service dimensions to them, e.g. clinicals, externships, pro bono programs, etc.  So we’re pleased to note that our colleagues at NALP have released a report based on our 2010 Survey of Law School Experiential Learning Opportunities and Benefits.  The survey was distributed to law firm associates, with various experience levels, at firms around the country, and garnered over 900 responses.  (It’s noteworthy that we didn’t survey public interest lawyers, and subsequent research that we conduct may target this group.  In any event the report’s findings speak to what kind of experiential learning programs associates value most as having made them better practitioners.)

The report indicates that experiential learning opportunities, such as clinics and externships, are growing in popularity, as more recent law school graduates reported higher rates of participation than earlier graduates. And, whether required or optional, most of the simulated learning opportunities law schools offer are instrumental in preparing new associates for the demands of the practice of law reports the National Law Journal of the NALP research.

The report compares the various experiential opportunities to determine their effects on lawyer preparedness.  While only 30 percent of the associates reported participating in at least one legal clinic, almost two in three of these folks (63%) found the experience “very useful,” the highest value on a scale of 1-to-4.   Similarly, 36% of the associates said they took part in an externship or field placement, and 60% of them rated the experience “very useful.”

Seventy percent of the associates took at least one legal skills class during law school,  but only about 36 percent found the courses to “very useful.”

The ABA Journal also released an article about the research, making pro bono participation its lead.  NALP’s research revealed that 42% of the associates participated in pro bono work during law school; most spent less than 40 hours on the volunteer work.  And interestingly, only 17 percent of those who spent time on pro bono found it to be “very useful.”  (Contrast that against the clinic and extern stats.)

One thing to note about law students’  pro bono participation is that pro bono work categorically is often quite varied.  In parsing out students’ pro bono experiences instead of examining them in the aggregate, one might reach more specific conclusions about how well pro bono work affects preparedness to practice law.  For instance, some pro bono work is done through the auspices of a rigorous law school program with considerable oversight and supervision.  This experience would be closer to an externship or clinic experience, we think.  A lot of pro bono, though, it not nearly as well structured, and this may account for its relatively thin “usefulness” numbers.

Check out the report for yourself and share your thoughts in the Comments section.

A dog-loving law student at the University of Kansas wants to make sure criminal cases of animal cruelty are prosecuted as thoroughly as violence against people. At the suggestion of a professor, Katie Barnett is organizing what her research suggests would be the first animal cruelty prosecution clinic at a U.S. law school.

Law students taking part in the clinic will work with animal control, animal cruelty investigators at the Humane Society, police and prosecutors in Douglas County to make sure cases are prosecuted to a conclusion.

“This is the chance for me to give the animals a voice and a place in the justice system,” said Barnett, a 30-year-old third-year law student.

“She has a long history in involvement in animal rights issues,” said law professor William Westerbeke, who approached Barnett about starting the clinic.

Many law students do clinical work already, and he said designating one to specifically coordinate and keep track of the animal cases would be beneficial for all involved. It also would save the Humane Society money and be terrific experience for the student, he said.

The first student in the program will begin in fall 2011, and Westerbeke said other eastern Kansas counties have expressed interest in the program if it succeeds.

The PSLawNet Blog couldn’t help but notice this innovative program!  High fives from the animal kingdom and public interest world!

This week’s Bulletin, cats and kittens, is shorter than normal.  But it’s packed with legal services funding news, including: how LSC $ cuts will affect New York programs; Equal Justice Works’s CEO David Stern talks public interest careers; a look at the fiscal challenges confronting Western Massachusetts Legal Services; coverage of the FY2011 federal budget agreement which pared down LSC funding by about 4%; a law school/legal services partnership provides pro bono services to those who serve in uniform; Wisconsin may cut all state funding for civil legal services. 

• 4.14.11 – a New York Law Journal piece looks at the impact the Legal Services Corporation funding cuts will have on Empire State legal services providers.  (Note: the LSC funding cuts are covered in item 4 below.)  From the NYLJ: “Even though a $15.8 million funding cut for the Legal Services Corp. included in a federal budget agreement is smaller than legal aid advocates had feared, the reduced funds will be acutely felt by New York groups already struggling with state funding cuts…. New York City-based Legal Services NYC will suffer the biggest cut in LSC funding, losing $701,411. That will probably mean having to let go of six or seven lawyers or paralegals, according to Raun J. Rasmussen, the chief of litigation and advocacy for the 220-lawyer group.”  The piece goes on to detail how cuts will affect other LSC grantees in New York.

• 4.12.11 – our friend David Stern of Equal Justice Works is profiled in the Washingtonian’s “Capitol Comment” blog.  David explains how his career path took him to Equal Justice Works’s helm, and offers a criticism of legal education’s emphasis on cold, analytical thinking: “Unfortunately, yes, law school strips [the desire to practice in public interest] away in many respects. It tries to teach lawyers to think in sterile, analytical ways without a lot of heart. There’s also a lot of competition in law schools for those coveted six-figure-salary jobs, and so people are malleable, they’re generally young, and all of these activities—the sterile thinking, the going after the coveted job, the very large educational debt—often strips away those public-service aspirations. Our job is to keep those embers burning.”  Bonus trivia: quite aside from being one of the nation’s most vocal advocates for the value of public interest work, David’s a pretty solid softball player.  Good glove, surprising power, and he can pitch.

• 4.12.11 – the Business Journal of Western Massachusetts looks at the fiscal challenges confronting Western Massachusetts Legal Services – “its current budget of $2.5 million is roughly half of what it was just a few years ago” – and the organization’s recent fundraising efforts.

• 4.12.11 – the Blog of the Legal Times reports on the federal budget compromise’s impact on Legal Services Corporation funding (which we also blogged about earlier this week).  From the BLT: “The bipartisan deal on the federal budget includes a $15.8 million midyear cut for the Legal Services Corp., according to new details released on Tuesday. The cut is smaller than the $70 million that House Republicans proposed to take in February from the Legal Services Corp., which is the nation’s largest funding source for civil legal aid to the poor. Still, program officials had hoped to avoid any cut because demand for legal aid has increased during the economic downturn. Legal Services Corp. received $420 million from Congress last year, so the cut represents a 3.8% reduction in its full-year budget. But because the federal government’s fiscal year began Oct. 1, officials will need to find the money with more than half the year already passed.”  Also, here’s LSC’s press release about the funding cut.

• 4.11.11 – the Jacksonville Daily Record looks at a terrific pro bono project that serves Army reservists with legal needs.  In particular, volunteer law students and attorney help reservists, who can be called up to active duty on very short notice, with “the creation of advance directive documents: Durable Power of Attorney, Health Care Surrogate Designation, Designation of Preneed Guardian, a Living Will and a Simple Will.”  The model for this program, set up by Jacksonville Area Legal Aid and Florida Coastal School of Law, is simple and easily replicable.  The “legal teams” consisted of a volunteer attorney and a law student, and they worked off of laptops that had the necessary form templates loaded on to them.

• 4.11.11 – a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel blog notes that Wisconsin legal services providers face sharp cuts in state funding: “Among the big losers in Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed budget are groups who provide legal services to the indigent in civil cases — all $2.6 million that used to help finance such representation would be cut.”

This week: pay for PA capital punishment counsel is peanuts; Sin City D.A. gambles on refusal to make budget cuts; a wrap-up of LSC funding news from Capitol Hill; speaking of, Idaho Legal Aid Services has a lot riding on a federal government shutdown; a great new transactional clinic at Wisconsin Law; update on state funding of legal services and indigent defense in Minnesota; legal services funding woes along the Iowa/Illinois state line; and legal services funding within the Texas state lines.

• 4.7.11 – Keystone State capital punishment news from the Philadelphia Inquirer: “The amount of public funding paid to Philadelphia court-appointed criminal-defense lawyers is so low that it violates the constitutional rights of indigent people facing the death penalty.  So argues a petition filed Wednesday by a group of Philadelphia court-appointed death-penalty lawyers who told a city judge that the commonwealth should pay them adequately or stop seeking capital punishment…. The gap between the fee schedule and reality has led some Philadelphia criminal-defense lawyers to refuse to accept capital-case appointments.”

• 4.7.11 – from the Las Vegas Sun: “The Clark County District Attorney is refusing to comply with a request from county managers to prepare 9 percent budget cuts for the department.  In a memo to county commissioners and staff dated last week, District Attorney David Roger informed county officials that his department has fewer attorneys than the Public Defenders Office, his staff is overworked and he made big cuts in previous years.”  It’s become a battle of statistics between D.A. Roger and county officials.  The county has cited statistics showing that both the D.A.’s budget and prosecutor compensation has grown recently, but the D.A. disputes that.

• 4.6.11 – there has been a good deal of recent news about how budget wrangling on Capitol Hill will affect the Legal Services Corporation.  There are two main uncertainties now.  The first deals with what will happen to LSC’s budget in the very near term as Congress and the president try to reach a funding agreement for the rest of the current fiscal cycle (FY 2011), or face a shutdown.  The second uncertainty deals with LSC funding for FY 2012, the fiscal cycle that is due to begin this October.  There was an appropriations hearing on the Hill this week about LSC’s FY 2012 funding.  Let’s look at news about current funding, then FY 2012 funding:
  • FY 2011 LSC Funding news:
    • 4.4.11 – a current and former LSC board member, who are now law school deans, submitted an op-ed in a Boston Globe blog sharply critical of possible LSC cuts: “Today as the House…calls for cutting $70 million from [LSC funding], many of the 900 [grantee organization field offices] will need to close — 370 staff attorneys will be let go and 162,000 fewer people will be served — just as the recession pushes the highest number of Americans into poverty in 51 years. Such cuts abandon some of the most vulnerable people in our nation.
    • Late last week the Blog of the Legal Times noted that this current week is “crunch time” for LSC funding: “The next week will likely determine whether the Legal Services Corp. is forced to make sharp midyear cuts in its budget, as lawmakers and Obama administration officials attempt to finish negotiations for federal spending through Sept. 30…. As part of a broad Republican plan to trim federal spending, the House in February approved a $70 million midyear cut to the Legal Services Corp., the nation’s largest funding source for civil legal aid to the poor. The proposal failed in the Senate, but a cut could still be part of any compromise.”
    • in late March the LSC board chairman and a former chairman co-authored an Atlanta Journal-Constitution op-ed explaining what’s at stake for legal services providers and their clients if cuts go through: “For the last 36 years, Congress has appropriated funds for civil legal assistance, and the current level is $394.4 million. Now, in the middle of a fiscal year, the House has targeted LSC for a $70 million cut in these funds…. The timing could not be worse. The work of legal aid attorneys has become ever more important since the 2008 recession and the significant rise in poverty across the land. Fifty-seven million Americans qualify for civil legal assistance…”
  • FY 2012 LSC Funding news:
    • 4.5.11 – the Blog of the Legal Times covered a House hearing on LSC’s FY 2012 budget: “The chairman of a House appropriations subcommittee said today that private-sector lawyers aren’t doing enough to help the nation’s poor with legal problems, warning that they might need to make up for expected cuts in federal funding.  U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) is a longtime supporter of funding for civil legal aid, but he said [LSC] still faces proposed cuts from the House’s new Republican majority. LSC and its local partners should turn to resources from large law firms, state bar dues and law schools.”  LSC president James Sandman and board member Robert Grey Jr. both noted that legal services providers already do leverage not only pro bono contributions from law-firm attorneys, but also financial resources.  On the issue of pro bono substituting for, rather than supplementing, legal services attorneys, the PSLawNet Blog is reminded of this recent op-ed from the Pro Bono Institute’s president, which argues that pro bono work can not be efficiently delivered without a well funded legal services infrastructure to guide that work.  (The PSLawNet Blog attended the hearing and we’ll put a larger blog post together in a couple of days.) 

• 4.6.11 – good news and bad news for Idaho Legal Aid Services.  First the bad: Boise’s KTVB television station explores what difficulties may befall the organization (and other LSC grantees) if Uncle Sam closes up shop today.  Idaho Legal Aid Services takes in two-thirds of its funding from federal sources.  “Money for the month of April is guaranteed, but after that they could see a delay, and it would lead to a considerable impact.  ‘If that cut was substantial then it may mean we wouldn’t be able to operate at all. If the cut is something less than that, then we have to look at how big the cut was and determine how many literally how many attorneys how many staff would have to be laid off,’ said [executive director Ritchie] Eppink.  Another noteworthy fact from the story: “Eppink says Idaho is the only state in the country that doesn’t provide state funding for legal assistance programs.”  Regarding state funding, Idaho Legal Aid Services may have a small reason to celebrate.  According to a Greenfield Daily Reporter article that ran earlier this week – and you better believe, cats and kittens, that the PSLawNet Blog reads the Greenfield Daily Reporter religiously – the state house narrowly approved a bill to “help provide free legal counsel to low-income residents in cases involving domestic violence, child abuse, and exploitation of the elderly.”  The bill would authorize revenue generation via a court filing fee.     

• 4.6.11 – the WisLaw Blog reports on Wisconsin Law School’s Law and Entrepreneurship Clinic, which matches low-income entrepreneurs with law students who provide help on transactional matters.  The clinic also enlists the help of pro bono attorneys to supervise the students’ work.  The PSLawNet Blog once had the privilege of helping to start a transactional pro bono program, and we’re big fans of pro bono projects that offer opportunities to advocates who are on business law career paths.  It greatly broadens the pool of pro bono advocates, and there are many nonprofit institutions and micro-entrepreneurs who are doing great work but are unable to afford counsel when needed.

• 4.6.11 – the Twin Cities Daily Planet reports on some Minnesota legislative proposals which could have a kryptonite-like effect on legal services providers: “State funding for civil legal services has fallen by 11 percent between 2008 and 2011 and is currently below 2006 levels. The Governor recommends flat funding for these services, the Senate cuts funding by six percent, and the House cuts funding by 17 percent in FY 2012-13 and 25 percent in FY 2014-15. The House proposal also limits the ability of legal aid and similar state-funded programs to lobby the legislature and pursue legal actions against the state and federal government on behalf of their clients.”  Public defenders, which have been victims of past budget cuts, stand to fare better; they may see funding increases.

• 4.4.11 – the Quad-City Times looks at funding troubles which confront Prairie State Legal Services in western Illinois as well as Iowa’s HELP Legal Assistance.  Both organizations have drawn considerably on reserves to make budgetary ends meet.  Prairie State’s reserves are gone, and its executive director reports that “Thirty-five percent of our budget…is at risk.”  The picture isn’t much better for HELP, which is bracing for funding news this spring that will affect the size of its staff going forward.

• 4.3.11 – Two stories involving legal services in the Lone Star State:
  • The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal highlights funding troubles that confront the Legal Aid Society of Lubbock, which devotes a considerable amount of time helping domestic violence victims and others with family-law related problems.  “As officials at all levels of government have tightened the purse strings, Legal Aid has seen cuts in funding, Graham said. She expected total funding to be down 10 percent to 30 percent this year.  And the budget cuts come when the organization has seen a 22 percent increase in clients over last year….  Last year the organization served 1343 clients.  Of those clients, 1100 were women.”
  • And now for some bipartisanship.  Last week a Dallas Morning News editorial urged the state house to pass HB 2174, which would raise some public filing fees to support legal services providers.  “The Texas Access to Justice Commission wants the state to put a small fee on non-judicial documents filed with a county clerk, such as for mortgages. They also want a minor fee put on judicial documents filed with justices of the peace and in municipal courts, such as for misdemeanor cases.  The fees would be paid by users of the justice system, so the money wouldn’t come out of general revenues. And estimates show they could bring in $58 million over the next two years.  Interestingly, liberal lawyers aren’t the only ones advocating this solution. Supporters include Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht, arguably the court’s most conservative jurist. Hecht recently told this newspaper, “This is about the rule of law. Access to the courthouse shouldn’t be dependent upon your ability to pay.”  Indeed, HR 2174, which is still in committee, is sponsored by a conservative Republican.

We’ll close by noting, with all due modesty, that the Glorious Philadelphia Phillies Baseball Franchise is 5-1, having absolutely thrashed the hapless New York Mutts last night.  Happy weekend!

No matter how you feel about the word “lawyerpreneur,”–we did hesitate to even type if out–the clinic at UW Law is operating in innovative ways.  It’s bound to get your attention and approval.

Today, the State Bar of Wisconsin  posted an article about US’s Law and Entrepreneurship Clinic, which operates like a law firm and provides free legal services to entrepreneurs in the start-up phase.

The new law clinic, developed by U.W. law school professors Eric Englund and Anne Smith (co-directors), serves the school’s “law-in-action” philosophy, helps students gain practical experience, and assists entrepreneurs in bringing their ideas to the marketplace.

“The clinic started in 2009 with eight students, no clients, and no space,” Englund said. “But we hit the deck running, and today we have 16 students, a backlog of clients, and extremely active participation from the private bar.”

Englund says partnership with private bar members is instrumental, and stresses that the clinic does not compete with law firms or private attorneys.

“It’s critical to our operation that we not compete with lawyers,” Englund said. “We tend to serve clients that do not otherwise have access to the private bar because of financial reasons but will have access once they can move into the mainstream of business.”

The 2011 Major League Baseball season began yesterday, and the Glorious Philadelphia Phillies Baseball Franchise opens its season today.  Alas, the PSLawNet Blog’s dream of securing the world’s easiest job – the fifth man in the Phillies rotation – has not come to pass.  So here we sit at the NALP office, plugging away at the Public Interest Law News Bulletin – until a very, very long lunch break at about, oh, 1:05pm EDT.

Speaking of the Bulletin, here’s what we’ve got: prospects bleak for legal services funding from the New York legislature; news about state/local government revenues across the nation is mixed, at best; news about indigent defense reform in New York is not mixed, it’s bad; meet the federal official who’s responsible to recruit and retain the next generation of civil servants; workplace discrimination hits low-income women hardest, according to a new report; cash bonuses for convictions in a Colorado prosecutor’s office?; just say no to boosting attorney registration fees to support legal aid; legal services funding shortages may kill a popular Florida disability advocacy project; some great public interest funding news at UVA Law; a constitutional showdown in Washington State pits legal services advocates against budget-cutting state officials.

• 3.31.11 – well, we should have known it would be a tough row to hoe.  New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman has been a vocal, and active, advocate for bolstering civil legal services during a time of tremendous client need.  In addition to creating an Attorney Emeritus Program to make it easy for retired lawyers to do pro bono, he has been pushing hard for state funding to beef up the legal services infrastructure.  Well, New York state legislators are working away at a final budget proposal, and things are looking bleak for funding.  From the New York Law Journal:  “Lippman has aggressively sought an additional $25 million for civil legal services in the fiscal year beginning tomorrow, the first installment in a four-year $100 million increase. But that was thrown into doubt by a budget agreement Sunday that slashed another $70 million on top of an earlier $100 million Judge Lippman had offered in the Judiciary’s proposed budget….  Judge Lippman, who had said Monday that the budget cuts could mean “hundreds” of nonjudicial layoffs, declined to discuss specific cost-saving measures under consideration by court administrators. However, it is unlikely that the full $25 million would be available for civil legal services.”

• 3.29.11 – the PSLawNet Blog has frequently covered job cuts affecting state and local government lawyers in the recession’s wake.  Some new census data show how state and local governments are faring in terms of fiscal health.  Short version: some immediate good news, but a lot of uncertainty in the longer term.  From the Washington Post: “State and local tax revenues grew during the last three months of 2010, continuing a recovery from the steep drops that followed the recession, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday.  Despite the modest revenue growth, state and local governments are contending with huge budget gaps that have led to service cuts and reductions in pay and rights for public employees…. Though the recovery in state revenues is good news for state and local governments, it has not been sufficient to compensate for the huge revenue losses caused by the recession. States also are coping with fast-increasing costs for Medicaid and higher education, while they are bracing for the loss of about $50 billion in federal stimulus money in the coming budget year.”

• 3.29.11 – the North Country Gazette reports on some bad news for indigent defense funding in the Empire State:  “The just-announced State budget deal cuts funding for the Office of Indigent Legal Services in half according to the Justice Fund.  ‘This ill advised compromise cut threatens to gut reform before it begins,’ lamented Edward Nowak, chair of the Justice Fund board. ‘The injustices resulting from New York State’s failure to fulfill its duty to provide adequate representation to people charged with crime or threatened with loss of their children have gone on too long,’ he added.”  According to the story, New York State has historically farmed out indigent defense responsibilities to its counties, leaving a patchwork system filled with qualitative inconsistencies.  The Office of Indigent Legal Services is part of a recent effort to put the state’s weight behind indigent defense reform.  But due to the funding cut, it’s now a smaller part.

• 3.29.11 – the Washington Post’s “Federal Player of the Week” is a woman whose work will affect hundreds and hundreds of law students who aspire to federal government careers: “Juanita Wheeler has a big job ahead of her.  In December, President Obama issued an executive order that called for reforming the way our government recruits and hires student interns and recent graduates. Wheeler’s task now is to set up the new processes that federal agencies will use to bring young talent into the federal fold….  As head of federal student programs at the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM), Wheeler oversees the intern and student hiring and recruiting under the newly created ‘Pathways Program’ She also helps manage the Presidential Management Fellows Program, a two-year leadership development initiative for entry level individuals with advanced degrees, now operating in approximately 80 agencies.”

• 3.29.11 – a National Law Journal article looks at a new report on the issue of low-income women suffering from workplace discrimination: “Discrimination lawsuits brought by working professionals tend to draw public attention, but it’s low-wage workers who suffer the harshest consequences in those circumstances, according to a report by the Center for WorkLife Law at University of California Hastings College of the Law.  The report, titled ‘Poor, Pregnant, and Fired: Caregiver Discrimination Against Low-Wage Workers,’ analyses [sic] 50 workplace discrimination lawsuits — most resolved during the past five years — brought by low-wage workers. It highlights ways in which employers violate workers’ rights.”

• 3.29.11 – we blogged earlier this week about an interesting story coming out of the Denver suburbs: a controversy is brewing about a county prosecutor’s past policy of awarding financial bonuses which were tied in part to her prosecutors’ successes in getting convictions at trial.  The concern is that pinning a financial award to winning in court may motivate a prosecuting attorney to forgo plea deals in order to secure more convictions.  It could essentially give a prosecuting attorney a financial interest in the cases they handle.  Most recently, a public defender moved to have a prosecutor working for District Attorney Carol Chambers removed from a case on account of concerns about a financial conflict.  Here’s some coverage:
  • a 3.29.11 Denver Post article covers the motion: “A motion questioning an Arapahoe County prosecutor’s ability to try a felony kidnapping case in light of District Attorney Carol Chambers’ controversial bonus criteria survived its first hearing Monday.  Eighteenth Judicial District Court Judge Carlos Samour Jr. gave the defense more time to subpoena documents from Chambers’ office detailing the bonuses paid last year that rewarded felony prosecutors who tried at least five cases and won conviction in 70 percent of them.”  Chambers disputes the notion that her prosecutors have financial stakes in cases and noted that budget constraints will prevent any future bonus awards anyway.  (The bonuses totaled over $164,000 in 2010 and averaged $1100 for felony prosecutors.)
  • 3.25.11 – here’s some earlier coverage, including  a video story, from Denver-based TV station KUSA.  In it, Chambers is adamant in defending of the bonuses, noting that they were offered not just to trial lawyers but also to support staff.  She also argues that courtroom success was but one criterion in the bonus calculations, and that attorneys did not know it was a criterion at all.

• 3.28.11 – on the Minnesota Lawyer’s “J.D. Rising” blog, a former legal services attorney opposes the state high court’s order for a $100 increase in attorney registration fees that will channel funds to the Board of Public Defense and the Legal Services Planning Committee.  While the need for additional funding in both the criminal and civil legal aid communities is obvious, writes Leah Weaver, she believes that cobbling together funding via the fee increase takes some of the burden off of the parties who should carry it.  “I am opposed to the fee increase because I believe it gives the Governor and the Legislature a pass on dealing with the real crisis facing our courts. As Justice Stras wrote in his [concurring opinion re the court’s fee increase order], ‘it is not the responsibility of lawyers alone to disproportionately fund a core, constitutionally-mandated service of government through a fee that was designed solely to regulate our profession.’ But by extending the fee increase, the Court allows Governor Dayton and the Legislature to continue not to make court funding a priority.”

• 3.28.11 – the Florida Times-Union reports that funding shortfalls at Jacksonville Area Legal Aid threaten a path-breaking project that provides advocacy for the hearing impaired.  Sharon Caserta, a Class-of-2005 Equal Justice Works Fellow now working as a staff attorney at JALA, “has become recognized as a trailblazer statewide for protecting the rights of the deaf and hard of hearing.  Trouble is brewing, though. The career Caserta sprouted five years ago…could be fading away as funding becomes scarce. The prospect has…Legal Aid Executive Director Michael Figgins and Florida Association of the Deaf President June McMahon bracing themselves.  Figgins said the program costs $150,000 annually, but this year Legal Aid has come up $75,000 short. The biggest part of the problem, he said, is the Florida Bar Foundation’s trust accounts are still struggling from the recession.”

• 3.28.11 – the Daily Progress reports on UVA Law’s use of some legal services grant funding: “The University of Virginia School of Law will use a $150,000 grant to help provide legal services to the region’s poor.  The grant from the Jessie Ball DuPont Fund will be used to develop the Access to Justice Partnership, which officials hope will ultimately draw on pro bono services from roughly 75 private attorneys and about as many law students annually.  Law school officials will collaborate with the local bar, the Legal Aid Justice Center and the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society.”  This isn’t the only public interest funding news from UVA Law.  Earlier this week we blogged that the school’s Public Interest Law Association raised over $375,000 to fund summer public interest work for rising 2 and 3Ls.

• 3.27.11 – a constitutional showdown about the fate of a state-funded food stamp program could portend many battles between public interest lawyers and state governments as the latter push to shrink budget deficits by cutting social services.  The Seattle Post Intelligencer reports that Columbia Legal Services is leading the charge to stop Washington State from discontinuing the Food Assistance for Legal Immigrants (FAP) program.  Here’s the posture of the federal class-action litigation: “[A federal judge] on Tuesday denied the state’s request that she reconsider her preliminary injunction last month forcing the state Department of Social and Health Services to fully restore…FAP. The program, which had been cut on Jan. 31, serves more than 10,300 households and provides benefits to immigrants who are ineligible for federal food stamps.  The state had hoped to save an estimated $7.2 million for the remainder of the current biennium and about $60.5 million for the next one by terminating the FAP.  But [the court] found that by cutting off food assistance to a certain class of legal immigrants while continuing to operate and partially fund the federal food assistance program – which serves some immigrants – the state may be in violation of the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.”  The facts driving this case are a bit nuanced, but as noted in the article a similar federal case originated in Hawaii last year.  And it’s our bet that, as state governments leave no stones unturned in looking to cut expenses, we’ll see more such actions filed by legal services providers elsewhere in the U.S.

Nice skyline, Chicago. Cubs still stink.

The PSLawNet Blog intended to cover this announcement out of the Windy City several days ago, but we succumbed to the flu last week.  So, better late than never…

From a March 11 announcement:

The University of Chicago Law School today announced a complete redesign of its Loan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP), making it the most generous program of its kind. The three most important changes to the program are that it now offers the opportunity for any graduate staying in public interest for ten years to go to law school for free, that all graduates who serve as judicial clerks will be eligible for the program, and that a generous $80,000 salary cap will make the program more inclusive than ever.

Hah – the law school’s communications department chose to refer to the new LRAP program as “dramatic.”  We’ve never thought of LRAPs as involving much drama.  That said, we describe the program as “kickarse,” so perhaps we shouldn’t appoint ourselves the modifier police.

We digress.  Here’s a voice of approval of Chicago Law’s new LRAP, emanating from North-side rival Northwestern Law.  Northwestern adjunct professor Steven Harper, an observer of legal industry goings-on, writes in The American Lawyer:

When law schools get it wrong, they deserve the scorn that comes with a public spotlight. When they get it right, they should bask in its warm glow. The University of Chicago Law School recently got it right. Really right.

…

A single line from the school’s website description says it all: “This means that a graduate who engages in qualifying work for ten years, earns less than the salary cap, and maintains enrollment in the federal Income-Based Repayment Program, will receive a FREE University of Chicago Law School education!

“Qualifying work” is public interest broadly defined as “the full-time practice of law, or in a position normally requiring a law degree, in a nonprofit organization or government office, other than legal academia.” It includes judicial clerkships.

The “salary cap” is $80,000 and doesn’t include spousal income. That combination seems to beat Harvard, Yale and Stanford. (Caveat: The differences across school programs can be significant and prospective students should consider their own circumstances, run the numbers, and determine which one produces the best individual result.)

Huzzah, U. of Chicago!