This week: LSC on federal budget chopping block?; everything’s bigger in Texas, and hopefully that includes state funding of legal services; it does seem to include funding for innocence clinics at four Lone Star State law schools; get hitched to fund legal services in Idaho; mourning Sargent Shriver’s passing; state budgets in terrible shape; death penalty debate in Illinois could signify changes in other jurisdictions; NYC public interest and pro bono lawyers racing the clock to help Haitian immigrants; an expanded LRAP program at Boston College Law; commendable pro bono contributions from New York lawyers; an appeal for more pro bono from Pennsylvania’s top jurist; how do you prosecute a defendant who is deaf, mute, and unable to read or understand sign language?

• 1.20.11 – not exactly a surprise, but the Legal Services Corporation won’t be invited to a tea party anytime soon.  From the Associated Press: “A proposal unveiled by the Republican Study Committee, whose conservative members make up about three-fourths of the House GOP conference, called for bringing domestic agency budgets down to the 2006 levels in place when Republicans last controlled Congress. That’s about a $175 billion cut from current levels and roughly $90 billion more than the cuts promised by Republicans last fall … The study committee proposed eliminating several programs outright, including the Legal Services Corporation, which provides legal help to people who can’t afford a lawyer….”  A Washington Post article does a good job of putting this spending proposal into context as debate over the federal budget promises to heat up in the coming weeks.

• 1.20.11 – an editorial in the San Antonio Express makes the case for preserving state funding for legal services.  The piece notes that in its last session the state government “provided some much needed one-time support in the form of a $20 million allocation in anticipation that the economy would get better and the IOLTA funding would go back to its former levels.”  But the financial circumstances for the legal services community have not markedly improved; they are in fact still “in crisis.”  Texas’s attorneys have contributed $700,000 via bar dues, and they have given generously of their time through pro bono efforts.  But the legislature must step up to the plate again by sustaining its funding.

• 1.19.11 – moving along to some better funding news out of Texas, the Dallas Morning News’s Trailblazers Blog notes that “…the $400,000 of funding allotted to the innocence clinics at the University of Texas, Texas Tech University, University of Houston and Texas Southern University law schools had not been slashed in the base House budget released late Tuesday night.”  The clinics have cleared 11 people who were wrongly convicted of crimes, and there is evidently more work to do in the Lone Star State.  We noted one of the more dramatic instances of a wrongful conviction’s undoing in our January 7 News Bulletin: a man who’d served 30 years in prison before being cleared by DNA evidence.

• 1.19.11 – Want to support legal services in Idaho?  Tie the knot.  In his annual “state of the judiciary” speech, the Gem State’s top jurist, Justice Daniel Eismann, lamented the fact that so many Idahoan families and children are unable to afford counsel in domestic relations and other cases.  The Spokesman Review reports that Justice Eismann proposed boosting the cost of marriage licenses by $20; this would yield about $280K per year which could fund civil legal services.

Keep reading . . .

Earlier this month we blogged about Vermont Law School’s release of its inaugural “Top Ten Environmental Watch List.” This past weekend The Burlington Free Press took note of both the local and global impact of Vermont Law School’s environmental focus.

Environmental lawyers. Vermont Law School turns out scores of them every year, and they’re sprinkled through congressional staffs, state and federal regulatory agencies, environmental advocacy organizations and private law firms that take on environmental cases.

According to Marc Mihaly, the Director of the school’s Environmental Law Center,

‘We’re better known outside the state than inside,’ said Marc Mihaly, director of the law school’s Environmental Law Center. ‘Everybody knows us in China.’

By ‘everybody,’ he meant the few Chinese lawyers who specialize in environmental law, many of whom have either visited South Royalton or participated in conferences that Vermont Law School has organized in China. With a State Department grant, the school is training environmental advocates at Chinese law schools and helping to set up an environmental law firm in Beijing. Meanwhile, Vermont law students conduct collaborative research on environmental issues with their counterparts in China.

For potential law students that are interested in practicing environmental law the school offers a robust program:

Students can choose from more than 60 courses with an environmental focus — ranging from land-conservation law to climate change litigation.

They can work in environmental clinics that handle real cases for real clients — a form of experiential education that’s being promoted at law schools generally. Mark Foster, a third-year student who’s on the editorial board of the Vermont Journal of Environmental Law, recalls working on a friend-of-the-court brief that figured in to a decision by the Montana Supreme Court — an achievement that gave him ‘a very empowering feeling.’

We leave you with this fun fact for the road:  one student decided to attend the school’s L.L.M. program in part because ‘[i]t was the only law school that rented cross-country skis out of the bookstore.’

This week: we begin with an exciting announcement about…case management software(!), but then we move on to a profile of Chicago’s Cabrini Green Legal Aid; kudos for a Florida-based Equal Justice Works fellow; the ABA wants guaranteed counsel in civil contempt proceedings; profiles of Judy Clarke, the accomplished federal defender who will represent accused killer  Jared Loughner; a NOLA administrative battle has judges squaring off against the DA and public defender; thoughts from a deferred associate leaving Texas RioGrande Legal Aid; UNC law forges a new pro bono partnership; a statewide legal services hotline is launched in Oklahoma; Legal Aid of East Tennessee gets $125K in IOLTA revenue; free legal help for Staten Islanders facing debt collection cases; and office/staff constriction at Southern Arizona Legal Aid.

• 1.13.11 – looking for new case management software, legal services providers?  According to a press release, “Technology consulting firm Urban Insight today announced a donation of nearly $100,000 in free software to help nonprofit legal services organizations that serve millions of residents in 12 states … Urban Insight’s free and open source software, called Drupal for Legal Aid Websites, or DLAW, enables legal aid programs to affordably manage complex websites using only a web browser … DLAW is developed and maintained in the public interest by Urban Insight in collaboration with Legal Services National Technology Assistant Project (LSNTAP), Idaho Legal Aid Services (ILAS) and legal aid organizations from Arkansas, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Vermont and West Virginia. Original development of the software was funded through a Legal Services Corporation Technology Initiative Grant.  More information about DLAW is available on a special website, www.legalaidtech.org, where legal aid organizations can also download the latest version of the software for free.”

• 1.12.11 – the Huffington Post has a nice, albeit brief, profile of Chicago-based Cabrini Green Legal Aid.  “The Cabrini Green Legal Aid (CGLA) has provided free legal services to Chicagoans since 1973 and represents residents in the city living below the poverty level.  From family and housing law to criminal defense, CGLA wants all residents to know their options.”

• 1.12.11 – hey, wait a minute.  More Huffington Post.  And, only a week after naming an Equal Justice Works fellow its “Greatest Person of the Day” (Anneliese Gryta – 1/4/11), Huffington Post did it again.  January 11’s Greatest Person of the Day was Equal Justice Works Fellow Peterson St. Philippe of Gulf Coast Legal Services in Tampa, FL.  “[A]s an Equal Justice Works Fellow working with Gulf Coast Legal Services, Peterson finds himself in a prime position to give back. For Haitian immigrants who arrived before the quake, he assists in filing for Temporary Protected Status–letting them stay and work here for up to 18 months.  But for survivors who fled to America after the quake, the legal options differ. Typically granted temporary visa status, these immigrants cannot legally work or drive a car, leaving them stranded in legal limbo. Many of these people have nothing to go back to in Haiti, where they have lost homes and family members.”  While both Gryta and St. Philippe are doing great work and undoubtedly deserve this kind of recognition, we at the PSLawNet Blog find it curious that two EJW fellows have been featured in consecutive weeks.  As it happens, we’re going to happy hour with a friend from EJW this evening.  We’ll get to the bottom of this.  We’ll likely also stick our friend with the bar bill, but let’s keep that between us.

• 1.12.10 – the ABA has filed an amicus brief in a Supreme Court case – Turner v. Rogers, to be argued on March 23 – asserting “that poor people should have the right to a lawyer in civil contempt proceedings carrying a threat of jail time … According to the brief (PDF), the ABA has concluded that low-income people should have a right to counsel in adversarial proceedings where basic human needs are at stake, such as those involving sustenance, safety, health, or child custody determinations. The rationale underlying this position also supports a right to counsel in civil contempt cases where an indigent defendant faces possible jail time.”

• 1.10.11 – the New York Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune are among many news outlets that have written about the federal defender who will represent accused Tucson killer Jared Loughner.  Judy Clarke’s record of helping defendants in high-profile cases avoid the death penalty is remarkable.  From the Times piece, which refers to Clarke as a “master strategist”: “The capital-defense lawyer who will represent Jared L. Loughner in the shootings in Tucson, Judy Clarke, is a well-known public defender who gets life sentences in cases that often begin with emotional calls for the death penalty.  Ms. Clarke has helped a number of infamous defendants avoid death sentences, including Theodore J. Kaczynski, the Unabomber; Eric Robert Rudolph, the Atlanta Olympics bomber; and Susan Smith, the South Carolina woman who drowned her toddlers.”  The Union-Tribune article focuses on Clarke’s low-key personality, work ethic, and her passion for making the justice system work fairly for those accused of crimes.  “Those who know her say she’s the most low-profile high-profile attorney in the country — she doesn’t chase after cases and she doesn’t do press conferences. All she does is work.”

• 1.10.11 – according to the New Orleans Times Picayune, a strange battle is playing out in New Orleans criminal courts regarding the system for assigning cases to judges.  “The DA’s office and public defenders want a system that allows them to better manage their offices by assigning cases to a judge the moment a person is arrested. This summer, the judges agreed to that change, but then three months later scrapped it, saying it wasn’t fairly distributing cases.”  And what’s a courtroom – or courthouse – drama without dueling experts?  The judges abandoned the new system after a report from the National Center for State Courts (which had been commissioned by the judges) found that the system created an imbalanced workload from judge to judge.  Not to be outdone, though, the DA and PD can point to a recent report from the New Orleans inspector general’s office which is critical of the NCSC report. The latest is that the judges are commissioning yet another study.  The “battle of the experts” may end up being a battle of attrition.  (Here, by the way, is a Times Picayune editorial siding with the DA and PD.)

• 1.10.11 – the TRLA Times, a newsletter run by Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, features a post by an outgoing Sidley Austin deferred associate who spent a year in TRLA’s Austin office defending low-income clients who were facing eviction actions.  Vijay Desai ran a trial within his first month of work (lost, but learned a lot), and through the course of his year got a lot of litigation skills under his belt.  Here’s how he closed the piece: “Finally, I learned that legal aid attorneys and staff are among the most decent human beings I have ever met.  I do not know where it begins, but the greatest characteristic I can identify is their unshakable passion for helping the helpless.  Advice from one of my supervisors almost always begins with ‘It’s just not right!  They shouldn’t be allowed to do this.’  And I have never worked in an environment where my supervisors were so enthusiastic about stopping everything they were doing to answer my questions … I am still whole-heartedly committed to my career in IP law, but now I have a new commitment to continue housing pro bono work as well.  Sidley Austin is gaining more than an attorney – they are gaining an associate who knows that his strength lies less in his one year of knowledge and more in his friends at TRLA who will always be his mentors.”

• 1.9.11 – more news about law schools entering into pro bono partnerships with legal services providers in order to help the rising numbers of low-income clients who seek assistance.  Chapel Hill News reports that “[t]he Pittsboro Office of Legal Aid of North Carolina has partnered with the UNC School of Law to assist qualifying low-income Orange County residents seeking divorces.  Under the partnership, UNC law students who are committed to providing access to justice for people of modest means will represent clients under the supervision [of a clinical professor].”

• 1.8.11 – Legal services news from Oklahoma.  The Enid News & Eagle (great name! – why just get news when you can get it with an eagle!?) reports that “Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma has launched a statewide phone line to better serve low-income and elderly Oklahomans facing civil legal problems.”

• 1.8.11 – from the Daily Times in the Volunteer State, we learn that the “Tennessee Bar Foundation has awarded Legal Aid of East Tennessee a $129,467 grant from its IOLTA (Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts) program to be used to provide critical civil legal services to the abused, impoverished and elderly during 2011 … Even with this generous grant award, there are thousands more that need LAET’s help. It is estimated that more than 300,000 persons in the LAET service area are eligible for services, yet limited resources allow LAET to serve less than 5 percent of the legal needs of this population.”

• 1.8.11 – according to a report from the NYC-based CBS radio affiliate, Staten Island lawyers are teaming up to provide free legal help to the increased numbers of New Yorkers facing consumer debt collection actions.  “In 2009, more than 15,000 collection cases were filed, according to the [Richmond County Bar] Association, and only 1 percent of the defendants had legal representation.  [The bar] formed a civil legal advice and resource office to provide free legal aid.

• 1.7.11 – We end the digest, unfortunately, with some bad news out of the Arizona legal services community.  The Nogales International reports that budget strains have taken a toll on Southern Arizona Legal Aid, which last week shuttered its Santa Cruz County office and let two staffers go.  SALA is looking for free office space now, and the county attorney, who referred many cases to SALA, is supportive of a continued presence.  Like a lot of providers, the main culprit causing SALA’s budget woes is a huge falloff of IOLTA funding – 50% in this case.

Here’s a message from the folks organizing this year’s RebLaw gathering:

Come to the 17th Annual Rebellious Lawyering Conference!
Yale Law School
February 18-20, 2011

Hello Rebel!  

You are invited to the 17th Annual Rebellious Lawyering Conference, which will take place on the weekend of February 18-20, 2011.  Last year, we brought over 700 practitioners, law students, and community activists to New Haven to discuss progressive strategies for social change within and without the law, and we’re excited to do it again! We have posted descriptions of panels and workshops on our website and will continue to update with speakers and schedule information as it becomes available.  Please visit: http://www.yale.edu/reblaw/  to register, and for more information–PLEASE REGISTER BEFORE FEBRUARY FIRST IF YOU WOULD LIKE FREE HOUSING!

Questions?  contact rebellious.law.questions@gmail.com

This week: indigent defense budget wrangling between a county and state government; a new veterans clinic will operate out of a West Virginia Veterans Affairs building; Ithaca has gorges and a securities law clinic; it’s nice when a legal services lawyer is the GREATEST PERSON OF THE DAY; a 30-year prison ordeal ended for an innocent man following his exoneration in a Texas court (wow, if the PSLawNet Blog subtracted 30 years from his life he’d be writing this report in crayon and commuting to work on a Big Wheel); hail to the new LSC chief; a  new Top Ten Environmental Watch List from Vermont Law School; the “perfect storm” in legal services funding; the National Law Journal’s Pro Bono Awards; in California, you best not call yourself “legal aid” unless you’re really legal aid; mirroring a national trend, law-firm pro bono in Kansas City picked up during the recession; no honeymoon period for Texas’s new death-row appeals office; the remarkable story of a recovering drug addict who’s just become a California county’s chief prosecutor.

• 1.6.10 – according to the Poughkeepsie Journal, in a cost-saving move last year New York’s state government passed a bill that changed the nature of its relationship with Dutchess County for purposes of funding indigent defense services.  County officials are contending with a potential loss of revenue from the state unless the county moves away from an assigned-counsel system and toward a staffed public defense program.  This situation is but one illustration of the tension that will exist between state and county governments as they struggle with post-recession budget shortfalls.  Criminal justice is an area in which many state and municipal governments throughout the country have shared-cost arrangements, so it will be interesting to see how they maintain balances amidst fiscal pressures in the coming budget cycles.

• 1.5.10 – In West Virginia, the State Journal reports on a new veterans legal clinic that will station a lawyer at the VA building.  “The Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center has a new legal aid program for its veterans. Legal Aid of West Virginia, Equal Justice Works, AmeriCorps, The State Nursing Home, and the VA Hospital are all working together to offer free legal assistance to Veterans and their family members.”  Once per week, an Equal Justice Works/AmeriCorps Legal Fellow will set up shop in the VA to meet with those in need.

• 1.4.10 – from the Ithaca Journal, we learn of a recession-era legal clinic operating at Cornell: “The Securities Law Clinic at Cornell Law School is available to provide legal services to investors in the Southern Tier and central and western New York who have suffered losses due to fraud or other improper conduct, the clinic announced.”

• 1.4.10 – the Huffington Post’s “Greatest Person of the Day” on Tuesday was Anneliese Gryta, a legal services lawyer doing community economic development work in Toledo (go Mudhens!).  Anneliese’s doing some terrific work as an Equal Justice Works Fellow.  Check out our earlier blog post to learn more about her efforts.

• 1.4.10 – NPR was one of several news outlets that covered the release of an innocent Texan man after 30 years of incarceration.  The story focused on the release of Cornelius Dupree, Jr., and went on to note that there’s something of a trend afoot in Dallas.  “For the past five years, Dallas has watched a parade of men, nearly all black, march out of the state prison system after wasting decades of their lives. Dupree, who served more time than any other Texas prisoner exonerated by DNA evidence, is the 21st from Dallas — that’s more than all but two states.  Barry Scheck and his staff at the Innocence Project have been behind many of these exonerations, including Dupree’s.”  It’s not necessarily that Dallas County juries get it wrong more than others, but Dallas happens to do a good job of storing DNA from old criminal cases.  So advocates for the wrongfully imprisoned have more evidence to work with.

Keep reading . . .

So long , 2010.  We close out the year with two week’s worth of public interest news.  We’re also happy that this week’s edition is packed with stories highlighting the extraordinary work of several extraordinary advocates.  Our Inner Scrooge’s heart is warmed.  Featured: a new place to look for new federal jobs; a law intended to help CA foreclosure victims hiccups; a report on whether the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau is actually helping clients who seek unemployment benefits; Cooley Law School establishes a new pro bono initiative with the private bar; a successful public interest employment “bridge” program at Florida Coastal Law; the tremendous public interest commitment of an award-winning UConn law student; adios, Federal Career Intern Program; a busy legal services development chief is profiled; $500K going to a clinic and public interest programs at Cardozo Law; the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland’s incoming president knows firsthand what it’s like to be a legal services client; the business case for supporting legal services in Eastern Missouri; a big federal-court win for a Yale Law School clinic; a Cleveland judge and two attorneys dig deep to help out a low-income defendant; here are some phrases to keep off of your resume; a five-part story on Missouri’s beleaguered public defense system; and the New York Times editorial board weighs in on the importance of supporting legal services.

• 12.30.10 – how do you find federal jobs?  Pore through budget  proposals.  Not what you wanted to hear, we know.  But here’s a great bit of job-seeking wisdom, courtesy of the Washington Post: “In each budget justification submitted to Congress, you get to see what an agency says it needs, as well any additional hiring requests to carry out its work … For the Justice Department to strengthen national security and counter the threat of terrorism the 2011 budget requests $300.6 million. The request includes 440 additional positions, including 126 agents and 15 attorneys. To enforce immigration laws the department is requesting an $11 million program increase, including 125 positions – 31 of them attorneys.  You can read an agency’s budget proposal on its Web site.”

• 12.29.10 – Southern California Public Radio reports on an unintended consequence of a California law intended to benefit homeowners facing foreclosure proceedings: “A California state law to protect homeowners is backfiring—foreclosure lawyers can’t legally get any money until the case is done, so lawyers leery of losing or getting sued aren’t taking cases at all. That leaves homeowners facing foreclosure in a tight bind, effectively shutting them out of legal representation when they most need it.”

• 12.28.10 – the New York Times Freakonomics blog highlights what they characterize as a “remarkable randomized experiment (“What Difference Representation?”) with evidence showing that offers for free legal representation from the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau (HLAB) ended up hurting unemployment claimants.”  Well, sort of.  The circumstances are fairly complex, and we haven’t had a chance to read the researchers’ report yet, just the blog post.  Anyway, we wanted to pass this along for those readers who are data dorks.

• 12.28.10 – yet another example of a pro bono collaboration involving a law school and volunteer attorneys.  From the Examiner in Detroit we learn that the “Thomas M. Cooley Law School and the Detroit Metropolitan Bar Association (DMBA) have joined forces to create a new program to expand free legal services in Detroit and Wayne County. The Cooley Law School-DMBA Pro Bono Mentorship Program will allow students from Cooley’s Ann Arbor and Auburn Hills campuses to collaborate with a mentoring attorney in providing free legal services to clients.”  Cases will be referred to the new program from local public interest organizations.

Keep reading . . .

NOTE: the PSLawNet Blog will skip next week’s Bulletin so that we can finish our Christmas shopping and have a little sip of the egg nog.  The Bulletin will return on Friday, December 30th.  Happy holidays, cats and kittens!

This week: a Tarheel State law school launches a new clinic; New York’s chief judge takes a pragmatic approach in appealing for increased legal services funding; a shady former legal services employee gets time in the clink for skimming funds; Yale Law School’s veterans clinic goes to (legal) war with the Department of Defense – twice!; mandatory pro bono in Mississippi(?); promoting diversity in the federal workforce; a public defense shakeup in San Bernardino, CA; geeks raise money for legal services; some appreciation for the retiring ED of Rappahannock Legal Services; the continuing importance of the DOJ’s access to justice program; a pro bono up-tick in Las Vegas; and, Ropes & Gray’s deferred associates return to the firm following one-year public service placements.

• 12.16.10 – the Greensboro News & Record reports that the Elon University School of Law is stepping in to provide legal services to immigrants and refugees in the wake of a long-time provider’s discontinuance of services.  Students  and law professors involved with Elon’s Humanitarian Immigration Law Clinic “will assist clients in applying for political asylum, permanent residency, citizenship and employment authorization, as well as reunifying families separated by war and conflict.”  The clinic is launching as Lutheran Family Services, on account of poor economic conditions, is discontinuing legal services to the immigrant/refugee community.  Here’s our blog coverage of these developments from yesterday.

• 12.15.10 – the Rochester City Newspaper reports on New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman’s efforts to better fund legal services providers in the Empire State.  “Last month, New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman released a report that recommends doubling the funding for New York’s low-income legal-service providers over a period of four years. He’s including a $25-million increase in his proposed 2011-12 budget, which state legislators will have to approve. New York’s legal service providers receive $200 million a year, some from the state, some from the federal government, and from other sources … What makes the judge’s report compelling…is that it focuses on the benefit to institutions and taxpayers. It doesn’t just reiterate the many important benefits to clients.  The report says that New York loses an estimated $400 million annually because state residents have difficulty collecting federal funds for which they are eligible, including disability payments and veterans’ benefits. State and local governments, and ultimately taxpayers, end up paying for that, the report says.”

• 12.15.10 – We’re not sure whether to feel satisfied or nauseated at this news.  The Washington Examiner reports that the “former chief of finance for the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau will serve two-and-a-half years in prison for stealing more than $1 million from the nonprofit.” Benjamin King served as MLAB’s chief financial officer for 20 years.  A little more than 10 years ago, he and an accomplice (who was not with MLAB) started skimming funds from MLAB’s coffers through inflated office supply invoices.  Yuck.  (Here, also, is more detailed coverage of the scheme and King’s sentencing from the Loansafe.org website.)

Keep reading . . .

This week: a controversial testing method for an NYC homelessness prevention program; TARP funds to prop up corporate interests, but not legal services for low-income homeowners?; the Skadden Fellowship Class of 2011 contains 29 budding public interest attorneys; funding calamity averted for D.C. legal services programs; will we lose more local/state government jobs in the recession’s wake?; significant changes in how NYC indigent defense cases are assigned to counsel; an Innocence Project report sees widespread prosecutorial misconduct in California; the Cleveland Plain Dealer looks at inefficiencies in the local criminal courts.

• 12.9.10 – in the New York Times, we look at a controversial social welfare program evaluation tool.  Borrowing an idea from the medical research arena, the City is essentially denying a homelessness prevention program’s assistance to half of a group of “test subjects” (who are actual people on the verge of homelessness), while giving assistance to the other half.  By doing so, the City will learn how effective the program – called Homebase – really is.  Given what’s at stake though – the welfare of families in crisis – many local public interest advocates have voiced concerns.  On the other hand, the piece notes that “randomized controlled trials” are increasingly used by philanthropies and governments because of their value in answering fundamental questions about social programs’ effectiveness.  And, due to funding shortages the program at issue in NYC is not able to serve all applicants anyway, so the net number of applicants denied is not actually rising as a result of the study.

• 12.9.10 – writing in The Nation, liberal commentator Katrina Vanden Heuvel laments that the Department of the Treasury, relying on an interpretation of current statutory authority, opposes the future use of some TARP funds by states to support civil legal aid for homeowners in distress.  There are pieces of legislation in the House and Senate, respectively, which would explicitly authorize states to channel TARP funding toward legal aid.

• 12.7.10 – The new class of Skadden Fellows has been announced.  Twenty-nine fellowships were awarded to students hailing from 21 law schools.  Four schools have multiple awards: Harvard (5), Michigan (2), Penn (2), and Stanford (3).  The 18 schools which have one Class-of-2011 fellow are a fairly varied bunch, including: Arkansas, Boston College, CUNY, Texas, UVA, and Widener.  Based upon our analysis of the past four annual classes, there has been increasing breadth and diversity with respect to the schools producing Skadden Fellows.  See our recent blog post containing comparative numbers for the classes of 2010, 2009, and 2008.

Keep reading . . .

From some rebellious types at Yale Law School, here’s information on a terrific, upcoming event that brings together public-interest minded law students, attorneys, activists, academics, and rodeo clowns (last one’s not true) from parts hither and yon. It’s a great way to make new contacts and explore career options, as well as to gain invaluable knowledge about the challenges and opportunities facing public interest lawyers these days. With no further ado…. it’s RebLaw!!!

Hello Rebel!

You are invited to the 17th Annual Rebellious Lawyering Conference, which will take place on the weekend of February 18-20, 2011. Last year, we brought over 700 practitioners, law students, and community activists to New Haven to discuss progressive strategies for social change within and without the law, and we’re excited to do it again! We will be posting descriptions of panels and workshops on our website and will continue to update with speakers and schedule information as it becomes available. Please visit: http://www.yale.edu/reblaw/

We also invite you to check out our blog, where we’ll be posting information and updates about the conference: http://blogs.law.yale.edu/blogs/reblaw/

Registration is now open on the website. When you register, you’ll be able to sign up receive FREE HOUSING for the weekend in New Haven on the spare beds, couches and floors of local friendly, rebellious law students. Questions? Please contact rebellious.law.questions@gmail.com

Good stuff.  We now conclude this post with some theme-appropriate sonic rebellion, courtesy of Social Distortion.

From the Legal Services Corporation late last week:

The Legal Services Corporation (LSC) today announced the launch of StatesideLegal.org, the first national website focused on common legal problems of veterans and military families, and the start of an awareness campaign involving community-based Vet Centers and local legal aid offices.“Our veterans have defended and protected our most basic freedoms and now it is imperative that we stand up for them. That is why this special effort is so important,” LSC Board Chairman John G. Levi said. “We are delighted to be working with the Department of Veterans Affairs to help make local Vet Centers aware of our services and to train those centers about the legal services that are available through our programs.”

Fortunately, many similar initiatives to help those who wore (or are wearing) the uniform have materialized in recent months.  The PSLawNet Blog has written extensively about law-school based projects, including one at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago, one run by the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, and one at the William & Mary School of Law.

Veterans assistance programs are popular among funders, so law students who are interested in pursuing legal services careers should think about getting some experience working with vets and servicemembers in need.