Just a reminder to law school career services professionals, pro bono program administrators, and other interested parties that the Consortium for the Advancement of Public Service in Law Schools (CAPSILS) makes its Law School Public Service Resource Handbook freely available for downloading.  The Handbook is geared specifically as a resource for those who are new to public interest career counseling and pro bono administration.  It offers useful tips from more experienced professionals and points newer professionals to the many resources that are available to them through the ABA, AALS, Equal Justice Works, NALP, PSLawNet, and elsewhere.

CAPSILS’ members are:

• The American Bar Association Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service and the ABA Center for Pro Bono
• The Pro Bono and Public Service Opportunities Section of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS)
• Equal Justice Works, and
• NALP (National Association for Law Placement) and NALP’s PSLawNet website.

CAPSILS has been formed to foster dialogue and collaboration among national participants in the law school pro bono and public interest arenas. Its members, individually and through joint undertakings, encourage law school-related pro bono policy and program development and provide services to law schools and students seeking pro bono and public interest opportunities, resources and support. We are dedicated to effectively promoting opportunities for public-interest minded law students and lawyers, and to efficiently supporting the work of law schools and public interest law organizations.  We hope you find the Handbook useful!

We know that women outnumber men substantially in public interest law, particularly civil legal services. We also know that public interest legal careers are some of the lowest-paying attorney jobs out there. And yet when the topic of gender diversity in the legal profession comes up it tends to focus on firm partnership inequity and the lack of women judges. Check out this new NALP Bulletin article by PSLawNet Fellow Katie Dilks (pdf) on the topic. Then chime in below with your thoughts on both the current inequitable gender distribution in public interest law and the lack of a coherent national conversation – we’d love to start one here!

The PSLawNet Blog recently participated in a conference program exploring innovative pro bono models that involve collaboration between civil legal services providers and law students.  We were joined on the panel by Randi Burnett, the Southern Arizona Legal Aid (SALA) staff attorney who coordinates law student pro bono work via SALA’s Volunteer Lawyers Program (VLP).  Randi and her colleagues have had extraordinary success in partnering with the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law to provide a variety of pro bono opportunities to law students on clinic projects ranging from bankruptcy to guardianship to domestic relations.  We asked Randi if she would provide some background on how the collaboration works, and she has kindly offered us a lot of detail which we’re happy to share with our readers.  Maybe this model – which provides experiential learning for law students and serves the increasing numbers of low-income clients in need – could take root elsewhere.  Here is our exchange with Randi:

Randi, tell us generally about how you engage law students with pro bono opportunities, and what specific options are available to them?

The VLP’s Student Advocate Program was designed to involve local law students in our community.  The use of law student volunteers allows the VLP to provide legal assistance to a greater number of residents in need of legal assistance.  In addition, one of the primary goals of the student program is to instill a deep commitment to pro bono work in the next generation of lawyers.  With this goal in mind, the VLP provides several unique volunteer opportunities to students through the Minor Guardianship Clinic, Bankruptcy Reaffirmation Clinic, Domestic Relations Clinic, and Service Center Clinic.  Each of these clinics offers face-to-face contact with clients, the chance to work closely with different attorneys, and provide a great deal of practical experience.  In addition, two of the clinics provide law student volunteers with the opportunity to obtain courtroom experience as described below.

• Minor Guardianship Clinic: under the supervision of an attorney, law students meet with unrepresented clients prior to the client’s guardianship appointment hearing.  The law student explains the proceedings and checks to ensure that the client has complied with legal notice requirements to the parents.  The law student then appears as a “friend of the Court” during the client’s appointment hearing.  This Clinic is the only collaborative court project of its kind in Arizona that provides actual courtroom experience to first year law students.
• Bankruptcy Reaffirmation Clinic: Volunteer attorneys and law students meet with unrepresented clients who are in the process of obtaining a Chapter 7 bankruptcy.  Our volunteers meet with the client before the client’s reaffirmation hearing and review the reaffirmation agreement presented to the client by their creditor.  The purpose is to make sure that the client understands the pros and cons of reaffirming any debt during the bankruptcy process.  Again, the law student has an opportunity to appear in court as a “friend of the Court.”
• Domestic Relations Clinic: This clinic provides law students with an opportunity to meet with self-represented litigants involved in a family law matter while supervised by an attorney.  Volunteers assist clients in completing basic divorce and paternity forms, help clients prepare to represent themselves at trial, explain disclosure and discovery rule compliance, and draft motions for clients.  Approximately 45% of the clients seen in this clinic are victims of domestic violence.
• Service Center Clinic:  This clinic takes place within the law library about the Pima County Superior Court and is very similar to our Domestic Relations Clinic.  Law students are supervised by attorneys and assist unrepresented litigants with their family law issues.  In addition to all the issues seen in the Domestic Relations Clinic, volunteers also assist with custody and parenting time modifications, relocation issues, child support issues, and grandparent visitation issues.  This program provides a wonderful, hands-on experience for law students and an opportunity to apply concepts learned in the classroom to a real world setting.

Click through to learn about how the program is administered, and about the benefits that law students receive from working directly with clients in need

• 5.26.10 – New York Law Journal – the “Attorney Emeritus Program,” a project spearheaded by New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman to engage retired lawyers in pro bono service, “has enlisted more than 120 retired lawyers since January to offer free legal advice and representation to poor New Yorkers in foreclosure, debt collection, housing, family and other civil cases.”  The program, now guided by a 30-attorney advisory council representing all corners of the profession, hopes to tap into a projected, large-scale increase in retirees as the first Baby Boomers turn 65 next year.  Lippman anticipates the volunteer numbers to swell and hopes that the project may be “permanent piece of the puzzle” in delivering legal services to low-income clients.  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: in January, the New York Times covered Chief Judge Lippman’s announcement of the program’s beginning.]

• 5.26.10 – Louisville Courier-Journal (covering Kentucky and Indiana) – in Clark County, Indiana, officials announced the launch of the Clark Legal Self Help Center, a resource for low-income people in need of free legal assistance on civil matters.  The Center will be staffed by volunteer attorneys and law students, and will offer help with reviewing court documents, determining the nature of legal problems, and directions on how to find an attorney if needed.  Law students will handle most of the initial meetings with individuals seeking help; volunteer attorneys will also participate in the program, but will not necessarily establish attorney-client relationships.  Those who are eligible may be referred to Indiana Legal Services for additional help.  Link to article.  

• 5.25.10 – New York Law Journal – this week the Pro Bono Institute released a report, Law Firm Deferred Associates and Public Interest Placements: Survey Report and Preliminary Assessment, documenting findings from surveys done over the winter to analyze how well deferred associates’ public-service placements were progressing.  The report’s findings paint the phenomenon in a largely positive light.  Public interest organizations that are hosting deferred associates are generally very satisfied with the contributions made by the associates, and demand to host associates in the future remains high.  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: here is a link to the full Pro Bono Institute report, as well as a link to a PSLawNet Blog post reviewing the report.]

• 5.25.10 – Triangle Business Journal (North Carolina) – the Duke University School of Law is expanding its Loan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP) for students on public service careers.  The LRAP now “will cover 100 percent of loan payments for graduates making $60,000 a year or less, up from $35,000. The program also provides some assistance, on a sliding scale, for graduates making between $60,000 and $75,000. Additionally, Duke has eliminated the cap on lifetime loan repayments, which previously stood at $80,000.”  Only federal loans are eligible for the LRAP program.  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: Duke joins at least four other law schools – Northwestern, UVA, Cal-Berkeley, and Georgetown – in tailoring its LRAP program around the College Cost Reduction & Access Act’s Income Based Repayment provision.]

• 5.24.10 – WHYY Radio Station Website (Serving Philadelphia/New Jersey) –  “State budget cuts may mean less legal assistance for New Jersey’s poor.  The budget plan reduces funding for Legal Services of New Jersey by 33 percent.  Legal Services President Melville Miller says the funding reduction means they’ll have to cut their staff and turn away about 11,000 people seeking assistance, many of them trying to avoid foreclosures and evictions.”  Link to brief blurb.  [Ed. Note: last week, Legal Services of New Jersey released An Open Report to New Jersey Concerning Funding for Civil Legal Services and Its Human Consequences, highlighting the severe funding cuts that are plaguing legal services programs throughout the Garden State, and making the case for the importance of adequately funding programs.] 

• 5.24.10 – National Law Journal – a case arising out of Georgia in which an indigent, capital criminal defendant sat in jail for four years because of problems with funding his defense and is now asking for the U.S. Supreme Court to review right to counsel claims “comes at a time when an increasing number of legal challenges are being made to underfunded and overburdened state indigent defense systems” across the country.  The Georgia indigent defense system has long been plagued by problems.  And while legislation in 2003 to shore up the system offered promise, adequate funding remains elusive.  Link to article.

• 5.23.10 – The Citizen (New Hampshire) – a bill to make free legal services available to New Hampshire’s veterans is winding through the state legislature.  While the bill’s passage is expected the funding mechanism for the program is uncertain.  The funding, if obtained, would allow the New Hampshire State Veterans Council to hire staff attorneys to represent veterans on a variety of matters, including home foreclosure and consumer debt issues, as well as family law and veterans benefit cases.  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: for additional coverage of a national trend toward expanding legal services/resources for veterans, see two items below (El Paso Times).]

• 5.23.10 – Dallas Morning News – the conviction integrity unit that operates out of the Dallas County District Attorney’s office has for several years been working with DNA evidence to ensure the propriety of past convictions and exonerate the wrongly convicted.  Now, the unit is expanding the scope of its activities to the more time-consuming review of convictions where there may be some question of guilt but no DNA evidence is available for review.  The unit’s work has captured national attention because it is unusual for a prosecutor’s office to have devoted so many resources to post-conviction reviews.  Link to article.

• 5.21.10 – El Paso Times [Special Feature Article] – “Texas Lawyers for Texas Veterans is a new State Bar of Texas Committee established…to develop and assist pro bono legal clinics throughout the state for military veterans and their families who cannot afford or do not have access to legal services they need.”  El Paso Lawyers for Patriots is the local extension of the statewide initiative.  The local program “is developing a coordinated network of El Paso lawyers to assist veterans and active-duty military and their families who cannot afford or have no access to legal services through the El Paso Bar Association and veterans service providers.”  A local judge also recently established a Veterans Mental Health Treatment Court to “address cases involving combat veterans and active military personnel involved in the criminal justice system due to conduct related to post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injuries or other mental diseases and disorders as a result of military service.”  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: there is a national trend involving the legal community establishing diversionary judicial programs and other resources for veterans with legal problems.  See the PSLawNet Blog’s March 16 post, linking to news coverage of the trend.]

• 5.21.10 – Blog of the Legal Times – “The Justice Department is studying Monday’s Supreme Court ruling barring life sentences for juveniles convicted of non-homicide crimes, possibly with an eye toward improving rehabilitation programs for juveniles in prison.”  Link to blog post.  [Ed. Note: the PSLawNet blog posted about the Supreme Court decision – Graham v. Florida – and linked to news coverage here.]

• 5.20.10 – NJ Today Website (New Jersey) – Legal Services of New Jersey (LSNJ) has released An Open Report to New Jersey Concerning Funding for Civil Legal Services and Its Human Consequences.  LSNJ’s president noted that IOLTA funding in New Jersey is down by 80%, the state may cut its funding of legal services by 33%, and that significant staff layoffs will continue to be necessary unless funding stabilizes.  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: The report highlights the severe funding cuts that are plaguing legal services programs throughout the Garden State, and makes the case for the importance of adequately funded programs for the state’s residents and government.  Link to report.]

• 5.19.10 – The Tennessean – the Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands, along with the Tennessee Bar Association and the Tennessee Attorney General’s office, are offering an array of resources to victims of recent, disastrous flooding in the Volunteer State.  Link to brief article.

• 5.19.10 – New Orleans Times-Picayune – the Louisiana Senate’s Commerce Committee rejected a proposed bill that would have “effectively shut down the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic.”  The bill was intended to stop law school clinic programs from suing business interests in the state, and its main proponent, Sen. Robert Adley, enjoyed the support of the Louisiana Chemical Association.  Ultimately, though, the bill received no other support from Commerce Committee members.  Link to article.  And see additional AP coverage from the Bloomberg Business Week website.   [Ed. Note: prior coverage of this controversy is found in Items 1 and 4 of the May 14 PSLawNet Public Interest News Bulletin.]

• 5.17.10 – National Law Journal – this week “the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Eighth Amendment does not allow sentences of life in prison without parole for juveniles who committed nonhomicide crimes.”  In the Graham v. Florida opinion, “Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the 6-3 majority, applied the logic of the categorical exceptions to the death penalty for juveniles and the mentally retarded, already created by the Court, to juveniles who commit lesser crimes than homicide. Their age and level of mental development make them less culpable…”  Link to article.  And see additional coverage from the Miami Herald.

• 5.14.10 – The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY) [Editorial] – state aid is a critical source of funding for civil legal services programs that serve Central and Northern New Yorkers, but a state budget proposal from the executive branch may do away with funding altogether.  A potential bit of good news for legal services may come if a $15 million appropriation for legal services comes through the state judiciary’s budget request.  Still in the longer term, New York must find a way to avoid “boom and bust” legal services budget fluctuations and to “find a better way to keep its promise to help the needy navigate the legal labyrinth.”  Link to piece.

• 5.13.10 – KBIA Radio Station Website (Columbia, Missouri) – officials from the Boone County public defender’s office, prosecutor’s office, and the local bar met to develop a solution to the problem of overwhelming caseloads confronting public defenders.  Link to brief article.  [Ed. Note: for earlier coverage of the indigent defense crisis in Missouri, a problem which wound its way to the state’s high court, listen to this December 2009 NPR story.]

• 5.13.10 – Harvard Law School Website – “Harvard Law School has selected 25 students and one recent graduate to receive fellowships enabling them to pursue public service work….Ten of the students will be awarded the newly established Redstone Fellowships; one student will be the Maria, Gabriella & Robert A. Skirnick Public Interest Fellow; another nine will receive the Holmes Public Service Fellowships established by Dean Minow in 2009; and six will receive the Irving R. Kaufman Fellowship.  The one-year fellowships offer Harvard Law School students and recent graduates financial support so that they can work for non-profit organizations or for the government following graduation.”  Link to announcement.

• ABA Division of Legal Services’ Dialogue Magazine, Spring 2010 Edition – in a phenomenon driven by the economic recession, law firm associates whose 2009 start dates were deferred have taken temporary public-service placements in nonprofit and government law offices across the country. Reports of the associates’ integration into the public interest community have been positive. And the associates have seized chances to develop skills and gain perspective on the public service arena.  Some public interest leaders, law firm pro bono managers, and other stakeholders are evaluating the phenomenon’s overall impact.  Further, some are considering whether a longer-term pro bono model could emerge from what was initially seen as a short-term occurrence born of unique circumstances.  Link to article.

• April 2010 – [Ed. Note: the Legal Aid Association of California has released Shaping the Future of Justice: Effective Recruitment and Retention of Civil Legal Aid Attorneys in California, a comprehensive report highlighting severe obstacles in legal aid programs’ efforts to recruit and retain junior staff attorneys.  The main factors cited as obstacles on the legal aid career path are financial pressures, including low salaries and high educational debt loads.   Link to report.]

We’ve been following legislative efforts in Louisiana, Maryland, and elsewhere to limit the activities of law school clinical programs which sometimes draw the ire of pro-business lawmakers who see environmental lawsuits and the like as creating an inhospitable climate for commerce and jobs.

The most recent controversy had bubbled up in Lousiana, as a state senator pushed a bill that…

…would have blocked university law clinics at any school that receives state money from suing a government agency or representing a client who is suing a private defendant for monetary damages.

The Louisiana Senate’s Commerce Committee debated the bill – which was actually watered down by its sponsor, Sen. Robert Adley, such that it would only have applied to environmental clinics – and did away with it, “completing a rare defeat for the chemical, oil, and gas industries” which supported the bill.  Read New Orleans Times-Picayune coverage here.

We try not to editorialize much here at the PSLawNet Blog, but given what lies to Louisiana’s south right now, it does seem like a strange time to be hamstringing environmental lawyers.

• 5.12.10 – National Law Journal – as the Louisiana legislature prepares to debate a bill that would vastly limit the types of legal advocacy performed by legal clinics at law schools in the state, the Louisiana Chemical Association is playing “hardball” in opposing the activities of the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic.  The association is advocating “that [its 61 corporate members] stop making donations to the university, stop matching employee donations to the school and curtail recruiting there.  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: additional coverage of the legislative proposal is offered in the 5.10.10 New Orleans Times-Picayune article below.]

• 5.11.10 – Florida Times Union – Michael Figgins, executive director of Jacksonville Area Legal Aid for 15 years, has quietly but dramatically expanded the organization, a process that included a decision to stop receiving Legal Services Corporation funds.  Link to article.

• 5.11.10 – Huffington Post Website (Opinion/Analysis Piece) – Maria Foscarinis, founder and executive director of the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, weighs in on how a controversial, recently-passed Arizona immigration law may affect the increasing numbers of homeless and others in poverty who will not be able to readily produce personal identification documents if called upon to do so.  Foscarinis suggests that the law “risks further criminalizing poverty, and in particular, the extreme form of poverty that is homelessness.”  Link to piece.

• 5.10.10 – New Orleans Times-Picayune (running an AP article) – a Louisiana state senate bill could “hobble” law clinics at law schools located in the state.  “As it now stands, the bill — scheduled for a Wednesday hearing in the Senate Commerce Committee — would prevent all university law clinics from challenging government agencies in court, suing individuals for damages or making constitutional claims. That would limit access to justice for thousands of low-income Louisianans and prevent law schools from providing students with a complete legal education, legal experts argue.”  The bill has been proposed by a Senator who is concerned that some clinical programs – the Tulane University Environmental Law Clinic has been a point of focus – sue companies that are integral parts of the state’s economic infrastructure, which could ultimately lead to negative economic consequences for the state’s residents.  Link to article.  See also 5.4.10 coverage from the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog.

• 5.7.10 – The Record (New Jersey) – for the fourth year, “[b]attered women who have lost custody of children to spouses pleaded for legal help at a demonstration Friday in front of the Passaic County Courthouse.  But their pleas come at a time when Northeast New Jersey Legal Services — in most instances the only provider of legal services for low-income people — has suffered a 20 percent loss of staff to attrition and layoffs in just the past year. And it still faces major budget cuts and staff reductions….[A]dministrators of social and legal agencies confirm it’s almost impossible for a woman without resources to get publicly provided legal representation in a custody case. And now, with major budget cuts to state-funded Legal Services, the chance is even more remote.”  [Ed. Note: the article states that NNJLS’s staff has shrunk from 110 to 82 as a result of attrition and layoffs.]  Link to article.

• 5.6.10 – New York Times – “New York’s highest court ruled Thursday that a broad class-action suit challenging the state’s system of providing public defenders can move forward because there are enough signs that the system is failing poor people.  The 4-to-3 ruling by the State Court of Appeals came in a closely watched suit that civil liberties lawyers said could be a model for similar challenges across the country.”  Link to article. 

• 5.6.10 – Washington Post – a $2.4 million cy pres award stemming from a lawsuit involving cell phone fees is being used to bolster the financially strapped legal services community in Maryland.  That award, characterized as “Miracle Money” by one bar foundation official, will allow programs that have been battered by the recession to avoid office closures and service cuts.  Link to article.

• 5.6.10 – Monroe Evening News (Michigan) – Monroe County Senior Legal Services, which provides legal services to seniors using a sliding fee scale based on clients’ ability to pay, is holding fundraisers in order to finance the costs of serving a large portion of its clients who are living in poverty and unable to pay any fees.  “For the first time in its 32-year history, the nonprofit agency finds itself faced with rising caseloads and too few dollars to help those 60 and older who need legal aid.”  Link to article.

• 5.6.10 – Earth Times Website (Press Release) – “Low-income individuals in need of legal assistance [in Northern Virginia] with housing, consumer law and employment matters have an additional resource…as a result of the Legal Aid Justice Center’s recent expansion. Under an agreement with the Legal Services of Northern Virginia, the Legal Aid Justice Center now provides low-income immigrants in the metropolitan-DC area of Northern Virginia with a wider variety of legal issues than before.”  Link to press release.

• 5.4.10 – San Francisco Chronicle – “More than 80 San Francisco police officers have criminal histories or misconduct records that the Police Department withheld and prosecutors did not disclose to defense attorneys in cases in which officers testified, a failure that could put hundreds of felony convictions in jeopardy.  Link to article.

• 5.3.10 – New York Times – New York State’s top jurist called for a “Civil Gideon” – a right to counsel  for the poor in some civil matters, “like suits over eviction and other disputes where basic needs are at stake.”  Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman said, “I am not talking about a single initiative, pilot project or temporary program, but what I believe must be a comprehensive, multifaceted, systemic approach to providing counsel to the indigent in civil cases.”  Link to article.

• 5.3.10 – Jacksonville Daily Record (Florida) – [Ed Note: a Q&A piece provides details about the Northeast Florida Medical Legal Partnership.]  Link to article.

• 4.23.10 – Fulton County Daily Report (Georgia) – a local estate law attorney recounts the unique reward that comes with helping a pro bono client who had nowhere else to turn and, by way of a “top 8” list, explains the reasons that she has built pro bono into her practice.  Link to article (hosted on law.com).

• 4.22.10 – Washington Post – in Perdue v. Kenny A., a decision handed down by the Supreme Court this week, public interest lawyers may have scored a longer-term victory while enduring a shorter-term loss.  The case had to do with whether lawyers who prevail in federal cases and achieve a result in the public interest could be awarded not just attorneys fees but also financial “enhancements” on account of their advocacy.  In Perdue, a successful action brought by a public interest organization and pro bono co-counsel against the State of Georgia resulted in “a transformation of Georgia’s dysfunctional foster-case system.”  A judge awarded not just attorneys fees, but an additional amount equal to 75% of those fees in recognition of their excellent advocacy and their achieving a favorable result.  Georgia argued that there were no grounds for such an enhancement in the law.  The Supreme Court disagreed with Georgia, finding that such enhancements could be permitted.  But it set up very narrow parameters in which it could happen, preferring only an amount equal to attorneys fees to be the presumptively correct award.  It did not allow the enhancement of $4.5 million to stand in this case, and sent it back to the lower court for reconsideration.  Link to article.  See additional coverage from the ABA Journal.

• 4.21.10 – South County Spotlight (Oregon) – after Columbia County Legal Aid and the Oregon State Bar (its funder) hit loggerheads concerning the former’s precarious funding situation, a state senator helped organize a “mediation” session between the two groups.  CCLA is one of a small group of legal services organizations that does not operate under the umbrella of Legal Aid Services of Oregon.  CCLA’s funding comes from court filing fees from Columbia County, which may not be enough to sustain the staff needed to help its residents.  Still, CCLA fears that a merger with LASO would lead to closure of its office, potentially “forcing [clients] to visit LASO’s office in Portland.”  CCRA’s director argues that the unique types of issues and client base in Columbia County would make it difficult to provide out-of-county services effectively.  Link to article.

• 4.20.10 – Harvard Law Record – a group of public-service minded Harvard Law students is spearheading a fundraising initiative – the Post-Graduate Student Funded Fellowship – that would bankroll a public interest fellowship for one graduating classmate.  The group notes that “$1 per day for 1 month from each student … would fund a fellow classmate to work in the public interest for a year following graduation.”  The group, which hopes that the project will remain institutionalized after its founders graduate, has created a website to collect donations and is also taking the tried-and-true “bake sale” route to kick off fundraising efforts.   Link to article.  And see additional coverage (4.22.10) in the National Law Journal.

• 4.20.10 – San Francisco Chronicle – in the wake of a scandal inside San Francisco’s crime lab, the city’s public defender suggested that “[a]s many as 40,000 drug cases … may need to be reviewed and it’s going to take money to do it.” Already, more than 500 drug cases have been dismissed on account of “concerns about the police lab’s performance.”  The public defender is arguing that neither the police nor the district attorney should take the lead in investigating apparent malfeasance at the lab because both organizations rely on the lab for support in making criminal cases.  The defender and DA do agree, though, that any investigation will be expensive.  Link to story.  [Ed. Note: some background on the scandal, which centers on the erratic behavior of a technician who may have stolen cocaine from the lab, is available via a 4.18.10 Associated Press story.]

• 4.20.10 – American Lawyer Daily– Andrew Ardinger, a Class-of-2009 law school grad whose law firm start date was deferred, is spending a year with the Public Interest Law Project (PILP), a civil legal services organization in California.  Ardinger has occasionally blogged for the American Lawyer about his public-interest experience.  His latest AmLaw post suggests that his experience at PILP thus far has offered ample opportunities for client contact and for cultivating practice skills, including working on a complaint and participating in a settlement negotiation on an important public benefit case.  Link to blog post.

• 4.19.10 – Bangor Daily News (Maine) – since last October, the Penobscot County Bar Association has been offering free attorney consults with low-income clients who are representing (or will represent) themselves in court.  “About 75 percent of the people who appear in Maine courts in criminal, civil and family matters are not represented by attorneys, Chief Justice Leigh I. Saufley said last fall.”  One of the reasons for this is that Maine’s civil legal services programs are overworked, and can serve only about one quarter of eligible individuals who apply for services.  The clinic has by all accounts been successful, and as a result the county bar association has been nominated for an ABA public service award.  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: in recent weeks there has been coverage around the country of bar associations’ and public interest organizations’ attempts to better support rising numbers of pro se litigants.  See related stories coming out of Michigan (Detroit Free Press, 4.15.10) and Texas (Texas Tribune, 4.13.10; Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 4.1.10).]

• 4.17.10 – Wisconsin Rapids Tribune – officials in Wood County, Wisconsin hope that a forthcoming statewide change in the formula used to determine if a criminal defendant is eligible for a public defender will reduce county legal bills.  At present, “[i]f a judge decides a defendant cannot pay for a lawyer but doesn’t meet the criteria for a public defender, the judge appoints an attorney, and the county pays the bill.”  The indigent defense eligibility standards had not been updated since 1987, with a result being that a lot of poor defendants were determined ineligible for a public defender even though they were living in poverty.  The state’s decision to expand the standards will mean that more defendants will be eligible for public defenders, with the state picking up most of the tab.  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: see past coverage of the Wisconsin governor signing into law the bill to expand the eligibility standards via the Wisconsin Bar Association website (3.17.10).]

We posted over the weekend about Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, a case centered on “whether a public university law school may deny school funding and other benefits to a religious student organization because the group requires its officers and voting members to agree with its core religious viewpoints.”

The National Law Journal reports on yesterday’s oral arguments:

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in a key church-state dispute over the status of a Christian group at a state university law school. But the discussion quickly devolved into a testy debate over the factual record in the case and what it was all about.

…

The San Francisco law school [Cal.-Hastings] denied official recognition to the society because of its bylaws, which require members and leaders to adhere to its religious views and bars membership those who advocate or participate in homosexual conduct. Those requirements, the university argued, violate the university’s nondiscrimination policy, which says recognized student organizations must admit any student regardless of their “status or beliefs.”

But in the briefing of the case, the parties squabbled over the breadth of the university policy — was it an “all comers” policy that would also require a Republican club to admit Democrats, or does it have the effect of singling out religious groups as the only ones that may not exclude nonadherents?

The answer is important, because an all-comers policy might have a better chance of being upheld as a viewpoint-neutral rule that is evenly applied to all groups, not just religious ones.

USA Today also reported on the heated arguments.  And so did the Washington Post.

On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, a case that asks “whether a public university law school may deny school funding and other benefits to a religious student organization because the group requires its officers and voting members to agree with its core religious viewpoints” (from SCOTUS Wiki).

 The CLS chapter on the UC Hastings campus, when it chose earlier in the decade to affiliate with the national Christian Legal Society, began to require that its members sign a “statement of faith” centered around Christian values.  The school determined that requiring this statement of faith as a condition of membership violated the school’s non-discrimination policy, which, according SCOTUS Wiki, “forbids recognized [student] groups to discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, disability, age, sex, or sexual orientation.”  The chapter sued to protect its right to religious expression, while the law school declared that it could not sanction discriminatory practices among its officially recognized student groups (which get funding and in-kind benefits from the school to carry out their activities).  Thusly, a thorny constitutional showdown came to be. 

PBS’s Religion and Ethics Newsweekly has a piece interviewing the parties, and the Constitutional Law Prof Blog links to video recordings of panel discussions hosted by both the Federalist Society and the American Constitution Society.

EDIT (4/18/10): the Washington Post’s Robert Barnes, who is, for the PSLawNet Blog’s money, one of the best Supreme Court reporters out there, contributed a nice summary of the case to today’s paper:

At the oldest law school in the West, law is being made this semester, not just taught.

In a case that carries great implications for how public universities and schools must accommodate religious groups, the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law is defending its anti-discrimination policy against charges that it denies religious freedom.

The college, which requires officially recognized student groups to admit any Hastings student who wants to join, may be well-meaning, says the student outpost of the Christian Legal Society. But the group contends that requiring it to allow gay students and nonbelievers into its leadership would be a renunciation of its core beliefs, and that the policy violates the Constitution’s guarantee of free speech, association with like-minded individuals and exercise of religion.