by Kristen Pavón

Richard Branson, member of the Global Commission for Drug Policy (and founder and chairman of Virgin Group), wrote a piece for The Telegraph in the UK recounting the failure of the war on drugs over the last 50 years and urging countries to experiment with new policies that take a holistic approach rather than a arrest-and-punish approach.

IMHO — With prisons and jails bursting at the seams and budgets shrinking across the country, innovative new policies that can address the collateral consequences of the war on drugs are certainly welcome.

Here are the highlights:

Over the past 50 years, more than $1 trillion has been spent fighting this [the war on drugs]battle, and all we have to show for it is increased drug use, overflowing jails, billions of pounds and dollars of taxpayers’ money wasted, and thriving crime syndicates. It is time for a new approach. . . .

They [leaders worldwide] are failing to act because the reforms that are needed centre on decriminalising drug use and treating it as a health problem. They are scared to take a stand that might seem “soft”. . . .

We [the Global Commission on Drug Policy] studied international drug policy over the past 50 years, and found that it has totally failed to stop the growth and diversification of the drug trade. Between 1998 and 2008, opiate use increased by more than 34 per cent, even as prison populations swelled and profits for drug traffickers soared. . . .

First, prohibition and enforcement efforts have failed to dent the production and distribution of drugs in any part of the world. Second, the threat of arrest and punishment has had no significant deterrent effect on drug use. . . .

Drugs are dangerous and ruin lives. They need to be regulated. But we should work to reduce the crime, health and social problems associated with drug markets in whatever way is most effective. Broad criminalisation should end; new policy options should be explored and evaluated; drug users in need should get treatment; young people should be dissuaded from drug use via education; and violent criminals should be the target of law enforcement. We should stop ineffective initiatives like arresting and punishing citizens who have addiction problems. . . .

The next step is simple: countries should be encouraged to experiment with new policies. . . . New policies should be evaluated according to the scientific evidence. But we can say now that these policies should focus on the rights of citizens and on protecting public health. Drug policy should be a comprehensive issue for families, schools, civil society and health care providers, not just law enforcement.To evaluate such policies, we should stop measuring their success according to such indicators as numbers of arrests, prosecutions and drug seizures, which turn out to have little impact on levels of drug use or crime. We should instead measure the outcomes in the same way that a business would measure the results of a new ad campaign. That means studying things like the number of victims of drug-related violence and intimidation, levels of corruption connected to the drug market, the amount of crime connected to drug use, and the prevalence of dependence, drug-related mortality and HIV infection.

You can read the rest here. Thoughts?

By: Steve Grumm

It’s the farthest thing from Mardi Gras revelry at the NOLA defender’s office.  From New Orleans news site Gambit:

The Orleans Parish Public Defender’s office was down to $36,000 in the bank and may be unable to make its payroll this month, according to chief parish public defender Derwyn Bunton and Louisiana Public Defender Board Chairman Frank Neuner, who reported the budget problems at a Jan. 18 meeting of City Council’s Criminal Justice Committee. According to Bunton, the immediate financial problem results from an alleged failure by the New Orleans Traffic Court to hand over monthly indigent defendant fees, which were due Jan. 10.

  Even if that’s resolved, the office still faces a $1 million shortfall for the year and may have to lay off as many as 14 staff members, Bunton said. The office already has instituted a hiring freeze and suspended payments to contractors in an attempt to save money, but Bunton said those measures have only delayed more significant service restrictions, including the release of defendants who’ve been held in jail too long without representation.

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  This week:

• Oklahoma prosecutors running their own probation program, which generates revenue…and controversy;
• a report from the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation reviews the economic benefits and efficiencies stemming from the legal services community’s work;
• is the NOLA public defender’s office going to lay off attorneys?;
• a Chicago high-school teacher is moonlighting as a legal aid lawyer (he’s licensed) and running clinics out of local schools;
• in Wisconsin, legislation proposed to increase prosecutor pay;
• a Canuck pro bono lawyer proposes to boost legal aid funding through a pay or play system.  Surprisingly, the “play” doesn’t involve hockey;
• Private-bar family lawyers in Texas disagree with efforts to make pro se forms available to low-/moderate-income people;
• the legal services funding crisis in the Grand Canyon State;
• at West Virginia Law, a new student clinic will sit at the intersection of land use and natural resource extraction/conservation;
• the legal services funding crisis in Atlanta.

And here are the summaries:

• 1.20.12 – here’s a teaser from a password-protected Wall Street Journal article: “As district attorneys nationwide try to cope with shrinking state budgets, Oklahoma prosecutors have seized on a novel—and increasingly controversial—money raiser: running their own probation programs. The state allows prosecutors to recommend that instead of going to jail or prison, offenders receive special supervision by district attorneys’ offices, which collect a $40 monthly fee from offenders. These programs, which have soared to 38,000 participants from 16,000 in 2008, are now larger than the state prison system’s traditional probation program, which often involves drug testing and mandatory counseling and covers 21,000 offenders.”  I don’t have a subscription, so I can’t read the rest of the article.  But I wonder what ever the potential problem could be…

• 1.19.12 – the economic case for supporting legal services: “Massachusetts civil aid programs generated an estimated $53.2 million in new revenue and cost savings to the commonwealth last year, according to a new report issued today by the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation. Of that amount, $27.7 million came in the form of new federal revenue, the report found. The state appropriation for MLAC in FY11 was $9.5 million. In addition to new federal revenue, MLAC estimated the work of its grantees saved the state millions of dollars in social services by keeping clients out of the emergency shelter system, courts and emergency rooms. The data was reported to MLAC by the 16 legal aid programs it funds in the commonwealth.”  (Report from Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly.)

• 1.19.12 – from the New Orleans Times-Picayune: “The Orleans Parish public defender’s office is in dire financial straits and will be forced to lay off about 26 employees in coming weeks and implement numerous other cuts, the agency’s head told New Orleans City Council members Wednesday. Derwyn Bunton said his office is faced with a budget shortfall of about $1 million and is reeling from a downturn in revenue. The office instituted a hiring freeze late last year, has suspended payments to its conflict panel lawyers and capital defense lawyers, and doesn’t appear to be able to make payroll by month’s end, Bunton said. He forecast that 14 full-time employees will need to be laid off, along with 12 members of the conflict panel.”

• 1.17.12 – a Chicago high-school teacher is also a lawyer, and he’s set up free clinics to provide advice and counsel to low-income clients.  From the Chicago News Cooperative: “Soon after Dennis Kass started teaching history at a small Little Village high school four years ago, he put his law degree to use dispensing free legal advice to students and their families after school. That modest beginning has evolved into the Chicago Law and Education Foundation, a free clinic that operates monthly at eight other city high schools.”  The foundation has barely any operating funds, and “[m]uch of the clinic’s work is referrals. The foundation has partnerships with the DePaul Immigration/Asylum Clinic, Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, and First Defense Legal Aid.”  Kass hopes to raise enough funds to hire one staff attorney.

• 1.18.12 – companion bills in the Wisconsin legislature to boost prosecutor pay and stem attrition.  But there’s a hitch.  From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: “Last year, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs surveyed 146 current and former assistant district attorneys and concluded that many leave the job – or plan to – because of the prospect of being stuck for years at entry-level salaries. The report called the turnover rate among prosecutors ‘alarming.’  The bills would establish a 17-step plan, with each step representing one-seventeenth of the difference between the starting pay and top pay for the job.”  And here comes the hitch: “The proposals don’t, however, provide money for the raises desperately sought by the state’s 330 or so prosecutors.”  The story goes on to recount the battle between prosecutors and the governor’s office about attempted furloughs, and provides some data on prosecutor pay.

• 1.16.12 – Canada!  A “pay or play” proposal to support access to justice in the Great White North (as reported by S-law): “As part of his or her annual professional membership fees, a lawyer pays a $300 ‘A2J Contribution’ (an amount roughly equivalent to the average hourly rate among Canadian lawyers) that is earmarked for direct funding of the province’s legal aid and public interest legal organizations. If a lawyer provided and recorded one or more hours of legal aid, pro bono or public legal education service in the previous year— as administered and verified by specific organizations— then his or her A2J Contribution is waived. Thus lawyers “pay or play” to promote access to justice.”  The proposal’s author, Jamie MacLaren, is an active pro bono lawyer and AtJ advocate in British Columbia.

• 1.16.12 – it occasionally happens that solo and small-firm lawyers, who do fee-paying work for low and moderate income clients, butt heads with the public interest community about which clients are able to pay for services and which aren’t.  Something along these lines is playing out in Texas, but with a focus on pro se forms intended for low-income Texans.  From the Texas Lawyer: “The State Bar of Texas Family Law Section wants to put the brakes on draft forms for pro se divorce litigants and is calling for the State Bar to rein in the Texas Access to Justice Commission (TAJC). With both sides claiming to speak in the interests of litigants — and rumblings about protecting lawyers’ livelihoods — the Texas Supreme Court will have to take sides.  In one corner are the TAJC and the high court’s Uniform Forms Task Force, which believe the forms will help people — especially low-income individuals who cannot afford lawyers — obtain divorces on their own. The forms will be a better tool for people who already use forms from the Internet and elsewhere, they say.  In the other corner are the Family Law Section and the Texas Family Law Foundation, which oppose the forms and claim their use: could hurt the interests of people who use them to file for divorce; will not be limited to low-income Texans; could harm the livelihoods of solos and small-firm family lawyers; and may expand into other practice areas besides family law.”  

• 1.16.12 – From the Tucson Citizen: “At a time when the demand for legal assistance is on the rise, Arizona’s legal aid organizations are preparing for one of the largest funding losses in decades. In mid-November, Congress agreed to a 14.8% reduction to Legal Services Corporation (LSC) funding that will result in a $1.6 million loss to Arizona’s three legal aid organizations. Arizona’s legal aid organizations, Community Legal Services, DNA People’s Legal Services and Southern Arizona Legal Aid, have been on the front lines of the State’s economic battles since the recession’s beginning…. According to a report released this week by the Arizona Foundation for Legal Services & Education, legal aid, for some, has meant assistance in preventing foreclosure, defending against predatory lenders, or victims of domestic violence needing help in obtaining an order of protection. The report is the culmination of a six month long public survey hosted by the Foundation to better understand the legal needs of Arizona’s population. The Foundation’s Executive Director, Dr. Kevin Ruegg, explains, ‘Our intent for the report, before the news of the federal funding reduction, was to help the general public understand the meaning of legal services. Since the news of the cuts, the report has taken on a whole new meaning – It isn’t just the meaning of legal services that was defined. The report clearly explains the impact in this loss of funding’.”  Here’s a link to the report.

• 1.16.12 – at West Virginia Law, a new student clinic will sit at the intersection of land use and natural resource extraction/conservation. From the Register-Herald: “A new law clinic at West Virginia University, funded by millions of dollars in legal settlements between environmental groups and coal companies, will focus much of its effort on the New and Gauley river watersheds.  The first four law school students at the Land Use and Sustainable Development Law Clinic in Morgantown begin their work this week…”

• 1.13.12 – the Atlanta Legal Aid Society’s board president pens a Journal-Constitution op-ed capturing the group’s dire financial straits: “Every day, Legal Aid lawyers solve problems that threaten their clients’ lives. Last year, the client caseload totaled 26,283, a 21 percent increase since 2007.  But…a tragedy is brewing. The money needed to provide this all-important ‘hand up’ is disappearing. In the case of Atlanta Legal Aid, two major funding sources have decreased dramatically. The first is Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts, or IOLTA.  Second, Atlanta Legal Aid recently learned that the federal funding that represents close to one-third of its budget is decreasing nearly 15 percent.  Atlanta Legal Aid has already cut costs to the bone. Staff is leaner; benefits have been reduced. Salaries remain a fraction of those paid to lawyers in private practice. And less than 10 percent of Atlanta Legal Aid’s budget goes to administration and fundraising…. Unless other sources of funding are found, Atlanta Legal Aid will be forced to cut attorneys and staff. Legal Aid will have no choice but to turn away more individuals and families in dire need of their legal services.” 

By: Steve Grumm

The National Law Journal’s Karen Sloan focused on recent discussion within the legal academy about changes in the larger profession:

The state of the profession has not traditionally been a focus of law professors, said George Washington University Law School professor Thomas Morgan, author of the book The Vanishing American Lawyer. That remained true until about one year ago, when more people within the academy started taking note of the rumblings within the profession, he said. “We need to try and bridge what is a mutual set of problems,” Morgan said.

‘REARRANGING THE DECK CHAIRS’

Still, there remains a gap between the magnitude of change advocated by some within the profession and the modest innovations law schools are pursuing. Those innovations include a wider array of clinics, harnessing technology in simulations and student projects, and teaching transactional lawyering skills.

“I think they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic,” said Susan Hackett, chief executive officer of consulting firm Legal Executive Leadership and former general counsel of the Association of Corporate Counsel. “The discussion seems to be, ‘Let’s add a Thursday evening extra-credit course on the legal profession that meets for a couple of hours.’ That’s just tweaking around the edges.”

West Virginia Law is launching a new clinic which sit at the intersection of land use and natural resource extraction/conservation.  From the Register-Herald:

A new law clinic at West Virginia University, funded by millions of dollars in legal settlements between environmental groups and coal companies, will focus much of its effort on the New and Gauley river watersheds.
…

“There are just a handful of these land use clinics across the country,” says [clinic managing attorney Nathan Fetty. “The idea was that West Virginia does not have the resources for land and water protection like surroundings states, so this clinic is an effort to beef up West Virginia’s resources to protect land and water. For us to have this clinic in West Virginia is a big feather in our cap as far as we’re concerned.”

The clinic resulted from lawsuits brought by environmental groups against coal companies for pollution discharges. Instead of penalties going into the general funds of federal coffers, the litigants decided to use the money to create a “supplemental environmental project,” or SEP.

“In other words, we’re funded by virtue of those payments by coal companies to settle these lawsuits,” says Fetty.

The clinic will work closely with the West Virginia Land Trust, which will receive about $4.5 million from settlements, mostly from a case involving Alpha Resources.

by Kristen Pavón

A bitter minority² vs. minority battle (temporarily anyway) ended earlier this week when a NY judge granted a preliminary injunction against the construction of an affordable housing project on 31-acres of city-owned land in Brooklyn.

The planned Broadway Triangle affordable housing project was designed to be full of multi-room apartments in buildings no higher than eight stories – perfect for chasidic families with many children, who can’t use an elevator on Shabbat or holidays.

Plaintiffs in the case claim the project is discriminatory by design, meant to favor Orthodox applicants, though the area is heavily black and Latino. As a result, plaintiffs claim, the planned project is a violation of the Fair Housing Act, Equal Protection Clause and state and city human rights laws.

“There can be no compliance with the Fair Housing Act where defendants never analyzed the impact of the community preference,” Goodman wrote in her decision last month, which became public last week. . . .

A demographic analyst working for the plaintiffs . . . Lance Freeman of Columbia University, testified that in the districts qualifying for the project, 90,000 blacks and Hispanics needed small apartments, compared with only 9,000 whites and/or Yiddish speakers who needed large apartments, the New York Times reported. That made the focus on large apartments out of character with the area, plaintiffs said. . . .

The city and the defendants are debating whether to appeal the ruling or to allow the case to go to trial, said David Pollock, associate executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, citing conversations with those involved.

I find this stuff fascinating (fair housing cases, not discrimination)… I’m not informed enough to have an opinion on this yet, but I will say that it’s sad to see minorities fighting each other rather than working together.

You can read more about the case at here.

Also, FYI — I get great policy articles (like this one) in my inbox from the National Institute for Latino Policy. You can join the NiLP Network here.

Still in nascent stages, but it’s worth noting this blurb from the ABA Journal (unfortunately the link they reference is password-protected):

The State Bar of California has formed a task force that will consider requiring law grads to get practical experience with clients before obtaining a law license.

California Bar President Jon Streeter tells the Daily Journal (sub. req.) the proposal is “still a concept in its infancy.” Among the ideas that will be considered: Mandating legal residencies, similar to those required for doctors, or allowing law school clinical courses to satisfy all or part of the requirement.

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday the 13th, dear readers.  This week’s horrific development was the Hostess bankruptcy – the company’s second in recent years.  The very idea of Ding Dongs and Suzy Q’s – to say nothing of Twinkies – succumbing to capitalism’s merciless machinations is heartbreaking.  If government can subsidize public transportation, the arts, and other “important” societal goods, government can damn-well subsidize Ho-Ho’s.  Si tu puedes, Obama. 

In light of it being Friday the 13th and as a lamentation on the Hostess news, I offer this sonic gem by punk rock legends Social Distortion.  Social D is the second-best thing to come out of Orange County, California – the best thing being whatever road gets you out of Orange County the fastest.   

I didn’t really digress up there so much as I never got on topic.  Sorry.  Here’s this week’s public interest news in summary:

• Montana’s Office of the Public Defender facing criticism and may be short on resources at it tries to replace its retiring chief;     
• NOLA’s defender says they don’t have money to compensate outside counsel – judge not happy;
• Dayton’s pro bono clearinghouse feels the caseload strain;
• A report critical of indigent defense funding in PA is released; one county defender stops taking some cases;
• Brevard County, FL kicks $250,000+ to the local legal services program;
• A Charleston Gazette editorial looks at Legal Aid of West Virginia’s funding woes;
• a newly-created federal defender’s office, and a little bit of attorney hiring, in Northern Alabama 

The summaries:

• 1.12.11 – the Missoula Independent reports that the ACLU of Montana has kept up its criticism of the state’s Office of the Public Defender as, this month, OPD tries to settle on replacing its retiring chief.  One of OPD’s main problems seems to be a shortage of resources to build an effective program infrastructure.

• 1.10.12 – several days ago the New Orleans Public Defender announced that, due to fiscal woes, his office would not be able to pay outside counsel to handle cases that the PD couldn’t.  This has of course caused a stir within the criminal defense bar and the court system. From the Times-Picayune:  “The new austerity plan at the Orleans Parish public defender’s office has started to make waves, including one that lapped into a courtroom Tuesday on the eve of a death penalty trial. The plan, to cut off all payments to private lawyers hired by the office, drew a biting response from Criminal District Judge Lynda Van Davis, who upbraided Derwyn Bunton, the chief public defender.”

• 1.9.12 – the Dayton Business Journal looks at how the Greater Dayton Volunteer Lawyers Project is contending with high-volume case referrals.  As is the story everywhere else, while financial resources are scarce, the legal services community is overwhelmed with client demand.

• 1.8.12 – in PA, a joint legislative committee issued a damning report last month about the state of indigent defense in the Keystone State.  Read “A Constitutional Default: Services to Indigent Criminal Defendants in Pennsylvania.”  Some related items:
  • the Luzerne County (PA) public defender’s refusal to take on some new cases makes his office one of several around the country which has put a foot down, saying they don’t have the resources to do their constitutional duties.  The Wilkes-Barre Times Leader looks at what’s going on across the U.S., and notes that prosecutors are facing similar dilemmas.
  • And here’s a Times Leader editorial highlighting the local defender’s caseload overload, and calling on county residents to contact local officials.)

• 1.7.12 – in Florida, Brevard County Legal Aid got some good funding news: “The county will pay $256,500 to provide low-income residents free legal services this year, but Brevard County commissioners want the majority of those services to benefit victims of domestic violence and children.”  Like a lot of providers, Legal Aid is seeing many more clients than it can help.  Legal Aid’s currently turning away 8 of every 10 who otherwise qualify for services, according to Florida Today.

• 1.5.12 – a Charleston Gazette editorial argues that with Legal Aid of West Virginia facing $650,000 in funding cuts ($500,000 of that being a cut in LSC funding), the state legislature and those in the justice system must find additional funding.

• 1.5.12 – the  Birmingham News reports that a new federal defender’s office is opening in the Northern District of Alabama, which had been “one of only four federal…districts, out of 94 nationwide, that didn’t have some form of public defender office…”  Federal Public Defender Kevin Butler, is looking to hire about six assistant defenders, along with investigators and support staff. “Butler said he will focus on hiring attorneys experienced in federal criminal defense work. But he said there will be room for hiring younger attorneys ‘who have shown a commitment to equal protection under the law’.”  

by Kristen Pavón

As if shrinking budgets weren’t enough, a legal aid office in Athens, Georgia was burglarized last weekend. I mean, really?

Almost a dozen laptop computers were stolen. Attorneys didn’t seem too upset about it though…

“As far as the effect of the theft on our work, it’s not going to slow us down much,” he [Public Defender John Donnelly] said. “We’ll work around it until we can get them back or replaced.”

“They are all password protected, so the files are not easily accessible,” Donnelly said.

That’s a great attitude. If it were me, I’d be up-the-wall upset — what could I get done without my computer?! Nada.

Read the rest of the story here.

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  It’s been a relatively slow week as many of us have eased our ways back into the office.  Political junkies likely braved the fiasco that is cable news as it aired BREAKING, UNIVERSE-ALTERING DEVELOPMENTS (not involving grain elevators) from places like Coon Rapids, Iowa.  Today the Washington Post has run a funny picture of candidate John Huntsman reacting to a goat bite in New Hampshire.  This man is a former two-term governor and Mandarin-fluent ambassador to China.  Now he dodges Isak the Goat.  And that’s exactly how democracy should work.

Where was I? Oh, before we get to the news, one quick plug for a NALP/Equal Justice Works webinar series aimed at law students on the summer public interest job hunt.  Our two webinars will focus on cover letter and resume writing (part one) as well as interviewing and networking (part two).  Get the dates/details here.

At last, this week in public interest news:       

• criminal and civil justice gaps in the Volunteer State;
• possible monkey business in a Utah criminal case reads like a Law & Order script;
• is it more than the economy driving more law students into public interest careers?;
• the National Law Journal’s Pro Bono Hotlist profiles some headline-generating work;
• public interest items from January’s ABA Journal include a feature story on controversy involving an Illinois-based innocence project;
• animal law practice blowing up in Portland, OR (and why I loathe cats);
• the fiscal woes confronting Virginia-based legal services programs;
• the fiscal woes confronting West Virginia’s legal services program.

Here are the summaries:

• 1.5.12 – the widening civil and criminal justice gaps, as seen from the vantage point of Shelby County (Memphis, TN) Public Defender Stephen C. Bush, who writes in the Memphis Flyer: “In this moment, we cannot compromise on justice; living in poverty is hard enough. Our community has more than its share of hurting families, unemployment, substance abuse, hunger, sickness, mental illness, homelessness … the list goes on. These problems create more have-nots, more gaps. We cannot afford that. We must bear these costs together.”  Trivia: Shelby County has the 4th oldest defender program in the country.

• 1.4.12 – how’s this for a Law & Order twist: a prosecutor in the Utah County Attorney’s office faxed to county commissioners and the local defender’s office a letter which “called the public defenders’ [sic] office a ‘huge embarrassment’ and a ‘waste of money’.”  The letter referred to three defenders who worked on a homicide case – the defendant was convicted – as “a huge joke” and opined that “monkeys would do a much better job.”  The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the letter, which also referred to a defender sleeping at trial and throwing “temper tantrums,” was “signed by a ‘taxpayer in Utah County’.”  The prosecutor claims that an unknown third party handed her the letter, which she did not write but did fax…from a FedEx office.  Is there monkey business afoot?  Who knows?  But here’s the crazy part: in appealing the homicide conviction, a new defense legal team is asserting ineffective assistance and using the letter in making its case!  Apparently Utah’s standard for effective assistance is something above just monkeying around. 

• 1.3.12 – a short piece entitled “New Lawyers Have Rising Interest in Public Interest,” published on the higher-ed-focused Braintrack website, suggests that: “While the vast majority of new law school graduates find jobs with private law firms, many law schools have seen a significant uptick in the percentage of students pursuing careers in public interest….  Undoubtedly, the economy has played a role in these numbers: Since fewer opportunities are available at private firms, presumably students are more open to pursuing careers in public interest. But experts say that’s not the whole story.”  The piece goes on to suggest that students are increasingly public service minded and looking for meaningful careers in service.  Interesting.  Certainly the relative dearth of law firm jobs isn’t the only factor that’s driven more law students to consider careers in nonprofit and government arenas. But the weight of the anecdotal evidence that’s come my way suggests the altered job market is by far the biggest driver.  While I think it’s terrific that more students are considering public service careers, and while I have high hopes for the Millenials, I just haven’t seen evidence of non-economic factors having an oversized impact on student career choices.  But I was wrong about the Eagles making the playoffs and maybe I’m wrong about this.  

• 1.2.12 – Biglaw pro bono.  The NLJ’s Pro Bono Hotlist profiles the work of a handful of large law firms.  Their causes range from Holocaust victim reparations to education and election reform.  Without question, these pro bono efforts are laudable and I’m heartened to see Biglaw resources channeled to these ends.  But I’m disappointed that more pro bono poverty law work – those unsexy, non-headline-generating eviction, domestic violence, and veterans’ benefits cases – doesn’t figure prominently into the HotList mix.  Even the firms selected by NLJ are doing great poverty law work.  I’d love to see the HotList zoom in on the unheralded work of lawyers helping poor clients with nowhere else to go.

• January, 2012 – this month’s ABA Journal includes some noteworthy public-interest items:
  • one feature piece, entitled “Journalism & Justice: Did Innocence Project Student Reporters Get Too Close to Lawyers?” looks at a controversy that enveloped Northwestern’s Medill Innocence Project and which has raised questions about the role of student journalists in investigating convicts’ claims of innocence.
  • some coverage of the ABA’s work w/ the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) to address the justice gap.
  • an interesting new corporate structure for socially conscious entrepreneuers is being accepted in a growing number of states.  The new “…corporate form – seven states in the last two years have amended their constitutions to allow for it – allows corporate officers to consider a social, community or environmental purpose as part of their mission.  It also helps shield benefit corporations from shareholder lawsuits for doing what they think is the right thing.”  

     

• 12.30.11 – the Portland Business Journal looks at the growth of “animal law” practice.  The article is password-protected and I don’t have access to it, so I include this just as an FYI to the animal enthusiast types in our readership.  (I am an animal enthusiast, having in my youth owned a retriever named Reggie and a rabbit named Crusader.  Turns out it’s tough to raise a rabbit in a Philadelphia neighborhood.  Cats paid all kinds of attention to Crusader and did not have his best interests at heart.  I have loathed cats ever since. Vile creatures.)  

• 12.31.11 – Virginia legal services programs are facing extraordinary fiscal challenges.  They expect layoffs and service cuts, particularly with last November’s LSC appropriation slash.  The legal services community is looking to the state legislature for help, in the form of establishing mandatory IOLTA program and increasing some court filing fees.  From the Virginian-Pilot: 
  • The program that sends interest on money held in trust to legal aid in Virginia is voluntary. It is mandatory in all states except Virginia, Alaska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska and Idaho. With backing of Virginia’s bankers, the General Assembly passed a law in the 1990s stopping the program from becoming mandatory.  Delegate Manoli Loupassi, a Richmond Republican, has introduced a bill to repeal that law and thus allow the Virginia Supreme Court to consider requiring all lawyers to participate in the program. Similar bills died in the General Assembly a year ago.
  • Legal aid will ask lawmakers to approve a budget amendment that would increase the civil filing fee that goes to legal aid from $9 to $13.

•  12.30.11 – a call to the West Virginia bar: pick up pro bono efforts because legal aid is underfunded.  An editorial in The Intelligencer and Wheeling News-Register (a newspaper so badass it needs two names) highlights how the LSC cuts will impact Legal Aid of West Virginia and continues, “If Legal Aid is forced into layoffs, it will be up to local attorneys to swallow the loss of pay and offer their services pro bono. Here in our area, lawyers have a praiseworthy record of stepping up to the plate. In the past, they have been recognized for their high rate of pro bono work. The need for help will not disappear, even when the money does.