By: Steve Grumm

Dean Rodriguez crystal balls 2012, predicting (and seemingly, at points, advocating for) developments in the conversations about how we educate lawyers and increasing transparency in placement stats, etc.  Among Rodriguez’s prognostications…

From enrage to engage:  We will see professional educators and lawyers working more thoughtfully to respond to the drumbeat of criticism about the structure of American legal education and its challenges.

…

Law schools as public service incubators:  The demands of the public, and especially the poor, for legal services is ever growing.  Law schools, public and private, big and small, national and regional, must and will develop mechanisms to serve the disadvantaged and to provide access to both basic and complex legal work.

The dean’s post prompted an interesting comment about how experiential learning may (and may not) be further integrated into the curriculum:

Much of the current disenchantment stems from the enormous economic downturn and attendant layoffs and failure-to-hires of recent law school graduates. This produces a demand for both better information about placement (and, perhaps, bar passage), as well as heartfelt but unfocused requests for training that will enable graduates to function as lawyers. If and when the economy improves, these feelings will not disappear, but will become less intense. To the extent that we take the latter request seriously, it will not lead, by and large, to doing a lot more public interest work. Although that work may produce some generalized skills training (e.g. how to draft a complaint), there is precious little paid work in public interest. Rather, taking the demand for skill seriously leads down a path to law schools having a law firm (just as medical schools have hospitals) where students start to learn how to practice under lawyer-professors, who both provide training and who charge clients for their services. We would need to work hard to make the position of lawyer-professor prestigious, so that we could attract the best and the brightest. Law school might become 4 years instead of 3. And there will be negotiations between the lawyer-professors and the Deans of law schools about how to split fees. Deans of law schools will need new sets of skills, akin to managing partner at a large law firm.

(Tip of cap to Prof. Brian Leiter’s blog.)

By: Steve Grumm

From every law school dean’s favorite periodical, the US News and World Report, comes a list of trends that are predicted to rear their heads in 2012.  Of note, accelerated JD programs (and combined-degree programs, e.g. JD/MSW & JD/MBA) are ones to watch for…

By: Steve Grumm

That’s also good advice for living life outside of law school.  The Natioanl Law Journal reports on a recent study about how law students’ dispositions can affect their performance and overall levels of satisfaction:

Which new law students will perform the best academically during their first semester and be the most satisfied with their lives? Those who are realistically hopeful, according to research into the way hope and optimism affect law student performance.

A study published in the December edition of the Journal of Research in Personality, and featured last year in the Duquesne Law Review, concluded that students who came to campus with high levels of hope got better grades and were more satisfied with their lives after completing their first semester, which tends to be the most stressful.  

This distinction between optimism and hope is quite helpful, in my opinion:

The researchers distinguished hope from optimism, high levels of which boosted life satisfaction but not first semester grades.

“Optimism is the expectation that the future will be good, regardless of how this happens,” said Kevin Rand, an assistant professor of psychology at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. “Hope is the expectation about things you have actual control over.”

Free existential guidance from the PSLawNet Blog!  You’re welcome, people.

By: Steve Grumm

This ABA Journal piece is a must-read if you’re interested in how legal education is financed (i.e. the widespread availability of loans), the intersection of the lending system with a bleak job market, and what may happen from here.  The news ain’t all good.  Authors William Henderson and Rachel Zahorsky begin with some sobering present-day statistics…

In 2010, 85 percent of law graduates from ABA-accredited schools boasted an average debt load of $98,500, according to data collected from law schools by U.S. News & World Report. At 29 schools, that amount exceeded $120,000. In contrast, only 68 percent of those grads reported employment in positions that require a JD nine months after commencement. Less than 51 percent found employment in private law firms.

The influx of so many law school graduates—44,258 in 2010 alone, according to the ABA—into a declining job market creates serious repercussions that will reverberate for decades to come.

…

The piece then goes on to trace the historical role of federal lending (both in backing private loans and direct lending) in funneling cash into the legal education system.  Henderson/Zahorsky identify a serious, looming problem for federal lending.  Now that Uncle Sam is doing so much direct lending he is betting that, as a lender, he’ll make money back on future interest revenues paid by law-student/attorney borrowers.  But is this realistic in light of a stagnant (and maybe in the long term, shrinking) job market?

By failing to make rigorous, realistic actuarial assumptions in deciding who to lend money to and how much to lend, the federal government avoids politically uncomfortable trade-offs. Everyone can go to college. And if you can get accepted into law school, the government will finance that, too.

But as the economist Herbert Stein once said, “If something cannot go on forever, it won’t.” The federal government’s gamble that higher education will continue to result in higher personal incomes eerily echoes Wall Street’s risky assumption that historical patterns in real estate values would carry forward forever and enable many sliced-and-diced mortgage-backed securities to attain AAA ratings.

While it may be politic, even patriotic, to assume that the higher-education-equals-higher-income equation is fact, for investors it remains, at best, aspirational. Since 2008, private investment in nearly any market has been reluctant. The capitalists aren’t taking this education-equals-high income bet; if they did, the terms they would demand would likely change the choices that student borrowers are now making.

Unless the government’s actuarial assumptions on student loan repayments turn out to be correct, federal funding of higher education is on a collision course with the federal deficit.

Optimistic assumptions of future growth and earning power, however, are completely at odds with the financial landscape that has given rise to the so-called scamblogger movement and some recent lawsuits by graduates alleging their schools committed fraud and other deceptive practices regarding portrayals of job prospects.

I wish I had more time to go into depth on this article, but for now the above must suffice as a teaser.  It’s worth a full read.

By: Steve Grumm

In one of the ABA’s year-end lists, they reprise a collection of 30 books for lawyers to read (recommended by lawyers).  I was unfamiliar w/ most of them.  Making the cut (not in order):

• Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, by Daniel Goleman
• Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
• The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Neal Katyal

The Huffington Post brings us a handful of websites that are designed to spread the word about the good work of nonprofits and micro-enterprises, and to give donors – whether you’re a high-falutin’ philanthropist or a guy/gal with a few extra dollars for a good cause – opportunities to support them.  Maybe some fundraising avenues for cash-strapped nonprofit law offices…

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  2011: the end is nigh.  At the close of every year the Washington Post publishes a “what’s going out?/what’s coming in?” piece about cultural trends, the changing zeitgeist, etc.  The piece seems perfeclty designed if the goal is to remind me how out of touch I am.  For instance, “Ovaltine nostalgia” is out while a “Tang renaissance” is coming in.  I love Ovlaltine!  How did I miss that!?  And, while seemingly crass but otherwise a mystery to me, “Pippa’s bum” is losing in favor of “Kate’s uterus.”  Sorry, Pippa.  Greek yogurt, which I had noticed was all the rage in 2011, is being pushed out by something called Icelandic skyr.  I hope Pippa’s not Greek.  That would be a double-whammy for her.  Anyway, as we turn to 2012 I wish you a happy and safe New Year’s holiday.

Here’s what we’ve got in the public interest department:

• it’s a revolving employment door for Wisconsin’s assistant prosecutors;
• lots of news about how LSC cuts will affect Virginia legal services providers;
• Michigan Community Resources expands to provide more than legal assistance to its nonprofit clients;
• DC’s LRAP program is coming up dry (boo!!);
• study shows that a homicide defendant with a public defender will fare a lot better than with court-appointed counsel;
• prosecutors and defenders square off, but this time everybody wins;
• Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma bracing for the LSC funding cut pinch;
• a good idea for raising legal services funding from law firm associates.

This week:

• 12.28.11 – Wisconsin struggles to retain its prosecutors, according to a new study.  Here’s a report from WISC-TV: “They carry much of the workload in Wisconsin’s criminal justice system, and a study found that many assistant district attorneys, or ADAs, are leaving their posts at an alarming rate.  The study called “Public Safety and Assistant District Attorney Staffing in Wisconsin” surveyed past and present ADAs and found that while an overwhelming majority of these state workers went into the field to perform a public service, for several years most are leaving for better paying jobs with better benefits in the private sector….”

• 12.28.11- three stories about how LSC cuts will impact Virginia-based legal services providers:
  •  From WVIR: “Legal aid groups across the commonwealth are preparing to lobby the Virginia General Assembly for losses in funding. That funding has decreased by $8 million since 2008, affecting the services available to more than a million Virginians that cannot afford other legal help.  For some, it could mean job cuts. That is why groups across the state plan to ask the General Assembly for increased funding when its session begins in January.”
  • The News-Leader reports on how Blue Ridge Legal Services, in central/western Virginia, will be impacted: “Congressional action in mid-November reduced federal funding for civil legal services to low-income residents by 15 percent. This cut came on the heels of an earlier 4 percent cut in federal funding in April, sparking Blue Ridge’s first round of cuts, halving the number of attorneys at its Harrisonburg office, which serves Staunton, Waynesboro and Augusta County, said John Whitfield, executive director and general counsel for the organization.”
  • Here’s a statewide look at the potential for cuts, from the Northern Virginia Daily: “A statewide agency that gives legal aid to the poor faces layoffs as a result of congressional funding cuts.  Representatives with Legal Services Corp. of Virginia said Friday they plan to ask the General Assembly to help restore funds lost this fall when Congress reduced grants by 15 percent, according to a news release.  The agency provides funding and oversight of the state’s legal aid system — nine direct-service programs in 38 offices statewide and the Virginia Poverty Law Center, which assists with advocacy, education and litigation support.  Statewide the agency faces losing 20 attorneys and 10 support staff, according to legal services group’s executive director, Mark D. Braley. 

• 12.27.11 – Michigan Community Resources, formerly known as Community Legal Resources, outgrew the “Legal” in its name.  MCR used to provide legal assistance to under-resourced nonprofit organizations.  Now it offers a broader range of services, and works with an expanded circle of client organizations.  From the Huffington Post: “MCR now services the entire state and offers planning, technical and educational support in addition to legal aid. Its clientele has expanded, too. Many of the groups MCR assists are 501(c)3 nonprofits, but the organization also helps groups like block clubs and neighborhood associations.”  I used to work with a transactional pro bono program that served nonprofits in need of legal help.  Often times, they would also require technical assistance that was not directly legal in nature.  Taking a more holistic approach to client services makes a lot of sense to me.  Congrats, MCR.  

• 12.25.11 – the LRAP program for DC-based poverty lawyers is short on the cash to meet demand from debt-laden lawyers.  From the Washintgon Post: “For the first time in its five-year history, the privately funded program that helps lawyers at Washington nonprofits repay law school debt — the Loan Repayment Assistance Program — fell short of covering the majority of lawyers’ eligible monthly loan payments. In past years, the program managed to cover at least 90 percent of those monthly loan repayments; this year, they only have enough money to cover about half.  That’s because the need for aid is outpacing the money coming into the program. In 2007, the first year of LRAP, 14 percent of lawyers applying for the grants had debt of more than $150,000, and their average debt was $92,000. Today, 27 percent have debt of more than $150,000, and their average debt has jumped to $119,000.”

• 12.24.11 – here may be our data points of the week.  A study of indigent homicide defendants that took place in Philly found a sharp difference in outcomes based on whether they had a public defender (on staff w/ the Defender Association of Philadelphia) or a court-appointed lawyer.  An NY Times editorial summarizes the RAND study: “The study examined murder cases of indigent defendants with similar profiles in the city from 1994 to 2005. The conviction rate of clients represented by staff lawyers working for the public defender association…was 19 percent lower than those represented by court-appointed lawyers working alone. Their expected time served in prison was 24 percent lower, and they were far less likely to get a life sentence.”   

• 12.24.11 – on a lighter note, prosecutors and defenders in Alaska engaged in some non-hostile combat to generate a whole bunch of food donations for the needy.  From the Peninsula Clarion: “A friendly competition between the Kenai’s District Attorney’s Office and the Public Defender Agency helped people in need this holiday season. The two offices, which generally compete toe-to-toe at the Kenai Courthouse, collected food last week as part of a private food drive. The public defenders won the competition, donating 1,547 pounds of canned and dried foods. The district attorneys donated 978 pounds of food.”

• 12.23.11 – on the heels of the LSC funding cut, Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma is bracing for impact.  From the Express-Star: “Oklahoma’s statewide nonprofit law firm providing free civil legal services to elderly and low-income persons who are about to lose their children, housing, health care or income or who are victims of domestic violence, is preparing for a federal funding cut of approximately $700,000 for the coming fiscal year.”  ($700,000 represents about 10% of LASO’s budget.)  “No decisions have been made by LASO’s Board of Directors regarding implementation of LSC’s funding cut.”

• 12.22.11 – a good legal services fundraising idea.  Here’s some information on the “One Hour of Sharing Associates’ Campaign, which encourages Minnesota-based law firm associates to make a cash donation, in the amount of their hourly billing rate, to the Fund for the Legal Aid Society.  The JD Rising blog has more detail. 

By: Steve Grumm

Here’s coverage from WISC-TV:

They carry much of the workload in Wisconsin’s criminal justice system, and a study found that many assistant district attorneys, or ADAs, are leaving their posts at an alarming rate.

The study called “Public Safety and Assistant District Attorney Staffing in Wisconsin”surveyed past and present ADAs and found that while an overwhelming majority of these state workers went into the field to perform a public service, for several years most are leaving for better paying jobs with better benefits in the private sector.

“There were a lot of people who just seem to be leaving after a relatively short period of time,” said Dennis Dresang, a University of Wisconsin professor emeritus, who worked on the study.

So Dresang set out to study what appears to be a revolving door among the state’s ADAs.

He found that out of 330 Wisconsin ADAs, 246 left their jobs between 2001 and 2007. The annual turnover rate among ADAs since 2005 is 18.4 percent, and half of Dane County’s ADAs have less than five years experience

By: Steve Grumm

Tigers are so 2011.  Sloths are 2012.  The Greek yogurt fad is also coming to an end.  Its 2012 replacement: Icelandic skyr (whatever that is).  These and other such revelations come to us from the Washington Post, which annually publishes its end-of-year “what’s out?  what’s in?” list.  For me, the list mainly serves as a reminder about how woefully out of touch I am.  Most of the “going out with 2011” items are brand new to me.  For instance, I have no idea why “Pippa’s bum” is being replaced by “Kate’s uterus.”  I’m not sure I want to know.  Anyway, the list is worth a look.

by Kristen Pavón

A New York Times Christmas Eve op-ed highlights [unsurprising] findings of a Cardozo Law Review study that examined legal assistance during the deportation process.

Sure — a severe lack of representation was found [where isn’t there a shortage of representation?] — however, the study also found that in 14% of cases out of five immigration courts in NY, attorneys were “grossly inadequate.”

The report surveyed judges in five immigration courts and found shoddy lawyering widespread. According to the judges’ responses, in nearly half the New York cases, immigrants who had lawyers received inadequate representation.

Worse, a huge number of immigrants in New York have no representation at all. Although poor defendants in criminal courts are entitled to court-appointed lawyers, people in immigration courts are not. Over all, immigrants appeared in court without a lawyer in nearly 15,000 cases (27 percent of the total) between October 2005 and July 2010. About two-thirds of immigrants in detention were lawyerless. Other jurisdictions provided even less access to counsel: 79 percent of those arrested and transferred to immigration detention in other states lacked attorneys.

The author offers two, somewhat cursory, solutions: 1) dismiss the cases that fall outside of the Obama administration’s focus to free up competent attorneys and 2) having private foundations and bar associations create programs to put young lawyers to work on immigration issues.

I don’t know what the solution to our legal aid representation shortage is, but on the issue of grossly inadequate legal representation — I do believe that law students should be immersed in the actual practice of law before graduating. Too much is at stake. Plus, law students pay way too much in tuition to have to learn on the job.

Read the whole op-ed here. Thoughts?