The El Paso Times reports that El Paso Lawyers for Patriots will host a conference May 20-21 to educate local attorneys and legal professionals to help them better serve active-duty military and veterans.

The conference will take place at the Centennial Banquet and Conference Center on East Fort Bliss. It will cover topics including how best to provide services to veterans and service members suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, how to assist pro bono programs that provide free legal services, and how to provide bankruptcy and consumer affairs help.

“Legal issues are one of the top stressors for our service members and soldiers,” said Erica Manning, program integration manager for Army OneSource. “It needs to be addressed, and I think this seminar is doing that by bringing these professionals in to educate them on the needs of our service members and military families.”

By far, the vast majority of legal services that service members and veterans need fall into the realm of family law, which includes divorces and custody and support of children.

As you know, the PSLawNet Blog is eager to highlight efforts to support veterans and military families. Like student efforts we highlighted in Michigan and New York, Texas’ El Paso Lawyers for Patriots’ conference is highly needed and commendable. Great work!

–Lauren

As we’re now aware, the federal government’s hiring freeze is affecting every agency. The Federal Times reports that the Department of Justice is no exception.  Americans may have a better idea of what a “crucial” employee is as of late, but we’re still scratching our heads, just as nervous as DOJ officials about how this will all shake out…

The Justice Department’s hiring freeze — which was imposed earlier this year and even prevents the department from hiring to replace most attrition — remains in effect, and spokeswoman Jessica Smith said Justice isn’t sure when it will be lifted. Justice earlier this year said the freeze was necessary to avoid a sudden, dire budget crunch that would force employee furloughs. Smith said those concerns remain.

“Given the reductions in the recent FY 2011 full year [continuing resolution], and the funding uncertainty facing us in FY 2012, the Attorney General has directed that the January 21st restraints continue,” Assistant Attorney General for Administration Lee Lofthus said in an April 19 memo to the rest of the department.

Smith said Deputy Attorney General James Cole has made a few exceptions to fill jobs in U.S. Attorneys offices or for crucial law enforcement positions. Much of the department must make do with vacancies when valued employees leave.  Not an enviable position to be in, we admit.

This week: cutbacks at Idaho Legal Aid Services; an interview with Disability Rights Advocates’ ED; Biglaw partners can play bigger role in funding legal services; in one Ohio county, a debate about a debate about creating a public defender’s office; gloomy, gloomy news on law school debt; shakeups in Shasta County’s (CA) prosecutor’s office; the nonlawyer at Legal Aid of West Virginia’s helm.

• 5.12.11 – funding woes are affecting Idaho Legal Aid Services, and more cuts are coming.  From a short AP story on the KMVT website: “Idaho Legal Aid Services, which has already cut hours of its staff and 21 attorneys, has a $250,000 hole in its $2.6 million annual budget. Leaders say employees across the state will take forced days off without pay starting on May 27. The move comes after a bill failed in the 2011 Idaho Legislature that would have shored up its coffers.”

• 5.11.11 –  The National Law Journal recently interviewed  Disability Rights Advocates’ Executive Director Ben Foss about the hot issues in disability law, his decision to become a lawyer and his appearance in a film documentary called Journey Into Dyslexia, now showing on HBO2. For Foss, a former director of access technology at Intel Corp, his recent transition hits home: “I’m severely dyslexic. I was in special ed all through school. My mom used to read out loud to me as a kid. When I went to college, that’s when it all caught up to me. I had to fax term papers home to my mom to have her read aloud to me so I could find my spelling mistakes. As a result, I’ve been part of the disability community for a long time….  [At Intel,] I decided I wanted to build technology for people with disabilities, which is something Intel hadn’t done before. I invented a device called the Intel Reader, which takes a photograph of any printed material and reads it aloud to you right on the spot. I invented it so that I don’t have to call Mom every time I run into syntax.”  Foss also highlighted a few pressing challenges in disability law right now that include access to the virtual world and all transportation systems and veterans with disabilities.

• 5.11.11 – On Wednesday, the PSLawNet Blog looked at a proposal, featured in The American Lawyer, to create a private-bar-funded “Lawyers Foundation” to support civil legal services.  In the piece, Aric Press argues that Biglaw partners could greatly advance the cause of access to justice by endowing and supporting a foundation to help fund both the Legal Services Corporation and other legal services projects.  Press notes that LSC’s funding outlook in Congress is uncertain, but particularly dire given the current fiscal state of affairs and the fact that the federal funder of legal services has enemies on the Hill. While this is a thoughtful proposal, and certainly an attempt to think creatively (which the PSLawNet Blog applauds), the private sector can’t let Congressional appropriators off the hook with respect to funding LSC.

• 5.11.11 – A little less conversation, a little more action? In an article by The Morning Journal, Ohio’s Lorain County Prosecutor’s Office said commissioners need to rethink how to study the pros and cons of whether the county should have a public defender’s office.  Discussion began last month between commissioners and the state public defender’s office to explore if there would be a cost-savings, as compared to paying court- appointed attorneys for indigent criminal defendants. Commissioner Ted Kalo has argued there would be a savings, but Assistant Lorain County Prosecutor Gerald Innes is sticking to his guns, contending that some sort of commission should weigh the cost saving options.

• 5.9.11 – Reader warning: the following news is frightening for those concerned about student debt.  An article in the ABA Journal reports that annual law school loans borrowed has jumped 50 percent since 2001. In the last academic year, law students borrowed an average of $68,827 for public schools and $106,249 for private educations.  Compare this with $46,499, or the average amount borrowed for the public school, and $70,147, average for a private school in the 2001-2002 academic year.  For many of us–PSLawNet Bloggers included, these are not just staggering numbers, they’re lived experiences. Wow-zah.

• 5.9.11 – In the Shasta County, California district attorney’s office, many prosecutors are not amused with recent office/case shuffling. And, as a result, The Record Searchlight reports that the restructuring of sorts have prompted one of its senior prosecutors who specialized in homicide cases to leave the office.  Stewart Jankowitz, who lost only one murder case in his approximately 15 years with the office retired last week.  Prosecutors are required to handle an assortment of cases, although some do have specific assignments, such as sex crimes, felony DUIs and white-collar crime, such as embezzlement.  Jankowitz stated that he did not delight in the idea of handling non-homicide cases after his many years of legal experience.  While many will miss him, it’s time to go.

• 5.8.11 – Charleston, West Virginia’s Gazette feature a piece about Adrienne Worthy, executive director of Legal Aid of West Virginia, oversees provisions for legal assistance for the low-income and disenfranchised.  Her story is about what motivates her: responsibility.  Legal Aid of West Virginia currently has 55 lawyers, a statewide staff of 120 and 12 regional offices, but Worthy is not a lawyer.  After graduating from undergraduate school, she answered an ad in a progressive ad bulletin looking for citizen activist canvassers, then for three years went  door-to-door every night from 4 until 9, five days a week, snow sleet or hail, to raise money and organize around environmental, consumer and utility issues.  She then worked at a library and for the WV Women’s Commission.  She knows she has marched to her own drummer in terms of jobs, but her commitment to find how she’s needed is unwavering.  “I am finding it harder to be motivated by the belief that real changes are going to happen,” Worthy says.  “I don’t understand the vision of what we are supposed to do with the changes proposed for the environment, our old and young people. I don’t know what’s going to happen to our clients here.”  She confesses that she’s thought about leaving, but gets inspired by clients who have overcome incredible odds and, through the help of legal services, have been able to make a difference.

The legal services community needs more green!

Aric Press, editor in chief of American Lawyer Media and owner of a wonderfully Dickensian surname, has penned a thoughtful piece, proposing that Biglaw partners (and, we suppose, other well-heeled members of the private bar) could greatly advance the cause of access to justice by endowing and supporting a foundation to help fund both the Legal Services Corporation and other legal services projects. Press notes that LSC’s funding outlook in Congress is uncertain, but hardly rosy given the current fiscal state of affairs and the fact that LSC is something of a political football.  He further notes that, recession notwithstanding, many law firm partners are doing quite-well-thank-you-very-much with respect to the ol’ cash flow.

The arithmetic is compelling. The surviving partners of The Am Law 100 continue to prosper even in the worst economic downturn of the last 25 years. For Am Law 100 equity partners, profits rose by an average of 8.4 percent, and the average compensation for all partners — equity and income — increased by 7.7 percent, to $1 million. I’m told one can live on that, even save a little.

There are 30,888 Am Law 100 lawyers carrying the label partner. On average, across their many offices, they bill roughly 2,000 hours at roughly $500 per hour. Were each to contribute the equivalent of 20 hours of billable time in cash — 1 percent — the resulting stash would reach $309 million. Toss in the 15,000 Am Law Second Hundred partners, and there’s more than enough to underwrite the annual LSC budget even after firms excluded their non-U.S. licensed lawyers.

The PSLawNet Blog supports creative thinking to channel more money to the legal services community.  This certainly includes contributions from the private sector, and this certainly includes the bar.  LSC’s model is, after all, emblematic of a successful private-public partnership.  With that said, a caveat: in our view, the key word when thinking about what makes private-public partnerships work is “balance.”  And for too long, Congress has not been holding up its end.  LSC’s appropriation, in real dollars, has markedly decreased over time.  And this has occurred even as demand for legal services – from domestic violence victims, homeless veterans, and children in need of healthcare – has grown too fast in light of the limited financial and human resources to help these would-be clients.  So if the private bar is to move forward with a formal funding initiative, we hope that it will make a priority of lobbying the folks on Capitol Hill to hold up their end of the deal.

GovernmentExecutive.com is keeping up with a critical issue:  federal job postings.  This is a serious concern deserving of attention.  But who knew “KSA” would be part of common parlance in the land of federal employment?  Monday’s article reports that agencies still need to better streamline their job announcements as part of the government’s push to reform the bureaucratic federal hiring process, a top official from the Office of Personnel Management.

Sixty-one percent of agencies have simplified their job vacancy postings, said Nancy Kichak, OPM’s associate director for employee services, while 89 percent of agencies have abolished the much-reviled knowledge, skills and abilities statements that for years applicants painstakingly filled out and managers waded through. Kichak said there is a disconnect between agencies’ desire to eliminate KSAs and the habit of writing long and complicated descriptions of job vacancies.

“We don’t want to hear it [via KSAs], but we’re certainly willing to say it ourselves,” she told an audience during a conference on federal financial management in Washington. Kichak said the goal is to push managers to produce job announcements that are less than five pages long. She said at various times, some postings have been as long as 38 pages.

38 pages?! Yikes.  Progress has been made, though.  During the past year, agencies have transitioned from KSAs to category ratings as well as to a resume- and cover letter-based system. In addition, OPM last month debuted a new online platform that tests applicants for a variety of positions across government.  Not exactly baby steps, but as most agree, there is more to be done.

The Charleston Gazette in lovely West Virginia has run a lovely profile of Adrienne Worthy, the non-lawyer who is at the helm of Legal Aid of  West Virginia.  Worthy arrived in West Virginia from Ohio in 1971, fresh out of college and eager to get involved in community activism. 

‘I answered an ad in a progressive ad bulletin looking for door-to-door citizen activist canvassers. I came to West Virginia, the closest place for an interview…. So for three years, I was going door-to-door every night from 4 until 9, five days a week, snow sleet or hail, to raise money and organize around environmental, consumer and utility issues.’

Worthy gravitated towards women’s issues, and spent several years with the West Virginia Women’s Commission.  Eventually, her talent for nonprofit administration and passion for being a force for positive change in people’s lives drove her into the legal services community, where she’s found a home at Legal Aid of West Virginia.

We are a statewide nonprofit poverty law firm. We provide civil legal assistance and advocacy to low-income people and vulnerable people, domestic violence victims, people struggling with homelessness or working to get benefits they are entitled to. We also run the state’s long-term care ombudsmen program, advocacy for people in nursing homes. Our third component is advocating for adults and kids with mental illness.

And Worthy talks a little bit about what keeps her motivated in the face of funding cuts and other adversities.

I’ve thought about leaving Legal Aid, but the people I work with are some of the hardest working, most committed people I know. I get inspired by them. I get inspired by clients who have overcome incredible odds and, through our help, have been able to make a difference. 

Happy Seis de Mayo, dear readers!  This is the day when many Cinco de Mayo revelers reflect, remorsefully, on just how easy it is to drink margaritas on a nice Spring day.  Your PSLawNet Blog permitted himself no such indulgences, however, as he scrambled to produce this week’s News Bulletin after having spent the first half of the week hiking in the Grand Canyon and driving throughout rural California and Arizona, of which there is much.  But that’s not why you’re here.  Without further ado…

This week: Indiana University law students pitch in to help taxpayers in need; the head of the Pro Bono Institute argues for allowing in-house lawyers to more easily do pro bono; New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman wants to bolster the state’s indigent defense system; a new plan in LA courts to help low-income individuals facing evictions; the Press of Atlantic City worries about the Garden State’s legal services infrastructure; public interest contributions by Charlotte College of Law students; Alabama law students and lawyers rally to assist tornado victims; the importance of better salaries for Wisconsin prosecutors.

• 5.3.11 – April 15th–err, April 18th–meant a little bit more to some this year.  In Indiana, the IU Newsroom reports that there are some low-income, elderly, disabled, and limited-English speaking residents who are appreciative of the efforts of 29 students at Indiana University Maurer School of Law.  The students volunteered 230 hours of their time to aid in filing 63 tax returns.  The students participated in the VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) program, and thus were trained and certified by the IRS.  Participants estimated the refunds to be “many thousands of dollars.”

• 5.2.11 – In the National Law Journal this week, Esther Lardent contends that corporate lawyers should be allowed to provide pro bono services, unsupervised, in states where they work, even if not admitted there.   Many state rules allow in-house attorneys licensed in another jurisdiction to work for an employer-client, but do not allow those same attorneys to provide pro bono legal services.  Lardent argues that states that expressly  permit nonlocally admitted attorneys to undertake pro bono often handcuff them with restrictions that are “unnecessary, insulting and unjustifiable in the face of the crisis in access to justice.”   There are beacons of hope found in some states’ exceptions.   Recently, Colorado and Virginia changed rules for in-house pro bono work by removing problematic obstacles.  Perhaps other states will follow? Until then, we’ll need to keep thinking creatively to fill the widening gap between the legal needs of the low-income and disenfranchised and the assistance available.

• 5.2.11 – In New York, Judge Jonathan Lippman calls state’s routine failure to provide lawyers for poor criminal defendants being arraigned in local courts a problem that cannot be tolerated any longer. The New York Times reports about Judge Lippman’s speech at the State Court of Appeals, in which he cited that too many New Yorkers were needlessly spending nights in jail after appearing without legal counsel at criminal arraignments in small-town and village courthouses.  He vowed that the state would spend $10 million in an effort to improve the availability of legal defense provided to the poor. Acknowledging the ambitious timeline, Judge Lippman said that within a year he hoped to make it rare for criminal defendants to lack counsel at their first court appearances.  After all, we claim to be living in a modern, principled society governed by the rule of law.  Judge Lippman, a longtime favorite of the PSLawNet Blog for his advocacy on the civil legal aid front, seems to be concerned that such a society is actually realized.

• 5.2.11 – from the LA Times, we learn that a quartet of legal services providers is collaborating to bolster services to low-income persons facing evictions: “Thousands of residents in Los Angeles’ poorest neighborhoods will get new legal help in fighting high-stakes eviction cases involving slumlords and foreclosures under a pilot project approved by the state’s judicial leaders Friday.  The new Eviction Legal Assistance Center at Los Angeles County Superior Court’s downtown civil courthouse will provide legal representation to about 15,000 people facing eviction over three years, according to legal aid groups, which will be jointly running the center.”  The Inner City Law Center, Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA), Neighborhood Legal Services, and Public Counsel are joining forces to staff the new project.

• 5.2.11 – sobered by a recent report from Legal Services of New Jersey, the editorial board of the Press of Atlantic City (AC, by the way: great HBO show, great Springsteen song, lousy town) wonders whether slashing government funding for legal services may do more harm than good: “Even the most rabid of the budget-cutters, deficit hawks and don’t-dare-raise-my-taxes crowd must, at some point, think about what kind of nation we are creating” if budget cutting results in the poor being unable to meaningfully access the justice system.  The LSNJ report, released late last month, is indeed sobering.  And as the PofAC editorial notes, at a time of increased client need, LSNJ has been forced to downsize from 720 staff members to 490 in less than three years.  

• 5.2.11 – as we noted in a blog post earlier this week, the Charlotte Observer reports on pro bono and public interest work at the Charlotte College of Law: “Students must perform at least 20 hours of free legal work….  Since the for-profit school opened in 2006, students have performed 27,000 pro bono hours. Under supervision of lawyers, they’ve provided legal assistance to immigrants, the elderly, an entrepreneur program at Central Piedmont Community College and helped nearly 450 buyers of Beazer-built homes file claims from the company’s $50 million restitution fund.  With externships and internships, Charlotte Law students have donated 40,000 hours of legal service.

• 5.2.11 – the National Law Journal reports that advocates from all corners of Alabama’s legal community are coming together to offer pro bono services to victims of last week’s storms.  Those groups which have rolled up their sleeves include the Alabama State Bar, the Alabama Association for Justice, law firms, and the Univ. of Alabama School of Law.  Roll pro bono tide.  (Here’s a little more from the School of Law about a pro bono partnership they’ve forged with the state bar to aid tornado victims: “Disaster Relief Assistance Project will provide free legal services both on-site at local area aid centers and at the law clinic programs office at the University of Alabama School of Law…. Legal advice will be provided concerning public benefits and programs, insurance claims and processes, housing rights, and other civil matters related to the storm and the displacement that resulted from it.”)

• May, 2011 – Wisconsin State Bar president Jim Boll makes the case for adequately funding prosecutors’ offices and boosting prosecutor salaries so that the state can retain talented, experienced lawyers: “District attorneys (DAs) face significant challenges as their offices around the state continue to be inadequately staffed and underfunded…. A 2007 report issued by the Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau showed that prosecutor positions have been cut while prosecutors’ workload has continued to rise, forcing them to spend less time on each case or even to choose which offenses to prosecute…. Further exacerbating the problem is the lack of pay progression, which leads to high turnover and very few mid-level prosecutors…. Thus, DA offices are staffed by a small number of highly experienced attorneys and a large number of recently hired attorneys, with nearly no one in the middle…. The governor has taken a step in the right direction in his proposed biennial state budget by providing $1 million annually to increase retention of experienced assistant DAs in each year of the biennium. However, for the criminal justice system to function effectively the state must be willing to fund all the essential parts of the system.”

Karen Sloan of the National Law Journal wrote a piece earlier this week covering post-natural-disaster pro bono efforts in Alabama:

 Five days after a series of tornados ripped through Alabama and several other Southern states, legal organizations are stepping up to help the victims of the storms and their lawyer colleagues.

The Alabama State Bar has announced a number of initiatives it hopes to have up and running by mid-week, including a hotline that people can call for pro bono referrals and an online bulletin board where lawyers can ask for or offer assistance such as office furniture or temporary space.

The Alabama Association for Justice is already taking requests from affected residents for help filling out insurance claims and matching them with volunteer lawyers. Local bar associations throughout the state are also planning walk-in clinics and other assistance programs. The University of Alabama School of Law plans to open a clinic next week to help people fill out Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) paperwork and answer any legal questions.

Only a few U.S. law schools – like CharlotteLaw – require pro bono work. Often, current students enter law school with a history of service. They did it in high school and college, and they believe in public service.  This week, The Charlotte Observer featured CharlotteLaw’s pro bono program.

It is not a secret that across the country, lawyers for low-income people are in short supply, so pro bono opportunities like the ones CharlotteLaw provides for students are extremely timely.

A 2009 “justice gap” report by the federal Legal Services Corporation shows that 80 percent of low-income people who need legal help can’t get it.

That’s why the American Bar Association requires that all law schools provide some mechanism for pro bono work for students, said Sylvia Novinsky, assistant dean for public service at the UNC Chapel Hill Law School.

“It’s really also a great way to gain some practical skills.”

Pro bono at CharlotteLaw is one of three pillars in the school’s mission statement.  Serving the underserved is an oft-repeated ideal taken seriously at CharlotteLaw, the only law school in the state that requires students to complete pro bono work to graduate.

For five days over spring break, 16 CharlotteLaw students traveled to Biloxi, Miss., to help attorneys at the nonprofit Mississippi Center for Justice, still advocating for victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and last year’s BP oil spill.

The students, supervised by Lew and MCJ attorneys, worked on a study on fair housing, explored access to healthy and affordable food. They also worked with residents on the controversial closing of a historically black elementary school. And the BP oil spill.

This week: what started as law student project to aid Iraqi refugees has evolved into a shiny new nonprofit organization; LSC cuts impact the grantee up in Maine; Legal Services of New Jersey’s 2011 Civil Justice Gap report is out; Wisconsin’s governor seems to like legal services about as much as labor unions; a week in the life of a deputy district attorney; the loss of government grants could mean the loss of prosecutors in North Carolina; is the Supreme Court going too easy on misbehaving prosecutors?; a grand jury tells Riverside County officials that they’re messing up the county’s indigent defense system; Jacksonville Area Legal Aid gets a $625K HUD grant to help Floridians in foreclosure; the docket’s backed up at the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.

• 4.27.11 – the National Law Journal reports on the story of a true grassroots nonprofit organization, created by law students,  that aids Iraqis seeking refugee status: “What began in 2008 as an effort by Yale law students to help Iraqis seek refugee status has evolved into a nonprofit organization with student chapters at nine law schools and three more on the way.  The growth of the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Program reflects both the commitment of law students to pro bono work and the overwhelming need of thousands of displaced Iraqis to secure refugee status, said recent Yale law graduate and project executive director Becca Heller.  The project…appears to be the only organization in the United States devoted to assisting Iraqis seeking to resettle in other countries.”  The Program already has chapters at 8 law schools besides Yale, and more are on the way. 

• 4.27.11 – up in Stephen King Land, the Maine Public Broadcasting Network reports on the negative impact that Legal Services Corporation funding cuts will have on the state’s LSC grantee program, Pine Tree Legal Assistance.  (PTLA stands to lose only $64,000 directly, but of course those federal dollars help PTLA leverage additional funding dollars.  Also, with rising client demand, every dollar counts.)

• 4.26.11 – Legal Services of New Jersey has released its 2011 Civil Justice Gap report, documenting the severe impact that the Great Recession has had on low-income client communities, the need within those communities for legal assistance, and the resource limitations that LSNJ is trying to work through to meet clients’ demand for services.

• 4.25.11 – this is the umpteenth time we’ve covered it, but here’s yet another article – this one from the Green Bay Press Gazette – about Wisconsin governor’s Scott Walker’s proposal to eliminate funding for civil legal services.  Essentially, filing fee proceeds, part of which now go to support legal services, would be reallocated elsewhere.  This is an interesting turn of events, as the exact same funding scheme – filing fee revenues – has been proposed to help support cash-strapped legal services programs in states like Texas and Nevada (and on a related note, the Minnesota Supreme Court is using attorney licensing fees to boost legal services funding).  And back in Wisconsin, the editorial board of hte Appleton Post Crescent ain’t happy with the funding cut proposal.

• 4.25.11 – want to learn a little more about a week in the life of a deputy prosecutor?  The Register-Guard of Eugene, Oregon follows Chris Parosa, a deputy district attorney in Lane County, for a few days to get a sense not only of what goes into his more public functions – like courtroom work – but the array of responsibilities that prosecutors have behind the scenes: making decisions on whether to charge arrestees, and sometimes explaining to crime victims that he can’t prove guilt in court.

• 4.25.11 – in North Carolina, the Post and Courier reports about the impact that government grant cutbacks can have on local prosecutors: “The Berkeley County solicitor’s office could lose two prosecutors within the next couple of months, unless the county comes up with an extra $143,651.  The Moncks Corner office is losing grants that are supporting two of its seven assistant solicitors. A Department of Justice grant for general prosecution expires at the end of this month. A state Department of Public Safety grant to prosecute criminal domestic violence cases expires at the end of June.  It’s another example of those state and federal budget cuts that leave local municipalities scrambling to make up.”

• 4.25.11 – in a National Law Journal op-ed Erwin Chemerinsky, a Supreme Court advocate and current dean of UC Irvine’s new law school, lays into the Supreme Court about a failure to adequately address prosecutorial misconduct cases: “The U.S. Supreme Court is oblivious to a serious problem in the American legal system: prosecutorial misconduct. Study after study has demonstrated serious prosecutorial misconduct at both the federal and state levels… Twice in the past three years the Court has considered lawsuits by innocent individuals who were convicted and spent years in prison because of prosecutorial misconduct. In both instances, the Court held that the victims could not recover. Together, these cases send a disturbing message that the Court is shielding prosecutors from liability. The result is no compensation for wronged individuals and a lack of adequate deterrence of prosecutorial misconduct.”  (Irrelevant Fun Fact: Chemerinsky taught the PSLawNet Blog’s BarBri constitutional law course.  “Big A, little 2, sub b…”.)

• 4.24.11 – in California, the Press-Enterprise reports on controversy surrounding the indigent defense system in Riverside County: “Riverside County supervisors failed to follow their own policies when awarding a new criminal defense contract earlier this year, a newly released grand jury report concludes. The report, made public this month and set to go before supervisors Tuesday, asserts the board’s action circumvented the recommendations of three Northern California public defenders brought on to evaluate competing bids. As a result, the grand jury is recommending that supervisors construct a bidding process that ensures transparency on future criminal defense contracts.”

• 4.22.11 – the Florida Times-Union reports on over a half-million dollars in HUD grant money going to a Florida legal services provider: “A $625,000 federal grant will help Jacksonville Area Legal Aid give legal assistance to people victimized by businesses promising foreclosure rescue services and debt relief aid.”

• 4.22.11 – the Washington Post reports on the swelling case backlog at the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, which hears appeals from vets who are denied benefits by the Veterans Administration: “The caseload at the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims has doubled in recent years, with the court deciding more than 600 cases per judge each year — far more than other federal appellate courts. Judges are working nights and weekends but say they still have difficulty keeping pace.”