Citizens United has re-ignited debate about the rights and responsibilities of corporate entities.  Well, it seems as though a line’s been drawn.  Corporations can spend all the campaign cash they want, but even that kind of clout isn’t gonna get them into the carpool lane.   From the San Francisco Chronicle:

It is the rare motorist, however, who hopes his explanation will overturn more than 100 years of Supreme Court rulings and challenge the legal notion of corporate personhood.

Jonathan Frieman, a 56-year-old San Rafael resident and self-described social entrepreneur, failed to convince a Marin County Superior Court jurist Monday after he argued that he was not alone when a California Highway Patrol officer pulled him over in October while driving in the carpool lane.

Instead, Frieman admitted that he had reached onto the passenger’s seat and handed the officer papers of incorporation connected to his family’s charity foundation.

By Frieman’s estimation, if corporations are indeed persons as was first established in the 1886 Supreme Court case Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad Co., and he offered evidence that a corporation was traveling inside his vehicle – riding shotgun, of course – then two people were in his car.

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, folks.  Your author’s a bit under the weather, so you’re spared from my typical ruminations and editorializing.  Here’s what we’ve got on the public interest and access-to-justice fronts (it being a good week for Maryland-based AtJ enthusiasts):

• $6.2 million to Old Line State legal aid providers for housing work;
• 20 Biglaw attorneys to work as special assistant DAs in suburban Philly county;
• the NLJ’s Pro Bono Hot List, hot off the presses;
• a Maryland Access to Justice Commission report on legal aid’s economic impact;
• Michigan Law’s new entrepreneurship clinic.

The summaries:

• 1.10.12 – “Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler and officials from the Department of Housing and Community Development on Thursday awarded $6.2 million from the national mortgage settlement to nine legal aid groups in order to expand the availability of low-cost and pro bono legal services to Maryland homeowners facing foreclosure.  Here’s how the funds are being distributed: Maryland Legal Aid, $3.6 million; Civil Justice Inc., $1.4 million; Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service, $930,000; St. Ambrose Housing Aid Center, $600,000; Pro Bono Resource Center of Maryland, $565,000; Public Justice Center, $510,000; Community Legal Services of Prince George’s County, $850,000; Mid-Shore Pro Bono Inc., $342,000; and Allegany Law Foundation Inc., $200,000.”  (Full piece in the Baltimore Sun.)

• 1.7.12 –  “The [suburban Philadelphia] Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office is gaining a bit of free human capital, thanks to a relatively new partnership with an international, Philadelphia-based law firm. Twenty lawyers from the firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius are joining the DA’s office for some experience as special assistant district attorneys.”  (Story from the Times Herald.)

• 1.7.13 – the National Law Journal released its 2013 Pro Bono Hot List: “There’s an unfamiliar face in the crowd this year — the crowd being the 10 legal organizations we selected for The National Law Journal‘s Pro Bono Hot List. For the first time, we’ve included a corporate legal department — that of International Business Machines Corp. We did so in recognition of IBM’s work on behalf of people whose homes were damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Sandy, but also to highlight increasing corporate commitment to pro bono projects.”  

• 1.7.12 – “Maryland civil legal service programs not only benefit the poor but also save the state millions per year. Legal assistance to low-income Marylanders is a significant economic boost to the state and benefits more than just those receiving aid, according to a report just released by the Maryland Judiciary’s Access to Justice Commission…. In 2012, Maryland legal service programs preserved or found housing for almost 1,000 individuals and helped obtain 2,825 civil protective orders for clients. But the economic impact of legal services for the poor went far beyond the families helped, creating $190 million in total economic impact, including $12.6 million in economic stimulus to the state, $3.7 million in state expenditures saved, and $882,096 in tax revenue.”  (Here’s the full op-ed in the Baltimore Sun.  And here’s the AtJ Commission’s report.)  

• 1.6.12 – a profile of Michigan Law’s new entrepreneurship clinic: “In addition to helping student entrepreneurs, the program and clinic benefit law students who hope to one day work in the startup sector.  ‘For the law school students, the clinic consists of two parts, a classroom component and then actually representing their clients,’ clinic director Dana Thompson said. ‘… Most of law school is about taking classes and learning about the theory of corporations or torts or contracts. Then they come to us so we can put everything together and they can actually work with a startup.’  The clinic utilizes the ‘student practice’ rule, which allows law students to represent clients as long as a licensed attorney supervises them. Thompson said she…received more than 100 applications for 16 spots in the clinic’s first semester in the spring of 2012.”

• Super Music Bonus!  How about some Neko Case?  This is the beautiful “Bought and Sold.” 

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, ladies and gents.  And Happy 2013.  The Bulletin returns after a one-week holiday hiatus.  You are all undoubtedly looking for an authoritative source to tell you which pop culture trends to follow in 2013, and which to leave behind with 2012.  I am not that source.  (I recently had to spend 10 minutes convincing someone that my suggestion to “watch a DVD” was made in earnest.)  However, the Washington Post’s “The List: 2013” provides zeitgeist guidance in convenient “What’s Out?/What’s In?” format.  Tofu is out, in favor of insects.  That’s all well and good but I still classify both as “things that are not food.” 

Before the public interest news, a heads-up for law students that we’re hosting a public interest summer job search webinar series with our good friends at Equal Justice Works.  Dates: 1/15 and 1/22.  Registration info and all other details here.

Also, here’s a “fiscal cliff” dispatch focusing on two angles that may interest this blog’s readership:

• the potential impact on charitable contributions to nonprofits, courtesy of the Chronicle of Philanthropy: “Throughout December nonprofits [had] been lobbying Congress and President Obama not to impose limits on the tax savings wealthy donors get when they make charitable contributions.  The Senate-crafted plan enacts limits that charities have opposed. It reinstates a provision eliminated in 2010 that reduces the value of itemized deductions by 3 percent for household incomes over $300,000. Write-offs grow more limited the more taxable income a person has, and could reduce the value of deductions by up to 80 percent for the highest-income taxpayers, according to the Tax Policy Center.”
• the potential impact on the federal government labor force, courtesy of Government Executive.

On to the week’s public interest and access-to-justice news.  In very, very brief:

• the ongoing dispute over public defender caseload strains in Missouri;
• Oklahoma AG and legal aid collaborate on program to help low-income homeowners facing foreclosure;
• teaching law students about technology’s role in bridging the justice gap;
• Cash-strapped CA courts could see more cuts, closures;
• a CA county’s public defender sued for not providing counsel at defendants’ initial court appearances;
• ideas for how state-level access-to-justice networks should develop;
• law school clinic news potpourri;
• U.S. farmworker advocates take their pleas for farm access to the U.N.;
• no legislative action last year on Michigan indigent defense system reforms;
• a shift in post-Hurricane Sandy pro bono efforts;
• IOLTA funds to lose unlimited FDIC insurance backing(?).
• Music!

The summaries:

• 1.4.12 – this lengthy piece in The Missourian brings readers up to speed on the caseload controversy surrounding the Missouri Public Defender System.  In 2012 the rhetoric between prosecutors, judges, and those speaking for the defender system was at times quite heated. And there is still much disagreement on how strained the indigent defense system is.
  • And on a related note: “The chair of Missouri’s House Judiciary Committee is proposing reductions in the state’s public defender system.  Republican State Representative Stanley Cox of Sedalia says public defenders would still handle the most serious cases for indigent defendants, but the more minor cases would be bid out to private attorneys.”  (Story from St. Louis Public Radio.) 

• 1.2.13 – “The Attorney General’s Office and Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma are providing free legal help to homeowners who are facing mortgage issues or foreclosure.  The program – Resolution Oklahoma – is designed to help Oklahoma residents stay in their homes or seek the best outcome for their situations. The program is provided by a grant from the Attorney General’s Oklahoma Mortgage Settlement Fund.  The fund was created in March, following a settlement by the AG’s Office with five of the nation’s largest mortgage servicers.”  (Story from LoanSafe.org.)

• 1.2.13 – from a press release: “The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI®) will announce at the annual meeting of the American Association of Law Schools in New Orleans on January 6, 2013 that they have reached agreements with faculty members from six law schools to develop course kits as part of the Access to Justice Clinical Course Project (A2J Clinic Project). Participating law schools include Columbia Law School, Concordia University School of Law, CUNY School of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, UNC School of Law, and University of Miami School of Law. Each participating faculty member will develop and document a course model that uses A2J Author® to teach law students how technology tools can be used to lower barriers to justice for low-income, self-represented litigants. CALI will use those course models to assist other law schools in establishing A2J Clinical Courses as a permanent part of their law school curriculum.”

• January 2013 – “California’s judicial branch and its allies in the legal community are starting off the New Year under a cloud of uncertainty over further budget cuts…. Courts have been decimated by four years of cuts that have reduced the judicial branch budget by about 30 percent, or $475 million. In addition, the governor revealed to court leaders last month that he’s considering sweeping out local trial court reserves one year earlier than expected, which court leaders say would translate into an additional $200 million cut…. Many counties have already eliminated all non-mandatory spending, shuttered courthouses and reduced services. Litigants in remote reaches of San Bernardino County, for example, will have to travel 175 miles to the nearest courthouse starting in May. Los Angeles County Superior Court is considering a major restructuring that would close 10 courthouses and consolidate all personal injury cases to two judges”  (Story from the California Bar Journal.)

• 12.31.12 – “Contra Costa County’s long-standing practice of assigning defense attorneys to indigent criminal defendants after — and not at — their initial court appearance has resulted in a federal class action lawsuit against Public Defender Robin Lipetzky. Point Richmond attorney Christopher Martin, one of two attorneys who filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Oakland on Dec. 21, says the illegal practice could cost the county a minimum of $4,000 for each defendant whose civil rights were violated…. The lawsuit alleges that indigent, in-custody defendants are left in County Jail without an attorney for five to 13 days after their first court appearance, in violation of the right to assistance of counsel from the time one first faces a judge.”  (Full story from the Contra Costa Times.)

• 12.30.12 – Richard Zorza blogs on the priorities which should govern development of state-level access-to-justice infrastructures, and offers recommendations about promoting AtJ’s evolution in the states.

• 12.28.12 – law school clinic news potpourri:
  • 12.28.12 – “When students at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law return from winter break, those enrolled in clinics will enjoy new digs in a refurbished former city firehouse.  The law school in December opened the 6,000-square-foot space, which will now house its 10 legal clinics, just steps away from its main building.”  (Story from the National Law Journal.)
  • 12.27.12 – Stanford Law starting a religious liberties clinic, which “administrators say is the first of its kind at a U.S. School. The clinic was established with $1.6 million in seed funding from the Washington-based Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which supports the free expression of religious beliefs regardless of the faith. Unlike many public interest law groups that support religious freedom, Stanford’s clinic will take on clients from any religion, said director James Sonne.  ‘The point of a clinic is to teach professional skills to law students using real cases and live clients,’ said Sonne. ‘We think the religious liberty aspect offers a unique way to do this work, and it’s something the students get excited about. As our culture becomes more diverse, it’s a great way for students to represent clients whose beliefs are different from their own.’  (Story from the National Law Journal.)
  • 12.21.12 – “The University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law has received a $1 million gift that will permanently endow a student-run clinic that provides legal advice to the poor.  The donation from Sue Ellen Ackerson of Louisville and her family was made to honor her late husband, Robert Ackerson, who founded the Ackerson and Yann law firm. The clinic will be renamed The Robert and Sue Ellen Ackerson Law Clinic.”  (Story from the Associated Press.)

• 12.27.12 – Voice of America reports on a group of U.S. farmworker rights advocates that has gone to the United Nations on the issue of being able to get access to workers on farm property. “[A]  coalition of 28 rights groups, including Maryland Legal Aid, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the labor union AFL-CIO, submitted a complaint to the United Nations on December 13. The coalition argued that the lack of meaningful access to migrant labor camps ‘stymies’ farmworkers’ access to justice and, as a result, ‘violates international human rights law.’  It has called on the U.N. Envoy for Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, Magdalena Sepúlveda, to pressure the U.S. government to allow aid workers better access to migrant farm camps.”

• 12.24.12 – “A proposed overhaul to Michigan’s public defense system will have to wait until next year for action by the state Legislature.  State lawmakers passed a flurry of bills in their “lame duck” session. But there were a number of high-profile bills that didn’t move at all.  One of those would change the way the state appoints lawyers to people who can’t afford one.  Michigan’s public defense system is considered one of the worst in the country….  Critics of the [reform] plan say it would burden cash-strapped county governments, and doesn’t lay out specific standards they would have to meet.”  (Story from Michigan Public Radio.) 

• 12.24.12 – “Eight weeks after Hurricane Sandy, New York lawyers who have been assisting storm victims pro bono say they are in the effort for the long haul.  However, their focus is shifting from the most pressing legal needs in the immediate aftermath of the storm to grinding long-term problems.  At first, the lawyers concentrated on securing temporary housing, food stamps and unemployment benefits for storm victims, and later, documenting damages for homeowner and flood insurance and Federal Emergency Management Agency claims.  Now, people are increasingly experiencing difficulties with FEMA officials, landlords, insurance companies and contractors.”  (Full story from the New York Law Journal.)

• 12.20.12 – “Lawyer IOLTA accounts that help fund civil legal aid and other legal programs are likely to lose their unlimited federal insurance coverage on Jan. 1.  The ABA Governmental Affairs Office says it appears unlikely that lawmakers will act this year to extend the unlimited coverage provided by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., according to an ABA statement.  If Congress does not act, the amount of FDIC insurance available will be $250,000 per client, per financial institution, as long as the account is properly designated as a trust account and there is a proper accounting of each client’s funds.”  (Article in the ABA Journal.)
  • [update from Steve: an IOLTA administrator contacted me to offer some context about this, which I should have thought to include.  To closely paraphrase said administrator: Congress chose not to extend the FDIC’s temporary program that had provided unlimited insurance to certain checking accounts, including IOLTA accounts.  IOLTA accounts remain in the same position as this group of checking accounts — and the insurance picture looks pretty much the same as it did up until the 2008 emergency action that created a temporary unlimited insurance program. The biggest change from the pre-2008 picture?  The insurance cap remains at $250,000 per depositor instead of the pre-2008 cap of $100,000.  There are important details to this, of course, but none that end up treating IOLTA accounts unfavorably.  Here’s the link to the FDIC’s explanation of the change: http://www.fdic.gov/deposit/deposits/changes.html.]

 Music!  In 2006, The Long Winters of Seattle, WA released a pop gem with the album Putting the Days to Bed.   Here’s “Fire Island, AK.”

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, ladies and gents.  Depending on whom you speak to, it’s the beginning of winter or the end of the world.  I’m hoping for the former.  I’m one of the weirdos who loves our coldest season.  With that said, I’ve realized that embracing the Mayan doomsday scenario has considerably eased the guilt I feel in consuming the holiday junk food that seems to follow me everywhere I go.  So I’ve been an end-of-the-worlder for purposes of cookies.  Though I suspect there will soon be a reckoning.

Cookies aside, I wish you all a joy-filled, relaxing holiday season.  Travel safely if you are on the move, and enjoy time with family and friends.

We’re light on access-to-justice news this week.  In very, very short:

• salary differences between an Ohio county’s prosecutors & public defenders;
• improvements in Sin City’s indigent defense program;
• a call for pro bono as a requirement for a bar license;
• the continuing saga of Missouri’s indigent defense program;
• $1 million supplemental approp. to LSC for Sandy relief work?.  

This week:

• 12.20.12 – “Sitting on opposite sides of a courtroom, employees of the Clinton County [Ohio] Public Defender’s office and the Clinton County Prosecutor’s office often square-off judicially. Some of the attorneys, all employed by the same county, have much in common — knowledge of local cases, law degrees, years practicing — but in other ways, such as their salaries, they are treated very differently. ‘It’s almost universal across the state in terms of salary and resources available,’ said Tim Young, director at the office of the Ohio Public Defender. ‘Public defenders regularly make 10 to 30 percent less [than prosecutors] when they have the same amount of time in practice of law, and essentially the same work on opposite sides of the room’.”  (Story from the News Journal.)

• 12.20.12 – an op-ed looks at recent improvements in the Clark County (i.e. Las Vegas area) NV public defense program, particularly its juvenile defense unit, which was once seen as emblematic of a failed indigent defense system.  (Piece in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.)

• 12.17.12 –  UC Irvine Law dean Erwin Chemerinsky wants pro bono as a precondition for attorney licensing: “New York’s new requirement for pro bono work as a condition for admission to the bar should be a model for other states to copy. Last May, Jonathan Lippman, chief judge of New York, announced this proposal. On September 12, the New York Court of Appeals adopted a requirement that, effective January 1, 2015, admission to the New York bar will require an applicant having completed 50 hours of pro bono service. This is to be applauded: Pro bono work helps to meet the enormous unmet demand for legal services, provides law students valuable legal training and hopefully instills a lifelong habit of public service.  At a recent meeting, an American Bar Association committee considering possible changes to accreditation standards seemed unreceptive to the idea of requiring all law schools to insist on 50 hours of pro bono work from their students. But that won’t matter if states follow New York’s lead and require pro bono work as a condition for admission to the bar.” (Full piece in the National Law Journal.  For some more background on the recent, unsuccessful push to have the ABA’s law school accreditation body include a pro bono requirement in accreditation standards, feast your eyes on this here hyperlink.)

• 12.14.12 – the latest in the ongoing controversy surrounding Missouri’s indigent defense system: “State lawyers have joined forces with private attorneys in the dispute over being involuntarily assigned criminal cases to lessen the burden on Missouri’s overworked public defenders.  Attorney General Chris Koster is asking judges in Boone and Callaway counties to waive several court orders appointing state workers as pro bono lawyers for criminal defendants facing jail time and unable to afford their own legal counsel. Koster’s office is representing at least six state employees opposed to the move, court records show.  The Associated Press obtained the public court filings from attorneys concerned about the practice.  (See the full AP story here.)

• 12.19.12 – “This week, the Senate is considering a $60.4 million emergency disaster supplemental funding bill to assist victims of Hurricane Sandy in the recovery efforts. The bill includes $1 million for [the Legal Services Corporation], to support LSC grantees in the areas significantly affected by Hurricane Sandy for storm-related services. The funding for LSC matches the request submitted by the White House on December 7.  This is the first time since 1993 that a supplemental appropriations bill has included funding for LSC after a disaster. If passed, the supplemental funding would be used to give programs the necessary mobile resources, technology, and disaster coordinators to provide storm-related services to eligible clients.  LSC-funded programs in the areas most severely affected by Hurricane Sandy reported significant office damage and prolonged power outages. They are struggling to provide legal assistance to thousands of storm victims.  Supplemental disaster funding will help LSC’s grantees provide essential legal aid to low-income individuals and families.”  (News from LSC.)

Music!  Since winter is upon us, let’s go north to listen to my favorite Nova Scotian rock band.  This is Sloan with “Losing California.” 

By: Steve Grumm

As has been well documented, New York State is rolling out a requirement that candidates for admission to the bar complete 50 hours of pro bono work.  (On a related note, supporters of increased law school pro bono tried, without success, to persuade the ABA to build a pro bono requirement into the law school accreditation standards.  Here’s some background on that effort, and here’s the coverage of the ABA’s reaction.)  Now, UC Irvine Law dean Erwin Chemerinsky is making the case for states to join New York in requiring pro bono for bar admission.  Chemerinsky writes in the National Law Journal:

New York’s new requirement for pro bono work as a condition for admission to the bar should be a model for other states to copy. Last May, Jonathan Lippman, chief judge of New York, announced this proposal. On September 12, the New York Court of Appeals adopted a requirement that, effective January 1, 2015, admission to the New York bar will require an applicant having completed 50 hours of pro bono service. This is to be applauded: Pro bono work helps to meet the enormous unmet demand for legal services, provides law students valuable legal training and hopefully instills a lifelong habit of public service.

At a recent meeting, an American Bar Association committee considering possible changes to accreditation standards seemed unreceptive to the idea of requiring all law schools to insist on 50 hours of pro bono work from their students. But that won’t matter if states follow New York’s lead and require pro bono work as a condition for admission to the bar.

Read the full piece for Dean Chemerinsky’s exploration of the pros and cons.  We’d love to hear what our readers, particularly law students, think about the ideas of building pro bono requirements into either, of both, law school curricula or bar admission standards.

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, folks.  It’s a beautiful, quiet December morning here in DC.  But it won’t be quiet for long.  It troubles me that the beginning of the holiday season is consumed with so much hustle and bustle.  There are gifts to buy and cards to sign.  There are end-of-year deadlines to meet.  Our law student readers have finals to take.  Our national policymakers have a fiscal cliff towards which to hurtle.  And so on.   The storms before the calm, I suppose.  In any case I’m delighted when a few quiet minutes turn up.  I hope you find some as well.

Before turning to the week’s access-to-justice and public interest news, three other items that have caught my attention this week:

• Fiscal cliff dispatch: “The White House and the nation’s most prominent charities are embroiled in a tense behind-the-scenes debate over President Obama’s push to scale back the nearly century-old tax deduction on donations that the charities say is crucial for their financial health.”  (Full article from the Washington Post.)

• Homeless vets: “The number of homeless veterans in the United States counted on a single night this year declined 7.2 percent from the previous year, a reduction significantly higher than that seen in the general population, according to figures released Monday.  Overall, the number of homeless people in the country declined only slightly, to 633,782 counted on a single night in January, about 0.4 percent lower than the previous year. The figures included a 1.4 percent increase in homeless people who are part of households that have at least one adult and one child…. The decline in veterans’ homelessness, from 67,495 in January 2011 to 62,619 in January 2012, followed a 12 percent reduction between 2010 and 2011.”  (Full story from the Washington Post.)

• 12.11.12 – big news on the legal education front: “The Arizona Supreme Court gave the green light December 10 to an experimental proposal allowing third-year law students to take the bar exam before they graduate, a move law school officials hope will give students a leg up in the job market.  Under the revised rule, 3Ls who meet eligibility requirements can take the bar exam offered in February, several months before graduation. The proposal was approved as a temporary pilot project from January 2013 until the end of December 2015. Law school officials and other stakeholders will have to file a report with the court by November 1, 2015.”  (Story from the National Law Journal.) 

Okay, this week’s access-to-justice news in very, very brief:

• volunteer lawyers roll in to help Sandy victims;
• report on legal aid’s impact on the Ohio economy;
• 2013 Equal Justice Conference registration open;
• class action on (in)adequacy of NY State’s public defense system marches on;
• CFPB chasing down alleged foreclosure legal aid scammer;
• law school clinics supporting social entrepreneurs;
• technology’s expanding role in communicating with legal aid clients;
• Super Music Bonus, Rod Stewart Edition! 

The summaries: 

• 12.12.12 – in Hurricane Sandy’s wake, legal aid and volunteer lawyers have literally rolled in to assist clients in crisis.  Pro bono lawyers have been instrumental in assisting clients with public benefits and housing problems among others.  This piece in the New York World, focusing on the response of legal aid and volunteer lawyers, notes some good timing in the Legal Aid Society’s acquisition of new wheels: “Legal Aid’s ongoing presence in Coney Island, and in the Rockaways before that, was made possible by the organization’s new Mobile Justice Unit, purchased earlier this year with the help of a grant from the Robin Hood Foundation.”

• 12.12.12 – “Legal assistance to low-income Ohioans is a significant economic driver and impacts more than just the individuals receiving aid, according to a report released Tuesday by the Ohio Legal Assistance Foundation.  Ohio legal aid in 2010, the most recent year studied, saved almost 1,000 homes from foreclosure and helped obtain nearly 1,000 civil protective orders.  But the economic impact of these services goes far beyond those families helped, creating $106 million in total economic impact, including $5.6 million in state, county and municipal tax revenue.”  (Story from the Dayton Business Journal.  And here’s the OLAF report.)
  • also in Ohio, the Marion Star looks at the fiscal crunch pressing against the Legal Aid Society of Columbus’s Marion office.  Two of the office’s four attorneys are set to retire soon, and there is not presently funding to replace them. 

• 12.12.12. – registration for the 2013 Equal Justice Conference is open.  The EJC, which brings together a wide array of access-to-justice stakeholders, will take place in St. Louis from May 9-11.  (Pre-conference events, including the law school pro bono pre-conference, take place on May8.)  And don’t worry!  I already checked, and the Cardinals are hosting the Rockies of Colorado on May 10-12.

• 12.11.12 – “A settlement conference in a class-action lawsuit brought by civil rights attorneys, which seeks to remedy what they say is the state’s “persistent failure” to provide meaningful counsel to the poor, ended Tuesday with no settlement….  The suit was filed five years ago in the name of Kimberly Hurrell-Harring and 19 others charged with crimes in Onondaga, Ontario, Schuyler, Suffolk and Washington counties.  Each plaintiff was left to navigate the criminal justice system without adequate counsel, some spending months unnecessarily behind bars. But the “types of harm suffered” by these defendants are “by no means limited or unique” to those counties, the suit claims.  A 2006 report from The New York State Commission on the Future of Indigent Defense Services called the public-defender situation an “ongoing crisis” and concluded “nothing short of major, far-reaching reform” can bring the state into constitutional compliance. It recommended a state takeover to properly fund counsel for the poor and enforce standards.”  The plaintiffs favor a state takeover, as well.  (Full article in the Albany Times Union.)

• 12.11.12 – “For the second time, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has gone after a legal services provider for allegedly offering bogus mortgage relief assistance to struggling homeowners.  The CFPB announced today that a California federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order shutting down the National Legal Help Center, which allegedly offered legal representation to consumers ‘even though the individual defendants are not attorneys and consumers received no actual legal representation,’ according to the CFPB…. In July, the CFPB filed a similar complaint against the Gordon Law Firm also in California’s Central District and won a temporary restraining order the following day. On November 16, the court entered a preliminary injunction order halting the defendants’ allegedly unlawful conduct and freezing their assets while the case proceeds.”  (Full post from the Blog of the Legal Times.)

• 12.7.12 – an interesting look at the increasing work that law school clinical programs do to support social entrepreneurs.  “Legal systems are just one of many such complex systems that social entrepreneurs must navigate in order to be successful, but increasingly, they do not have to do it alone. Law schools are joining the ‘collective impact movement by using their legal clinics to provide social entrepreneurs with much-needed legal support from some of America’s brightest law students. Collective impact is a powerful new concept: the idea that all actors that have a stake in a problem should work together to solve that problem.”  (Story from Forbes.com.) 

• 12.7.12 –  “Like everyone else, lawyers for the poor are trying to do more with less, as government grants and private funding have dried up.  Increasingly, that means turning to tech, using new tools to deliver information to clients, support volunteer lawyers, and improve their own systems. They’re using text messaging, automated call-backs, Web chats, and computer-assisted mapping.  A crush of new clients is pushing the growing reliance on technology, as the old systems just can’t keep up. For years, people seeking help have called their local legal services offices, only to wait on hold for 20 minutes or more. If someone has a pay-by-the-minute cellphone, as many low-income people do, that gets expensive fast…. Text messages can also improve efficiency. If courts sent SMS reminders to litigants, that would help move along cases that get postponed over and over when one party doesn’t show up, says Glenn Rawdon. Rawdon runs the technology grants program at the Legal Services Corp., the federal program that funds legal aid groups. A text could also help people remember to bring documents to meetings with their overworked lawyers.”  (Full story on Slate.com.)  

• Music!  It’s the holiday season, so our thoughts turn naturally to Rod Stewart.  (It was a lot of fun to write that sentence.)  Well, even if that’s not where our thoughts are, I’ve lately been in the mood for Faces.  Faces was a rollicking 1960s British rock band whose members included Stewart – a very different version than the one we see today – and Ronnie Wood, who later joined the Rolling Stones.  They were known for terrific music, chaotic live shows, and booze.  Perhaps in that order.  Faces have a terrific back catalog, and I suppose they’re most popularly recognized song is “Ooh La La”, which a lot of people think of as the “I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger” song.  Enjoy “Ooh La La.”      

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, folks.  This week’s bulletin comes to you from Chicago, where I’m attending the National Legal Aid & Defender Association’s annual conference.  Before the public interest and access to justice news, here are two interesting legal-education developments:

• 12.4.12 – another law school creates a hang-your-shingle incubator – Shincubator? Well, perhaps not – for recent grads: “The Cleveland-Marshall College of Law is the latest to announce plans for a solo incubator. The school will spend approximately $1.2 million to create a suite of offices in its library for rental at low prices to recent graduates launching their own practices.  Solo incubators are widely seen as a way for schools to help graduates establish practices at a time when law firm hiring has slowed. Around 10 such programs have been created at schools including the City University of New York School of Law; Thomas Jefferson School of Law; Chicago-Kent College of Law; the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law; the University of Maryland School of Law; and Pace Law School.”  (Full story from the National Law Journal.)
• 12.3.12 – news of a “proposal backed by all three Arizona law schools to allow 3Ls to sit for the bar during the February before they graduate, rather than making them wait until after graduation. The Arizona Supreme Court is slated to consider the proposal on December 5. If the court approves, Arizona would be the only state that allows students to take the bar exam midway through their final school year.”  (Full story from the National Law Journal.)

The week in public interest and access-to-justice – short version:

• pushing for higher prosecutor and defender salaries in FL;
• pro bono can pay;
• Legal Services of Eastern Missouri wrestles with high caseloads;
• King County (Seattle) public defense controversy;
• the long-running Missouri public defense controversy continues;
• a report from NY’s access-to-justice task force;
• the importance of legal aid for tenants facing eviction;
• how do Presidential Management Fellows feel about the PMF program?;
• a labor-law win for a law school clinic;
• NLADA launches new legal aid research site;
• Chicago Music Bonus!

The summaries:

• 12.7.12 – “Representatives of state attorneys and public defenders began making a renewed case Thursday for increasing salaries, saying low pay causes many attorneys to leave for private law firms after only a few years. Bill Eddins, state attorney for the 1st Judicial Circuit of Florida (which includes Escambia and Santa Rosa counties) and  president of the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association, told a Senate panel that high turnover is reducing the number of experienced prosecutors.”  (Story from NorthEscambia.com.  And here’s more from the Florida Times-Union.)

• 12.6.12 – a Purpose Prize for the retired lawyer who did pro bono foreclosure defense work and sniffed out the “robo-signing” practice (which led to tens of millions of funding dollars for the legal services community): “[In] April 2008, Cox joined Pine Tree Legal Assistance and began representing consumers fighting foreclosures. In 2009, while representing Nicolle Bradbury, Cox discovered that a GMAC Mortgage official was signing thousands of foreclosure affidavits in 23 states, though he had not verified their accuracy. Cox won the case but the impact was more widespread. His findings helped spur 49 of 50 state attorneys general to sue the five biggest mortgage servicers for fraudulent foreclosure practices, leading to a $25 billion settlement.”  (Story from the ABA Journal.)

• 12.5.12 – from the Missourian: “Legal Services of Eastern Missouri (LSEM) has experienced budget cuts, followed by the loss of grant funding, yet continues to assist an increasing number of clients.”

• 12.5.12 – “The leaders of King County’s four public defense agencies today sent a letter to Metropolitan King County Council President Larry Gossett and Councilmember Kathy Lambert, who heads the council’s Law, Justice, Health and Human Services Committee, to voice opposition to a county plan that would dissolve the independent agencies and make public defenders county employees.  Last week, David Chapman, who heads the King County Office of Public Defense, announced that nearly 400 employees of the four agencies — The Defender Association, Society of Counsel Representing Accused Persons, Associated Counsel for the Accused and Northwest Defenders Association — could potentially become King County employees by July 1. Chapman’s office assigns cases to the four firms, dividing the nearly $40 million per year the county spends on public defense.  The proposal for the county to hire the public defenders stems from a lawsuit filed in 2006 against the county by Kevin Dolan, a public defender at the Associated Council for the Accused. Dolan said he filed the lawsuit on behalf of employees of the four defender groups who sought enrollment in the county’s retirement system. Since the 1960s, King County has contracted public defense services from the non-profit firms.”  (Full blog post from the Seattle Times.)

• 12.4.12 – from the News-Tribune: “The Missouri public defender system says it is easing off its caseload limits that have led to disagreements over whether they have the time and resources to represent some criminal defendants.  Public defender director Cat Kelly said Tuesday she has instructed local public defender offices to treat the caseload limits with more flexibility. The move has the approval of the Public Defender Commission.”   The Fulton Sun reports that “Missouri public defenders have decided to resume taking indigent cases after Missouri prosecutors last Wednesday threatened to sue the Missouri Public Defender System…. Cathy R. Kelly, director of the Office of State Public Defender, said the decision to resume taking indigent cases came before the lawsuit was threatened by prosecutors last Wednesday.”

• 12.3.12 – “Calling the unmet need for civil legal services among indigent New Yorkers a “continuing crisis,” a new report says increased state funding and greater collaboration is needed between law schools, legal aid providers and law firms.  At best, 20 percent of the demand for civil legal services is being met, leaving more than 2.3 million New Yorkers without representation each year, according to the report, released Friday by the Task Force to Expand Access to Civil Legal Services.”  (Full article from Thomson Reuters.  And here’s the task force’s report.)

• 11.30.12 – an op-ed on the importance of  tenants in eviction court having access to legal services: “Millions of Americans face eviction every year. But legal aid to the poor, steadily starved since the Reagan years, has been decimated during the recession. The result? In many housing courts around the country, 90 percent of landlords are represented by attorneys and 90 percent of tenants are not. This imbalance of power is as unfair as the solution is clear.”  (Full piece in the New York Times.)

• 11.30.12 – Presidential Management Fellows are happy with their first days on the job but believe agency supervisors and program coordinators could provide better guidance and mentoring, according to a new study.  Overall job satisfaction among the class of 2011 fellows who participated in a study conducted by the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service scored 72.7 points out of 100 points. The study, which included the views of 274 new fellows gathered from November 2011 to December 2011, found that PMFs like and respect their bosses, have realistic expectations of the program and are committed to public service. In particular, fellows who thought their first job assignment matched their skill level and took into account their developmental needs tended to rate the overall program more positively. The class of 2011 includes 420 fellows who work on various assignments in different agencies for two years.”  (Full article on the Government Executive website.)

• 11.27.12 – a labor law win for a law-school clinic. “Eighteen current and former employees of a Long Beach hotel have reached a $130,000 settlement over the denial of meal and rest breaks required by California law, attorneys for the workers announced Tuesday.  The settlement with HEI Hotels and Resorts arose from claims filed with the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement by employees of the Hilton Long Beach and Executive Meeting Center, which has been owned and managed by HEI since 2005…. The 18 current and former employees were represented by the UC Irvine School of Law-Immigrant Rights Clinic and Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center.” (Story from the San Jose Mercury-News.)

• NLADA has launched the Civil Legal Aid Research site to “make existing research easily accessible and understandable to busy administrators and lawyers within civil legal aid programs. Therefore, NLADA has created this blog-database that captures the information about successful evidence-based practices and the results of research and posts those findings in an easily accessible web-based format.  In order to support state justice systems and civil legal aid programs in increasing their efficiency and effectiveness, NLADA will share existing and newly determined evidence-based practices with other programs to match their service delivery to those evidence-based practices that have shown most promise to maximize fair and justice results for clients. State justice systems and programs will then be able to focus their resources more effectively and support qualitative, in addition to the already widely done quantitative, assessment of outcomes to further test and tweak these practices.

• Music!  Chicago has me thinking about the electric blues and that has me thinking about Muddy Waters.

The American Constitution Society (ACS) and the National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) have partnered up to help match public defenders with qualified law students, providing an efficient way for offices to increase their chances of finding an ideal candidate.

ACS is using its national student network to collect a roster of law students who are committed to indigent defense and seeking internships at Public Defender offices across the country. NLADA is inviting any office or agency looking for interns to fill out a form with basic information about their office or program. The matching tool will then send offices information on applicants that meet the specified criteria.

Public defender offices do not have to commit to accepting any applicants they receive through the PD intern Matching Program, and offered internships can be paid, unpaid, or offered for academic credit. Students can fill out this form to be included in the applicant pool.

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, folks.  Before the public interest news, here are some items related to legal education and student debt:

Taken together, I’m intrigued by a batch of law-school news stories reported this week by the National Law Journal.  First, according to preliminary ABA data, law school enrollment has dropped by 15% in the past two years.  Second, two law school deans have been hired out of law firm practice management positions this year.  Third, Vermont Law School (which some are surprised to learn is a stand-alone and not part of the state higher-ed system) is facing a “looming $3.3 million budget shortfall brought on by declining enrollment.”  The school is offering buyouts to staff, and future faculty buyout offers appear likely.

What could this mean?  First, a caveat: the cliché about news being history’s first draft is important.  It’s dangerous to wrongly connect discrete occurrences which are driven by unique circumstances.  But I’m not too far out on a limb to suggest that legal education is about to confront big, big changes.  It’s more a matter of guessing at the magnitude of the changes, and how much tumult will attend them.  Some questions to think about, inspired by the NLJ stories:

1. Are law school classes going to be considerably smaller for the foreseeable future? Letting alone quantity, will there be any impact on the academic/professional quality of matriculating law classes?
2. Do we see the beginning of a trend toward law schools hiring deans with law-practice management experience, and not necessarily academic experience?
3. How could decreased law-school revenue streams impact legal education’s pedagogy?  Schools have been expanding online offerings of late.  They are relatively cheap to run.  Clinical-type programs, on the other hand, are relatively expensive, but they provide invaluable hands-on training.  Could they be threatened?  Or could they be supplemented by other experiential learning opportunities that allow students to, as Vermont Law School’s incoming dean put it, “earn and learn at the same time”?  To say nothing of the possibility of two-year degree programs becoming more popular….

On the education debt front there was an interesting WSJ article this week about how wide and deep are the federal government’s roots in higher-ed lending.  Regardless of where one comes down on the policy debate about the government being the key higher-ed lender, the debate itself is likely to pick up as elected officials look to long-term budget and debt reduction efforts.  Speaking of lenders, also interesting is this Philadelphia Business Journal article about a just-launched venture, CommonBond, that “…plans to use crowdsourcing to raise money from a college’s alumni base to provide education loans to the college’s current students. It intends to provide loans to more than 50 Wharton MBA students in December and expand nationally next year. The company said the loans will have a fixed rate of 6.24 percent and the alumni who supply the money for the loans can expect an annual return of more than 4 percent on their investments.  CommonBond has raised $3.5 million — $2.5 million from alumni to fund loans and $1 million from a super angel to fund its operations.”  My friend Heather Jarvis, who’s a sharp analyst of education lending policy, mentioned recently that she’s seeing new innovations from private lenders.  I think that’s likely to keep happening. 

Okay, the public interest and access-to-justice news in short:

• ABA ATJ grant deadlines;
• higher pay for CT prosecutors/defenders;
• Birmingham’s new PD office getting off the ground (and maybe hiring);
• Seattle’s PD program may get a big overhaul;
• what to look for in the DOJ’s next ATJ director;
• a legal aid office closure outside Philly;
• pro bono abroad;
• Music! 

 The summaries:

• moments before publishing the Bulletin I got an email announcing 2012 recipients of ABA access-to-justice grants and, more importantly, announcing the application process for 2013 grants.  Applications for grants to promote creation of new state ATJ commissions are due on Feb. 15, 2013.  ATJ “Innovation” grant applications (to promote new work from existing ATJ commissions) are due on May 1, 2013.  Details here.

• 11.30.12 – this came up in a prior Bulletin edition, but I’m happy to repeat good news:  “A recent national study has found that pay for prosecutors and public defenders has barely budged since 2004. The situation is only a little better in Connecticut, where the public sector attorneys last got a raise in 2009.  But that’s about to change. Next summer, Connecticut prosecutors and public defenders are slated to receive a 3 percent raise, adding about $1,850 annually to the current entry level salary of $61,900. Veterans with 10 years experience will see salaries increase from about $91,600 to about $94,000.”  (Story from the Connecticut Law Tribune.)

• 11.29.12 – “Jefferson County’s [i.e. greater Birmingham, AL’s] newly created Public Defender Office will be led by Birmingham attorney Kira Fonteneau.  According to al.com, a team of lawyers under Fonteneau will be responsible for representing poor criminal defendants charged in the Birmingham division of Jefferson County’s court system and who otherwise can’t afford an attorney.  Fonteneau said as many as 35 lawyers could be hired as assistant public defenders for that office.”  (Story from the Birmingham Business Journal.)

• 11.29.12 – King County’s [i.e. greater Seattle’s] complicated public-defense system of four separate nonprofit agencies representing about 30,000 defendants annually has been praised by legal scholars….  But the county is pushing a plan that would dissolve the independent agencies and make public defenders county employees, a move proponents say is in response to a lawsuit filed by a public defender. Under the plan, the nearly 400 employees of the four agencies — The Defender Assocation [sic], Society of Counsel Representing Accused Persons, Associated Counsel for the Accused and Northwest Defenders Association — could potentially become King County employees by July 1….”  (Story from the Seattle Times.)

• 11.28.12 =- Access-to-justice blogger Richard Zorza reminded me that the U.S. DOJ is looking to fill the captain’s chair in it’s Access to Justice Initiative office: “With the election over, its time to reflect on what kind of person we need to take on the crucial mantle of Larry Tribe and Mark Childress at the DOJ Access Initiative.  It’s a very important job, and needs a strong leader.  There seem to be three areas of needed skill: Knowing the DC Levers…Ability to Draw Public Attention to the Issue…[and] Ability to See the Big Picture and Advance Transformative Agendas.”  (Here’s the full blog post.)  http://accesstojustice.net/2012/11/28/what-we-need-now-at-doj/

• 11.27.12 – it’s noted in passing in this article about budget cuts in suburban Philly, but “Legal Aid of Southeast Pennsylvania is closing its Pottstown office and laying off at least two employees.”  (Full article from the Philadelphia Inquirer.)

• Two pieces concerning pro bono abroad:
  • PSJD blog readers clamor for updates on English and Welsh pro bono happenings.  So here, from the UK-based Access to Justice Foundation, is the “The Pro Bono Yearbook of England and Wales 2012.”
  • 11.22.12 – an interview with Hogan Lovells international pro bono manager, from the TrustLaw website: “Global economic woes have sharpened the need for pro bono work in both low-income and developed countries, according to law firm Hogan Lovells.  In a written interview its international pro bono manager, Yasmin Waljee, tells TrustLaw about the firm’s pro bono work and why it makes sense for law firms to support social enterprises.”  

• MUSIC!  One of my favorite songwriters, Damian Jurado.  Here’s “Museum of Flight.” 

By: Steve Grumm

Catholic Law just hired Kirland & Ellis’s DC-office managing partner as its new dean.  Brooklyn Law did something similar recently.  It’s only two hires, but it’s interesting to wonder whether pressures on the law-school business model will lead to more schools bringing in deans who’ve got law practice management skills.  Here’s the latest from the National Law Journal:

For the second time in the past year, a law school has tapped a new dean directly out of private practice. 

The Catholic University of America on November 27 named Daniel Attridge as the future dean of its Columbus School of Law. Attridge has been the managing partner of Kirkland & Ellis’ Washington office since 1998.

In March, Brooklyn Law School chose Nicholas Allard, then chairman of Patton Boggs’ lobbying, political and election law practice, as its new dean. Leaders at Saint Louis University also named local trial lawyer Tom Keefe Jr. as dean in August, but only on an interim basis.

Attridge’s appointment could signal an increased willingness among university and law school leaders to look beyond the scope of academia, politics and the bench for dean candidates, particularly at a time when the traditional law school business model is under enormous pressure. Catholic University President John Garvey, who previously headed Boston College Law School, said that Attridge will bring something different to the table.

There are just over 200 ABA-accredited schools.  And, again, these are just two hires.  But it’s still worth considering whether schools will look to lawyers with law-practice management skills as they choose current deans’ successors.