By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, ladies and gents.  I hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving, and that you’re able to spend the next few days eating leftover turkey and/or vegetarian/vegan turkey-like food products.  And stuffing.  Man, I love stuffing.  (Or “dressing”, if you’re a weirdo and are inclined to call it that.)  Earlier this week, I began taking inventory of all for which I am thankful.  Early in this process, the same thought again and again returned to me.  I wrote it down: “I count the many things I’m thankful for and realize that to be thankful is, in itself, a great privilege.”  Which is to say that, in light of all the people, ideas, and things that enrich me every day, it is truly my pleasure to stop, appreciate them, and feel a sense of humbled gratitude.  I am so, so fortunate.  Many of us are.  We should appreciate this fact more than once a year.  But once a year is a good start.

Yesterday’s Washington Post featured a terrific piece on my favorite Philadelphian, Benjamin Franklin.  Historian Walter Isaacson notes that Franklin exhibited both “strands” that make up our national character: the lover of individual liberty, and the community-builder.  (Isaacson didn’t quite get to this metaphor, but I began to see them as the two strands in the double helix of American DNA.)  Franklin’s work ethic, entrepreneurship, and boundless curiosity propelled him to individual success in commerce.  But his civic-mindedness was equally unbounded.   He launched innumerable civic and commercial programs, and was generous in his charitable giving.  Franklin believed in the power of community.

This piece helped me to understand how fortunate I am to be a part of the larger access-to-justice community, which counts among its members those from public interest organizations, law schools, law firms, and other groups.  For most of my professional life I have been able to learn and grow because of the access-to-justice community’s generosity and spirit of fellowship.  So I’d like to thank all of you, professional colleagues and collaborators, advocates, students, and clients, from whom I have taken so much.  It is truly a pleasure to try to repay those debts in the meager ways I do.

Before the bulletin, an important bit of NALP news, and a request for a (simple) favor from me:

• NALP has just release research findings on law-school “bridge-to-practice” programs, which fund recent graduates to gain work experience in short-term placements while the grads search for long-term employment.  These programs have of course grown in number and size in the recession’s wake.  Notably, within our response pool 48% of the bridge-to-practice placements were with public interest organizations, and another 30% were in government.  One wonders what impact the growth in these school-funded programs has had on hiring for full-time positions within the nonprofit and government legal community.  Here’s a report on some of the research’s key findings.
• If you have not yet circulated our 2012 public interest job market snapshot survey to your contacts, please do.  The survey response deadline is Friday, 11/30.  We need your support to make this unique and important survey effort a success.  Here are details and survey link.  Thanks!

This week’s public interest news in very, very short:

• JALA says, “We have a new ED!”
• NYSBA says, “More legal help for vets!”
• ACC says, “More flexibility for in-house counsel to do pro bono!”
• ABA law school accreditation committee says, “No mandatory pro bono!”
• Harvard’s public interest dean says, “The public interest job search is unlike the law-firm job search!”
• Music!

The summaries:

• 11.21.12 – “Jacksonville Area Legal Aid has named attorney James Kowalski Jr. as executive director, replacing Michael Figgins, who resigned in January to become the executive director of Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma.”  While this is the case for most legal services executive directors today, Kowalski is walking into a tough gig.  JALA has experienced a big funding decline and has laid off attorneys, as the Jacksonville Daily Record piece documents.

• 11.20.12 – in a press release, “The New York State Bar Association Tuesday called for providing veterans of the U.S. military with better access to quality legal services. It also recommended the creation of more specialized veterans courts, such as the successful Veterans Treatment Court in Buffalo, the first of its kind in the nation.”

• 11.19.12 – an update from the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) about their work to promote more flexibility in state practice rules (thus allowing in-house lawyers to do more local pro bono), and some insight on how in-house counsel can craft such proposals when advocating for changes in individual jurisdictions.

• 11.19.12 – It appears that a New York-style pro bono requirement for law students won’t be going national anytime soon.
  Several organizations and legal leaders have asked the committee that is updating the American Bar Association’s law school accreditation standards to add a 50-hour pro bono requirement, but that idea got a chilly reception from the committee at its most recent meeting on November 16 and 17. None of the nine committee members in attendance endorsed the idea, which generated only a few minutes of discussion. Those who took a position said that requiring a certain amount of pro bono work is outside the scope of the ABA’s accreditor role.”  Here’s the National Law Journal article, and here’s a link to many of the proposals, which are housed on the National Center for Access to Justice’s website.  Finally, here’s a look at the committee’s actions on other law school accreditation change proposals, from the ABA Journal.

• 11.14.12 – Alexa Shabecoff, assistant dean for public service at Harvard Law School, sets the record straight by responding to a Harvard Crimson article that had pushed for more promotion of public service within the law school.  Shabecoff writes: “Those of us who work in the community of public interest lawyers welcome media interest in the nationwide shortage of legal services for the underserved. We also understand the temptation to write stories that say that part of the problem is that on-campus recruiting by big private firms is so much more robust than on-campus recruiting by public interest employers, but to suggest—as the Crimson has done—that the way for Harvard Law School to address that imbalance is to “set up [on-campus] interview programs for public sector organizations akin to its efforts to facilitate student interviews for private companies” is to miss the mark. The vast majority of such organizations cannot spare the funds to send recruiters to law school campuses around the country. Nor do their hiring cycles lend themselves to the kind of unified recruiting ‘season’ adopted by large law firms.  The task for law schools is to maximize the support available for students who will not be deterred by the fact that it is indeed likely to be somewhat harder—and to take somewhat longer—to land a public service position than to obtain an offer from a private law firm….”

• Music!  Thanksgiving is for many of us tinged with nostalgia.  The return home, the football games (granted, played at a much slower pace) with family and old friends, etc.  So here’s some nostalgia from me – one of my favorite 1990s bands, the Connells, playing “Fifth Fret”.

By: Steve Grumm

credit: rob shenk

Happy Friday, folks, from a blustery Washington, DC.  Two items of general interest before moving into to the public interest news:

• A development concerning state bar admissions and immigration status: “An organization calling itself the DREAM Bar Association (DBA) is launching a national campaign on behalf of undocumented immigrants who want licenses to practice law after meeting all state requirements.  Sergio Garcia, a [California-based] law school graduate who has an application for legal residency pending, traveled…to Washington, D.C. to join other undocumented law school graduates and law students for a Nov. 13 press conference. Garcia’s right to a California law license is under consideration by the state Supreme Court.”  More interestingly, the U.S. DOJ opposes admission to the bar for undocumented persons.  (Read the full New American Media article.)
• For the data wonks among us, the Census Bureau has released a report contrasting the latest official measures of U.S. poverty against the measures that are produced by the “Supplemental Poverty Measure.”  The SPM is uses a different (and more modern, frankly) methodology to measure poverty. 

Okay, on to the public interest news (of which there is much):

• Mandatory pro bono in the ABA’s law school accreditation standards?
• LRAP expansion in CO
• Clinic funding at SUNY Buffalo
• Rolling out a new foreclosure prevention program in OR
• Cy pres in PA
• Pro hac vice in NY (Vivat lingua Latina!!!)
• Controversial expansion of pro se form use in TX
• Possible defender layoffs in NOLA
• Editorial supports bolstering NY’s indigent defense program
• Federal courts fear the fiscal cliff
• MO’s defender program chief fires back against a prosecutor’s criticism
• Extending an indigent defense funding mechanism in MN
• Sandy’s hobbled some NYC legal aid providers
• CT prosecutors & defenders to see pay bump;
• MI’s state house okays bill to create statewide indigent defense program
• Atlanta’s Justice Café provides flat-fee services to moderate-income clients
• Super Canuck Music Bonus!

The summaries:

• 11.16.12 – Our headlining public interest item this week involves a group of proposals to modify an ABA law school accreditation standard so as to include a pro bono requirement for law students.  There are several slightly different proposals in the mix.  I haven’t had time to analyze them in any depth, but here are links to the proposals, courtesy of David Udell of the National Center for Access to Justice(who co-authored one of the proposals):
  • David Udell (National Center for Access to Justice) and Deborah Rhode (Stanford Law)
  • Erwin Chemerinsky (Dean, UC Irvine Law)
  • Bob Gillett (Legal Services of South Central Michigan)
  • David Stern (Equal Justice Works)
  • Jo-Ann Wallace and Don Saunders (National Legal Aid & Defender Association)

• 11.15.12 – LRAP expansion in Boulder.  “University of Colorado regents Thursday approved expansion plans for a law school program that helps graduates pay off their student loans if they take modest-paying public service jobs — especially in the state’s rural areas. The nine-member Board of Regents unanimously approved future plans for the law school’s loan repayment assistance program, which includes an ambitious $10 million fundraising goal to support an endowment.”  (Story from the Daily Camera.)

• 11.15.12 – a SUNY Buffalo Law School clinic is raising money to fund two positions for students to focus on aiding victims of domestic violence.  (Full story from the Buffalo Law Journal.)

• 11.15.12 – a new foreclosure prevention program in Oregon.  “Free legal assistance is now available to eligible low-income homeowners and renters facing foreclosure, Oregon Housing and Community Services announced today.  The state agency has contracted with Legal Aid Services of Oregon (LASO) to develop and deliver the new program.”  (Story from the Statesman Journal.)

• 11.15.12 – the expansion in the use of cy pres funds to support legal aid in PA is a very welcome development for Pittsburgh’s Neighborhood Legal Services Association.  “[T]he Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently promulgated new rules that encourage the use of unused funds in State cases to help provide legal services to low-income Pennsylvanians. The rules require that 50% of residual funds be designated to Pennsylvania’s Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts (PA IOLTA), a non-profit program that provides funding for civil legal aid. The remaining 50% either go to the PA IOLTA Board or to other charitable organizations such as NLSA that promotes the interests of the lawsuit’s objectives.”  (Blog post from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.) 

• 11.14.12 – New York is allowing out-of-state lawyers to provide pro bono assistance to Sandy victims on a pro hac vice basis.  (Story from Thomson-Reuters.) 

• 11.14.12 – “Despite widespread outcry among family lawyers, the Texas Supreme Court yesterday approved a set of pro se divorce forms for indigent couples with no children or real property. The high court will accept public comments about the forms through Feb. 1, 2013, and may modify the forms in response.  In explaining its decision, the high court wrote in its Nov. 13 order that it ‘is confident that these forms will be a useful tool in addressing the burgeoning population of litigants who cannot afford representation and are unable to obtain representation through a legal service provider….’  [I]n a dissenting statement, Justice Debra Lehrmann wrote that she’s concerned the court’s endorsement of the forms will increase pro se litigation by people who can afford lawyers, and it may ‘lull people who could and should receive the benefit of experienced counsel into believing that the form will adequately protect their interests’.”  (Story from the Tex Parte Blog.)

• 11.13.12 – facing continued fiscal struggles, including a possible 33% funding cut in city funding, the NOLA public defender’s office may lay off attorneys.  From Gambit: “The office receives most of its $7 million annual operating budget from a combination of state funds and local court fines, but the local cut will mean the office — which represented about 80 percent of the city’s criminal defendants in thousands of felony and misdemeanor cases last year — will have to fire eight lawyers from its current staff of 55….”

• 11.12.12 – the Albany Times-Union editorial board comes down squarely in favor of statewide indigent defense reform to get away from the current, patchwork county-by-county system.  The board also puts in a plug for continued support for civil legal aid.   

• 11.12.12 – federal judges and court administrators worry that a ride off the so-called “fiscal cliff” could imperil the court system, or at a minimum slow up the wheels of justice.  (Story from the National Law Journal.)  

• 11.11.12 – the head of Missouri’s indigent defense program fires back against a prosecutor’s  allegations of failed leadership.  “Eric Zahnd, president of the Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, has declared there is no Missouri State Public Defender caseload problem, just an imaginary crisis created by the leadership of the public defender system [“Much public defender work should be contracted out,” Oct. 29].  As proof, he points to the latest audit of the public defender system.  The audit he trumpets, however, does not support his conclusions…. Prosecutorial table-pounding does not change the facts found by each and every one of [recent studies]: Missouri’s public defender system has too many cases and too few lawyers to meet its constitutional obligations. Their findings are in fact supported by the findings of the audit, which states that ‘increases in the MSPD’s growth in caseload has outpaced its growth in staffing resources’ and that over the past 20 years, public defender caseload has increased by 70 percent as compared to staffing, which has trailed at a 58 percent increase.”  (Full piece in Missouri Lawyers Weekly.)  

• 11.9.12 – The Minnesota Lawyer on indigent defense funding: “The Minnesota Board of Public Defense has asked that an increase in attorney registration fees to fund its office be extended through 2015.  The Supreme Court authorized an increase in 2009 and renewed it in 2011.  But Minnesota’s public defenders are handling caseloads that are 170 percent of state and national standards. The petition states that the board will ask the Legislature for funding but does not expect to receive enough to meet its needs, particularly with respect to advanced technology.  When the court approved the last fee increase, it said it would not do it again because the Legislature and the governor should provide adequate funding for the public defender system.  The complete notice is available here. http://www.mncourts.gov/?page=3862&item=56448. A hearing is scheduled for Jan. 15 and comments are due Jan. 7.”

• 11.9.12 -Sandy didn’t just create more legal aid clients; she hobbled some legal aid providers: “As thousands of New Yorkers struggle to recover from Superstorm Sandy, three major legal aid providers seeking to help victims have been hampered by their own storm-related damage.  Legal Services NYC, the New York Legal Assistance Group and the Legal Aid Society were shut out of their downtown offices when Sandy struck last Monday and have been operating out of satellite offices or spaces borrowed from other non-profit groups and large law firms.”  Mad props to the NY/NJ legal aid lawyers who fought through their own Sandy setbacks to keep up with casework and intake.  I’m happy to write that there are too many of you to name.  (Story from Thomson-Reuters.)    

• 11.9.12 – Connecticut prosecutors and public defenders are getting a pay bump.  Huzzah!  “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.  Jack Doyle, a prosecutor and president of the Connecticut Association of Prosecutors, the bargaining unit for the 250 prosecuting attorneys in the state, calls the raise overdue. He notes that other state workers have, overall, averaged 3.5 percent annual pay increases over the past decade….  The state’s public defenders, who are not union members and have no say in pay negotiations, get the same raises as prosecutors because of state law that requires equal pay for the two agencies.”  (The Connecticut Law Tribune article is password-protected.) 

• 11.8.12 – The Michigan House approved a bill that would create the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission.  HB 5804 would create a 14-member board that would oversee the state’s underfunded indigent defense system.  The bill passed 71-36 after two substitutes.  According to the version that passed the House, the commission is charged with ensuring adequate funding for defense attorneys, which the bill describes as ‘equal partners with the prosecution, law enforcement, and the judiciary in the criminal justice system’.”   The bill’s gone to the Senate for consideration.  (Blog post from Michigan Lawyers Weekly.)

• 11.7.12 – the latest example of the growth in flat-fee work for clients of modest means: “Many middle-income people seeking a divorce can’t afford to hire a lawyer but aren’t poor enough to qualify for legal aid. Michael and Shelia Manely hope to fill this gap with a new kind of family law firm, the Justice Café.  Located a block from the Fulton County, Ga., Superior Courthouse, the Justice Café will charge $75 an hour for a la carte help in divorces and other family law matters, with no retainer up front, unlike most family law firms.”  (Full story from the Daily Report.)

Music!  Northward to Canada for a great tune from the Tragically Hip.  (Thanks to PSJD Blog friend Bob Glaves for the recommendation.  Good stuff, Mr. Glaves.)

From the National Law Journal, we learn that federal judges and court administrators feel that a ride over the much discussed “fiscal cliff” could imperil the federal justice system:

With the elections over, the federal courts are warning Congress and the public that major spending cuts triggered by the impending “fiscal cliff” would imperil the justice system by forcing layoffs of one court staffer in three, decimating court security and ending juror pay.

Unless Congress and the White House resolve the stalemate over the budget, 8.2 percent across-the-board cuts to federal programs would strip $555 million from the courts. That would be “devastating,” according to a October 2 analysis by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.

…

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, ladies and gents.  Quite a week here in DC.  One of the most noteworthy election stories involves the changing faces of the American electorate.  Much ink has already been spilled about the youth (i.e. Millenial Generation), Latino, and women’s voting blocs’ influences on the election.  But it’s not just the voters who are changing.  It’s those whose candidacies are being voted upon.  For the first time, the women’s caucus in the Senate will swell to 20 next January.  And the Senate will also welcome its first openly gay member in the person of Tammy Baldwin.  Change is afoot. 

In other election-related news, here’s some unsolicited financial planning advice: I’m bullish on Frito-Lay sales in Colorado and Washington State.

On to the public interest news.  By way of transition I ask for your help in circulating NALP’s just-launched Public Interest Employment Market Snapshot Survey, a brief, anonymous survey of U.S.-based nonprofit and government public-interest law offices about 1) recent law student and attorney hiring and 2) hiring expectations for the immediate future. We will use the gathered data to produce a report about what the public interest employment market looks like.  We will make the report freely available in January, 2013.  The survey is available here.  Thanks for supporting this unique endeavor. 

This week’s news in very, very short:

• Making the economic case for civil legal aid in the glorious Keystone State;
• Stanford Law students help throw a little chin music at CA’s three strikes law;
• The  op-ed battle over who’s responsible for the tough circumstances confronting Missouri’s public defense program;
• Election Day proves to be Independence Day for New Mexico’s public defense program;
• It’s Pro Bono Week in the UK;
• A new MLP in Houston;
• Wisconsin Law opens a veterans clinic;
• Foreclosure fraud settlement funds channeled to the Legal Aid Society in TN.

The summaries:

• 11.8.12 – making the economic case for civil legal aid in PA: “Poverty legal services fill this void and have a long history of defending the most vulnerable among us from both fraud and abuse, but recent cuts to their funding guarantee that they will be able to help fewer and fewer people and– studies show– that affects all of us.  ‘This is the type of funding that not only rights wrongs but makes clear economic sense,’ explained Al Azen, Executive Director of Pennsylvania’s Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts (PA IOLTA), a non-profit program that provides funding for civil legal aid.  A new study by PA IOLTA, shows that over the last fiscal year the work of poverty legal services created $594 million for the Pennsylvania economy, an unheard-of eleven fold economic return on their funding.”  This story’s from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.  Unfortunately I can’t find the referenced report from the IOLTA board.  [EDIT: here’s the report, which was released in April.]

• 11.7.12 – “Stanford Law School students and faculty celebrated on election night, after years of hard work paid off when California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 36, which reforms the state’s tough ‘three strikes’ sentencing law.   The…school’s Three Strikes Project worked with the New York-based NAACP Legal Defense Fund to draft and promote the legislation, which won widespread support among California law enforcement and civil rights advocates. Proposition 36 represents the first time that voters have approved more lenient sentencing for offenders already serving prison time. With the change, offenders who commit nonviolent crimes as their third offense will no longer receive life sentences.”  (Story from the National Law Journal.)

• 11.7.12 – after a Missouri prosecutor blamed the state public defense program’s leadership, and not high caseloads, for the program’s struggles, a return volley: “Missourians deserve undistorted facts when faced with such serious criminal justice decisions. Instead, prosecutors take technical disagreements about how best to calculate public defender case overload — as raised in a new state auditor’s report — and conclude that the report ‘shatters the myth’ that public defenders are overworked. In reality, the report found “MSPD’s growth in caseload has outpaced its growth in staffing resources….”  (St. Louis Post-Dispatch op-ed from the director of the Sixth Amendment Center.) 

• 11.6.12 – “New Mexico voters have approved a constitutional amendment that establishes the Public Defender Department as an independent state agency….  The amendment calls for forming an independent commission that would appoint the state’s chief public defender, who would then oversee the department. Currently, the governor appoints the chief public defender.”  (AP story via KKOB’s website.)

• 11.6.12 – It’s Pro Bono Week in the UK, so there’s been a rash of stories about what is, and isn’t being accomplished by the bar across the pond.  Here’s a little bit about pro bono performed by UK’s “Biglaw” firms: “The value of pro-bono work in the UK is almost half a billion pounds a year, with research from legal recruitment company Laurence Simons finding that the top 20 firms carried out £180m of free work – the equivalent of 1.85 per cent of their budgets – in 2011….  The research, which was released to coincide with pro-bono week, show that the average value of voluntary work for each lawyer was £5,194. However, with the survey suggesting that 52 per cent of lawyers did no pro-bono work at all last year, the figure is likely to be double that amount.”  (Article from The Lawyer.)
  • an op-ed in The Guardian looks critically at how pro bono numbers demonstrate a polarization in the legal profession, and what that could say for the future of promoting access to justice.   

• 11.4.12 – ” Texas Children’s Hospital and the Houston Bar Association’s Houston Volunteer Lawyers recently announced the formation of a medical-legal partnership (MLP) that will provide Texas Children’s low-income patients and patient-families with critical legal assistance. This is the first partnership of its kind to be offered in the Houston area.  Through the program, a dedicated Houston Volunteer Lawyers staff attorney will provide legal advice and representation to Texas Children’s patients and their families with assistance from outside pro bono lawyers. The project is being funded in part by a donation from Walmart, which created a successful MLP with Arkansas Children’s Hospital last year with plans to expand the benefits of MLPs to other major pediatric hospitals nationwide.”  (Story from the Bellaire Examiner.)

• 11.2.12 – Wisconsin Law goes to bat for local vets.  “Legal assistance for Dane County veterans will be available starting Thursday, Nov. 8 when the University of Wisconsin Law School launches the new Veterans Law Center….  The free legal center is funded by a $5,000 Pro Bono Initiative grant from the State Bar Legal Assistance Committee. The project is administered by the UW Law School’s Pro Bono Program and is a collaborative effort with support from the Dane County Veterans Service Office, the Dane County Bar Association, Porchlight, Inc. and representatives from the William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital in Madison. Habush Habush & Rottier SC recently contributed an additional $5,000 to fund the center.”  (Here’s the story from the Univ. of Wisconsin.)   

• 11/2/12 – funds from the national mortgage foreclosure fraud class-action settlement flow to legal aid in Tennessee: “The Legal Aid Society has launched a new initiative to help Tennessee homeowners dealing with foreclosure and mortgage rescue scams.  The expanded project is funded through an agreement with the state attorney general’s office.  The money is the result of a nationwide settlement between state attorneys general and major banks that engaged in questionable mortgage practices.”  (Story from CBS MoneyWatch.)

Music!  This week’s song is dedicated to campaign TV commercials.  We hardly knew ye.  On second thought, we knew ye all too well and saw ye all too often.  Ye were never welcomed.  Good riddance.

By: Steve Grumm

Bloomberg News

Happy Friday, folks.  If you were affected by the storm earlier this week, I hope you are safe and well.  Sandy delivered a painful reminder of our fragility.  One of the world’s most developed, sophisticated population centers found itself completely subject to nature’s whim.  Humbling.  And tragic for too many people.  On the legal front, the National Disaster Legal Aid website is serving as a resource both for those seeking help and those wishing to render it.  And while the news coverage has focused on the New York/Jersey region, it’s noteworthy that the storm’s impact has been felt far and wide.  I heard from a Cleveland-based legal aid lawyer who’s gone the week without electricity.     

For some post-Sandy escapism, here’s word that a new Star Wars movie is in the making (and that George Lucas is selling his empire to Disney).  Since I grew up loving the original trilogy and watching too many saccharine 80s sitcoms, I’m tempted to greet this development with unmitigated joy.  But I’ve got real questions about the franchise that inflicted Jar Jar Binks upon the world turning itself over to the company that gave us The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea.  Be warned, Disney: take good care of this galaxy far, far away.  

This week in very, very short:

• Texas counties pooling resources to provide indigent defense in capital cases
• Mandatory pro bono, Singapore style
• Low-paid FL prosecutors and defenders
• Pushback on pushback on Income Based Repayment
• More on NY’s new 50-hour pro bono rule
• Missouri prosecutor minces no words in assigning fault for indigent defense system woes
• NOLA PD may see big cut in city funding
• We can hear you now.  Corporate lawyers should be freed up to do more pro bono, says Verizon general counsel.
• Even Harvard’s public interest minded law students face a difficult career path
• Great work from Iowa Legal Aid, but times are tough
• Low-paid Pittsburgh prosecutors and defenders
• New masters-in-law course in animal law
• Recent hiring by the Land of Enchantment’s (great state nickname!) public defense program
• Online ATJ in IL
• Super Music Bonus!

The summaries

• 11.1.12 – in Texas, counties banding together to provide capital defense counsel: “Parker County commissioners recently voted to join the Regional Public Defender for Capital Cases program, an action that could save the county thousands of dollars during the prosecution of expensive capital murder cases.  The program, funded through the Texas Indigent Defense Commission, represents defendants who are charged with the offense of capital murder and are eligible for the death penalty but cannot afford to hire their own attorneys.  The organization helps participating smaller counties meet the legal requirement to provide access to counsel for those defendants by providing a core team of four — two…attorneys, a mitigation specialist and a fact investigator — as well funds for an investigation…. Of the 240 counties eligible for the program … 193 have agreed to participate so far.”  (Story from the Weatherford Democrat.)

• 11.1.12 – I work hard to offer a global worldview, dear reader.  So here we have news about a potential move to mandatory pro bono in Singapore.  Only 16 hours, though, which is odd.  Here’s some detail from Today Online: “Lawyers could soon be required to contribute a minimum of 16 hours of free legal services, as part of a high powered committee’s proposal to make it mandatory for practitioners to provide legal aid to low-income and disadvantaged Singaporeans….  The scheme will cover legal assistance in four broad areas: Criminal legal aid, civil legal aid, community mediation including other voluntary services in the Subordinate Courts, and legal advisory work to institutions and charities.”

• 10.31.12 – “Florida prosecutors and public defenders can’t keep over-worked young lawyers very long without at least a break-even pay raise to offset the state’s 3 percent pension deduction, lawyers told state budget planners at a public hearing Wednesday….  ‘We have two kinds of assistant state attorneys today,’ said Buddy Jacobs, general counsel for the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association. ‘We have those that are leaving and those that are looking.’  Jacobs said 56 percent of assistant prosecutors are five years, or less, out of law school, and that the typical young prosecutor starts at $40,000 a year — with $80,000 to $100,000 in college debt…. The state attorney offices have had about 15 percent turnover in each of the past two years, he said.”  (Story from the Florida Current.)

• 10.31.12 – student debt expert Heather Jarvis pushes back on a report that was itself critical of the Income Based Repayment program: “The New America Foundation released ‘Safety Net or Windfall:  Examining Changes to Income-Based Repayment for Federal Student Loans’… arguing that changes to Income-Based Repayment (IBR) should be better targeted towards low-income borrowers rather than “high-income borrowers with graduate and professional degrees.”   The analysis in the report clearly demonstrates what advocates have long known is a weakness in the IBR program—the lowest-income student loan borrowers need more and different help.  But the wealthy certainly do not benefit the most from Income-Based Repayment.  Wealthy students and families have money to pay for education, do not need to rely on student loans, and neither need nor will receive many benefits from Income-Based Repayment.  We have a debt-based system of access to higher education.  Unless or until that changes, student loans enable middle- and lower-income students and families to pay for…advanced degrees.  Middle- and lower-income students…must borrow substantial amounts or decide not to pursue advanced graduate and professional degrees.”
  • Speaking of student debt, the federal “Pay As You Earn” regulations were finalized this week.  PAYE makes two significant changes to the Income Based Repayment program. It first lowers the debtor’s monthly contribution from roughly 15% of disposable income to 10%.  Second, it knocks down the 25-year forgiveness period to 20 years.  (Distinguish this, however, from the Public Service Loan Forgiveness provision, which forgives eligible loan balances after 10 years of payments into IBR.)  (Here’s some coverage from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.) 

• 10.31.12 – New York’s newly implemented 50-hour pro bono requirement for admission to the bar just will not leave the news.
  • New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman delivered remarks to a DC-based audience earlier this week.  The Blog of the Legal Times has coverage: “The pro bono requirement, which is the first of its kind for a state bar, is ‘conceptually unassailable,’ Lippman said, even as he acknowledged concerns raised by law schools and legal services providers about how it would work in practice. He also said that the requirement was not a precursor to a mandatory pro bono requirement for the bar, another concern within the legal community.  Lippman said he hoped other states would consider similar requirements
  • And from the New York Law Journal, we learn that the chief judge expects that few bar applicants will be exempted from the rule’s requirement.

• 10.30.12 – pulling no punches regarding Missouri’s troubled indigent defense system, the state prosecutor association’s president blames the indigent defense program’s leaders, not overwhelming caseloads, for the program’s woes: “Simply put, the current public defender system is broken beyond repair because its top brass has surrendered in the face of its challenges. The only suggestion the public defender leadership ever offers is that they need more money. When the state budget is already stretched too thin, Missourians deserve a better solution….  We need to consider a new model where we reserve state-paid public defenders for the most serious felonies, such as murders and sexual offenses, while contracting representation of misdemeanors and low-level felonies to private counsel who could do the work more efficiently.  (Op-ed in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.)

• 10.30.12 – the city of New Orleans is funding the district attorney’s office at just slightly less than it did last year, but the public defender’s office will see funding slashed by 33% (from $1.2 million to $800,000.)  Here’s the story from the Times-Picayune. 

• 10.29.12 – loosen up state practice rules so that in-house counsel – who may not be licensed in the states in which they physically work – can do more pro bono.  This is the case made by Verizon general counsel Randal Milch in a Corporate Counsel op-ed.

• 10.29.12 – the Harvard Crimson looks at the difficulties confronted by public service minded law students when they choose between a relatively robust law-firm recruiting system and the more difficult path to public service, which involves a tight, low-paying job market.

• 10.29.12 – a piece on Iowa Legal Aid trumpets the organization’s work on behalf of thousands of vulnerable Hawkeye Staters, but closes on a somber note: “All of that work is being done with fewer people, though. Iowa Legal Aid served nearly 17 percent fewer people than in 2010 because of reduced revenue and reductions in staff. At the end of 2011, the organization had 12 fewer attorneys and 8 fewer support staff than it had at the beginning of 2010. Funding from the Supreme Court was reduced to $172,000 for 2012, which is down from the $828,572 grant received three years ago, and federal funding was cut by 15 percent.”  (Full piece in The Hawkeye.)

• 10/29/12 – citing NALP data, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette looks at how low pay harries the Steel City’s junior prosecutors and defenders, forcing some to moonlight in order to make ends meet.

• 10/28.12 – the pet industry is booming – Big Pet? – and Lewis & Clark Law School has created a masters-in-law certificate program for tomorrow’s animal rights/law lawyers.  From the Columbia Tribune: “Enrollment in the yearlong program [which has an initial class of six students] is expected to grow to 15 or 20 students in three to five years, said attorney Pamela Frasch, assistant dean and executive director of the [school’s Center for Animal Law Studies].”

• 10/26/12 – New Mexico’s public defender program has done a fair amount of recent hiring.  That’s tapering off but they’re still looking for lawyers.  From the Las Cruces Sun-News: “Vacancies in the agency have declined from 20.8 percent in 2011 to 15 percent today.  Moreover…the chief public defender…said she expected vacancies to drop to 8 percent by January.  Her department is filling 70 jobs, she told the Legislative Finance Committee this week. In raw numbers, the public defender has 211 attorneys and 182 support employees. [The chief defender] said she had begun to reduce the vacancy rate because the Legislature increased her budget by $1.2 million last session. Overall, the [program’s] budget is $40.14 million. It stood at $42.6 million in 2010, then legislative cutbacks began because of the national fiscal crisis.”

• 10.26.12 – this Government Technology story is ostensibly about the launching of a successful online, self-help legal aid website in one county.  But it points to a larger trend in Illinois toward empowering low- and moderate-income residents with online legal resources.  

Music!  This week I’m having all kinds of trouble not listening to Centro-matic’s “Patience for the Ride.”  If I had to guess, I’d say the song has to do with the Enron fallout and similar instances of corporate malfeasance.  But as with all well-written songs, it draws upon more universal themes.  And I hear “Patience for the Ride” as an anthem for public interest lawyers who face long odds and powerful opponents.  The song also contains a somehow-unpretentious use of the word “eleemosynary”.  That’s straight badass, is what that is.

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, ladies and gents. It’s been a pleasure to spend time with law school public interest career advisors who’ve descended upon Washington DC for the NALP/PSJD Public Service Mini-Conference and the Equal Justice Works Career Fair.  Yesterday’s Mini-Conference reminded of why community-building among professional colleagues is so valuable.  And I’m pretty sure I only managed to alienate people from St. Louis and San Antonio during yesterday’s events.  I’ve done worse.  I want to extend, again, my congratulations and admiration to Elizabeth Gutierrez, a 3L as St. Mary’s University School of Law, who won our 2012 PSJD Pro Bono Publico Award.  Liz acquitted herself with great humility during our award presentation, but her record as an advocate for the most vulnerable in her community is stunning. 

The weeklong, national celebration of pro bono, facilitated by the ABA and marked by volunteer projects and recognition events throughout the country, is winding down this weekend.  Events that have taken place are too numerous to mention.  But www.celebrateprobono.org is serving as a repository of related resources, news, etc.

There is just a moderate amount of public interest and access-to-justice news to report on today.  So here we go.  Short version:

• a new Tennessee MLP (poetry);
• making the case for an independent New Mexico defender’s office;
• loan repayment for NY nonprofit and government lawyers;
• happy 100^th, Legal Aid Bureau of Buffalo (but the Bills still stink);
• one CA county’s prosecutors/defenders fight off a pay cut;
• OPM guidance on the federal government’s “Pathways” program’s intern hiring component;
• after NY, is NJ also going to require pro bono service as a condition of getting a law license?;
• could the Income Based Repayment program inadvertently re-inflate the law school tuition bubble?
• only 40 years until Buffalo – Ohio’s Community Legal Aid Service turns 60.
• super music bonus!

The summaries:

• 10.26.12 – in Tennessee, the Vanderbilt University Shade Tree Clinic and the Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands have formed a new medical legal partnership.  It seems as though both law and medical students will play prominent roles: “[The] new MLP, which will offer patients a variety of free legal services, is an outgrowth of one that was set up and is still operating in a limited capacity at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt. Most MLPs are formed at children’s hospitals because they are teaching hospitals and thus can partner with other university resources, and because they have a higher concentration of families in need than a regular hospital might have…. The Legal Aid-Shade Tree partnership is unique because the clinic is student-run, as opposed to a community health center or larger hospital. Student physicians and, increasingly, student lawyers, gain real-world experience while providing an immediate service to the patient base, says Shannon Jordan, LMSW, a medical social worker at Shade Tree.”  (Story from the Nashville Ledger.)

• 10.25.12 – a Las Cruces News-Sun op-ed, written by a retired public defender, makes the case for a New Mexico ballot initiative which would take the state’s public defender program outside of the executive branch’s control and make it an independent entity.  One of the main concerns of having the governor continue to control the defender program is an inherent conflict of interest, as the governor also has responsibility to prosecute crime.

• 10.24.12 – the New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) has created a loan repayment grant program for mid-level lawyers in nonprofit and government practice.  From the Buffalo Business Journal:  “The grants, offered through the Steven Krane Special Committee on Student Loan Assistance for the Public Interest, are available to attorneys who have practiced public interest or government law for a minimum of five years. Priority will be given to civil legal services attorneys.”

• 10.24.12 – the Legal Aid Bureau of Buffalo hits the century mark.  Huzzah!  (Here’s the story from WBFO.)

• 10.23.12 – in California, Contra Costa County prosecutors and defenders have successfully staved off a planned salary cut: “After months of fractious negotiations, the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors and associations from both the district attorney and public defender’s offices agreed Tuesday to a new employment contract that would roll back controversial pay cuts in exchange for some concessions.”  (Here’s the password-protected Recorder article.)

• 10.22.12 – a development concerning federal agencies’ intern recruiting efforts under the new “Pathways” recruiting model: “Federal agencies have been told that they can continue to use interns referred from third parties such as intern placement agencies after a recent overhaul of government intern-type programs.  The government in July formally launched the Pathways program that revised or replaced several prior developmental and hiring programs for students and graduates….  A memo that the Office of Personnel Management sent Friday said that since the revisions, agencies have been asking about the role of third-party intern providers. OPM said that nothing in the new program ‘restricts in any way an agency’s authority to enter into arrangements with third-party intern providers. Agencies retain the same authority to enter these arrangements that they had before the Pathways programs were authorized’.”  (Full blog post from the Washington Post.)

• 10.22.12 – I’m so tired of New York being a trendsetter.  But here they go again.  “Following the lead of the New York state court system, New Jersey’s top judge has formed a committee to consider requiring prospective attorneys to complete pro bono work before being admitted to the state bar.  The 17-member panel, which Chief Justice Stuart Rabner created last week, will be chaired by Judge Glenn Grant, the acting administrative director of New Jersey’s court system. The committee will review New York’s pro bono mandate, which requires 50 hours of work, and make recommendations to Rabner.  The panel includes private attorneys, bar association officials, legal service providers and officials from the state’s three law schools, as well as a third-year law student and a retired state judge.  According to an Oct. 15 letter Grant wrote inviting the officials to join the committee, 97 percent of small claims litigants and 99 percent of tenants in housing cases in New Jersey show up to court without a lawyer.”  (Full story from Thomson-Reuters.)

• 10.21.12 – this blog post in the Chronicle of Higher Education explores a New America Foundation report on the federal Income Based Repayment program, specifically querying whether IBR, because it allows high-debt, middle-income borrowers to create very affordable repayment plans “could completely remove price discipline in a law-school market that desperately needs it…”  That is, could IBR inadvertently create another law school tuition bubble?

• 10.19.12 – Ohio’s Community Legal Aid Services is turning 60!  Congrats!  In celebration they are partying Akron-style at the Akron Civic Theater.  Consider yourself warned, Akron.  (Story from the Daily Legal News.)

• Music!  Here we have the song “Mass Romantic” from the New Pornographers. 

Most folks are familiar with the much publicized decision in New York to require 50 hours of pro bono work before being admitted to the state bar.  The Garden State is considering a similar rule (from Thomson-Reuters):

– Following the lead of the New York state court system, New Jersey’s top judge has formed a committee to consider requiring prospective attorneys to complete pro bono work before being admitted to the state bar.

The 17-member panel, which Chief Justice Stuart Rabner created last week, will be chaired by Judge Glenn Grant, the acting administrative director of New Jersey’s court system. The committee will review New York’s pro bono mandate, which requires 50 hours of work, and make recommendations to Rabner.

The panel includes private attorneys, bar association officials, legal service providers and officials from the state’s three law schools, as well as a third-year law student and a retired state judge.

According to an Oct. 15 letter Grant wrote inviting the officials to join the committee, 97 percent of small claims litigants and 99 percent of tenants in housing cases in New Jersey show up to court without a lawyer.

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, folks.  Well, not too happy.  Yesterday, we at NALP released the 2012 Public Sector & Public Interest Attorney Salary Report.  These already-low salaries, when taking inflation into account, have remained close to stagnant in the recent past. (Civil legal aid lawyers start at about $43,000 annually while assistant prosecutors’ and defenders’ starting salaries hover around $50,000)  But of course the amount of debt that today’s junior attorneys carry has swollen.  Thus, a public interest attorney’s income pie has stayed the same size, but a much larger piece of it now goes to debt service.

Loan repayment (and in some cases, forgiveness) programs can mitigate this circumstance.  Those grads positioned to maximize repayment/forgiveness options may not experience financial discomfort.  But not all types of loans qualify for inclusion in repayment programs.  And there is uncertainty about the viability of today’s loan repayment regime – a constellation of government-, school-, and employer-run repayment plans.  Finally there is the law graduate’s frustration of having to take on a massive amount of debt, only then to have it reduced.  Here’s the important question: with low, stagnant salaries, with the rising cost of legal education, and with a terribly tight job market, how difficult is it becoming for tomorrow’s lawyers to pursue public service career paths?

This question will not yield a simple, yes-or-no, across-the-board answer.  Circumstances are different for every law student.  But we can identify the key variables involved in the analysis. I’m going to focus on this as I do some writing in the next few weeks.  I am so far from having the market on wisdom cornered that I sometimes can’t find the market.  So please be in touch with your thoughts, insights, questions, etc.  I’m at sgrumm@nalp.org or 202.296.0057.     

Some interesting miscellany before the week’s public interest and access-to-justice news:

• in the nonprofit world, the Chronicle of Philanthropy released its list of the 400 largest nonprofits, accompanied by several analysis pieces.  Much of the content is password-protected.  But there is valuable data/insight in the accessible areas too, and one can get a sense of how the recession did, and continues to, impact the nonprofit world.
• on the job-market front, resume advice is ubiquitous, and some of it is so bland – “make it look clean” – as to be useless.  However, this blog post – 10 Reasons Your Resume Isn’t Getting You Interviews – on the U.S. News website is better than most of the content I come across because it compels job-seekers look critically at how their resumes are constructed.

Okay, on to the public interest and access-to-justice news.  In very, very short:

• coverage of NALP’s public interest salary report;
• IL attorney general directs more funding to legal aid for housing work;
• pro se resources in the Aloha State;
• the ABA’s weeklong celebration of pro bono takes place next week;
• OK legal aid providers also getting funds to do housing work;
• A look at law student pro bono in Minnesota (and New York);
• A Wall Street legal clinic?  Seton Hall’s Investor Advocacy Project;
• ~$7 million contract to provide legal aid to disabled New Yorkers up for grabs;
• An Innocence Project clinic launches at West Virginia Law;
• An Oklahoma nonprofit law office serving “modest means” clients expands;
• super music bonus

The summaries:

• 10.18.12 – here’s some coverage of the above-noted NALP public interest salary report:
  • From the ABA Journal
  • And from the National Law Journal

• 10.18.12 – “Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan (D) announced Oct. 18 that $620,000 in funding from the national foreclosure settlement has been awarded to Illinois Legal Aid Online. The attorney general’s grant will be used to develop web-based resources to assist Illinois homeowners and legal professionals dealing with foreclosure, including online training programs for legal staff and attorneys working with Illinois residents facing foreclosure. The grant also will be used to develop and enhance educational websites intended for homeowners and renters affected by foreclosure.”  (Story from the Rock River Times.)

• 10.17.12 – Aloha.  This article covers the opening of one Hawaiian courthouse self-help center for pro se litigants, but more importantly highlights a statewide trend toward bolstering pro se resources. (Here’s the article in the Maui News.)

• 10.16.12 – the ABA’s “Pro Bono Celebration” week is next week.  There’s much happening on local, state, and nationwide levels to promote pro bono’s importance.  Here’s an ABA overview, and here’s the official Celebrate Pro Bono website, which serves as a central repository for event listings and resources.

• 10.16.12 – “Oklahoma’s $18.6 million mortgage settlement with five big lenders will pay for legal services for people trying to manage a mortgage, avoid foreclosure and keep their homes — no matter the lender — in a new partnership between the state attorney general’s office and Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma.  Attorney General Scott Pruitt said Monday that Legal Aid received $1.27 million from the settlement to hire, train and reassign 15 attorneys and seven paralegals to help homeowners with mortgage modifications, refinancing, short sales, housing counseling and navigating the foreclosure process in a program called Resolution Oklahoma.”  (Story from the Oklahoman.)
  • and here comes a terrible segue into an unrelated topic. While we’re on Oklahoma, Woody Guthrie was born there. And here’s a Chronicle of Higher Education article looking at Guthrie’s legacy 100 years after his birth.  He was Bob Dylan long before Bob Dylan was Bob Dylan.  (I think of Guthrie as the first punk-rocker.)  And he exerted enormous, reaching-beyond-the-grave influence on the evolution of American music.  Good read.

• 10.16.12 – in light of the just-implemented New York State rule requiring 50 hours of pro bono service to get a law license, the Minnesota Daily looks at law student pro bono in the Gopher State. “All four Minnesota law schools — the University of Minnesota, Hamline University, University of St. Thomas and William Mitchell College of Law — provide legal volunteering opportunities through a partnership with the Minnesota Justice Foundation.  MJF is a nonprofit organization founded in 1982 by law students in Minnesota. It provides students with a database of volunteer opportunities as well as advising from a staff attorney at each school…. The only Minnesota school to require legal volunteer work is Hamline University School of Law — a rule that was put in place last year.”
  • speaking of the New York rule, here’s a Reuters piece noting that the rules broad definition of “pro bono” means that there might not be much “new” pro bono generated because many externship, clinical, and volunteer projects already performed by law students will satisfy the rule.

• 10.15.12 – a look at the work of Seton Hall Law’s Investor Advocacy Project, a clinic that helps low- and moderate-income investors who’ve been wronged. “”We provide advocacy for those investors who would otherwise be unable to secure adequate representation,” says David M. White, a law school faculty member and director of the…Project. The contingency fees charged by lawyers would alone eat up most of any possible recovery.  The clients are not big-time investors. They bought annuities, instruments like insurance policies. Or invested settlements from injury claims. Or the proceeds from the sale of their homes. White says the investments involved in these cases do not exceed $100,000.”  (Article from the Star-Ledger.)

• 10.15.12 – “Three groups have proposed taking over federally funded advocacy and legal protection of disabled New York residents who are in the care of the state and its nonprofit contractors.  Syracuse University, Disability Advocates Inc. and a coalition of six legal aid groups that now provide many of the services statewide under individual contracts have filed proposals. The six are the Legal Aid Society of Northeastern New York, Legal Services of Central New York, Legal Services of the Hudson Valley, Nassau Suffolk Law Services, Neighborhood Legal Services and New York Lawyers for the Public Interest.  The selection is expected following public hearings, which have not been set yet.”  The funding amounts for about $7 million annually.  (Story from WNCT.)

• 10.12.12 – the West Virginia University Innocence Project has opened its doors as a law-school clinic in the Mountain State.  (Story from the Gazette-Mail.)

• 10.11.12- a nonprofit law office serving clients who have too much income to qualify for legal aid – which is not saying much because the income limit is typically 125% of federal poverty guidelines – but too little to afford full-scope representation is expanding in the Sooner State. (Story from KOAM.) 

• Music!  It’s a gray day here in D.C.  So how about something mellow?  Here’s Ryan Adams (not to be confused with Bryan Adams) performing “Desire”.

By: Steve Grumm

Legal education is gonna look a lot different in a couple of decades.  NYU is the latest law school to greatly expand outside-the-classroom (in this case, even outside-the-country) opportunities for 3Ls, with an eye toward reworking the legal education model by building in hands-on learning opportunities.  From the New York Times’s Dealbook blog:

The move comes as law schools are being criticized for failing to keep up with transformations in the legal profession, and their graduates face dimming employment prospects and mounting student loans.

N.Y.U. Law’s changes are built around several themes, including a focus on foreign study and specialized concentrations. Some students could spend their final semester studying in Shanghai or Buenos Aires. Others might work at the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, or the Federal Trade Commission. Another group, perhaps, will complete a rigorous one-year concentration in patent law, or focused course work in tax.

…

N.Y.U. Law is the latest law school to alter its academic program significantly. Stanford Law School recently completed comprehensive changes to its third-year curriculum, with a focus on allowing students to pursue joint degrees. Washington and Lee University School of Law scrapped its traditional third-year curriculum in 2009, replacing it with a mix of clinics and outside internships.

…

There has been much debate in the legal academy over the necessity of a third year. Many students take advantage of clinical course work, but the traditional third year of study is largely filled by elective courses. While classes like “Nietzsche and the Law” and “Voting, Game Theory and the Law” might be intellectually broadening, law schools and their students are beginning to question whether, at $51,150 a year, a hodgepodge of electives provides sufficient value.

“One of the well-known facts about law school is it never took three years to do what we are doing; it took maybe two years at most, maybe a year-and-a-half,” Larry Kramer, the former dean of Stanford Law School, said in a 2010 speech.

Yet no one expects law schools to become two-year programs any time soon. For one thing, law schools are huge profit centers for universities, which are reluctant to give up precious tuition dollars. What is more, American Bar Association rules require three years of full-time study to obtain a law degree. Several law schools, including Northwestern University School of Law, offer two-year programs, but they cram three years of course work — and tuition — into two.

N.Y.U. Law’s new curriculum plan is highlighted by experience outside of the school’s Greenwich Village campus. While the school has dabbled in foreign study, it is now redoubling its focus on international and cross-border legal practice. N.Y.U. Law is preparing to send as many as 75 students to partner law schools in Buenos Aires, Shanghai and Paris, where the students will study the legal systems and the languages of those regions. With the ever-increasing influence of government and the regulatory state in private legal matters, N.Y.U. Law will also offer students a full semester of study, combined with an internship, in Washington.

Another key initiative gives students the chance to build a specialty. Called “professional pathways,” the program will offer eight focused areas of instruction, including criminal law and academia.

None of these programs will be mandatory, as students can still choose a conventional course load. But Richard L. Revesz, the dean of N.Y.U. Law, said that he hoped the students would take advantage of the new offerings.

…

N.Y.U. Law’s moves illustrate the continuing evolution of the legal education model. Until the late 19th century, most lawyers — like Abraham Lincoln — were trained through the old-fashioned apprenticeship method. But for the last hundred years, law school classrooms have been dominated by the case method of instruction, which trains law students by having them read court cases and questioning them via the Socratic method.

Now, in an era of globalization and specialization, law schools are acknowledging the inadequacy of the traditional approach.

Are you attending the Equal Justice Works Conference and Career Fair (CCF) October 26-27? Do you have questions that haven’t been answered yet? Equal Justice Works is joining PSJD in a tweet chat to answer all your questions about CCF! Use hashtags #PSJDChat and #EJWCCF to send questions to our panelists—Nita Mazumder and Lauren Fuchs of Equal Justice Works. Come join the conversation with @EJW_org and @PSJDTweets tomorrow on October 17 at 3 p.m. EDT and get all your CCF questions answered!

Also, Equal Justice Works recently sent out this exciting press release:

Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor to share her public service experiences at Equal Justice Works annual Conference and Career Fair

What:  Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor will share the public service experiences that led to her appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States at the annual Equal Justice Works Conference and Career Fair, Oct. 26 and 27 in Arlington, VA.  Judge David Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will join Justice Sotomayor in a conversation designed to inspire the audience of current and future public interest lawyers. 

 Appointed as the 111^th justice by President Barack Obama in 2009, Justice Sotomayor is the first Hispanic and third woman to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. Justice Sotomayor and Judge Tatel will take questions from the audience during the session.  Please note that this event is only open to registered attendees of the Equal Justice Works Conference and Career Fair.

 The Equal Justice Works Conference and Career Fair is the largest national conference and career fair specifically designed for law students interested in public interest careers.  Attracting more than 1200 law students from nearly 200 law schools around the country, the event offers two days of interview opportunities with more than 120 public interest employers; career development and skill-building sessions; mock interviews and resume revision; and networking opportunities.

 When:             Friday, Oct. 26, 7:30 a.m. – 8 p.m. & Saturday, Oct. 27, 2012 8 a.m. – 3:20 p.m.

 *Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor will speak Friday, Oct. 26 at 4:15 PM*

 Where:            Crystal Gateway Marriott – 1700 Jefferson Davis Highway, Arlington, VA 22202

For more information on the 2012 Conference & Career Fair, visit the EJW website. Tomorrow’s #PSJDChat is not to be missed if you’re attending the conference this year, so come prepared to ask any questions you’ve had about anything career fair related. See you tomorrow!