By: Steve Grumm (with an assist from John Kapoor)

Happy Friday, ladies and gents.  An important housekeeping item: the PSLawnet Blog is becoming the PSJD Blog.  We are relaunching our PSLawNet public interest jobs database as PSJD, effective 8/27.  The blog will move from http://pslawnet.wordpress.com to https://blog.psjd.org (link not active yet).  Those of you who receive from me a weekly email message about this bulletin will continue doing so.  Launching PSJD, which will offer an even better jobs database and career center for the public interest community, represents an exciting transition.  We look forward to all that’s new, but just as much look forward to our continued daily blogging.

Some nonprofit news before the public interest news.  This Nonprofit Quarterly post came to my attention this week.  Entitled “A Too-sad Truth about the Nonprofit Sector,” the post laments the culture of martyrdom which many nonprofits take on.  This can manifest itself in unreasonably low salaries and a shortage of office resources to work efficiently.  Many of the best nonprofit law offices, in my experience, tend to emphasize “law office” over “nonprofit” in terms of how they operate and present themselves to the world.  Of course the recession has made funding scarce, and many organizations are struggling just to keep afloat now.  Nevertheless, some executive directors argue that they will only go so far in keeping staff salaries down and skimping on infrastructure expenses because they will not sacrifice quality of service.  It’s a very difficult balance to strike for nonprofits.  And this debate is always worth having because it brings out some terrific ideas and solutions from organizations with starkly different cultures.

On a lighter note, the annual “Mindset List” for this year’s incoming college class is out.  The list looks at how an 18 year-old would view the world in light of what has, and hasn’t, happened during her lifetime. The list, while a little weak this year compared to its predecessors, succeeds at making me feel old if nothing else.  Funny to think that an incoming college freshman might see Bill Clinton only as a grandfatherly, elder statesman as opposed to, well, any of the many other things Bill Clinton’s been.

Okay, the week’s access-to-justice and public interest news, in very brief:

• Legal Services Corporation board chair on the community’s funding woes and the latest LSC newsletter;
• law school clinic at Santa Clara U. is sued by law firm for, well, operating;
• legal services providers in Nevada receive $1.2m from mortgage foreclosure class-action settlement funds;
• when fiscal woes plague nonprofits in the justice system, local communities suffer;
• prosecutors moonlight to 1) supplement income and 2) perpetuate Irish-American stereotypes;
• maybe prosecution work is for the dogs;
• North Dakota’s economic boom is straining the both the civil and criminal legal-aid camps;
• Think Progress thinks about LSC cuts;
• DOJ petitioned to think about how its crime-fighting spending affects all players in justice system;
• would narrowing the definition of “pro bono” lead to lawyers handling more poverty law cases?
• the rise of, and importance in, pro bono from Chicago-area in-house counsel;
• more needed from pro bono lawyers and the justice system is strained by increased numbers of low-income litigants;
• a Texas County signs on for multi-county capital defense cost-sharing program;
• Michigan goes online to help pro se litigants;
• 10 tips for getting hired into a public defender’s office;
• a NY State county wants to go from paid staff defenders to an assigned-counsel system to save $;
• Deferred Action participants should be wary of those offering legal services.
• Music!

The summaries:

• 8.23.12 – LSC board chair John Levi writes about the legal services funding shortages in Michigan and throughout the U.S.: In Michigan, LSC funds six programs with 29 offices across the state. These offices, both in Michigan and nationwide, are increasingly overwhelmed with requests for help. Nearly one in five Americans — 63 million people — now qualify for LSC-funded civil legal assistance because they live at or below 125% of the federal poverty guideline. That is an all-time high. As demand has been rising, the combined funding for LSC programs from federal, state, local and all other sources has dropped from $960 million in 2010 to $878 million in 2012.  As a result, legal service programs are turning away more and more people who seek help — 50% or more according to recent studies.  More than 21% of the state’s population now qualifies for LSC-funded civil legal assistance. Resources from LSC and other funders, however, have dropped dramatically. Projected overall funding for the six LSC grantees in Michigan for 2012 is $19.6 million — a decrease of nearly 24% from 2010 funding levels.”  (Op-ed in the Detroit Free Press.)
  • On a related note, LSC’s 8/21 edition of “LSC Upates” covers likely job cuts at grantee organizations, a recent board meeting, promoting access to justice through technology, LSC’s receipt of grant funding to improve data collection(!), and other odds/ends

• 8.23.12 – “A Los Angeles law firm claims in court that Santa Clara University’s pro bono law center is practicing law for poor people illegally.  The Brachfeld Law Group sued Santa Clara University and Scott Maurer, supervising attorney for the university’s Katharine and George Alexander Community Law Center, in Superior Court.  Brachfeld claims that the Community Law Center improperly uses Maurer’s law license to collect attorneys’ fees, which Maurer shares with the university.  (Story from the Courthouse News Service.)

• 8.23.12 – some of Nevada’s share of national mortgage foreclosure class-action settlement funds will go to legal services.  Legislators approved a one-year, $11 million plan.  (There is more for appropriation in future budget cycles.) Of this $11 million, “…nearly $1.2 million will go to Nevada Legal Services and the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada to provide assistance to homeowners.” (Article from the Nevada News Bureau.)

• 8.22.12 – when fiscal woes plague nonprofits like Jacksonville Area Legal Aid and the Jacksonville Justice Coalition, which offers support services to crime victims, the entire Jacksonville community suffers.  (Story from the Florida Times Union.)

• 8.21.12 – having grown up in northeast Philadelphia, I can say with certainty that there’s nothing unusual about a guy named Colin working behind a local bar. What is unusual is when he’s an assistant district attorney.  The Philadelphia Inquirer looks at the ends local prosecutors go to when they struggle financially on civil-servant salaries.
  • It’s noteworthy that their public defender counterparts have it worse.  From an Inquirer story in June: “An experienced assistant [DA] in Philadelphia, one with seven years on the job, can make $65,000 yearly.  A public defender with exactly the same experience makes a lot less: $51,500.”

• 8.21.12 – I’m a sucker for a story about a pooch in a law office.  “A new four legged volunteer is working at the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s office. It’s part of an innovative pilot program, to provide emotional support to crime victims and witnesses.
  Malvern is a two-year-old, highly trained service dog.  District Attorney, Joyce Dudley, has been working to get a dog…into her office as…to provide a calming presence and create a more compassionate environment for victims and witnesses of crimes within Santa Barbara.  Over the next few months he will work in the D.A.’s office.”   (Story from KEYT.)
• 8.21.12 – unforeseen consequences. North Dakota’s economic boom is straining both the civil and criminal legal aid camps. On the civil side, stakeholders are dealing with “an increase in demand for Legal Services lawyers— …requests for help have shot up at least 50 percent in the last year—that coincides with a series of budget cuts. Federal funding, which accounts for about 60 percent of the organization’s annual spending plan, shrank by 5 percent in 2011 and 14 percent in 2012, leaving the agency with a budget of about $1.6 million this year.”  On the criminal side, a state bar task force’s “final report, which the bar association’s board of governors adopted on August 16, draws the bleak conclusion that the widening gap between the indigent defense commission’s resources and the demand for its services has put the agency on the verge of a ‘constitutional crisis’.”   (Story from the American Lawyer.  Ho-hum; the PSJD Blog noted this back in July.)

• 8.20.12 – a short post on the Think Progress blog highlights the financial straits of LSC grantee organizations.

• 8.20.12 – Two national defense attorney groups are asking the Department of Justice to better analyze how proposed criminal laws and crime-fighting strategies might add additional costs to the rest of the justice system [including indigent defense].  The Nat’l. Assoc. of Criminal Defense Lawyers joined the…National Legal Aid and Defender Association in passing a resolution this month that calls for the DOJ to conduct “justice system impact statements” statements on future policy changes. The resolution suggests the DOJ could fund the studies through its criminal justice grant programs.  The American Bar Association adopted a similar resolution more than 20 years ago, but the NACDL and NLADA resolution also asks DOJ for impact statements for the grants it distributes to local police and prosecutors.”  (Story from the Blog of the Legal Times.)

• 8.20.12 – would narrowing the definition of “pro bono” lead to more volunteer lawyers handling poverty law cases and providing direct representation to low-income clients?  The Pro Bono Institute’s Esther Lardent doesn’t think so: “The reality is that choosing pro bono work is often a matter of blending personal interest with client need. Restricting personal choices will not increase poverty law pro bono. It is, rather, far more likely to reduce the total amount of pro bono and the percentage of lawyers who undertake it.  Our goal should be to educate lawyers about the unparalleled need for legal services to the poor. We should put, as our Pro Bono Challenge and American Bar Association Model Rule 6.1 do, a special emphasis on poverty law pro bono (which led to 58 percent of total Challenge law firm hours devoted to pro bono focused on poverty), and review and revamp the processes for referring, accepting and handling pro bono matters for the poor to make them more appealing and more efficiently undertaken.”  (Full piece in the National Law Journal.)

• 8.20.12 – the rise in, and importance of, in-house pro bono in Chicago: “As more people have turned to them for help, Cabrini Green, like an increasing number of Chicago nonprofits offering legal services to low-income people, has sought help from new allies. Though legal nonprofits traditionally have recruited volunteers from the hallways of Chicago’s big law firms, they have begun courting lawyers who work in the legal departments of the region’s corporate giants, including McDonald’s Corp., Exelon Corp., Abbott Laboratories, Caterpillar Inc. and Allstate Corp.”  (Full story from Crain’s Chicago Business.)
• 8.19.12 – with the number and needs of pro se litigants rising, and with the civil legal services community weathering a severe funding storm, much is needed of pro bono advocates throughout the U.S.  (Full story from Associated Press.)

• 8.19.12 – in Texas, Angelina County is set to participate in the Regional Capital Defender Program.  Participation in the “shared-cost, multi-county” program is expected to save money on providing indigent defense services to those facing capital chartges.  (Story from the Lufkin Daily News.)

• 8.19.12 – as many other jurisdictions have done, Michigan goes online to help pro se litigants: “A new legal  Website, www.michiganlegalhelp.0rg offers information and many resources for Michigan residents who need to represent themselves in simple civil legal matters.”  (Story from the Ionia Sentinel-Standard.)
  •  Friend of the PSLawNet Blog Richard Zorza offers thoughts on the site’s look and functionality in this short blog post.

• 8.17.12 – for the aspiring public defenders, here’s a UVA law student’s 10 tips on PD hiring, which she learned while attending the Public Defender Advocacy, Training, and Hiring (PATH) conference run by the Public Defender Service here in DC.  I moderated a PATHY program on PD hiring, and I agree with the blog author that applicants must convey their passion for indigent defense work in their application materials and interviewing.  Public defenders want to know that their employees have a deeply-rooted commitment to defending the constitutional rights of all of their clients, who are not all angels, and who are not all innocent.  Also, applicants must be prepared for hypotheticals during interviews.

• 8.17.12 – Warren County is seeking to request permission from the New York State Mandate Relief Council to contract with lawyers to perform legal services for the indigent rather than having the work handled by its own county office in which the attorneys are county employees. The county estimates this change, if authorized, will save $200,000 annually.  (Story from the Post Star.)

• 8.16.12 – After implementation of the Obama Administration’s “Deferred Action” program for unauthorized immigrants who arrived in this country as youth, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., is renewing warnings to those immigrants to guard themselves against scam artists posing as immigration attorneys. He suggests asking questions about the attorney’s background and qualifications and calling the New York State Unified Court System’s Attorney Registration Unit to see if the individual is accredited before hiring them to ensure that they are in fact qualified to perform that kind of work. Many scam artists will take thousands of dollars from immigrants while offering little if anything in return.  (Here’s Mr. Vance’s press release.)

Music!  That Beloit Mindset List has me thinking about the college years.  So let’s travel to the 1990s for Boulder, CO’s own Big Head Todd and the Monsters.  (The man does in fact have a physically big head.  Not sure about his ego.)  “In the Morning” is one of my favorite songs -and it’s a pretty love song, tempo notwithstanding – from the under-appreciated album Stratagem.

PSLawNet is debuting a new look this fall! Next week, on Monday, August 27th, PSLawNet will become PSJD – a revamped site that will retain all of PSLawNet’s content while adding easier navigation, enhanced searching, and new tools for job-seekers and employers. PSJD will be found at http://www.psjd.org (not live yet).

PSLawNet users will be able to log in to PSJD with the same PSLawNet login information they have always used, and our job-seeker “email alerts” will continue uninterrupted. For our faithful blog readers, we’ll be moving to blog.psjd.org (not live yet). The current PSLawNet blog URL will redirect you as well.

We at NALP (who administer the PSLawNet/PSJD site) are very happy to launch this next-generation career center as a free resource for the public interest legal community!

For more information contact me, the PSLawNet PSJD Fellow, at amatthews@nalp.org, or Steven Grumm at sgrumm@nalp.org. You may also reach us at 202.296.0076.

By: Steve Grumm

We’ve got great news for law students and lawyers on public interest career paths, as well as the organizations that hire them.  On August 27^th, PSLawNet will become PSJD, a redesigned website that retains all of PSLawNet’s content but that adds easier navigation, enhanced searching, and new tools for job-seekers and employers alike.  PSLawNet users will be able to log in to PSJD with existing PSLawNet login credentials, and our job-seeker “email alerts” will continue uninterrupted.  We at NALP (who administer the PSLawNet/PSJD site) are very happy to launch this next-generation career center as a free resource for the public interest legal community.  As of August 27 PSJD will be found at http://www.psjd.org (not live yet).   

For blog readers, this means that we’ll be moving to blog.psjd.org (not live yet).  But this blog URL will redirect you as well. 

For more information contact me at sgrumm@nalp.org, or PSLawNet PSJD Fellow Ashley Matthews at amatthews@nalp.org.  You may also reach us at 202.296.0076.

By: Steve Grumm

Environmental stewardship is important.  It’s also great to provide legal work that supports the arts.  Who doesn’t want to support the arts?  But by including such activities in how we – the legal community – define pro bono, are we lessening the odds that pro bono lawyers will take on poverty law cases and provide direct legal assistance to poor people?  A recent Pro Bono Institute report shows that law-firm pro bono on poverty-law matters is down. 

The Institute’s Esther Lardent weighs in on the question, and decides that narrowing “pro bono’s” definition will not lead to more/better work on behalf of low-income clients.  Writing in the National Law Journal, Lardent argues:

Whatever the reason for the downturn, would a definition of pro bono limited to legal services for the poor solve the problem and result in more low-income clients served? I believe it would not. Lawyers make a pro bono commitment for many reasons, but one major impetus for many is a personal commitment to a particular legal problem or client demographic. Lawyers who are passionate about international human rights and the rule of law, protecting civil liberties or ensuring a sustainable environment for future generations understandably want to use their skills to pursue their passion. Business lawyers who are averse to litigation are unlikely to take on adversarial matters on a pro bono basis when they would not do so for paying clients. The reality is that choosing pro bono work is often a matter of blending personal interest with client need. Restricting personal choices will not increase poverty law pro bono. It is, rather, far more likely to reduce the total amount of pro bono and the percentage of lawyers who undertake it.

Our goal should be to educate lawyers about the unparalleled need for legal services to the poor. We should put, as our Pro Bono Challenge and American Bar Association Model Rule 6.1 do, a special emphasis on poverty law pro bono (which led to 58 percent of total Challenge law firm hours devoted to pro bono focused on poverty), and review and revamp the processes for referring, accepting and handling pro bono matters for the poor to make them more appealing and more efficiently undertaken.

By: Steve Grumm (with help from John Kapoor)

Happy Friday, dear readers.  The week’s most well-travelled public-interest news item deals with a Legal Services Corporation announcement that its grantee organizations may cut 8% of attorney and support staff positions as those organizations struggle with depleted funding sources.  There’s a tendency, I think, to take some comfort in the idea that the worst of the Great Recession has passed (notwithstanding the precariousness of the present recovery).  But the longer-term fiscal challenges spawned by the recession are in some ways hitting the legal services community hardest now.

At best, one may hope that LSC funding can creep back into the high $300 millions, given budget-cutting propensities on Capitol Hill.  IOLTA funding is dependent mostly on interest rates, which remain at historic lows as policy-makers hope that loose credit will contribute to economic stimulus.  And legal services providers who had financial reserves have by and large exhausted them at this point.  There is less federal money, a whole lot less IOLTA money, and the rainy-day funds are dry.  Not a pretty picture.

Sorry to begin on a down note. There is some good public-interest news below.  Before moving into that, here are two other interesting items:

• a PAC for nonprofits.  From the Chronicle of Philanthropy: “CForward, a political-action committee that was set up last year to promote candidates who pledge to stand up for nonprofits, has made its first endorsements.  They include five contenders for state legislatures and one each for city council, mayor, and the U.S. House of Representatives ‘Our choices are not based on any single issue, or geography, gender, or political party,’ the group said in a statement. With governments cutting budgets across the country, it looked for candidates that would ‘promote our role in creating jobs, attracting investment dollars and maintaining the civil society required for traditional business to thrive’.”
• the ABA Journal’s annual Ross Essay contest, announced yesterday, is looking for haiku poetry.  Frequent readers of this weekly blog – all six of you – may recall that just two weeks ago I graced the blog’s pages with my haiku about a baseball player trade.  Sadly, and somewhat unfairly in my view, the ABA is looking only for submissions on themes of: “Innovation, Inspiration, Law Practice, On Being a Lawyer or the U.S. Supreme Court.”  Haiku’s tough.  It is not easy to condense thoughts into seventeen syllables.  (Guess how many syllables that previous sentence was.  Yes!)

On to the public interest news.  The week in very short:

• the New York State 50-hour pro bono requirement for attorney licensing is back in the news again;
• funding in NYC for legal services providers to assist illegal immigrants with the federal “Deferred Action” program;
• an increased pressure on already-strained Florida public defenders;
• the job-cuts forecast from LSC;
• bill introduced in Michigan to create indigent defense commission;
• two good-news items on law school clinics (NOLA and NC);
• funding for a pro se assistance attorney in the Gem State;
• the development of Boston’s alternate adjudication track for nonviolent, homeless offenders;
• an editorial on how the NOLA public defender’s office has weathered a fiscal storm;
• OLAF (one of my favorite legal services acronyms) releases its 2011 annual report. 

The summaries:

• 8.16.12 – “When New York’s Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman first revealed his intention in May to require all newly minted New York lawyers to perform 50 hours of pro bono work, it looked like the burden would fall directly on New York law schools. But with details of the measure still spare, deans around the country are saying they’re worried the proposal could have a much wider impact, affecting not only local institutions but law schools nationwide and abroad that send their graduates to practice law in New York….  Some [New York-based law school administrators applauded Lippman for tackling what he has dubbed the justice gap…. Others voiced concern that the measure would pose financial and administrative burdens on their schools. Most simply asked for details, which Lippman has said he will provide in late fall after an advisory committee reports back to him with feedback from legal services providers, schools and students. As word of New York’s novel approach to pro bono has spread, deans and administrators from out-of-state schools have begun to weigh in, asking what kind of administrative and financial obligations the measure might pose for their institutions.” (Story from Thomson Reuters.)  

• 8.16.12 – legal services providers throughout the U.S. will be assisting illegal immigrants to participate in the Obama Administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.  Here’s some good funding news out of NYC: “The New York City Council is spending $3 million on legal services for young illegal immigrants who want to apply for the right to work legally in the U.S…. Council Speaker Christine Quinn announced Wednesday that the city funding will go to the Legal Aid Society and other community-based organizations.”  (Full story from CBS Moneywatch.)

• 8.16.12 – an increased pressure on already-burdened Florida public defenders’ offices: “Public defenders are being ordered by local courts to fill a role they haven’t had to play in decades, if ever. Jim Purdy, public defender for the circuit that includes Volusia and Flagler counties, said the local court has begun appointing his office to help death row inmates ask the governor’s office for clemency. Purdy said his office is ‘critically short on manpower…. None of the elected public defenders in the state ever remember being appointed to (a clemency hearing) until this year and many . . . have been in office for 20 to 30 years,’ Purdy said.”  (Story from the Daytona Beach News-Journal.) 

• 8.15.12 – “The nation’s providers of civil legal assistance predict that funding cuts will leave them no choice this year but to lay off about 8 percent of lawyers and support staff, close branch offices and narrow the types of services they provide, Legal Services Corp. announced on August 15.  A survey of the 134 agencies depending on grants from LSC, the largest source of funding nationwide for civil legal aid, shows they are on pace to lay off 350 attorneys and 400 support staff this year because of budget cuts from Congress and other funding reductions….  About one of every six programs expects to close offices in 2012.” (Story from the National Law Journal.)
  • And here’s the news release from LSC.
  • Some coverage out of Colorado: “Whether Colorado’s program would be affected wasn’t immediately clear. Colorado Legal Services has seen its total budget cut by nearly 30 percent in recent years. The group has received a reprieve of sorts when the Colorado Supreme Court earlier this year approved a request for a one-time transfer of $1.5 million from the attorney registration fees fund to CLS.  However, the underlying funding mechanisms haven’t been fixed, and how to remodel that funding structure remains at the top of many bar association’s priorities.”  (Story from Law Week Colorado.)

• 8.15.12 – in Michigan, the members of the state house introduced a bill “to create the Michigan indigent defense commission and to provide for its powers and duties; to provide for constitutionally effective assistance of counsel to represent indigent defendants in criminal cases; to provide standards for the appointment of legal counsel; and to provide for certain appropriations.”  Here’s some filing information and here’s a copy of the bill.

• 8.13.12 – good news on the law school clinic front in both NOLA and North Carolina:
  • Four grants totaling $557,000 to Loyola University’s College of Law will help its law clinic educate and represent low-wage workers in the New Orleans area. The grants will underwrite three years of work by the Workplace Justice Project, which is part of Stuart H. Smith Law Clinic and Center for Social Justice.”  (Story from the Times-Picayune.) 
  • Elon University School of Law announced plans to open an Elder Law Clinic in the Fall 2012 semester. This clinic will serve the growing elderly population of the area in need of free legal services while simultaneously providing students with experience in the practice of elder law, an area of law that has will see exponential growth in the future.  (Story from WFMY.)

• 8.12.12 – in keeping with the trend of trying to accommodate increasing numbers of pro se litigants in local courthouses, “Canyon County [Idaho] commissioners approved a preliminary budget Thursday that includes $60,000 from the Idaho Supreme Court to hire an attorney to help people who are serving as their own lawyer in civil cases.”  (Story from the Idaho Press-Tribune.)   

• 8.12.12 – here’s a feature-length piece on the evolution of Boston’s “Homeless Court,” which offers an alternative adjudication system for nonviolent, homeless offenders: “Launched in late 2010, the program aims to serve the unique needs of Boston’s homeless defendants, who often find themselves cycling through the court system for minor, nonviolent offenses, or in contempt for failing to respond to court summonses they often don’t receive because they’re living on the streets. It’s a gentler form of justice, but no quick fix. Defendants…who volunteer for Homeless Court are required to make a yearlong commitment. During that time, they get mental health and substance abuse counseling and a bed at the Pine Street Inn, or, for those with more severe mental health or addiction issues, at Shattuck Hospital. Defendants without a high school diploma are offered tutoring and GED prep classes. All are required to brush up their job skills or learn new ones.”  (Full story from the Boston Globe.) 

• 8.11.12 – in NOLA, a Times-Picayune editorial argues for more prudent budgeting by the Orleans Parish public defender’s office. Budget volatility forced large cuts in the Orleans Parish public defender’s office earlier this year. But a report commissioned by the Louisiana Public Defender Board has concluded that a lack of fiscal prudence and other management mistakes aggravated the circumstances.  But management was not the only issue.  Public defenders in New Orleans have a staggering case load. Attorneys assigned to Municipal Court each handled 2,500 cases last year. That’s more than six times the national standard of 400 misdemeanor cases.  The editorial concludes arguing for more sustainable funding streams for the defender to avoid future volatility. 

• 8.10.12 – “The [Ohio Legal Aid Foundation (OLAF)] says it’s saved more than 2,300 homes since 2008 using both its own lawyers and volunteer attorneys in private practice. And calls for free legal help have jumped about 60 percent over those four years. But funds — which come from federal grants, donations and court fees and interest – are drying up.”  (Short piece from WKSU.  And here’s a link to OLAF’s 2011 annual report, released earlier this month.)

By: Steve Grumm

From a Legal Services Corporation release:

Washington DC – According to a recent survey conducted by the Legal Services Corporation (LSC), local legal aid programs expect to reduce staffing by nearly 750 employees in 2012, including 350 attorneys, because of funding cuts. This represents a reduction of eight percent of full-time-equivalent (FTE) positions from the end of 2011.

Nationwide, programs receiving grants from LSC reported significant reductions in funding, staffing, and operations.  Eighty-seven percent of the respondents report that their total (LSC and non-LSC) funding in 2012 will decrease significantly from 2011.  Eighty-two percent of the programs with reserves expect to use those funds in 2012 to continue operations.  One hundred thirty-three of the 134 LSC grantees responded to the survey.

As of December 2011, LSC-funded programs employed 9,185 FTE staff—including 4,360 attorneys—a reduction of 6.7 percent (661 positions) since December 2010.  Over the two-year period from 2010 to 2012, LSC-funded programs expect to lose 14 percent of their staff, including 591 attorneys (nearly 13 percent) and 320 paralegals (18 percent).   Sixteen percent of respondents expect to close offices in 2012.

Of the programs reporting decreases in their total funding from 2011 to 2012, 91 percent (87 programs) expect to serve fewer clients and accept fewer cases, and 73 percent (70 programs) will restrict the types of cases accepted.  Twenty-nine percent of programs expect to cut back services on foreclosure-related issues and services to victims of domestic violence.

There’s no making lemonade out of this.  It’s terrible news for legal services lawyers and (more signifcantly) for clients.  Nonetheless, we know that law students come to the PSLawNet Blog for info on career options.   We are still posting legal aid job listings from throughout the country everyday on PSLawNet.  So  the upshot is that you have to be the best job candidates you can possibly be in this tight job market.  Use our Job Search Fundamentals tools to work up great cover letters and resumes, and to learn how to ace interviews.

On a related note, we encourage law students to volunteer with civil legal aid providers this year.  Resources within these organizations are depleting but client demand from poor people and families continues to rise.

If you’re a public interest minded law student, then you’ll definitely want to be in Washington, DC on October 26-27 for the Equal Justice Works 2012 Conference & Career Fair! Registration opened today for job-hunting law students and recent graduates. Over 125 public interest employers will be in the building, and the weekend is packed with skill-building workshops and career advising sections with the nation’s leading experts.

The Equal Justice Works website posted these important dates to remember:

For more information, visit the EJW Conference & Career Fair information page.

by: Ashley Matthews

Times are tough for law students everywhere, who are facing the lowest employment rates in 18 years and the rude awakening of post-graduate loan debt. Many law students are beginning to aggressively question the value of their legal education and are demanding more bang for their buck, including enhanced clinic opportunities.

Fortunately, law schools are listening. Just last month, the National Law Journal reported that 76% of ABA-accredited law schools modified their course offerings to adapt to students’ needs for more practical skills. And now, two law schools – Loyola University College of Law and Elon University School of Law – have added revamped and new public interest clinics to their rosters, respectively.

As reported by Nola.com, Loyola Law School recently received four grants totaling $557,000 to aid low-wage workers in its Workplace Justice Clinic, a unit of the Stuart H. Smith Law Clinic and Center for Social Justice. The grant will keep the clinic up and running for 3 more years, and will also help transform the initiative into a full-blown resource center.

Photo Courtesy of DigiTriad.com.

Yesterday, the Elon School of Law announced the opening of its Elder Law Clinic, which will start serving clients as early as this fall semester. The new clinic will serve low-income elders, with a focus on the civil legal issues of older adults, such as power of attorney, end of life planning, contract and consumer issues, housing, grandparent rights, Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security benefits, and Veterans benefits.

These clinics will allow law students to represent low-income individuals free of charge, all under the guidance and supervision of licensed attorneys. Most clinics come equipped with additional experiential learning experiences, including a classroom component. In addition to allowing students to receive the practical skills they need to compete in a weak job market, poverty-stricken populations will get the much-needed services they desperately need. It’s a win all around!

Kudos to Loyola Law and Elon Law!

By: Steve Grumm

We at NALP and PSJD are thrilled that Ashley Matthews, a 2012 grad of the University of Miami School of Law, has joined us this morning as the 2012-13 PSJD Fellow.  Ashley’s background is in both public interest law and journalism.  She also knows the online media awfully well, so she’ll be at the helm of our blog and Twitter messaging.  (Read: you’re no longer stuck with me all the time.)

You may reach Ashley at amatthews@nalp.org.  Welcome, Ashley!

courtesy of jigzone.com

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers, from Washington, DC, where the sun is emerging after several hours of drenching summer rain.  Did you know that this day in history is a hugely significant one for the museum-goers among us?  On August 10, 1793, the Louvre opened its doors with its twofold mission of celebrating beautiful art and making non-French people feel uncultured.   But here in the US of A, on August 10, 1846 Congress chartered the Smithsonian Institution, which has since connected millions upon millions of people with art, science, and history.  

Speaking of history, unfortunately some of the history being written today concerns persistent economic hardships confronting families throughout the U.S.  Here’s an NPR story on the growth of poverty in the U.S. “According to a recent survey by The Associated Press, the number of Americans living at or below the poverty line will reach its highest point since…1964. Close to 16 percent of Americans now live at or below the poverty line. For a family of four, that’s $23,000 a year. On top of that, 100 million of us — 1 out of 3 Americans — manage to survive on a household income barely twice that amount. How is this poverty crisis happening?…”  (Full story.)

• On a related note here is a slideshow – The Faces of Food Stamps – that looks at the stories of several food stamp recipients, including the economic circumstances that forced them to seek help for themselves and their families.  Just for some broad-brush context: over one in seven Americans benefits from food stamps (a/k/a the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) these days.

The week in access-to-justice news, in short:

• report both criticizes and praises NOLA’s public defender in relation to a funding crisis the office is working through;
• stricter standards for determining eligibility for indigent defense in the Bay State?;
• a new initiative to make technology work for Washington State civil legal aid programs and clients;
• a pro bono attorney is appealing sanctions in hopes of getting an en banc hearing from the 9^th Circuit;
• will the ABA roll out a legal job corps?;
• legal aid funding woes in the Sunflower State;
• ditto in Old Dominion;
• staff reductions coming at Jacksonville Area Legal Aid;
• on a brighter note, the Florida Bar Foundation is expecting a windfall;
• public defenders must defend themselves from professional indignities;
• Ohio legal aid providers face harsh fiscal realities;
• same thing for a Northern California provider;
• the St. Louis Post Dispatch calls for $ for the state’s indigent defense system;
• Memphis gets help from the Public Defender Corps program;
• DC law-firm associates raise almost a million bucks for the Legal Aid Society;
• the vital role of pro bono lawyers in helping Chicagoans who face foreclosure;
• Music!

The summaries:

• 8.9.12 – “A new report on the Orleans Parish public defender’s office places most of the blame on the office’s leadership for a major budget crisis earlier this year that forced heavy bloodletting. But the review also praised Derwyn Bunton, the chief public defender, for helping to build a professional office from what was a bare bones operation comprised of part-time lawyers before Hurricane Katrina.  The 66-page report, commissioned by the Louisiana Public Defender Board, comes six months after a major fiscal crisis for an office that represents more than 80 percent of criminal defendants in Orleans Parish and handled 30,000 cases in 2011.”  (Full story from the Times-Picayune.)

• 8.9.12 – a Boston Globe editorial argues for stricter standards in determining whether a criminal defendant should be financially eligible for a public defender’s services. The piece highlights the fact that the state’s high court has recently taken notice of what it sees as overly lax standards for assessing indigence.

• 8.7.12 – some folks with the Northwest Justice Project (which is where I fell in love with the idea of being a public interest lawyer) talk about their work “creating a series of instructive videos for WashingtonLawHelp.org through the federal Communities Connect Network Project (part of the Department of Commerce’s Broadband Technology Opportunity Program) which aims to increase access to technology and improve legal literacy for unrepresented Washingtonians.”  The interview was conducted by the good people at ProBono.net.

• 8.7.12 – “A coalition of public interest groups and two law professors are supporting a call for en banc review of sanctions imposed on an Arizona pro bono attorney in a blistering opinion by a federal appeals court panel.  In a June 21 opinion (PDF), the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals made a personal award of costs against attorney Howard M. Shanker, finding that he ‘grossly abused the judicial process’ by pursuing a harassing, duplicative lawsuit on behalf of his clients.”  I don’t know anything about the merits of the case.  I include this in the Bulletin b/c some parties supporting the en banc review are worried about a chilling effect with respect to the willingness of pro bono counsel to bring cases if they fear the possibility of sanctions.  Granted, this is affirmative litigation, which is not the normal posture for a lot of pro bono cases.  Nevertheless the ABA Journal article is worth a read.   

• 8.7.12 – speaking of the ABA, they may really get into the postgraduate employment business, and this could impact the public interest community: “ABA President-elect James R. Silkenat told of a plan to create a legal job corps to match unemployed lawyers with underserved communities during a speech to the ABA House of Delegates….  Silkenat, who becomes ABA president in 2013, said there is a need to find meaningful jobs for lawyers and to make sure all parts of society have access to legal assistance. ‘Access to justice is more than just a catchphrase,’ he said.  Silkenat told the ABA Journal that the job corps would operate in both cities and rural areas. A few law schools have tried to implement the idea, he said, but ‘the ABA is the only party that can put it together nationally’.”  Hmmm.  (Full article in the ABA Journal.)

• 8.7.12 – this article is ostensibly about $4000 of county funding for Kansas Legal Services, but goes on to highlight how KLS’s funding has been hit in the recession’s wake and the challenges it faces at present.  (Story in the Hillsboro Free Press.)

• 8.7.12 – it’s not just in Kansas.  The Virginia Legal Aid Society is tackling hard fiscal times as well, according to a piece in the Lynchburg News & Advance.

• 8.6.12 – Jacksonville Area Legal Aid is looking at a sizeable staff cut: “Funding declines for [JALA] will cause the organization to lay off about 20 percent of its staff in the coming weeks.  Including satellite offices, JALA employs about 85 people. A 20 percent cut would indicate a loss of 17 positions.”  IOLTA funding falloffs are the main culprit: “JALA received $1.2 million in 2011, and is projected to receive $550,000 in 2013 and $350,000 in 2014.”  (Story from the Jacksonville Daily Record.)
  • Here’s a piece from the Jacksonville Bar Association president extolling the benefits that JALA’s work produces for the local economy and encouraging the business community to support JALA.

• 8.6.12 – on a brighter note, almost half a million dollars is flowing to the Florida Bar Foundation: “Attorney General Pam Bondi today announced that ProVest, LLC, one of Florida’s largest service processing firms, has agreed to pay $462,500 to the Florida Bar Foundation to continue the legal aid program that assists low-income individuals facing foreclosure. The settlement with ProVest resolves allegations regarding improper service of process in foreclosure cases filed in courts throughout Florida.”  Here’s the press release.

• 8.6.12 – former public defender and current law professor Jay Silver recounts the professional indignities suffered by those who choose careers in public defense.  Criticism can come from all quarters – family members, clients, etc. – so a thick skin and strong sense of commitment are necessary for defenders to succeed.  (Full story from the National Law Journal.)   

• 8.5.12 – a look at the harsh funding climate in which Ohio’s legal services providers are operating.  Frightening quote: “The Legal Aid Society of Columbus employed 74 people in 2008. Now, it employs 42.”  (Full story from the Columbus Dispatch.)

• 8.5.12 – from Northern California: “A local nonprofit that has helped represent nearly 10,000 clients in legal matters in Placer and surrounding counties over the past four years alone has lost $165,847 in grant funding over the past two years, along with vital state and federal funding.  In the wake of massive federal and state funding cuts, Northern California Legal Services Motherlode Region, based in Downtown Auburn, and its other offices throughout Northern California, have had to start turning away many low-income residents desperate for legal help. Now, the legal nonprofit can only help people covered under very specific grants.  As of July 26, there was no new intake of clients except for seniors over 60 and those with health-related legal matters. As of Aug. 6, intake for some emergency cases will continue through September and will be reevaluated after that. The free legal clinics offered by the organization will also continue, but the staff and attorneys have been cut nearly in half over the past few years.”  (Full story from Auburn Journal.)

• 8.5.12 – following a state supreme court ruling about public-defender caseloads, a St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial laments the under-funding of the state’s indigent defense system and argues that funding the system adequately now will save the state money in the long term: “Judges, prosecutors and public defenders have met privately time and time again without results. Prosecutors have scoffed, saying they’re as overworked as the public defenders — although, of course, they choose which cases to prosecute. Judges say they’re caught in the middle.  The Legislature and governor deal with this problem the way they deal with so many others: They punt.  Not every problem can be fixed with more funding. This one can. Do the math.”  (Here’s the full editorial.)

• 8.5.12 – Public Defender Corps attorneys are starting work in The River City.  “Memphis is joining a movement to reform how indigent defendants are treated — in and out of the courthouse.  The idea is that public defenders may be able to help curb recidivism by helping their clients address many underlying problems, such as mental illness, unemployment and drug or alcohol addictions. Memphis’ forward-thinking helped the city earn a part in the lauded national Public Defenders Corp. program, said Jonathan Rapping, founder and president of Atlanta-based Southern Public Defender Training Center. The center and the D.C.-based Equal Justice Works lead the program, which also receives funding from the U.S. Department of Justice.”  (Full story in the Memphis Commercial Appeal.)  Unfortunately DOJ is no longer going to fund the Public Defender Corps program.  My understanding is that Southern Public Defender Training Center and Equal Justice Works are hunting for other funding options now.

• 8.3.12 – finally, some good funding news: “In a year fraught with financial uncertainty, the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia recently got some good news: the civil legal services group’s annual Generous Associates Campaign blew past its goal and previous fundraising highs, taking in a record $901,000…. Money earned from the campaign, which is run by associates at law firms across the city, makes up between 20 to 25 percent of the organization’s operating budget….” (Full story from the Blog of the Legal Times.)

• 8.1.12 – the Chicago Lawyer reports on the vital role of pro bono attorneys in running a courthouse based foreclosure prevention program administered by Chicago Volunteer Legal Services.

Music!  Reading news stories from Memphis and St. Louis has got me thinking about the Mississippi.  So here’s some riverboat gambling music from Wilco, which, before becoming an art-rock darling, was a scrappy Illinois  rock band.