This week: a controversial testing method for an NYC homelessness prevention program; TARP funds to prop up corporate interests, but not legal services for low-income homeowners?; the Skadden Fellowship Class of 2011 contains 29 budding public interest attorneys; funding calamity averted for D.C. legal services programs; will we lose more local/state government jobs in the recession’s wake?; significant changes in how NYC indigent defense cases are assigned to counsel; an Innocence Project report sees widespread prosecutorial misconduct in California; the Cleveland Plain Dealer looks at inefficiencies in the local criminal courts.

• 12.9.10 – in the New York Times, we look at a controversial social welfare program evaluation tool.  Borrowing an idea from the medical research arena, the City is essentially denying a homelessness prevention program’s assistance to half of a group of “test subjects” (who are actual people on the verge of homelessness), while giving assistance to the other half.  By doing so, the City will learn how effective the program – called Homebase – really is.  Given what’s at stake though – the welfare of families in crisis – many local public interest advocates have voiced concerns.  On the other hand, the piece notes that “randomized controlled trials” are increasingly used by philanthropies and governments because of their value in answering fundamental questions about social programs’ effectiveness.  And, due to funding shortages the program at issue in NYC is not able to serve all applicants anyway, so the net number of applicants denied is not actually rising as a result of the study.

• 12.9.10 – writing in The Nation, liberal commentator Katrina Vanden Heuvel laments that the Department of the Treasury, relying on an interpretation of current statutory authority, opposes the future use of some TARP funds by states to support civil legal aid for homeowners in distress.  There are pieces of legislation in the House and Senate, respectively, which would explicitly authorize states to channel TARP funding toward legal aid.

• 12.7.10 – The new class of Skadden Fellows has been announced.  Twenty-nine fellowships were awarded to students hailing from 21 law schools.  Four schools have multiple awards: Harvard (5), Michigan (2), Penn (2), and Stanford (3).  The 18 schools which have one Class-of-2011 fellow are a fairly varied bunch, including: Arkansas, Boston College, CUNY, Texas, UVA, and Widener.  Based upon our analysis of the past four annual classes, there has been increasing breadth and diversity with respect to the schools producing Skadden Fellows.  See our recent blog post containing comparative numbers for the classes of 2010, 2009, and 2008.

Keep reading . . .

The new class of Skadden Fellows has been announced.  Twenty-nine fellowships were awarded to students hailing from 21 law schools.  Four schools have multiple awards: Harvard (5), Michigan (2), Penn (2), and Stanford (3).  The 18 schools which have one Class-of-2011 fellow are a fairly varied bunch, including: Arkansas, Boston College, CUNY, Texas, UVA, and Widener.

For a little bit of context, the Class of 2010 (last year’s class) consisted of 27 fellows from 20 law schools.  The 2009 class conisted of 28 fellows from 14 schools.  And 36 fellows from 16 schools comprised the Class of 2008.  We don’t have time to look back further – although info on past classes is available via the above link – but based upon the past 4 years we’re seeing more diversity and breadth with respect to the schools from which fellows graduate.

Congrats Class-of-2011 Skadden Fellows!!!  Good luck!!!  

Yesterday we shared how to utilize Westlaw to search for jobs with federal agencies.  Today we wanted to highlight another job searching suggestion from the AvidCareerist Blog:  set up Google Alerts to search for jobs as part of your on-line strategy.

My job search clients and I use Google Alerts, in addition to job boards, to find job openings on-line. Alerts pull more openings than the major boards, they pick up openings from Craigslist, and they help my clients find niche job boards for additional feeds.

“What’s a Google Alert and how do I set one up?” you ask.  See here.

The AvidCareerist in her blog uses the job title example of a “contract recruiter” — how can you translate this to looking for public interest legal positions?

Let’s say you are looking for a staff attorney position at a nonprofit, you could set up the following alert:  {“staff attorney”} {litigate AND research} {“staff attorney” AND apply}.   What if you want to restrict this to search for ONLY jobs in California, then:  {“staff attorney”} {litigate AND research} {“staff attorney” AND apply AND california}.

If you are interested in a particular practice area, for example civil rights, you could set up an alert tailored to that preference:  {“attorney”} AND {“attorney” and apply or submit} AND {“civil rights”}.  You can also set up alerts to search for new opportunities at specific organizations, for example:  {“attorney”} AND {“attorney” and apply or submit} AND {“U.S. Department of Education”}.  To set up your personalized google job alerts go here.

A note of caution from the AvidCareerist:

However, put a strict limit on the amount of time you spend using alerts and feeds to find and respond to job openings. Why? First, as mentioned above, you will only find a tiny portion of the available openings using these tactics. Second, these are the easiest openings to find. Thus, you will have a lot of competition from other job seekers. I suggest that you spend no more than 30 minutes a day building feeds and alerts and responding to postings. How do you that? Only respond to postings that you are well qualified for.

Want more job search resources? Visit PSLawNet’s Career Central.

Need a job or internship? During the past week PSLawNet has posted:   86 new attorney positions,   22 new internships, and  72 new law related opportunities.  Additionally, there are currently 1,222 active opportunities in our job database.  To search the database visit PSLawNet. 

Featured New Positions:

Catholic Charities Legal Assistance (CCLA) is currently hiring for three positions:  Program Director, Staff Attorney, and Senior Attorney.  CCLA’s mission is to provide access to compassionate and competent legal assistance to the economically disadvantaged in the Chicago area.  Visit the organization’s website to learn more.

The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland is looking for 12-15 dedicated, hard-working, and public interest minded students to work in four Northeast Ohio offices for their 2011 Summer Associate Program.  Summer associates work in different areas of the law but all receive the opportunity to learn how to be excellent poverty lawyers.  Generally, summer associates will interview clients, draft court pleadings, research relevant legal issues, attend and assist with court hearings and trials, and gather and analyze evidence.  In addition, all summer associates will participate in weekly trainings on substantive areas of poverty law and observe oral arguments in the 8th District Court of Appeals, meeting afterward with the judges involved.  Brown bag lunches with current Legal Aid lawyers and community members including judges, politicians, and leaders of local non-profit agencies are also held each week.   Check PSLawNet for additional details and application instructions.

Featured Public Service Career Resource:

Are you a law student searching for funding opportunities to support your public interest summer experience?  Visit our Summer Funding Resources page for an updated list of funding sources across the country.  We have categorized the summer funding resources into three categories:  (1) funding sources which may be available in various geographic work locations; (2) funding sources available in specific regions; and (3) law firm split summer programs.  Check it out.

Learn more about getting a PSLawNet job seeker or employer account . . .

NALP is pleased to release our first ever Public Interest Employment Market Snapshot Report.  The report is based on an online survey of public interest employers conducted in September.  The survey sought responses concerning:  (1) recent law student and law graduate hiring, (2) hiring expectations for the immediate future, and (3) employer advice for job applicants competing in today’s market.

The report’s quantitative data largely confirm what our own experiences and other forms of anecdotal evidence have shown us:  the economic recession had a serious, negative impact on public interest hiring, particularly in all areas outside of federal employment.  Further, in the wake of the recession, it will take time for many employers to achieve enough financial stability to bolster hiring. While not all of the news is positive, we hope that this modest-but-important first step toward a more data-driven understanding of the public interest employment market will be useful to public interest job seekers and employers.

Some useful data points on law student summer hiring trends and expectations include:

• Of the 128 respondents that did offer paid summer positions before the recession, 57% have reduced the number of paid positions offered.
• In Summer 2011, 72.0% of respondents anticipate offering the same number of unpaid positions and 11.5% expect to increase hiring levels for unpaid positions from Summer 2010 levels.

Key points on post-graduate hiring trends and expectations:

• At the time of the survey, 73.7% of respondents with civil legal services organizations, 78.3% of those with public defender offices, and 87.6% of those with nonprofit legal organizations reported hiring zero Class-of-2010 graduates.  The low hiring rates across low across various public interest employer types suggests continued freezes and reductions in hiring of permanent staff. (Advice for Class-of-2010 grads still seeking legal employment.)
• However, there is some good news on the horizon for Class-of-2011 graduates:  13.0% of respondents with public defenders, 9.7% of those with federal government agencies/offices, 9.5% of those with local prosecutors, and 8.3% of those with local government employers plan to hire more Class-of-2011 graduates than Class-of-2010 graduates.

In addition to the quantitative data, the report contains feedback from various types of public interest employers about what experiences/skills they wish to see from job seekers.  A few key insights include:

• Civil legal services providers look for a demonstrated passion for serving low-income communities and for direct experience interacting and working with low-income clients.  Civil legal service providers also highly value bilingual ability in their attorneys, especially knowledge of Spanish or of an Asian language.  (Check out our earlier post on Spanish immersion programs).
• Public defenders desire candidates with clinical and/or pro bono experience working with incarcerated and low-income clients.  According to one public defender,“previous experience in a PD’s office is always a plus for law students and a must for attorneys.”
• Nonprofit legal organizations look for a demonstrated passion about the organization’s mission and a diverse skill set that may include community outreach and exposure to nonprofit fundraising.

What were employers’ predictions for future “growth areas” in public interest practice?

Nicole Vikan is the Assistant Director for Public Interest and Government Careers at Georgetown Law Center’s Office of Public Interest and Community Service. Before moving to Washington DC, Nicole advised  students seeking employment in the private and public sectors as a member of Fordham Law School’s Career Planning Center and practiced law for five years as a criminal prosecutor at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.  Nicole’s NALP activities include service for the Public Service Section (Chair), LGBT Section, Newer Professionals Section (Vice Chair), and Bylaws Committee.  She has written numerous articles for the NALP Bulletin and participated on panels at the Annual Education Conferences.  Nicole received her J.D. from New York University and her B.A. from Carleton College.

Job Seekers from the Class of 2010 . . . You graduated in May 2010 and passed the Bar—congrats! But (as we all know) the job market is tight, and you’re still looking for a public interest job. What should you be doing as you look for that first legal position?

Volunteer. Find a pro bono position in a practice area of interest so you can meet professionals in the field, make a great impression for when the organization (or a similar employer) is ready to hire, and develop your legal skills.

Make ends meet. I know—this isn’t completely compatible with my first suggestion. But many organizations will be excited to have part-time volunteers, so you can work part-time in a non-legal position (bartending, holiday sales, LSAT tutoring, etc.) to pay the bills.  I understand that this can be a shot to the ego, and not what you expected when you began law school.  But you will get the job you want soon, and a few months from now you won’t care at all about what you did to stay afloat financially in those first few months out of school.

Handle your student loan debt. Yes, it’s painful to think about sometimes. But do not bury your head in the sand—defaulting on your loans could be a reason for prospective employers to reject your application. If necessary, find out your options for deferment on the Department of Education’s Federal Student Aid site. Learn about debt repayment options – including the Income Based Repayment (IBR) program – on the Equal Justice Works Student Debt Relief page and PSLawNet’s own Financing a Public Interest Career site so you know how different jobs will impact you.

Keep in touch. Write polite, friendly email updates to former supervisors, professors, and mentors to share your good news about the Bar Exam—and to tell them you’re looking for a job. Don’t ask them point-blank if they can hire you; instead, let them know what type of work you hope to find, provide an updated resume so they can see what skills you have developed, and ask them to please keep you in mind if they learn of a position that might be appropriate for you. Ask them if they know people in your field of interest who you can contact.

Which brings me to my next point: Meet more people in the field. Yes, that means NETWORK. Using your undergrad and law school connections, suggestions from family, friends, and professors, and online searching, make a list of two dozen people at various career stages in your practice area and location of interest. Write to at least two of those people each week to request informational interviews: Tell them why their background interests you and ask if you can meet for coffee to learn more about their work. Again, do not ask for a job, but do attach your resume.

Make a To Do list, with a timetable, so you make sure to send job applications and do personal outreach (i.e., networking) on a regular basis. Find affordable ways to reward your efforts—a long walk with friends, an item off the dollar menu at your favorite fast food restaurant, or a new library book, for example.

Take care of yourself and remember that you graduated into one of the toughest legal job markets in history. You shouldn’t despair and give up; instead, remind yourself that you are indeed a talented attorney, and in this economy it will take more persistence, patience, and effort to find that first job—but you can do it!

Visit PSLawNet for more job search fundamentals.

Need a job or internship? During the past week PSLawNet has posted:   21 new attorney positions,   12 new internships, and  7 new law related opportunities.  Additionally, there are currently 1,236 active opportunities in our job database.  PSLawNet enjoyed a Thanksgiving Holiday as well so we have a backlog of new attorney and internship postings, so make sure to check the database mid-week for a number of new openings.  To search the database visit PSLawNet. 

Featured New Positions:

The Harris County Public Defender is currently hiring for both an Assistant Public Defender to serve as Division Chief for their Mental Health Division and an Assistant Public Defender to serve as Division Chief of their Appellate Division.  Harris County, Texas hired its first public defender earlier this month and the office is gearing up to begin operations in 2011 (Read local coverage from Houston and check out our earlier coverage of this issue in the June 11, 2010 issue of the Public Interest News Bulletin).

The Urban Justice Center’s Community Development Project (CDP) is currently seeking law student interns interested in working with them in Summer 2011 to protect the rights of low-income people and to provide legal and technical assistance to advance diverse community development projects.  The CDP provides legal, technical, research, and policy support to community-based organizations working to improve conditions in low-income communities in New York City.  Applications are being accepted on a rolling basis, but must be received by January 10, 2011.  Check PSLawNet for additional details about the internships and application instructions.

Featured Public Service Career Resource:

Considering a career as a public defender?  The University of Virginia School of Law has shared their How to Get a Job in a Public Defender’s Office guide with PSLawNet’s Public Service Career Library.  The guide is designed to help students decide if they would like a career as a public defender.  It was also created to assist committed students in successfully landing a job at a defender’s office.  Among other features, this publication includes information on how to choose the right public defender’s office for you, how to develop a public defender resume, and how to prepare for a public an interview for a public defender’s office.   Check it out.

Learn more about getting a PSLawNet job seeker or employer account . . .

Need a job or internship? During the past week PSLawNet has posted:   75 new attorney positions,   49 internships, and  19 law related opportunities.  Additionally, there are currently 1,267 active opportunities in our job database. To search the database visit PSLawNet. 

Featured New Positions:

Legal Services NYC-Bronx (LSNYC-Bronx) seeks a Project Director to lead its borough-wide program as it seeks to build on existing strengths and expand its capacity and impact for clients and communities.  Its areas of practice include housing, family law, public benefits, education, employment, consumer, homeowner protection and tax. Specialized program projects serve particularly vulnerable low-income populations such as seniors, survivors of domestic abuse and people with disabilities.  LSNYC-Bronx is a separately incorporated constituent corporation of Legal Services NYC, the largest provider of free civil legal services to low-income people in the nation.   Check PSLawNet for application details.

East Bay Community Law Center (EBCLC) is seeking full-time law student interns for its 2011 Summer Program.  EBCLC is a nationally-recognized poverty law clinic founded by Boalt students in 1988 with the dual mission of providing high quality legal services to low-income clients and first-rate clinical education to law students. EBCLC provides free civil legal services to low-income clients of Alameda County, California.

EBCLC is the community-based clinic for Berkeley Law School (University of California, Boalt Hall) during the academic year. During our summer session, EBCLC welcomes students from all law schools. Check PSLawNet for application details.

Featured Public Service Career Resource:

Believe it or not, it is possible to work as a full-time public interest attorney with a . . . gasp . . . for-profit law firm.  While still considered a niche practice, many “public interest law firms” represent individuals, groups (such as labor unions and member associations), and government bodies on myriad legal matters, including employment and housing discrimination, labor issues, land use and property rights, and much more.  The  Center for Public Interest Law at
Columbia Law School (CPIL) and Harvard Law School Office of Public Interest Advising shared their Private Public Interest and Plaintiff’s Firm Guide with the PSLawNet’s Public Service Career Library.  Check it out.

Learn more about getting a PSLawNet job seeker or employer account . . .

This week: Professor Tribe leaving DOJ Access-to-Justice initiative to return to Harvard; looking for more pro bono volunteers in Maryland; a report on poverty from Legal Services of New Jersey; public benefits backlog in a California county; federal security clearance process speeding up; pro bono lawyers needed in Maryland, part deux; a tax on Ohio lawyers to pay for public defenders?; DOJ domestic violence prevention funding in Los Angeles; the terrible IOLTA situation in Florida; a need for pro bono attorneys in Eastern Washington State; a beneficiary of cy pres funds in Dallas; and a post-election call to defund the Legal Services Corporation.

• 11.18.10 – an announcement on the Harvard Law School website states that Prof. Laurence Tribe, who has been serving as Senior Counselor for Access to Justice at the DOJ, will leave that post and return to Boston on account of health problems.   He has stayed on at DOJ this fall because he is playing “a key role in a public White House event to be held Nov. 19 with Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis. The event will announce new initiatives to help middle class and low-income families secure their legal rights, Tribe said.”  Of course his health must come first, but the PSLawNet Blog is saddened to learn that the Access-to-Justice community will lose Prof. Tribe – at least in this prominent and unique DOJ position.  There was no word in the announcement about who will fill his DOJ position (or whether it will be filled, although we assume the AtJ initiative will not be abandoned outright because Tribe had slowly been adding staff and building an office in DC).  Here’s the announcement: http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/2010/11/18_tribe.html.

• 11.16.10 – the Maryland Daily Record reports that the Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service is trying to expand its service capacity by recruiting more attorneys who practice in small firms and those practicing in rural areas.  MVLS is touting the support infrastructure it provides to attorneys as a huge benefit for attorneys trying to do pro bono in smaller offices.  One interesting tidbit from the story is that MVLS’s income-eligibility guidelines are fairly permissive.  According to MVLS’s deputy director,  “‘Our criteria is up to 50% of the Maryland median income – a family of four can make up to $50,000 and still qualify…'”  MVLS also administers a “low bono” judicare program – via a grant from the Maryland Legal Services Corporation – that provides modest attorney fees for advocates handling contested family law matters.  (For more on the rising need for pro bono services in Maryland, see the Baltimore Sun article below.)

• 11.16.10 – the Asbury Park Press reports that “Legal Services of New Jersey researchers on Tuesday said they compiled the stories of more than 80 people struggling on a daily basis to afford food, health care, child care, housing and other needs … The 223-page report ‘represents by far the largest-scale social science inquiry into what life is like for New Jerseyans burdened by poverty,’ said Melville D. Miller Jr., president of Legal Services, the nonprofit organization that coordinates the state’s system of legal aid for low-income people in civil matters.”  Here’s a link to the report: “Food, Clothing, Health or a Home?  The Terrible Choices and Deprivations – and Great Courage – of New Jerseyans Who Live in Poverty.”  Oh, heck, since the Asbury Park Press covered the story, Springsteen for everybody!

• 11.16.10 – in a clear sign of how the recession has impacted local governments’ abilities to administer social services programs, “San Mateo County is  racing to process a backlog of applications for food stamps, financial aid, Medi-Cal and other forms of public assistance.”  As reported by the Mercury News, records show that the “Human Services Agency failed to process more than 1,000 applications by state-required deadlines each month between May and September.”  The primary culprits are a huge increase in public benefit applications and the fact that the Human Services Agency, laboring under budget constraints, hasn’t been able to fill open positions.  The Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County “will consider legal options” if there is still an application backlog by 2011.

• 11.16.10 – here’s some good news for those who are interested in federal careers: security clearance processes, which have at times moved with all the speed of a sleepy, apathetic glacier, are quickening.  The Government Executive website reports that a “…Government Accountability Office audit … found [that the Department of] Defense required 325 days on average to complete initial personnel security clearances in 2007, but reduced processing time to 60 days in the first three quarters of fiscal 2010. The Office of Personnel Management, which conducts 90 percent of the government’s background investigations, reduced its average completion time for initial security clearances from 153 days in fiscal 2007 to 47 days in fiscal 2010, according to agency data.” http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=46530&dcn=e_gvet

Keep reading . . .

According to the National Career Development Association, today is National Career Development Day.  It happens to fall in the middle of National Career Development Week (Nov. 15-19),  which itself is situated right smack in the heart of National Career Development Month (yes, November).  It’s quite ambitious, we think, to declare a celebratory month, week, and day.  Nonetheless, career development is extraordinarily important for law students.  And since public interest hiring season is approaching, we wanted to mark the occasion with a couple of points:

• 1Ls, in case the date (understandably) passed you by amidst your efforts to master such concepts as nonmutual collateral estoppel and proximate causation, Nov. 1 marked the point at which you were able to begin meeting with your schools’ career development professionals.  (See NALP’s Principles and Standards for Law Placement and Recruitment Activities, Part V(D) – bottom of page.)  On December 1, you will be able to initiate contact with employers.  We at the PSLawNet Blog have mixed feelings about 1Ls focusing much, if at all, on the job search during 1st semester.  In a perfect world, you would spend the entire semester learning how to be law students.  We recognize, though, that the poor job market has many of you feeling ill at ease.  So for those who wish to take the plunge, we wish to convey how strongly we feel that setting up a meeting with career services is the best starting point.  Your author was very stubborn in school and fashioned himself a sort of rogue public-interest student.  Even though my school had a stand-alone public interest career office, I didn’t set foot in it.  This was really, really dumb.  I was able to find a summer job only because of some public interest work experience I’d gotten before school.  But I was operating with tunnel vision and had no idea about the broad array of practice settings that were open to me as a job applicant.  Had I met with career services, I’d have cast a much wider net in choosing where to apply.  And, on account of my stubbornness later in law school, I was hopelessly out of touch with the timeline to apply for postgraduate fellowships – something I still regret, and something my public interest career advisor could easily have clued me in on.  Finally, I don’t even want to think about what my cover letter and resume looked like without a trained set of eyes having reviewed them.  In retrospect, I got my 1L summer job in spite of my job search skills, not because of them.
• Many 2Ls and 3Ls may already be hard at work on summer and postgraduate job applications, respectively.  I strongly encourage you to check in with your career services office (even, no, especially, if it’s for the first time).  And take advantage of PSLawNet’s career search resources on cover letters, resumes, and interviews, as well as our public interest career fairs calendar.

Good luck, and if there is anything we can provide to make things easier – short of a more rapid economic turnaround – please let us know.