This week:  Pro bono, Mick Dundee-style; exploring solutions to expand legal services in Mississippi; comparing public defenders and private defense counsel; Comcast shows a little  love ($$$) to a medical-legal partnership; a legal services hotline for California seniors loses funding; more on Missouri’s ailing public defense system; the wheels of justice turning in New Mexico; terrific legal work on behalf of veterans in Michigan; and two former Minnesota legal services lawyers form a for-profit firm, but work primarily with low-income clients. 

• 8.27.10 – Fallen behind on the pro bono scene Down Under?  Well, The Australian has a piece about new data from the country’s National Pro Bono Resource Centre. The data show that, just as in the U.S., large firms are making large pro bono contributions: “24 firms with more than 50 lawyers did 322,343 hours of pro bono work last financial year.  The resource centre did not provide costings, but a conservative hourly rate of $250 shows the firms gave away legal work worth at least $80m.”  Read the Australian’s article on the National Pro Bono Resource Centre’s new data.  The two reports which present the data are presently available on the Resource Centre’s homepage.  As an aside, the PSLawNet Blog met the Centre’s director, John Corker, a couple of years ago at a public interest conference in Minneapolis.  We sat next to him as he took in his first baseball game.  The PSLawNet blog explained the basics, and apologized for both the Metrodome and for the diabolical Red Sox Nation, which had overrun the place to see the visiting Sox.

• 8.25.10 – a short piece in Southern Mississippi’s Sun Herald notes that “A Mississippi Supreme Court committee has asked for public comment on proposals to improve poor people’s access to legal services.  Proposals under review call for making 20 hours of annual pro bono…service mandatory for Mississippi attorneys, raising to $500 the payments lawyers may make in lieu of doing pro bono work and increasing fees paid by out of state lawyers to $500 per case” in order to fund civil legal services.  The comment deadline is October 1.

• 8.24.10 – Miller-McCune reports on new research in the Journal of Criminal Justice: “A newly published look at Chicago-area courts finds that, when you consider the actual outcomes of judicial hearings, these underpaid and underappreciated attorneys do just as well as their private-sector counterparts.”  The study looked at a random sample of 2850 convicted felony defendants and compared outcomes – between those defendants who had public defenders and those who had private counsel – at four stages in their trials: whether bail was granted; plea-bargaining decisions; whether defendants ultimately served a jail sentence; and length of sentence imposed on those jailed.  There are “[t]wo important caveats” regarding the study: “The researchers did not look at convictions vs. acquittals. And they found that retaining a private attorney is apparently beneficial ‘for certain offenders and at certain stages’ of the process.”  [Tip of cap to the ABA Journal.]

• 8.24.10 – the Florida Times-Union reports that “Comcast has donated $15,000 to Jacksonville Area Legal Aid for its Northeast Florida Medical-Legal Partnership.”  The eight year-old Partnership has recently expanded to serve additional medical centers.

• 8.24.10 – according to the Senior Spectrum (a publication covering seniors’ issues in California): “After providing free legal advice to more than 100,000 callers over the past two decades, the California Senior Legal Hotline has been forced to suspend most service following the loss of all state and federal funds for its general statewide program.”  Seniors in Sacramento County will still be able to access the hotline for help on a broad array of issues, but those outside the county will have only limited access to hotline services.  The hotline program is seeking new funding sources.

• 8.23.10 0 – the Lincoln County Journal reports on Missouri’s indigent defense caseload crisis.  “Public defender offices statewide are seeing increasingly heavy case loads putting attorneys well over their monthly limits.”  District Defender Thomas Gabel, who oversees programs in Lincoln and Pike Counties, observed that “Missouri is ranked 49th out of 50 states for public defense funding and in the past decade the state has taken in 12 thousand additional cases a year with no additional funds.”  Also, on 8.21.10, KSPR in Springfield reported that “Missouri Auditor Susan Montee plans to review the state Public Defender Commission.”  The PSLawNet Blog has been covering this series of events; to track back to past coverage, begin with our 8/20/10 Public Interest News Bulletin.

• 8.21.10 – the Las Cruces Sun-News in New Mexico reports that, in spite of budgetary pressures on the prosecutor’s and public defender’s offices, and in spite of the public’s misperception – driven by television crime dramas – about how fast the wheels of justice should turn, the Do-a Ana County courthouse is moving with all deliberate speed in handling criminal matters.

• 8.22.10 – an Associated Press story on the Michigan Live website tells of the successes of Project SALUTE , a pro bono program housed at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law that serves veterans with legal needs.  “Combined with the law school’s Veterans Law Clinic, the two UDM-run programs are designed to address the compelling needs of veterans around the state.  The programs focus on veterans’ federal disability and pension benefits through education, law student representation, and pro bono attorney referral.”  For more, see the PSLawNet Blog’s post yesterday which explores Project SALUTE and other efforts to help low-income vets throughout the country. 

• 8.21.10 – according to the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, two former legal aid lawyers formed their own law firm, specializing in “destitute and low-income clients.”  While some clients can afford to pay a little bit of money, the firm will also rely on a Minnesota program that “pays advocates to help low-income adults with the complicated paperwork to go through the [federal Supplemental Security Income application] process.”  It can be a win-win-win when a client is approved to receive SSI benefits: the client has increased income, the attorneys are compensated by the state, and the state will actually save money because the client’s move to a federally-funded support program will often take them off of the rolls of state programs. 

 This Week: deferred law firm associates bitten by the public interest bug, indigent defense resource shortages in Missouri and Minnesota, congressional support for doctors and lawyers working together, $$$ in judicial elections, New Jersey libraries are prepping to help pro se litigants because legal services funding cuts are looming, Connecticut brings pro se resources to the Interwebs, and big cuts in Washington State’s welfare program.

• 8.19.10 – New York Times – some law firm associates who took temporary public interest placements when their law firm start dates were deferred have found public interest work so rewarding that they have opted to remain with their host organizations rather than going back to the law firm life, salary cut notwithstanding. 

• 8.19.10 – St. Louis Post-Dispatch – the Missouri State Public Defender program is fighting back against accusations by some prosecutors that the defenders are exaggerating a resource shortage.  An MSPD spokesperson notes that although some prosecutors are complaining that the defenders’ caseloads are not actually that high, it’s an apples-and-organges comparison because the public defenders count cases differently.  [Ed. note: this article is one of the few written about this unfolding story that goes past the verbal battles and offers an update about how the criminal justice system has been affected by some public defenders’ refusals to take new cases: “The impact on defendants has been minimal so far, with only the three circuits affected and their deferred July cases accepted with the arrival of August. But some of the system’s doors are expected to close again each month, possibly a little earlier each time.  While the effect is not very noticeable now, waits for help could increase in the longer term, and judges could face pressure to appoint private counsel to fill the gaps.”  It also provides hard data about the MSPD’s funding.  For more coverage of the back-and-forth between prosecutors and defenders, see item 7 below (Springfield News-Leader coverage).]

• 8.17.10 – Saint Paul Pioneer Press  (Minnesota) – in southeastern Minnesota, the chief public defender is asking “a Steele County judge to remove public defenders from 45 open cases” because the office doesn’t have the staff to handle current caseloads.”  This circumstance is emblematic of problems facing under-resourced defenders’ offices throughout the state.  “Stiffer legal penalties, an annual battery of new laws and increasingly complex cases have thrust indigent defendants before the courts for longer periods, heaping work on the state public defense system just as it is experiencing back-to-back budget cuts.”  The ACLU of Minnesota is keeping an eye on the problems in Southeastern Minnesota, concerned largely about the fact that overworked defenders may not be prepared for their cases.  In fact, “14 defenders filed a work grievance through the Teamsters union, calling their workloads illegal.”  [Ed. Note: the article references a February, 2010 report from the state’s legislative auditor highlighting systemic problems in the indigent defense network throughout the state.] 

• 8.16.10 – American Medical News – federal lawmakers in both houses of Congress have proposed bills that would support and expand Medical-Legal Partnership programs throughout the country.  [Ed. note: for more detail on this story and on MLPs generally, see our 8/17 blog post.]

• 8.16.10 – Brennan Center for Justice – Report – a new report from the Brennan Center, the Justice at Stake Campaign, and the National Institute on Money in State Politics looks at the remarkable increase in the amount of campaign funding in state judicial elections.  The New Politics of Judicial Elections, 2000-2009: Decade of Change finds that campaign spending has more than doubled in the past decade compared to the decade prior.  Learn more from our recent blog post on the report’s release.  Also, the Philadelphia Inquirer picked up on the report because, lamentably, the Keystone State (home to the 2008 World Champion Philadelphia Phillies) “consistently rank[s] at or near the top for special-interest spending [in state supreme court election campaigns].” 

• 8.15.10 – Springfield News-Leader (Missouri) – [Ed note: the News-Leader’s editorial board weighs in on the statewide indigent defense controversy, worrying that the current back and forth between prosecutors and defenders about whether the latter are truly overworked is “rehash and backtracking” that gets nowhere toward a solution.  There has been an acknowledged resource crisis in the state’s indigent defense program for some time, and all interested parties must sit down together to develop practical solutions.  Speaking of back and forth, the News-Leader also ran dueling opinion pieces.  Taney County’s two top prosecutors propose doing away with, or heavily downgrading the role of, the Missouri State Public Defender.  They allege that the MSPD has become a bloated bureaucracy.  Not so fast, says Springfield County’s chief defender: “The idea of disbanding the entire public defender system is likely the most ridiculous attack on our efforts. The suggestions that have been made as to how we could be replaced only bolster the position that the prosecutor’s true objective is to maintain an advantage and how sad is it that the ones they seek to keep down are those who already have little to nothing.”  The National Legal Aid & Defender Association also counters the prosecutors’ ideas.  For those who are following events as they unfold, the PSLawNet Blog has been tracking news coverage over the past few weeks.  For what it’s worth, while we at the PSLawNet Blog find the News-Leader’s editorial to be a bit glib, we agree with the core point that all interested parties – and that includes neutral parties like the state judiciary and bar association officials – should get down to brass tacks to identify the scale and scope of the problem and craft solutions.  The attacks on the MSPD and its counterattacks could just go on forever.]     

• 8.14.10 – Philadelphia Inquirer – Legal Services of New Jersey is facing dramatic funding cuts that will result in large-scale layoffs of lawyers and staff.  “So where can residents turn for assistance?  Try the library.  A New Jersey Courts program is training librarians to help patrons find legal forms and instructions so they can represent themselves.”  LSNJ’s president observes that “[t]his is in no way the answer…But a small percentage of people can benefit.”  Librarians are willing to help connect people to information and resources but are wary of “cross[ing] the line” and providing legal advice.  [Ed. note: the PSLawNet blog covered the LSNJ funding cuts in some depth.  See item 5 in our 8/6/10 Public Interest News Bulletin for more.

• 8.14.10 – Connecticut Post – legal services advocates in Connecticut have launched a new website to provide resources for pro se litigants.  “Trying to represent oneself in court is a daunting task, and the number of people doing so in civil lawsuits has steadily risen in the past five years, according to state Judicial Branch data.  Thankfully for pro se parties across the state, a new website created by legal aid advocates is billing itself as a valuable resource for low-income people involved in civil actions.  The Connecticut Network for Legal Aid site — www.ctnla.org — is the result of a statewide initiative to provide online guidance and information to low-income residents. The site features self-help guides to immigration and family law, links to a legalese dictionary, and a directory of phone numbers for various nonprofits and social services.”  [Ed. note, for additional coverage see Item 4 in our 8/6/10 Public Interest News Bulletin.

• 8.13.10 – Bloomberg Businessweek (running an AP story) – “[a]t least $51 million is being cut from WorkFirst, [Washington State’s] welfare-to-work program, because while enrollment continues to rise, matching funds from the federal government have remained flat since the 1990s….  Advocacy groups decried the cuts, and said that removing poor families from the program will cause them to seek out social services through different state programs.  ‘This seems like a really tough time to put families on the street,’ said Robin Zukoski, a staff attorney for Columbia Legal Services, which provide civil legal aid to low-income people. ‘These families are not going to just disappear. They’re going to go into the homeless shelters’.”

Legal careers in the federal government are growing in popularity.  The 2010-2011 Federal Legal Employment Guide is now available and can be downloaded for free.  The Guide is an excellent tool to help you learn about legal careers in the federal government and conduct a successful job search.

Download the Guide and access organized, easy-to-read information concerning:

• the benefits of a federal legal career;
• how to find legal positions in the federal government;
• strategies for conducting your job search to find the ideal positions; and
• how to design successful application materials.

Want to learn even more about federal legal careers?  Visit PSLawNet’s Federal Government Resources page.

Much, Much More Missouri: the battle regarding Missouri’s strained indigent defense system continues in counties and courtrooms throughout the state.  Last week the PSLawNet blog provided a summary of news coverage.  In the past week:

• The  St. Joseph News-Press covered some prosecutors’ criticisms of what they see as cynical attempt by public defenders to exaggerate the scale of the current situation to secure more funding – “just nonsense” is how one county prosecutor referred to the idea of a systemic crisis.  The Missouri Bar Association president suggested, though, that there is “no doubt” that a crisis is looming. 
• KTVI, the FOX affiliate in St. Louis, featured a piece about the statewide sparring between defenders and prosecutors and noted that defenders in six Missouri counties are refusing to take new cases (and St. Louis County could soon join them).
• On August 10th, a Christian County judge reaffirmed an earlier decision he had made appointing a public defender to represent an indigent defendant in a burglary case, in spite of the public defender’s earlier notification that it could not accept any more cases.  The judge noted that he was “not ruling on whether the public defender system is overworked or not but whether he could allow a defendant who qualifies for a public defender to go without.” (Columbia Daily Tribune – 8/12/10).  This decision was derided by the Missouri State Public Defender’s office. (KRCG  Website – 8.11.10).  Additional coverage of the decision is available from KSPR. 

And in other news:

• 8.11.10 – The Columbian (Washington State) – in Clark County, the chief prosecutor and members of the criminal defense bar are sparring over the prosecutor’s request for additional government funding, which he says is necessary because lawyers representing indigent clients are increasingly calling expert witnesses.  The prosecutor referred to the county’s assigned counsel system (there is no public defender’s office) as a “big sucking machine.”  Defense counsel responded that amidst advances in forensic science, they owe it to their indigent and fee-paying clients to provide the best defense possible, and that it is not the province of a prosecutor to determine how defense constructs its case.

• 8.11.10 – Portland Press Herald [Editorial and Reply Concerning Maine’s New Indigent Defense System] – [Ed. note: on 8/3, the Press Herald’s editorial board authored a piece arguing that, while Maine’s newly implemented system for assigning counsel to indigent defendants has received “mixed reviews,” it has only been operational for a month and should be given more time for kinks to be worked out.  The older system relied on judges to assign counsel on a case by case basis.  The new system relies on the newly created, and independent, Maine Commission on Indigent Legal Services to coordinate counsel assignments.  In response to that editorial, a defense attorney who represents indigent clients volleyed back, noting that while the new assigned-counsel system went into effect recently, the law creating the Commission is more than a year old.  By now, he argues, the concededly “underfunded and understaffed” Commission should have had more infrastructure in place to make the system work smoothly.

• 8.9.10 – Fort Worth Business Press – “Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas, an LSC grantee and the nation’s 5th largest legal aid organization, “is enhancing its presence with newly renovated headquarters in downtown Fort Worth, a just-launced capital campaign, new outreach programs, a revamped website and technology, and a rebranding that emphasizes its mission of ‘equal justice under law’.”  One of LANWT’s goals is to raise its profile as a provider of free services to low-income clients who most need them.  LANWT has 15 branch offices and serves 114 counties in Texas.

• 8.9.10 – National Law Journal [Opinion Piece authored by Esther Lardent of the Pro Bono Institute] – the recent news coverage of the immigration debate has also shed light on flaws in the current operation of the immigration system.  “Fortunately, we are seeing law firms undertaking immigration pro bono work in record numbers.”  These contributions are necessary because the system is laden down under the weight of swollen dockets, and at the same time resources to preserve and defend immigrants’ rights have become more scarce, with too few advocates to represent immigrants.  “Not only are there too few advocates; our immigration system is broken.  A recent report done on a pro bono basis by Arnold & Porter for the American Bar Association, Reforming the Immigration System: Proposals to Promote Independence, Fairness, Efficiency, and Professionalism in the Adjudication of Removal Cases (excutive summary here), presents 60 comprehensive recommendations for reform to the system.”  But until policy-level reform arrives, pro bono advocates must continue working to preserve immigrants’ rights and promote systemic change.  Link to piece.

• 8.8.10 – Issaquah Press (Washington State) – a King County (which includes Seattle) board is contributing $12,000 to fund an Americorps Fellowship at the Northwest Justice Project.  “The fellow will be a full-time attorney assigned to work with Northwest Justice Project staffers and coordinate with other organizations to provide services to at-risk and homeless veterans.”  The impetus for King County’s action was a vote in 2005 that created a levy “…to help local veterans military personnel, and their families.”

• 8.6.10 – American Bar Association – a program at the ABA’s annual meeting in early August, “Law Firm Legal Aid: Where Are We One Year Later,” examined the phenomenon of deferred law firm associates taking temporary volunteer placements with public interest organizations.  Presenters explained that this unexpected turn of events has benefited the associates, who have gained hands-on practice experience, and their public interest host organizations which have used associates to bolster client service capacity.

From our friends at Equal Justice Works:

On October 22-23, 2010, over 1000 committed public interest law students will be traveling to Washington D.C. to attend the 2010 Equal Justice Works Conference and Career Fair. This is an opportunity for organizations from across the country to find smart and committed law students from over 200 law schools to fill their internship, externship and long term staffing needs. Attending our Conference and Career Fair offers:

• Pre-screened candidates
  Through our system (Justice Work!) you will be able to review candidate résumés and schedule interviews prior to the event.
• Expanded recruiting reach
  By attending our career fair, you will have access to a national pool of diverse, qualified and talented candidates who are committed to working in the public interest sector.
• Specialized fields
  Our career fair specializes in all areas of public service and public interest law such as criminal law, LGBT rights, environmental law and access to justice.
• Time and cost savings
  If your organization wants to conduct outreach on a national scale to find well qualified students to fill your positions, you’ll find them under one roof at the Equal Justice Works Conference and Career Fair.   

One-day (Friday) Registration Fee – $250

Two-day (Friday/Saturday) Registration Fee – $325  

 Please note:  EMPLOYER REGISTRATION CLOSES ON AUGUST 27th. 

Students will start submitting their resumes Aug. 30th.  If you have questions about our career fair, please do not hesitate to contact us  at careerfair@equaljusticeworks.org.

The New York Law Journal is running a piece today titled, “Law Schools See Signs of Better Job Opportunities for Students.”  It notes that in the New York market, law school on-campus interviewing (OCI) programs are likely to be a bit more robust than they were last year.  The piece focuses mainly on Biglaw’s hiring plans, though, where one hiring partner offered that, “It’s not full speed ahead, but it’s cautiously optimistic half speed ahead.”

What about the public interest hiring market, though?  We realize that the “public interest market” is quite diffuse and as a result it’s hard to discern hiring trends.  Here at NALP/PSLawNet we’ll be doing some more formal environmental scanning in the coming weeks – reaching out mainly to nonprofit and some government law offices to get a sense of whether the economic winds are little more favorable these days.

But we’re curious about the buzz – about what law students are hearing as you folks are wrapping up summer internships.  What are your employers and friends saying about the hiring prospects for Class of 2011 grads?  Please share in the comments section.  (And career services folks should feel free to chime in as well.)

International public interest jobs are often prestigious and highly sought after.  But it’s a big, big world out there, and there is much opportunity to do good.  Aspiring international public interest lawyers should do as much research as possible to find out where the opportunities are, and how to strengthen their resumes and skill sets to make themselves the strongest candidates.

Hot off the e-presses is the 2010-11 version of Finding and Funding International Public Service Opportunities, a terrific resource edited annually by three fine folks at law schools of the University of Arizona, University of Georgia, and the College of William and Mary.

Don’t forget to view other international public interest career resources on PSLawNet, and also recall this information-packed blog post from NYU’s Sara Rakita bout legal career pathways into the U.N. and other intergovernmental agencies.

This week: Professor Laurence Tribe proposes innovations in achieving access to justice; Missouri public defenders say “Show me lower caseloads!”; volunteer prosecutors are all the rage; Connecticut legal services providers expand use of the Internets to reach low-income residents; West Virginia does same telephonically; funding cuts portend bad times for the New Jersey legal services community; and finally, the Hennepin County (that’s Minneapolis) public defender tries to make budgetary ends meet by enticing older lawyers to retire. 

• 8.3.10 – National Law Journal – Laurence Tribe, Senior Counselor for Access to Justice at the U.S. Department of Justice, addressed the Conference of [state court] Chief Justices in late July.  He called on “…the judges to engage in a form of ‘judicial activism’ – not ideological, but rather, as he put it, the ‘opposite of passivity’ – [and]…laid out specific measures that the chief justices could take to make pro bono and pro se representation easier, as well as to enforce the rights of juveniles and indigents to counsel.”  Link to article.

• 8.3.10 – PSLawNet Blog Coverage of Indigent Defense Resource Crisis in Missouri – last week we documented moves by some public defenders in the Show-Me State to refuse new cases on account of excessively high caseloads, and pushback by some prosecutors.  This week, we’ve aggregated the ongoing media coverage and posted a summary of developments.   We’ll keep updating as events unfold.

• 8.3.10 USA Today – state and federal prosecutors’ offices throughout the country are taking on volunteer lawyers to augment the work of their (often overextended) paid staffs.  “Despite the financial downturn and, in some cases because of it, state and federal officials said the work experience alone offered by the prosecutor jobs is drawing unexpected numbers of willing applicants to positions across the country.”  Link to article.

• 8.2.10 – Hartford Courant – the Connecticut legal services community has launched a new website – Connecticut Network for Legal Aid – to assist low-income residents who are seeking free legal services or who need help navigating the court system as pro se litigants.  Link to announcement.

• 8.2.10 – Press of Atlantic City – South Jersey Legal Services plans to lay off “about a third of its employees – including about a quarter of its attorneys – by the end of the year.”  The organization has been hit hard by falling IOLTA revenues and a recent state budget cut to legal services funding.  Link to article.  [Ed. note: we covered the state budget cut in our July 30 Public Interest News Bulletin (Item 2), and our July 23 Bulletin (Item 10).  Last week John D. Atlas, former executive director of the Passaic County Legal Aid Society, blogged an opinion piece critical of the state budget cut.  He further noted that “quality legal representation, especially for the poor, is one of the lynchpins of a fair and equal justice system.  Concerned citizens should fight back but we should also take this opportunity to rethink how to help the poor.”  Atlas argues that since there will never be enough legal services lawyers to directly represent all of the poor people who need help, legal services programs could partially refocus their delivery models to support other social services providers that work to stop problems plaguing poor communities before they start.]

• 7.31.10 – Star-Tribune (Minnesota) –  the Hennepin County public defender’s office is already short-staffed, but in order to comply with a county request to cut budgets by 5%, the defender “plans to offer $400 tax-free for every year of service to veteran county employees who retire or resign this fall.”  The staff-reduction idea comes with an obvious downside: “Diminishing the ranks of an office that handled 54,000 cases last year and now has 116 lawyers – who already carry double the caseload recommended by the [ABA] – is a sobering prospect.”  Link to article.

• 7.30.10 – State Journal (West Virginia) – “The West Virginia State Bar and Legal Aid of West Virginia are partnering together to launch Lawyer Information Service.   The service is a collaborative effort to provide legal information and services to West Virginians who need legal advice and help but cannot afford to pay for it.”  Volunteer attorneys will staff phone lines once a week to speak to those with legal problems.  “Legal Aid said the Lawyer Information Service cannot guarantee legal representation, but it does offer people the opportunity to speak with a lawyer who can offer up legal information.”  Link to announcement.

Every summer, PSLawNet hires law students as part-time summer interns, who are also working at unpaid public interest placements. This summer we asked one of our interns to write about her summer work at Project Vote, as well as her plans for the future. Lauren Forbes is a rising 3L at American University Washington College of Law in Washington, DC, and she hopes to work in civil rights and voting issues.

Read about Lauren’s summer after the break!

This week’s Bulletin carries news of a possible indigent-defense caseload crisis in Missouri, more bad news about legal services funding in New Jersey, good news about clinic funding at Albany Law School, staff expansion at Pisgah Legal Services, a successful diversionary program for wayward Connecticut yoots, and a medical-legal partnership in the Lone Star State.   

• 7.29.10 – Saint Louis Post-Dispatch – an official from the Missouri State Public Defender System notified Saint Louis County’s top prosecutor and judge that the local defender’s office has “begun steps to refuse to take new criminal cases” because the office does not have the resource capacity to handle its caseload.  The county’s chief prosecutor has been sharply critical of the developments, charging that the claim of being so overworked is a “contrived issue.”  “St. Louis County is the defenders’ third battleground. Last week, they closed the offices in Troy, Mo., and Springfield to new cases through the end of July.”  Link to article.  [Ed. note: here is additional coverage from the KTVO TV station website.  Last week the Columbia Missourian reported on the Springfield office’s decision to stop accepting new cases, as did the Springfield News-Leader.  And here is a brief AP blurb on the Troy office decision from the KOAM TV station website.]

• 7.29.10 – The Record (New Jersey) – “[L]ow market [interest] rates and a weak housing market — which means less money set aside in trust for real estate closings — have devastated [New Jersey’s] Interest on Lawyers Trust Account fund, resulting in the loss of scores of New Jersey legal aid jobs, and far fewer clients being served.”  IOLTA revenue recently fell by 80%.  Link to article.  [Ed. Note:  state funding for legal services in the Garden State was also recently cut by 33%, according to a July 17 Record article.

• 7.28.10 – Press Release – “Albany Law School recently received a $205,000 grant from the New York State Housing Trust Fund Corporation (HTFC) to fund a new Housing Clinic within the law school’s Clinic & Justice Center.  In the Housing Clinic, students will work with Albany Law faculty to offer legal services, outreach, educational opportunities and housing counseling to homeowners and tenants affected by foreclosure in Albany, Rensselaer and Schenectady counties.”  Link to press release.

• 7.27.10 – Mountain Express (North Carolina) – with the addition of four staffers to its Mountain Violence Prevention Project, Pisgah Legal Services has doubled its person-power in providing assistance to domestic violence victims.  Link to article.

• 7.25.10 – Connecticut Post – a Connecticut program to divert teens who are status offenders (skipping school, running away, etc.), but who do not actually commit crimes, to support centers rather than detention facilities has met with considerable success. “[T]he model is seen as so successful it’s being touted as a “best practice” by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.”  Link to article.

• 7.23.10 – Brownsville Herald (Texas) – a medical-legal partnership between Texas RioGrande Legal Aid and the Brownsville Community Health Center, forged in 2008, promotes collaboration between medical and legal professionals and allows them to take a holistic approach to helping l0w-income client populations.  “For years, the traditional health-care system and the legal system have treated low-income, underserved populations in isolation, despite the strong connection between social stressors and health, partnership members said. But the health center’s medical-legal partnership…allows doctors and attorneys to work together…”  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: in March the PSLawNet Blog covered the trend of similar medical-legal partnerships springing up across the country.  Public-interest minded law students who have a background or interest in the healthcare system should think about how they may connect to this “growth field” in the legal services community.  Often the lawyers participating in such partnerships will be working on matters unrelated to healthcare, such as housing or public benefits, but a knowledge of how low-income communities access healthcare would still be a terrific asset for a lawyer who is working with medical professionals.]