If you’ve thought about working for the State of New Jersey (at any level, including the Public Defender and State’s Attorney offices), make sure you’re willing to live in-state! The State Senate just passed a measure that would require all public employees to live in the state as a condition of employment. The Newark Star-Ledger covered the story, which explains that the measure is not final – it must still be approved by the Assembly (though it was passed handily by the Senate, 26-9). Many jurisdictions require emergency personnel to live in-state or in-town, but this is one of the broadest measures out there.

• 5.20.10 – NJ Today Website (New Jersey) – Legal Services of New Jersey (LSNJ) has released An Open Report to New Jersey Concerning Funding for Civil Legal Services and Its Human Consequences.  LSNJ’s president noted that IOLTA funding in New Jersey is down by 80%, the state may cut its funding of legal services by 33%, and that significant staff layoffs will continue to be necessary unless funding stabilizes.  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: The report highlights the severe funding cuts that are plaguing legal services programs throughout the Garden State, and makes the case for the importance of adequately funded programs for the state’s residents and government.  Link to report.]

• 5.19.10 – The Tennessean – the Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands, along with the Tennessee Bar Association and the Tennessee Attorney General’s office, are offering an array of resources to victims of recent, disastrous flooding in the Volunteer State.  Link to brief article.

• 5.19.10 – New Orleans Times-Picayune – the Louisiana Senate’s Commerce Committee rejected a proposed bill that would have “effectively shut down the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic.”  The bill was intended to stop law school clinic programs from suing business interests in the state, and its main proponent, Sen. Robert Adley, enjoyed the support of the Louisiana Chemical Association.  Ultimately, though, the bill received no other support from Commerce Committee members.  Link to article.  And see additional AP coverage from the Bloomberg Business Week website.   [Ed. Note: prior coverage of this controversy is found in Items 1 and 4 of the May 14 PSLawNet Public Interest News Bulletin.]

• 5.17.10 – National Law Journal – this week “the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Eighth Amendment does not allow sentences of life in prison without parole for juveniles who committed nonhomicide crimes.”  In the Graham v. Florida opinion, “Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the 6-3 majority, applied the logic of the categorical exceptions to the death penalty for juveniles and the mentally retarded, already created by the Court, to juveniles who commit lesser crimes than homicide. Their age and level of mental development make them less culpable…”  Link to article.  And see additional coverage from the Miami Herald.

• 5.14.10 – The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY) [Editorial] – state aid is a critical source of funding for civil legal services programs that serve Central and Northern New Yorkers, but a state budget proposal from the executive branch may do away with funding altogether.  A potential bit of good news for legal services may come if a $15 million appropriation for legal services comes through the state judiciary’s budget request.  Still in the longer term, New York must find a way to avoid “boom and bust” legal services budget fluctuations and to “find a better way to keep its promise to help the needy navigate the legal labyrinth.”  Link to piece.

• 5.13.10 – KBIA Radio Station Website (Columbia, Missouri) – officials from the Boone County public defender’s office, prosecutor’s office, and the local bar met to develop a solution to the problem of overwhelming caseloads confronting public defenders.  Link to brief article.  [Ed. Note: for earlier coverage of the indigent defense crisis in Missouri, a problem which wound its way to the state’s high court, listen to this December 2009 NPR story.]

• 5.13.10 – Harvard Law School Website – “Harvard Law School has selected 25 students and one recent graduate to receive fellowships enabling them to pursue public service work….Ten of the students will be awarded the newly established Redstone Fellowships; one student will be the Maria, Gabriella & Robert A. Skirnick Public Interest Fellow; another nine will receive the Holmes Public Service Fellowships established by Dean Minow in 2009; and six will receive the Irving R. Kaufman Fellowship.  The one-year fellowships offer Harvard Law School students and recent graduates financial support so that they can work for non-profit organizations or for the government following graduation.”  Link to announcement.

• ABA Division of Legal Services’ Dialogue Magazine, Spring 2010 Edition – in a phenomenon driven by the economic recession, law firm associates whose 2009 start dates were deferred have taken temporary public-service placements in nonprofit and government law offices across the country. Reports of the associates’ integration into the public interest community have been positive. And the associates have seized chances to develop skills and gain perspective on the public service arena.  Some public interest leaders, law firm pro bono managers, and other stakeholders are evaluating the phenomenon’s overall impact.  Further, some are considering whether a longer-term pro bono model could emerge from what was initially seen as a short-term occurrence born of unique circumstances.  Link to article.

• April 2010 – [Ed. Note: the Legal Aid Association of California has released Shaping the Future of Justice: Effective Recruitment and Retention of Civil Legal Aid Attorneys in California, a comprehensive report highlighting severe obstacles in legal aid programs’ efforts to recruit and retain junior staff attorneys.  The main factors cited as obstacles on the legal aid career path are financial pressures, including low salaries and high educational debt loads.   Link to report.]

The Legal Aid Association of California has released a report, Shaping the Future of Justice: Effective Recruitment and Retention of Civil Legal Aid Attorneys, which looks at the challenges that legal services programs have confronted (even pre-recession) in trying to hire and keep junior lawyers.  The main hurdles, no surprise, are low salaries and high educational debt loads maintained by recent law grads.  In preparing the report, Kelly Carmody – a friend of the PSLawNet Blog – and her colleagues did some impressive research via surveys, individual interviews, and focus groups.  Here’s some of the information offered in the report’s Executive Summary:

• “The median entry level salary [for civil legal aid attorneys in California] is $46,000, and more than half of the attorneys have salaries of less than $50,000 after more than three years in legal aid.”
• “One half of the legal aid attorneys think they will leave their current employment in the next three years.”  [The top reason cited by attorneys surveyed on why they may leave is “financial pressure due to low salary.”

And here are a couple of telling quotes from civil legal aid attorneys:

If I was not married, I would have to live with my parents.

…

I have been an attorney for almost 10 years.  I was offered a position at the public defender’s office which would have paid me three times what I make now.

There’s a lot of disturbing news in the report.  And it’s important to remember that the initiative to produce this report was begun pre-recession, at a time when IOLTA law changes in California left the legal aid community anticipating that their funding would actually be boosted.  That, as it turns out, was not to be, as the recession has presented severe fiscal challenges for most legal aid organizations.  They may not be in a position now to take institutional steps toward raising salaries and developing retention programs, but we applaud the California legal aid community for keeping its eye on this very severe problem.  Hemorrhaging junior attorneys who can’t afford to remain on legal aid career paths is a potentially terrible problem for the legal aid community.  Attrition leads to immediate financial inefficiencies when organizations lose attorneys they’ve invested time and money in training.  And in the longer run, there will be no next generation of experienced leaders to assume management responsibilities if they are hopping off the ladder while still on the lower rungs.

Recession or no recession, the report should be a wake-up call for those who have a stake in cultivating the next generation of legal aid leaders.

The 6th annual IMPACT Career Fair for law students and attorneys with disabilities is taking place at the Sheraton Crystal City, in Arlington, VA, on Friday, August 13th.  Learn more about the career fair and link to registration info here.

I recently contributed an article on Class-of-2009 deferred law firm associates to the ABA Division for Legal Services’ Dialogue magazine.

Starting last fall, deferred associates began public service placements with host organizations throughout the country.  The placements have ranged in duration from three to four months to over a year. Inferences drawn from NALP research suggest that the number of associates in  public service placements could be as high as 900 individuals out of the approximately 3,200 associates who were deferred nationwide.

Major legal markets are hosting the largest numbers of deferred associates.  The National Law Journal reported last November that there were upwards of 140 deferred associates taking placements in New York City nonprofit and government offices.  In the civil legal services community, the NYC Bar Association and the City Bar Justice Center launched the “Deferred Associate Law Extern Support Project” to train and monitor the progress of deferred associates.  Chicago’s legal services community welcomed 54 deferred associates from the Class of 2009.  In California, the Public Interest Clearinghouse has counted at least 55 associates working with nonprofits throughout the state.  Associates are also contributing in Philadelphia, Cleveland, and in other smaller markets.

In terms of associates’ substantive contributions to their host organizations, reviews from all parties involved – the hosts, the law firms, and the associates themselves – are generally quite positive…

…

Regardless of the peculiarity of its origins, and whatever its ultimate impact on the employment and pro bono landscapes may be, the short-term result of [the deferred-associates-in-public-service- placements] phenomenon has been that deferred law firm associates have gained first-hand perspective on the importance of public service work that is likely to endure after they return to their law firms.  For example, it is possible that deferred associates working in public interest organizations today will be tomorrow’s public interest fundraisers and pro bono advocates. Most importantly,  deferred associates increase the pool of lawyers supporting the work of government and fighting for access to justice for clients on society’s margins.  That is the brightest of silver linings.

At a time of extraordinary need in the public interest community, it has been heartening to see that deferred associates have been able to help bolster the delivery of services to low-income clients.  And in the longer term, such successes with deferral placements may lead to more robust collaborations between law firm pro bono attorneys and public interest ogranizations.

In the shorter term, the only potential negative that has troubled me has been the prospect that law students and grads on public interest career paths could be displaced because deferred associates may literally be taking up the desk space where those students want to work as interns and later as attorneys.  I went to law school knowing that I wanted to go into civil legal servcies, so I would understand how current students who wish to do something similar might be disconcerted about being squeezed out by a deferred associate.  There is no getting around the fact that it’s a hard time right now for law students/grads looking for nonprofit jobs, and for nonprofit law offices (and more importantly, their clients).  I hope that those students and grads can take some comfort in a sentiment that Jennifer Thomas, the Director of Legal Recruiting at the DC Public Defender Service, offered when I was writing about deferrals late last year.  Noting the importance of a commitment – as demonstrated through work experience – to a public interest career when evaluating job candidates, Jennifer said, “A passionate commitment to public service is a chief criterion in our hiring process…and that will remain long after the recession has gone.”

Steve Grumm

From our friends at the Partnership for Public Service:

The Partnership for Public Service will host its eighth annual Public Service Career and Internship Fair on July 14 from 3:00-7:00 p.m. at the National Building Museum. Last year’s event connected 78 federal agencies with more than 6,000 well-qualified and diverse candidates.

 

This fair is dedicated to providing summer interns in Washington, DC, students–both graduate and undergraduate, and recent graduates with access to agency representatives, and information about their agencies’ missions and available positions. By facilitating conversations between federal workers and promising young people, we hope to encourage entry-level talent to bring their skills and experiences to the government as dynamic federal employees.

 

Agency registration for this event is now open. Agencies that register before May 31 will receive a discount on the cost of their registration packages. The last day to sign up for the event is July 1. Visit ourpublicservice.org/careerfair to learn more and register! 

 

Registration for students and recent graduates will open on June 1. Please email careerfair@ourpublicservice.org if you would like to be added to our outreach list. 

Equal Justice Works has announced its incoming class of fellows.  We extend our congratulations to all 43 of them!  Now more than ever, energetic, creative minds are needed to fight for those who live on society’s margins.   A press release from Equal Justice Works notes that the 43 fellows will be placed with 41 public interest orgnizations in 17 states and in DC.  Here’s a little more from the press release:

The Equal Justice Works Fellowship program is the largest postgraduate legal fellowship program in the country.  Equal Justice Works Fellows design projects with nonprofit organizations providing legal services in low income and underserved communities in a range of issue areas including homelessness prevention, immigration, criminal defense and Native American rights.

At the East Bay Community Law Center in Berkeley, CA, Brendan Darrow will represent Spanish-speaking renters who have been thrust into the housing crisis by their landlords’ default.  Unaccompanied immigrant children facing deportation in the Greater Boston area will be able to receive legal assistance from Erin Cox, who will be working with Lutheran Social Services in Wellesley.  And at the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment, Mike Becher’s project will address surface coal production’s effects on human health and safety and the perpetuation of poverty in the coalfields of Appalachia

“The 2010 Equal Justice Works Fellows are entering the field when legal aid has been devastated, leaving more people desperately needing affordable legal services,” said Cait Clarke, Director of Public Interest Law Opportunities at Equal Justice Works. “These attorneys have demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to public interest law and helping to address the legal needs of the most vulnerable among us.  We are proud to welcome them to the legal services community.”

Here’s a link to a list of all of the fellows and their host organizations.

The PSLawNet Blog keeps its finger on the pulse of developments in federal hiring processes because we know that many law students and attorneys find federal careers to be attractive options.   (And frankly, the federal government has been seen in recent months as an employment oasis, given the dearth of job opportunities with law firms, nonprofits, and in local and state government.)  We maintain a robust library of federal career resources here. 

Here, we’re just passing along a short article from the Government Executive newsletter which takes note of the success that the NSA – and subsequently, its sister intelligence agencies – has had by using virtual recruiting.

About 18 months ago, recruiters from the National Security Agency started attending virtual career fairs — online recruiting events hosted by such diverse entities as The Wall Street Journal and Monster.com. Lori Weltmann, manager of the Recruitment Services Division at NSA, was struck by how excited her employees were after working the fairs. “It was quick. It was easy. They felt like they were really connecting with candidates,” she says. “After we did about a half dozen of these I said, ‘Why can’t we do one of our own?'” The agency could tailor a fair to draw the kind of tech-savvy candidates it was seeking, instead of wading through the more generalized community of job seekers attracted to the virtual forums sponsored by other organizations and companies, she thought.

…

Agency leaders liked the idea, and in February 2009, four months after Weltmann first pitched the idea, NSA hosted its first virtual job fair.It was so successful, Ronald Sanders, then the chief human capital officer at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, asked NSA to brief other intelligence agencies about the effort. In March, using NSA’s experience as the benchmark, nine agencies, including NSA, cooperated in hosting the first virtual intelligence career fair.

• 4.23.10 – Fulton County Daily Report (Georgia) – a local estate law attorney recounts the unique reward that comes with helping a pro bono client who had nowhere else to turn and, by way of a “top 8” list, explains the reasons that she has built pro bono into her practice.  Link to article (hosted on law.com).

• 4.22.10 – Washington Post – in Perdue v. Kenny A., a decision handed down by the Supreme Court this week, public interest lawyers may have scored a longer-term victory while enduring a shorter-term loss.  The case had to do with whether lawyers who prevail in federal cases and achieve a result in the public interest could be awarded not just attorneys fees but also financial “enhancements” on account of their advocacy.  In Perdue, a successful action brought by a public interest organization and pro bono co-counsel against the State of Georgia resulted in “a transformation of Georgia’s dysfunctional foster-case system.”  A judge awarded not just attorneys fees, but an additional amount equal to 75% of those fees in recognition of their excellent advocacy and their achieving a favorable result.  Georgia argued that there were no grounds for such an enhancement in the law.  The Supreme Court disagreed with Georgia, finding that such enhancements could be permitted.  But it set up very narrow parameters in which it could happen, preferring only an amount equal to attorneys fees to be the presumptively correct award.  It did not allow the enhancement of $4.5 million to stand in this case, and sent it back to the lower court for reconsideration.  Link to article.  See additional coverage from the ABA Journal.

• 4.21.10 – South County Spotlight (Oregon) – after Columbia County Legal Aid and the Oregon State Bar (its funder) hit loggerheads concerning the former’s precarious funding situation, a state senator helped organize a “mediation” session between the two groups.  CCLA is one of a small group of legal services organizations that does not operate under the umbrella of Legal Aid Services of Oregon.  CCLA’s funding comes from court filing fees from Columbia County, which may not be enough to sustain the staff needed to help its residents.  Still, CCLA fears that a merger with LASO would lead to closure of its office, potentially “forcing [clients] to visit LASO’s office in Portland.”  CCRA’s director argues that the unique types of issues and client base in Columbia County would make it difficult to provide out-of-county services effectively.  Link to article.

• 4.20.10 – Harvard Law Record – a group of public-service minded Harvard Law students is spearheading a fundraising initiative – the Post-Graduate Student Funded Fellowship – that would bankroll a public interest fellowship for one graduating classmate.  The group notes that “$1 per day for 1 month from each student … would fund a fellow classmate to work in the public interest for a year following graduation.”  The group, which hopes that the project will remain institutionalized after its founders graduate, has created a website to collect donations and is also taking the tried-and-true “bake sale” route to kick off fundraising efforts.   Link to article.  And see additional coverage (4.22.10) in the National Law Journal.

• 4.20.10 – San Francisco Chronicle – in the wake of a scandal inside San Francisco’s crime lab, the city’s public defender suggested that “[a]s many as 40,000 drug cases … may need to be reviewed and it’s going to take money to do it.” Already, more than 500 drug cases have been dismissed on account of “concerns about the police lab’s performance.”  The public defender is arguing that neither the police nor the district attorney should take the lead in investigating apparent malfeasance at the lab because both organizations rely on the lab for support in making criminal cases.  The defender and DA do agree, though, that any investigation will be expensive.  Link to story.  [Ed. Note: some background on the scandal, which centers on the erratic behavior of a technician who may have stolen cocaine from the lab, is available via a 4.18.10 Associated Press story.]

• 4.20.10 – American Lawyer Daily– Andrew Ardinger, a Class-of-2009 law school grad whose law firm start date was deferred, is spending a year with the Public Interest Law Project (PILP), a civil legal services organization in California.  Ardinger has occasionally blogged for the American Lawyer about his public-interest experience.  His latest AmLaw post suggests that his experience at PILP thus far has offered ample opportunities for client contact and for cultivating practice skills, including working on a complaint and participating in a settlement negotiation on an important public benefit case.  Link to blog post.

• 4.19.10 – Bangor Daily News (Maine) – since last October, the Penobscot County Bar Association has been offering free attorney consults with low-income clients who are representing (or will represent) themselves in court.  “About 75 percent of the people who appear in Maine courts in criminal, civil and family matters are not represented by attorneys, Chief Justice Leigh I. Saufley said last fall.”  One of the reasons for this is that Maine’s civil legal services programs are overworked, and can serve only about one quarter of eligible individuals who apply for services.  The clinic has by all accounts been successful, and as a result the county bar association has been nominated for an ABA public service award.  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: in recent weeks there has been coverage around the country of bar associations’ and public interest organizations’ attempts to better support rising numbers of pro se litigants.  See related stories coming out of Michigan (Detroit Free Press, 4.15.10) and Texas (Texas Tribune, 4.13.10; Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 4.1.10).]

• 4.17.10 – Wisconsin Rapids Tribune – officials in Wood County, Wisconsin hope that a forthcoming statewide change in the formula used to determine if a criminal defendant is eligible for a public defender will reduce county legal bills.  At present, “[i]f a judge decides a defendant cannot pay for a lawyer but doesn’t meet the criteria for a public defender, the judge appoints an attorney, and the county pays the bill.”  The indigent defense eligibility standards had not been updated since 1987, with a result being that a lot of poor defendants were determined ineligible for a public defender even though they were living in poverty.  The state’s decision to expand the standards will mean that more defendants will be eligible for public defenders, with the state picking up most of the tab.  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: see past coverage of the Wisconsin governor signing into law the bill to expand the eligibility standards via the Wisconsin Bar Association website (3.17.10).]

A new survey, conducted by the Senior Executive Association (and reported on at GovExec.com) found that many federal employees were leery of seeking promotion to the top Senior Executive Service level. If you’re like this PSLawNet blogger and have a hard time keeping all the federal designations straight, check out the PSLawNet Federal Government Resources for a quick explanation – in brief, SES employees are the top managers and supervisors who are not political appointees. The survey found that concerns over work-life balance are a bigger impediment to younger employees (half of all respondents under 40 versus 40% of those over 50). It also found that the higher one’s salary is, the less attractive the attendant pay bump in moving to SES becomes (employees at the top of the GS scale can make over $150,000 annually, while the base SES salary runs from about $120,000 to $180,000).

Interestingly, the survey found a disconnect between the chief human capital officers (CHCOs) survey responses and the GS-14 and -15 respondents, where the CHCOs thought the monetary benefits to the SES rank are the most influential, and the people considering applying for promotion were much more heavily swayed by “the chance to contribute more meaningfully and creatively to their agency’s mission.”

So what do you think?

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