[Ed. Note: last week we posted the first of three parts in our series on leadership-skills development for public-interest minded law students and junior attorneys.  Today’s post, from former Equal Justice Works Fellow Emily Benfer, is the second.  It builds off of the propositions that the most successful public interest leaders are driven by fundamental commitments to the ends they seek to achieve, and draw from more arrows in their quivers than trial advocacy and other traditional lawyering skills which are emphasized in law school.]

Emily A. Benfer is a public interest attorney in Washington, D.C., where she is currently co-teaching a course on  Advocacy Tools for the 21^st Century Public Interest Lawyer at Georgetown Law Center.  She first employed advocacy strategies as an Equal Justice Works Fellow at the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, and next year she will become the Director of a new Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

The world of public interest law values creativity, collaboration and scrappiness – the courage to take calculated risks and engage in the kind of “out-of-the-box” thinking needed to reshape our communities.  Public interest lawyers learn early on in their legal careers that legal prowess is only one of the many skills necessary to becoming an effective advocate for clients and causes. Our success is equally dependent on whether we access a full range of advocacy strategies that are critical to meeting client needs and creating measurable social change. The only problem is that most of us don’t learn these strategies in law school. It is my hope that these five tips will provide you with the framework to get started. Read Emily’s five tips after the jump…

Law students who are moving out of town for the summer and looking for housing and/or looking to sublet their places should check out NALP’s free, online apartment exchange.

Dean JoAnne Epps’ legal career began with public service, as a prosecuting attorney on both the local and federal levels.  A natural teacher, she moved into the academic world and ultimately into academic administration.  Epps became the Temple Law dean in 2008, after over two dozen years of distinguished work as a professor and an associate dean.  (She also taught your author the rules of evidence, and although I have no trial experience to speak of I retain an uncanny memory of hearsay exceptions some eight years down the road.)

Without further ado, here are Five Questions with JoAnne Epps…

Please note that previous Public Interest News Bulletin stories are archived on PSLawNet.  Also, for a summary of news stories affecting the larger legal industry, see the  NALP Industry News Weekly Digest.

• 2.17.10 – West Virginia Record – Legal Aid of West Virginia and FamilyCare Health Centers have collaborated to form the state’s first medical-legal partnership, through which an LAWV attorney will be onsite part-time at medical clinics to provide legal assistance to low-income patients and to educate medical staff.  Medical-legal partnerships, originally put into operation in Boston, “integrate legal services into the health care setting to help low-income patients navigate the complex legal systems that often hold solutions to social, economic, and environmental determinants of health. For example, when a patient is entitled to obtain Supplemental Security Income and cannot pay for his medication without it, lawyers and doctors can effectively work together to help address the patient’s needs.”  Link to article.

• 2.16.10 – Business Week –   the Obama Administration is emphasizing accountability and performance-based metrics in its approach to managing the federal civil service.  Also vitally important, though, is ensuring that government’s higher ranks are populated with strong leaders.  “Although there are certainly many strong leaders in the Senior Executive Service, the government’s top tier of career executives, and the broader civil service, there is general agreement among senior leaders in the government and experts who have studied the issue that more attention needs to be placed on the selection, assessment, and development of leaders.”  Link to article.

• 2.16.10 – Dallas Morning News – DNA-based exonerations of those convicted of crimes raise a question about whether prosecutors’ limited resources should be devoted to tracing an improper conviction all the way back to a root cause, or whether the exoneration itself suffices to right the past wrong, ending a need for additional inquiry.  Link to article.

• 2.16.10 – American Lawyer Daily – in AmLaw’s “Deferred Associate Diaries” feature, a Class of 2009 law school graduate whose start date at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP was deferred provides an occasional update on his public service placement with the Public Interest Law Project’s Oakland office.  His most recent entry, made on February 16th, is here, and his first entry, made on December 23, 2009, is here.

• 2.15.10 – American Spectator – a former Georgetown University Law Center student who enrolled during the “golden era for well-paid corporate legal work,” reviews the phenomenon of deferred associates taking public service placements and speculates that, after their exposure to public service work, some deferred associates may seek to remain in those settings rather than returning to Biglaw.  Link to article.

• 2.15.10 – Rome News-Tribune (Georgia) – the Georgia Supreme Court just heard arguments in a case in which two men accused of a 2007 murder are seeking to have the charges dismissed because delays in the public defense system have resulted in the men remaining in jail without a trial.  One of the dilemmas the high court confronted was the possibility that delay and inaction on the part of a criminal defense lawyer might lead to an ironic result that ultimately would benefit their client because charges would be thrown out.   Link to article. 

• 2.14.10 – Herald-Palladium (Southwest Michigan) – the indigent defense system in Michigan, which now essentially is a patchwork of programs that vary county by county, is under attack from critics who “charge that the [state] legislature and governor are shirking their responsibility to pay for and operate a system that works.  The ACLU filed a class action lawsuit in 2007 to spur indigent defense reform, and a bill has been introduced in the state House to “create a state-run public defender system to enforce minimum standards.”  Link to article.

• 2.13.10 – Minneapolis Star Tribune – Dakota County, Minnesota is trying to help criminal defendants who “make too much to qualify for a public defender — but not enough to afford legal representation.”   County judges just approved a plan through which “lawyers will volunteer their services on arraignment day and stay available [at reduced rates] to any low-income person charged with a crime who has not hired a private attorney or has not qualified for a state-paid public defender.”  Link to article. 

• 2.12.10 – Casper Star-Tribune (Wyoming) –  a bill to create a statewide civil legal services system has gotten through state House’s Judiciary Committee and will be taken up by the full body.  Funding for the system would come from a proposed $10 increase in court filing fees.  The system was first proposed by the state’s Access to Justice Commission, under the leadership of Wyoming Supreme Court Justice James Burke.  During the Judiciary Committee hearing, many from the legal community expressed support for the new measure, but a representative for the state’s agricultural interests voiced skepticism on account of the possibility of a legal services program initiating litigation against farmers.  Link to article.

The response deadline for this one-of-a-kind, national survey is approaching.  Please spread the word in the public interest community.  Below is some background info and a link to the online version of the survey… 

Public Interest Law Offices: please participate in the National Association for Law Placement’s (NALP) 2010 Public Sector & Public Interest Attorney Salary Survey.

What is the Survey?

Every 2 years, NALP conducts this unique survey of public interest and government law offices to gather important data on attorney salaries, benefits packages, and loan repayment assistance programs.  Public interest law offices have relied upon data from past surveys in resetting salary scales; negotiating union contracts; advocating for legislative changes to salaries and expansions of loan repayment programs; and more.

The survey is endorsed by the Legal Services Corporation, the National District Attorneys Association, the National Legal Aid & Defender Association, and others.

Who should participate?

• Civil Legal Services Organizations
• Public Defender’s Offices
• District Attorney/Local Prosecutor’s Offices
• All other nonprofit, public interest law offices (e.g. those organizations that promote civil liberties, human rights, advocate for the homeless, etc.)

How to Participate

It is very easy to do.  The survey is now being mailed by hard copy to public interest law offices throughout the country.  It is also available electronically here: https://vovici.com/wsb.dll/s/9c6eg423bc.    (Please complete either the hard-copy or electronic versions, not both.)  All survey participants will receive a free electronic copy of the report when it is released later in the year.

Please contact Steve Grumm, NALP’s Director of Public Service Initiatives, with any questions: sgrumm@nalp.org or 202-296-0057.

In many respects the legal “public interest community” (amorphous as it may be) is set apart from the law firm world.  Recruiting and hiring are done quite differently, for instance, among nonprofits and government offices compared to large law firms.  But there is some overall cohesion in the industry at large.  The Great Recession has shown us that no law office has been immune from its effects.  Indeed, the closely-knit relationship between “Biglaw” and the public interest community on pro bono issues became evident as firms adjusted pro bono programs to assist nonprofits with changing client needs, and also in the phenomenon of deferred law firm associates taking public service placements in public interest offices.  Also, those large firms that kept up their financial backing of the public interest community have been absolutely vital pillars of support as other traditional public-interest revenue streams tapered to a trickle.

What does this mean for aspiring and current public interest advocates?  It means that there are a lot of good reasons to keep your finger on the pulse of the larger legal industry.  In some contexts there is a close relationship, even a symbiosis, between law firms and their public interest partners.  So your practice could be directly impacted, as could the financial fortunes of your employer.

Here’s some good news about keeping up with the news: NALP makes it easy for you to check in on happenings in the industry at large.  Every Friday, the esteemed Jim Leipold, NALP’s executive director (and your author’s boss), circulates the NALP Industry News Weekly Digest, which is freely available NALP’s website.  We’ll also begin posting a link to it in our weekly PSLawNet Public Interest News Bulletin.

Reminder: all content from past editions of the Bulletin is archived here on PSLawNet.

• 2.11.10 – Press Release from Office of Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna – using proceeds from a court settlement stemming from an unfair-lending-practices lawsuit against Countrywide Financial, the attorney general will direct $1.8 million to restitution, debt counseling, and other support services for Washington homeowners.  Of that $1.8 million, $320,000 will go to the Washington State Bar Association “to fund the Home Foreclosure Legal Aid Project, which provides pro bono legal services to homeowners facing foreclosure.”  Link to full press release. 

• 2.11.10 – National Law Journal – the presiding judge of the Los Angeles County Superior Court warned that 300 staffers may have to be laid off in March on account of a $79 million deficit.  More layoffs could follow later in the year.  The president of the L.A. County Bar Association is arguing in favor of releasing funds from a construction bond account to shore up the court system, predicting long trial delays and a backlog if staffers are laid off.  Link to article.

• 2.10.10 – Boston Globe (Op-ed) – newly elected U.S. Senator Scott Brown (R., MA) was incorrect when he stated that “federal employees are making twice as much as their private sector counterparts” while he argued for a freeze on federal hiring and pay raises.  First, comparing salaries generally between the public and private sectors is misleading because there are no low-paying, minimum wage jobs in the public sector, and federal workers tend to be older and better educated than their private sector counterparts.  Further, “[d]irect comparisons show professionals in government routinely make far less than their private sector counterparts.”  Second, shrinking the federal workforce is an ill-considered proposal.  “The unintended result of such [hiring] freezes is to leave a federal workforce that is wildly uneven in its capabilities.”    Link to article.

• 2.9.10 – Minneapolis Star-Tribune – in an act of recession-era fiscal belt-tightening, Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty unilaterally “unalloted” $2.7 billion in state funding that had been budgeted to support various initiatives, including social services programs.  A Ramsey County judge had put the kibosh on the governor’s efforts, ruling that his move violated the constitutional separation of powers.  The governor, with support from three law professors, will take his case to the state’s high court in March.  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: this sequence of events exemplifies the tension between state (and local) governments’ efforts to right their own foundering fiscal ships while continuing to offer a social safety net for increased numbers of poor citizens.  As was reported on the MinnPost news site in late January, another target of unallotment was the state’s General Assistance Medical Care program.  After the Legal Aid Society of Minneapolis threatened a lawsuit, the state postponed the program’s discontinuation.]

• 2.9.10 – Hartford Courant [Op-ed] – Connecticut’s legal services programs have been walloped by a drop in IOLTA revenues and declines in other funding sources.  Now, the state judiciary, an initial supporter of state funding to shore up the legal aid infrastructure, “has proposed diverting $1.5 million of funds that were appropriated for legal aid to the poor to help cover a rescission of $7.8 million in the judicial budget.  The governor, General Assembly and judicial branch must find a way to ensure this $1.5 million reaches legal aid. Legal aid staff members have responded to the crisis with heart. Faced with pay cuts and uncertainty, they continue to fight for thousands of domestic violence victims, elderly people pressured by creditors, low-wage workers not being paid, disabled children seeking an education, disabled people seeking state and federal benefits.”  Link to piece.

• 2.9.10 – Baltimore Sun – the recent snowstorms in the mid-Atlantic have left more than snowdrifts piling up.  In Baltimore, and in counties throughout Maryland, court closures are clogging up the criminal justice system as hearings and trials back up while some defendants spend additional nights in jail until they can get to a judge for a bail hearing.  While some prosecutors and defense attorneys are doing all they can to keep up with trial prep, judges and court personnel must weigh a number of factors in making decisions on closures, including the ability of witnesses and jurors to safely travel to courthouses.  Link to article. 

• 2.9.10 – Vicksburg Post (Mississippi) – in Warren County, a proposal to create a public defender’s office has met with support from the local district attorney, who cited potential cost savings as the county would have to contract with fewer appointed counsel for indigent defendants.  Also, a consultant hired by the county to review its jail capacity noted that a public defender’s office may be able to expedite cases and keep more defendants out of jail, easing the burden on the jail facility.  Link to article.

• 2.9.10 – Oakland Tribune (California) – the Public Interest Law Project and Bay Area Legal Aid have sued the Alameda County’s Social Services Agency to stop the termination of a portion of some General Assistance welfare recipients’ benefit payment that is directed toward home rental expenses.  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: this is not the first time that public interest advocates have opposed General Assistance reductions imposed by Alameda County, which has been trying to take the General Assistance program out of the red by cutting benefits.  See San Francisco Chronicle coverage of the County’s legal victory regarding a three-month cap that it imposed on some General Assistance recipients who were deemed to be “employable”.] 

• 2.9.10 – National Law Journal –  Harvard Law School’s newly created Public Service Venture Fund will support graduates on public service career paths by dividing “$1 million per year among qualified graduates who start their own nonprofit organizations or seek jobs at government agencies or public interest groups.”  The addition of this program is one of a series of modifications that Harvard has made in its offerings to support aspiring public service lawyers.  The school has added a fellowship program to financially support grads who were unable to find work and who desired to work for one year in a public interest setting, and, due to budget constraints, it has temporarily done away with an initiative to waive third-year tuition for students who commit to five years of public service work upon graduation.  Link to article, and see Harvard’s announcement. 

• 2.8.10 – WSBT Television Station Website [CBS Affiliate in Indiana] – in April the Michigan Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of indigent defendants whose constitutional rights, the ACLU claims, have been violated because of Michigan’s poor indigent defense infrastructure.  Through the lawsuit, the ACLU “asks the state to step in and fix the problem: to make sure each county provides the funding, policies, and oversight so every defendant gets justice.”  Link to article.  [Ed Note: past coverage related to apparent troubles in the Michigan indigent defense network is available via the National Law Journal and the Michigan Citizen.]

• 2.8.10 – San Jose Mercury News (California)- the Santa Clara County District Attorney, who had appeared to direct her staff to take action amounting to a full boycott of a judge on criminal matters last month, has softened her stance a bit, indicating that it will not oppose the judge’s participation in some misdemeanor criminal proceedings.  The D.A.’s decision to boycott the Judge Andrea Bryan, which came after Bryan had ruled that a prosecutor from the D.A.’s office committed misconduct, was highly controversial in the local legal community.  Link to article.   [Ed. Note: past coverage by the San Jose Mercury News is available here.]

• 2.8.10 – Daily Record (Jacksonville, FL) – the Northeast Florida Medical Legal Partnership, one of a handful of advocacy programs that take a more holistic approach to serving low-income client communities, is expanding its services with the addition of Holland & Knight, LLP as a new organizational partner.  Link to article.

The following analysis is provided by William C. Penn, Public Interest Law Coordinator at Lewis & Clark Law School.  Thanks, Bill!

The U.S. Department of Education recently produced a Q&A guide pertaining to the College Cost Reduction & Access Act’s Income Based Repayment (IBR) program.  The Q&A mentions that starting in July 2010, married borrowers who file a joint tax return will be able to consider the income AND the debt of both spouses when calculating IBR payments and eligibility.  I did not see a clear description of how the changes will alter the amount that married borrowers have to pay, so I read through the Federal Register for Thursday October 29, 2009.

What follows is my rundown of the changes:

1. Graduates will be able to pick the greater of the amount of their loans when they began repayment or the amount of their loans when they request Income Based Repayment to use in the equations that determine
   eligibility for using Income-Based Repayment.  In the real world, this means that some graduates who might not have qualified for IBR at graduation may be able to qualify later if their loans have grown due
   to circumstances like deferment.
2. The calculation method for determining Income-Based Repayment amounts for single graduates remains the same.
3. The calculation method for determining Income-Based Repayment amounts for married graduates filing separate tax returns remains the same (count only individual income and only their individual debt in
   the equations).
4. The calculation method for determining Income-Based Repayment amounts for married graduates filing joint tax returns is very different: 

•  
  • In determining qualification for IBR, both the joint income and the joint debt of the couple is considered.  This means, for qualification, a joint tax return filing married couple will be
    treated as a single unit for both income and debt.  The qualification question is:  does the IBR equation produce a smaller payment amount when calculated using the joint income than a standard 10-year payment plan based on the joint debt.  If one spouse qualifies, the other does
    as well.  Fewer graduates will fail to qualify because their joint income is too high.
  • For calculating the amount that each spouse must pay toward their student loans under IBR, the joint IBR equation [ (15% of (joint income minus 150% of the poverty guide)) divided by twelve]  is multiplied by the individual spouse’s share of the total student debt.  So, if one spouse has 30% of the student loans, they pay 30% of what the IBR equation produces using joint income.  The other spouse would pay 70%.  The result is that under the new equation married filing jointly couples will, together, pay HALF as much on their loans as
    they pay together under the old calculation method!

What Does It All Mean?

In the real world, this change means, starting in July 2010, married couples who use IBR and file joint tax returns will pay close to what two unmarried people in the same situation would pay.  Considering the loss of deductions when filing tax returns as married filing separately, married graduates will likely be better off filing taxes jointly if both spouses are attempting to use IBR.  (In scenarios that I have run calculations for, couples filing jointly and using the new equation should save at least few hundred dollars per year over filing
separately.)

An Example (using rough calculations)

• Take a couple, both partners making $40,000 per year and with $100,000 in debt each (plus a large number of plain-vanilla assumptions for estimating their taxes).
• As single people, together they pay about $6,400 under IBR toward their loans and about $8,800 in taxes – $15,200 in loans and taxes.
• As married-filing-separately, together they pay about 7,100 under IBR toward their loans and about $10,000 in taxes – $17,100 in loans and taxes.
• As married joint filers under the new rules, together they pay about $8,000 under IBR toward their loans and about $8,800 in taxes – $16,800 in loans and taxes.
• UNDER THE OLD RULES The married joint filers, together pay about $16,000 under IBR toward loans and about $8,800 in taxes – $24,000 in loans and taxes.
• WITH THE NEW RULES, the handling of married joint tax filers is what it should have been from the start.

President Obama’s budget plan for Fiscal Year 2011 contemplates an increase in legal staff and FBI personnel at DOJ, according to Government Executive.  Overall, the federal workforce will shrink slightly (from 2.15 to 2.11 million), but will remain larger than it was in 2007.  The Commerce Department is facing the largest cuts (some of which will come on account of the 2010 Census having been completed).  Other agencies that will likely see staff gains: Defense, Homeland Security, and Health & Human Services.

For many public-interest minded law students, whether they are hunting for summer or postgraduate work, winter and early spring constitute interview season.  Harvard Law School’s Office of Public Interest Advising maintains a very helpful interviewing resource webpage, which includes lists of questions to expect from interviewers.  And PSLawNet offers a concise, bullet-pointed interview tips guide.  Some key points: 

• Take advantage of mock interview opportunities.  Explore with your career services office the possibility of setting up mock interviews so that you can work out the kinks and develop a comfort level with the formality of interviews.  Ideally, the (mock) interviewer will be an attorney with some experience in the area of work that you are trying to break into.  Even if you feel you are a strong interviewer, there is absolutely no downside to practicing.  For instance, you may be asked a question in the mock interview that challenges you.  By thinking through it and developing an answer in a no-consequences environment, you can hit it out of the park during a real interview.   
• Be able to explain your motivation.  Public interest employers look for students who have a genuine interest in their organizations’ missions.  If  you have past work experience in an area related to the job you are seeking, that demonstrates a personal commitment.  By all means, you should highlight this experience during the interview.  Even if you do not – and many law students do not have a lot of public interest experience under their belt when they begin school – you must prepare to explain what motivated you to apply for the specific job.
• Don’t  just prepare to answer questions; prepare to ask them.  A good interview is a conversation, and you risk seeming disinterested if a potential employer offers you an opportunity to ask questions and you take a pass.  You should prepare a short list of questions based upon your pre-interview research about the organization, and perhaps even a question for the interviewer personally, such as, “How did your career path lead you to your current position?”