Our neighbors at public interest law firm Mehri & Skalet are seeking their 2013 Find Justice Fellow.  Interested in civil rights, employment, housing and/or consumer law?  Give this this a peep.

Mehri & Skalet, PLLC is a law firm that litigates class actions to protect individuals from unfair or discriminatory practices. Our areas of practice include civil rights and anti-discrimination law, consumer protection, fair housing and lending, antitrust, wage and hour, and the False Claims Act. We focus on developing systemic reforms to improve the workplace and the marketplace. The Mehri & Skalet Find Justice Fellowship provides a promising new attorney with an introduction to our practice.

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To further our mission of public justice, we created the Mehri & Skalet Find Justice Fellowship in 2009, which offers a new attorney the opportunity to join the firm and gain experience on the wide range of cases that we pursue. The Find Justice Fellow works on all aspects of our practice, including the investigation of new cases, client relations, research, discovery, motions, negotiations, litigation strategy and court hearings.

The Fellowship duration is for two years, beginning in the Fall of 2013. Compensation will be $50,000 per year with full health benefits.

Not too shabby.  Check out the full job posting (PSJD login required).

The Asian Pacific American Legal Center is seeking a pro bono director…

APALC seeks a pro bono director to oversee volunteer involvement projects and partnerships, with the goals of cultivating volunteer resources (legal and non-legal) to further APALC’s work and reinforce APALC’s support base by providing opportunities to be involved in APALC’s mission. Under the supervision of the Vice-President of Programs & Communications, the director will work with APALC’s program, development and communications teams to provide strategic vision for the organization’s pro bono work and to strengthen APALC’s volunteer capacity.   The director is responsible for the cultivation of relationships with key pro bono stakeholders (e.g., law firms, law schools, bar associations, etc.) and the day-to-day management of APALC’s volunteer program. This position is full-time and exempt.

Read the full job listing on PSJD (login required).

Are you a fairly new attorney with a commitment to immigration, children’s rights and advocating for quality public education? If so, then today’s Job of the Day is for you!

From the PSJD job listing:

Advocates for Children of New York, Inc. (AFC) is a not-for-profit organization that works in partnership with New York City’s most disadvantaged families to secure quality public education services. AFC works on behalf of children and youth who are at greatest risk of academic failure due to poverty, race, ethnicity, disability, homelessness, immigration status/limited English proficiency, or involvement in the child welfare or juvenile justice systems. We use uniquely integrated strategies to advance systemic reform, empower families and communities, and advocate for the educational rights of individual students.

AFC seeks a bilingual Spanish-speaking staff attorney to obtain high quality, appropriate educational service for underserved immigrant families. Responsibilities will include direct representation of families in special education administrative hearings and school discipline hearings, as well as case management responsibilities, including attendance at special education review meetings and school visits.

The attorney will also be responsible for providing training and technical assistance to parents and a range of non-profits to build the capacity of these individuals and organizations to address educational issues. The attorney will also work on policy analysis, research, and advocacy or litigation related to students and their families. Specifically, the position will include:

1) providing case services and legal representation to clients;

2) performing outreach and providing workshops, which may occasionally occur on nights and weekends, to parents, youth and professionals about their rights to attend school and receive adequate educational services;

3) promoting inter-agency coordination to facilitate better delivery of educational services; and

4) supporting ongoing policy advocacy work on English Language Learner and immigrant student issues.

AFC prefers applications from lawyers with at least 1 – 3 years of experience. For more information on application instructions and qualifications, visit PSJD.org (log-in required)!

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, ladies and gents. It’s been a pleasure to spend time with law school public interest career advisors who’ve descended upon Washington DC for the NALP/PSJD Public Service Mini-Conference and the Equal Justice Works Career Fair.  Yesterday’s Mini-Conference reminded of why community-building among professional colleagues is so valuable.  And I’m pretty sure I only managed to alienate people from St. Louis and San Antonio during yesterday’s events.  I’ve done worse.  I want to extend, again, my congratulations and admiration to Elizabeth Gutierrez, a 3L as St. Mary’s University School of Law, who won our 2012 PSJD Pro Bono Publico Award.  Liz acquitted herself with great humility during our award presentation, but her record as an advocate for the most vulnerable in her community is stunning. 

The weeklong, national celebration of pro bono, facilitated by the ABA and marked by volunteer projects and recognition events throughout the country, is winding down this weekend.  Events that have taken place are too numerous to mention.  But www.celebrateprobono.org is serving as a repository of related resources, news, etc.

There is just a moderate amount of public interest and access-to-justice news to report on today.  So here we go.  Short version:

• a new Tennessee MLP (poetry);
• making the case for an independent New Mexico defender’s office;
• loan repayment for NY nonprofit and government lawyers;
• happy 100^th, Legal Aid Bureau of Buffalo (but the Bills still stink);
• one CA county’s prosecutors/defenders fight off a pay cut;
• OPM guidance on the federal government’s “Pathways” program’s intern hiring component;
• after NY, is NJ also going to require pro bono service as a condition of getting a law license?;
• could the Income Based Repayment program inadvertently re-inflate the law school tuition bubble?
• only 40 years until Buffalo – Ohio’s Community Legal Aid Service turns 60.
• super music bonus!

The summaries:

• 10.26.12 – in Tennessee, the Vanderbilt University Shade Tree Clinic and the Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands have formed a new medical legal partnership.  It seems as though both law and medical students will play prominent roles: “[The] new MLP, which will offer patients a variety of free legal services, is an outgrowth of one that was set up and is still operating in a limited capacity at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt. Most MLPs are formed at children’s hospitals because they are teaching hospitals and thus can partner with other university resources, and because they have a higher concentration of families in need than a regular hospital might have…. The Legal Aid-Shade Tree partnership is unique because the clinic is student-run, as opposed to a community health center or larger hospital. Student physicians and, increasingly, student lawyers, gain real-world experience while providing an immediate service to the patient base, says Shannon Jordan, LMSW, a medical social worker at Shade Tree.”  (Story from the Nashville Ledger.)

• 10.25.12 – a Las Cruces News-Sun op-ed, written by a retired public defender, makes the case for a New Mexico ballot initiative which would take the state’s public defender program outside of the executive branch’s control and make it an independent entity.  One of the main concerns of having the governor continue to control the defender program is an inherent conflict of interest, as the governor also has responsibility to prosecute crime.

• 10.24.12 – the New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) has created a loan repayment grant program for mid-level lawyers in nonprofit and government practice.  From the Buffalo Business Journal:  “The grants, offered through the Steven Krane Special Committee on Student Loan Assistance for the Public Interest, are available to attorneys who have practiced public interest or government law for a minimum of five years. Priority will be given to civil legal services attorneys.”

• 10.24.12 – the Legal Aid Bureau of Buffalo hits the century mark.  Huzzah!  (Here’s the story from WBFO.)

• 10.23.12 – in California, Contra Costa County prosecutors and defenders have successfully staved off a planned salary cut: “After months of fractious negotiations, the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors and associations from both the district attorney and public defender’s offices agreed Tuesday to a new employment contract that would roll back controversial pay cuts in exchange for some concessions.”  (Here’s the password-protected Recorder article.)

• 10.22.12 – a development concerning federal agencies’ intern recruiting efforts under the new “Pathways” recruiting model: “Federal agencies have been told that they can continue to use interns referred from third parties such as intern placement agencies after a recent overhaul of government intern-type programs.  The government in July formally launched the Pathways program that revised or replaced several prior developmental and hiring programs for students and graduates….  A memo that the Office of Personnel Management sent Friday said that since the revisions, agencies have been asking about the role of third-party intern providers. OPM said that nothing in the new program ‘restricts in any way an agency’s authority to enter into arrangements with third-party intern providers. Agencies retain the same authority to enter these arrangements that they had before the Pathways programs were authorized’.”  (Full blog post from the Washington Post.)

• 10.22.12 – I’m so tired of New York being a trendsetter.  But here they go again.  “Following the lead of the New York state court system, New Jersey’s top judge has formed a committee to consider requiring prospective attorneys to complete pro bono work before being admitted to the state bar.  The 17-member panel, which Chief Justice Stuart Rabner created last week, will be chaired by Judge Glenn Grant, the acting administrative director of New Jersey’s court system. The committee will review New York’s pro bono mandate, which requires 50 hours of work, and make recommendations to Rabner.  The panel includes private attorneys, bar association officials, legal service providers and officials from the state’s three law schools, as well as a third-year law student and a retired state judge.  According to an Oct. 15 letter Grant wrote inviting the officials to join the committee, 97 percent of small claims litigants and 99 percent of tenants in housing cases in New Jersey show up to court without a lawyer.”  (Full story from Thomson-Reuters.)

• 10.21.12 – this blog post in the Chronicle of Higher Education explores a New America Foundation report on the federal Income Based Repayment program, specifically querying whether IBR, because it allows high-debt, middle-income borrowers to create very affordable repayment plans “could completely remove price discipline in a law-school market that desperately needs it…”  That is, could IBR inadvertently create another law school tuition bubble?

• 10.19.12 – Ohio’s Community Legal Aid Services is turning 60!  Congrats!  In celebration they are partying Akron-style at the Akron Civic Theater.  Consider yourself warned, Akron.  (Story from the Daily Legal News.)

• Music!  Here we have the song “Mass Romantic” from the New Pornographers. 

From the PSJD job listing:

NYLAG has an immediate opening for a staff attorney in its Foreclosure Prevention Project. This Project provides legal representation and court-based services for borrowers with subprime, deceptive, and unconventional mortgages facing foreclosure. The attorney hired for this position will have the unique opportunity to work in an evolving practice area within an established and dynamic Citywide legal service provider as the foreclosure crisis continues, requiring innovative and coordinated responses. In addition to carrying a caseload of foreclosure prevention matters, this attorney will provide pro se assistance, conduct case consultations, and engage in community education and outreach. The attorney will participate in legislative initiatives to improve conditions for homeowners, and operate a collaborative foreclosure assistance clinic out of the Bronx Supreme Court. This attorney will also work within other NYLAG consumer protection projects, as described below, and will have the opportunity to work with NYLAG staff to identify systemic problems concerning foreclosure proceedings and to address these problems through a variety of means.

The attorney will also be involved and take cases for NYLAG’s Connect to Care Program (C2C), established by UJA-Federation of New York in 2009. Through C2C, NYLAG provides legal and financial counseling services to New Yorkers adversely impacted by the recent economic downturn. This attorney will conduct intakes at community-based C2C sites in New York City, Westchester, and Long Island and will handle some C2C case matters back at NYLAG’s central offices. This attorney may need to travel to these sites on to meet with clients and conduct educational workshops on relevant legal issues. The primary substantive areas of C2C legal services are: foreclosure prevention, consumer law, bankruptcy, unemployment insurance, employment law, eviction prevention, and access to public benefits. In addition to C2C work, this attorney may also provide consumer protection assistance through other NYLAG programs and may provide other GLS legal services, depending on funding. In particular, this attorney may assist with the Consumer Credit Volunteer Lawyer for a Day (VLFD) programs in the Bronx and Queens, in which NYLAG staff represent and supervise volunteers to represent defendants for the day in court in consumer credit cases.

Click here to visit PSJD.org for more information on qualifications, application instructions and more (log-in required)!

Columbia Law School is seeking a recent law graduate for its Provost’s Postdoctoral Research Scholars Program. The goal of the program is to enhance the recruitment of outstanding postdoctoral scholars from underrepresented groups to more closely reflect the composition of the national pool of qualified candidates. The program strongly encourages applications from promising scholars from historically underrepresented groups, including but not limited to: Blacks/African-Americans; Hispanics/ Native Americans/Alaska Natives; persons having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, or Samoa.

Scholars will attend twice-weekly general faculty workshops, as well as subject-specific workshops, where they will have many opportunities to meet and get to know faculty. In addition, the Vice Dean and other faculty who oversee our Scholars programs often reach out to faculty colleagues on Scholars’ behalf in order to encourage faculty-scholar interactions. Faculty members regularly read and comment on Scholars’ article drafts and proposed projects. Scholars also have a year round workshop of their own at which they can present their own work and receive comments from their peers. Scholars are also invited to attend entry-level job talks, so they know what to expect when they go on the market themselves, and receive extensive support in putting their entry-level application packets together.

In addition, scholars will be provided with the opportunity to meet and to develop mentoring relationships with law faculty members outside the Law School itself through the school’s emerging scholars program. Invited faculty members will be selected on the basis of their expressed interest in developing mentoring relationships with emerging scholars who are members of underrepresented groups.

Click here to visit PSJD.org for more information on application instructions and qualifications (log-in required).

Interested in practicing immigration law for the Department of Homeland Security? Check out this recent PSJD job posting:

Do you desire to protect American interests and secure our Nation while building a meaningful and rewarding career? If so, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is calling. DHS components work collectively to prevent terrorism, secure borders, enforce and administer immigration laws, safeguard cyberspace and ensure resilience to disasters. The vitality and magnitude of this mission is achieved by a diverse workforce spanning hundreds of occupations. Make an impact; join DHS!

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services secures America’s promise as a nation of immigrants by providing accurate and useful information to our customers, granting immigration and citizenship benefits, promoting an awareness and understanding of citizenship, and ensuring the integrity of our immigration system. Visit us at http://www.uscis.gov/.

Every day, our Immigration Services Officers independently research, interpret and analyze an extensive spectrum of sources including pertinent sections of the law and regulations, operating instructions, references and guidance contained in legislative history, precedent decisions, state and local laws, international treaties and other legal references to embrace the correct course of action.

Apply for this exciting opportunity to become a member of the Office of Field Operations, District 23, in one of the Field Office locations listed below, within DHS US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

• Los Angeles Field Office, in Los Angeles, CA
• Santa Ana Field Office, in Santa Ana, CA

The starting salary is between $52,852.00 – $68,702.00. Immigration Services Officers support the adjudication process by providing accurate and useful information to DHS customers, managing correspondence, and providing internal and external customer support. Officers at the full performance level may adjudicate cases, conduct security checks, conduct interviews, and ensure program quality assurance.

The deadline to apply is this Friday, October 26, 2012. For more information on qualifications, salary and application instructions, view the full listing at psjd.org (log-in required)!

The Office of the Attorney General in the District of Columbia is looking for an Attorney-Advisor to work in the Office of the General Counsel for the Department of Public Works (DPW). With approximately 1300 employees, DPW is one of the larger District agencies.

The Office of General Counsel provides legal services to DPW, whose primary services include: (1) Solid Waste Management— collection and disposal of residential trash, street cleaning, sanitation enforcement, leaf and snow removal; and (2) Parking Enforcement Management—public space parking enforcement, booting, towing and impounding of vehicles; and Fleet Management—procurement, fueling, maintenance, repair and disposition of District owned vehicles.

These operations generate issues regarding the delivery of DPW’s services, conduct of its employees, policies and implementation and enforcement of regulations. Several DPW operations, i.e. Solid Waste Management and Fleet Management, must comply with both federal regulations as well as District regulations. Ensuring that the agency is complying with both District and Federal requirements can be complex and an attorney’s guidance is always sought.

Successful applicants will provide legal guidance, represent DPW in adjudicatory and quasi-adjudicatory proceedings, prepare pretrial discovery, write motions, prepare briefs, and conduct direct and cross-examination of witnesses, among other responsibilities. The position is a 13-month term appointment, contingent on agency renewal, and is within the collective bargaining unit. Candidates may be subject to a criminal background check.

For more information on qualifications and how to apply, view the full listing at PSJD.org (log-in required)!

The Center is a multi-racial organization dedicated to building the power and participation of poor people in order to expand democracy and transform the economy. We organize directly affected people, and couple their courage with strategic legal, policy, and communications work to build campaigns that advance racial justice, immigrant rights, and a fair economy. The Center anchors three grassroots membership organizations: the Congress of Day Laborers, Stand With Dignity, and the National Guestworker Alliance, as well as a strategic legal department that innovates law and policy strategies that build grassroots power. Our members are African American and immigrant workers and families in the South, as well as guestworkers across the country.

The Center is seeking 1L and 2L law students for its summer 2013 law clerk program.

Law clerks should have an interest in the Center’s practice areas and in using legal tools in the context of community-led justice campaigns. Applicants with language skills in Spanish, Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, or Telugu are especially encouraged.

View the job listing on PSJD (login required).

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, folks.  Well, not too happy.  Yesterday, we at NALP released the 2012 Public Sector & Public Interest Attorney Salary Report.  These already-low salaries, when taking inflation into account, have remained close to stagnant in the recent past. (Civil legal aid lawyers start at about $43,000 annually while assistant prosecutors’ and defenders’ starting salaries hover around $50,000)  But of course the amount of debt that today’s junior attorneys carry has swollen.  Thus, a public interest attorney’s income pie has stayed the same size, but a much larger piece of it now goes to debt service.

Loan repayment (and in some cases, forgiveness) programs can mitigate this circumstance.  Those grads positioned to maximize repayment/forgiveness options may not experience financial discomfort.  But not all types of loans qualify for inclusion in repayment programs.  And there is uncertainty about the viability of today’s loan repayment regime – a constellation of government-, school-, and employer-run repayment plans.  Finally there is the law graduate’s frustration of having to take on a massive amount of debt, only then to have it reduced.  Here’s the important question: with low, stagnant salaries, with the rising cost of legal education, and with a terribly tight job market, how difficult is it becoming for tomorrow’s lawyers to pursue public service career paths?

This question will not yield a simple, yes-or-no, across-the-board answer.  Circumstances are different for every law student.  But we can identify the key variables involved in the analysis. I’m going to focus on this as I do some writing in the next few weeks.  I am so far from having the market on wisdom cornered that I sometimes can’t find the market.  So please be in touch with your thoughts, insights, questions, etc.  I’m at sgrumm@nalp.org or 202.296.0057.     

Some interesting miscellany before the week’s public interest and access-to-justice news:

• in the nonprofit world, the Chronicle of Philanthropy released its list of the 400 largest nonprofits, accompanied by several analysis pieces.  Much of the content is password-protected.  But there is valuable data/insight in the accessible areas too, and one can get a sense of how the recession did, and continues to, impact the nonprofit world.
• on the job-market front, resume advice is ubiquitous, and some of it is so bland – “make it look clean” – as to be useless.  However, this blog post – 10 Reasons Your Resume Isn’t Getting You Interviews – on the U.S. News website is better than most of the content I come across because it compels job-seekers look critically at how their resumes are constructed.

Okay, on to the public interest and access-to-justice news.  In very, very short:

• coverage of NALP’s public interest salary report;
• IL attorney general directs more funding to legal aid for housing work;
• pro se resources in the Aloha State;
• the ABA’s weeklong celebration of pro bono takes place next week;
• OK legal aid providers also getting funds to do housing work;
• A look at law student pro bono in Minnesota (and New York);
• A Wall Street legal clinic?  Seton Hall’s Investor Advocacy Project;
• ~$7 million contract to provide legal aid to disabled New Yorkers up for grabs;
• An Innocence Project clinic launches at West Virginia Law;
• An Oklahoma nonprofit law office serving “modest means” clients expands;
• super music bonus

The summaries:

• 10.18.12 – here’s some coverage of the above-noted NALP public interest salary report:
  • From the ABA Journal
  • And from the National Law Journal

• 10.18.12 – “Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan (D) announced Oct. 18 that $620,000 in funding from the national foreclosure settlement has been awarded to Illinois Legal Aid Online. The attorney general’s grant will be used to develop web-based resources to assist Illinois homeowners and legal professionals dealing with foreclosure, including online training programs for legal staff and attorneys working with Illinois residents facing foreclosure. The grant also will be used to develop and enhance educational websites intended for homeowners and renters affected by foreclosure.”  (Story from the Rock River Times.)

• 10.17.12 – Aloha.  This article covers the opening of one Hawaiian courthouse self-help center for pro se litigants, but more importantly highlights a statewide trend toward bolstering pro se resources. (Here’s the article in the Maui News.)

• 10.16.12 – the ABA’s “Pro Bono Celebration” week is next week.  There’s much happening on local, state, and nationwide levels to promote pro bono’s importance.  Here’s an ABA overview, and here’s the official Celebrate Pro Bono website, which serves as a central repository for event listings and resources.

• 10.16.12 – “Oklahoma’s $18.6 million mortgage settlement with five big lenders will pay for legal services for people trying to manage a mortgage, avoid foreclosure and keep their homes — no matter the lender — in a new partnership between the state attorney general’s office and Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma.  Attorney General Scott Pruitt said Monday that Legal Aid received $1.27 million from the settlement to hire, train and reassign 15 attorneys and seven paralegals to help homeowners with mortgage modifications, refinancing, short sales, housing counseling and navigating the foreclosure process in a program called Resolution Oklahoma.”  (Story from the Oklahoman.)
  • and here comes a terrible segue into an unrelated topic. While we’re on Oklahoma, Woody Guthrie was born there. And here’s a Chronicle of Higher Education article looking at Guthrie’s legacy 100 years after his birth.  He was Bob Dylan long before Bob Dylan was Bob Dylan.  (I think of Guthrie as the first punk-rocker.)  And he exerted enormous, reaching-beyond-the-grave influence on the evolution of American music.  Good read.

• 10.16.12 – in light of the just-implemented New York State rule requiring 50 hours of pro bono service to get a law license, the Minnesota Daily looks at law student pro bono in the Gopher State. “All four Minnesota law schools — the University of Minnesota, Hamline University, University of St. Thomas and William Mitchell College of Law — provide legal volunteering opportunities through a partnership with the Minnesota Justice Foundation.  MJF is a nonprofit organization founded in 1982 by law students in Minnesota. It provides students with a database of volunteer opportunities as well as advising from a staff attorney at each school…. The only Minnesota school to require legal volunteer work is Hamline University School of Law — a rule that was put in place last year.”
  • speaking of the New York rule, here’s a Reuters piece noting that the rules broad definition of “pro bono” means that there might not be much “new” pro bono generated because many externship, clinical, and volunteer projects already performed by law students will satisfy the rule.

• 10.15.12 – a look at the work of Seton Hall Law’s Investor Advocacy Project, a clinic that helps low- and moderate-income investors who’ve been wronged. “”We provide advocacy for those investors who would otherwise be unable to secure adequate representation,” says David M. White, a law school faculty member and director of the…Project. The contingency fees charged by lawyers would alone eat up most of any possible recovery.  The clients are not big-time investors. They bought annuities, instruments like insurance policies. Or invested settlements from injury claims. Or the proceeds from the sale of their homes. White says the investments involved in these cases do not exceed $100,000.”  (Article from the Star-Ledger.)

• 10.15.12 – “Three groups have proposed taking over federally funded advocacy and legal protection of disabled New York residents who are in the care of the state and its nonprofit contractors.  Syracuse University, Disability Advocates Inc. and a coalition of six legal aid groups that now provide many of the services statewide under individual contracts have filed proposals. The six are the Legal Aid Society of Northeastern New York, Legal Services of Central New York, Legal Services of the Hudson Valley, Nassau Suffolk Law Services, Neighborhood Legal Services and New York Lawyers for the Public Interest.  The selection is expected following public hearings, which have not been set yet.”  The funding amounts for about $7 million annually.  (Story from WNCT.)

• 10.12.12 – the West Virginia University Innocence Project has opened its doors as a law-school clinic in the Mountain State.  (Story from the Gazette-Mail.)

• 10.11.12- a nonprofit law office serving clients who have too much income to qualify for legal aid – which is not saying much because the income limit is typically 125% of federal poverty guidelines – but too little to afford full-scope representation is expanding in the Sooner State. (Story from KOAM.) 

• Music!  It’s a gray day here in D.C.  So how about something mellow?  Here’s Ryan Adams (not to be confused with Bryan Adams) performing “Desire”.