Happy Labor Day, folks!

Today’s job of the day is awesome because it is a PAID opportunity! That’s right – the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is looking for summer interns to work for $700 a week in its Montgomery, Alabama office.

The SPLC invites applicants in their second year of law school who possess strong academic backgrounds, excellent research and writing skills, and a commitment to public interest law. A minimum of ten weeks is required, and students will work mainly on issues affecting children, prisoners, the LGBT community, and economically disadvantaged communities.

View the full listing at PSJD.org (log-in required)!

The Center for Medicare Advocacy in Washington, DC is looking for a Policy Advocate to provide writing, analysis and advocacy regarding access to health care, due process, and other related issues for Medicaid and Medicare beneficiaries. The Policy Advocate will also be actively involved with the Center’s legal research, analysis, writing and educational activities and will serve as the liaison for the organization’s Medicare Maximization work. In addition to leading the Center’s policy and communication efforts, the Policy Advocate will also assist with federal litigation and community education.

The Center prefers to hire a Police Advocate with a law degree, Master’s in Public Health, or an equivalent degree with at least 5 years of experience. For more information, view the full listing at PSJD.org (log-in required).

ICAR seeks a bright and dedicated law student to work as an intern on a number of campaigns that address corporate accountability and human rights concerns.  

ICAR is a coalition of leading human rights organizations that harnesses the power of the human rights community to identify and promote robust frameworks for corporate accountability, strengthen current measures and defend existing laws, policies and legal precedents.

The intern will assist with various ICAR workstreams, including but not limited to:  creating and promoting international standards of human rights due diligence, promoting corporate accountability and transparency in labor and mineral supply chains, and working toward standards of liability for private military and security companies.  The intern must be able to attend meetings in Washington D.C. with our organizational partners and government stakeholders.

View the job listing on PSJD (login required).

[Editor’s Note: we are re-launching our Expert Opinion blog series!  Every Thursday the PSJD Blog will feature a post containing career advice and other information from a variety of leaders in the public interest community.]

Ten Tips For Nailing Prosecutor/Public Defender Interviews

By: Chris Teague*

This gentleman knows from whence he speaks.

At the 2012 NALP Annual Education Conference in Austin, TX, I moderated a program titled “Hypothetically Speaking: Preparing Students for Prosecutor and Public Defender Interviews.”  The panel featured Rory Stein (the Miami Public Defender), Jeremy Sylestine ( of the Travis County, Texas District Attorney’s Office), and Rachel Peckerman (of NYU School of Law’s Public Interest Law Center) and offered excellent advice on how to approach interview hypotheticals. The panelists stressed that applicants should be prepared to articulate clearly why they want to work as a DA/PD.  They also offered many tips for handling hypos.  Here are my top 10, along with a list of frequently-encountered themes: 

General Tips

1. Be wary of answering questions by stating that you would check with your supervisor.  Hypos are designed to see how you react when confronted with very difficult fact patterns.  While your gut reaction may be to immediately consult your supervisor for help, it is important that you avoid the urge to “pass the buck” and instead deal with the difficult situation head-on.  If you believe the circumstances warrant the involvement of your supervisor, it may be OK to say so, but make sure your answer doesn’t end there.  Elaborate on this response and give your own assessment of the facts.   
2. Show your work.  Even if your answer is wrong (keep in mind that some hypotheticals don’t have one correct answer), make sure to talk through your analysis.  The interviewer will likely give you credit for demonstrating a logical approach or asking thoughtful questions, even if you ultimately arrive at the wrong answer. 

Tips for Prosecutor Interviews

1. Remember that a prosecutor’s primary goal is to pursue justice.  While it is important to demonstrate your willingness to uphold the law and to request incarceration if warranted, some prosecutor’s offices will ask questions that test your ability to see the bigger picture.  Also keep in mind that prosecutors represent the state, not the victim.  The victim’s interests may not always be in line with the state’s. 
2. Don’t disregard the Constitution no matter how serious the crime.  A prosecutor should never condone the violation of a defendant’s Constitutional rights, even when doing so appears to be advantageous.  Always go with the ethical, Constitutionally-sound answer.  
3. Be on the lookout for exculpatory evidence.  This is a popular interview topic.  Some hypos may deal primarily with a prosecutor’s obligation to disclose exculpatory evidence.  But be aware that other hypos – ones that appear to address a completely different topic – may secondarily touch upon exculpatory evidence.  If a question mentions evidence that may be exculpatory, even if it seems like a minor part of the question, you should discuss that evidence in your answer.  
4. Demonstrate sensitivity with reluctant victims and witnesses at all times, even when their reluctance negatively impacts your case.  This does not mean that victims and witnesses should always control how you handle a case, but rather that their opinions and concerns should be addressed in an appropriate and considerate way. 

Some common themes you may encounter:

• Exculpatory evidence (Hint: If the interviewer gives you information that might weaken or impede your case, it might be exculpatory.)
• Handling a reluctant witness (Hint: Reluctant witnesses sometimes appear as a scared or recanting domestic violence victim, or as a victim with collateral concerns, such as immigration issues.)
• Role of the prosecutor (Hint: If the hypo concerns a victim with credibility issues or doubts about the case, a lying police officer, weak evidence, or a misidentification issue, part of your answer may want to demonstrate your understanding of the prosecutor’s role in pursuing justice.)
• Search and seizure issues (Hint: You may be asked to advise a police officer how to proceed with the investigation of a suspicious person who is suspected of carrying contraband.)

Tips for Public Defender Interviews

1. Always zealously advocate for your client.  Advocating for your client may negatively impact a victim or witness; that is OK.  Unlike prosecutors, public defenders must act in the best interest of their clients, not in the pursuit of justice. 
2. Caveat: While you are zealously advocating for your client, be sure that you do not violate the law or any ethical rules. 
3. Demonstrate that you are completely comfortable representing people who have committed crimes.  Some applicants focus on their interest in representing defendants who have been unjustly accused of a crime.  This is certainly a noble endeavor, but be aware that public defenders often must represent people who “did it.”  Regardless, all criminal defendants are innocent until proven guilty in the eyes of the law and deserve the best defense possible.
4. Recognize the importance of earning a client’s confidence.  You may be asked to role play a client intake interview or otherwise demonstrate your ability to communicate with a client and build trust.  Be prepared for the “client” in your role play to be withdrawn or possibly hostile.

Some common themes you may encounter:

• If your client has told you that he committed the crime, is it ethical for you to argue to a jury during closing argument that “the defendant is absolutely innocent of these charges”?  (Hint: A defendant is innocent until proven guilty.  An attorney can – and should – use the closing argument to present his or her interpretation of the evidence presented during the trial.)
• Clients changing his or her story (Hint: You may be asked how you would handle a client who initially denies the charges and subsequently admits guilt.)
• Strategy conflict with client (Hint: Be open to client input, but be ready to respond to a client who wants you to do something that you believe would be harmful to the case.

Visit PSJD’s Government Careers page for more resources on prosecution and public defense careers.  Good luck!

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*About Chris Teague:  Chris is Associate Director of Career Services at Boston College Law School, after a 10-year career as an Assistant District Attorney in boston and as a defense attorney.  He currently serves as the NALP Northeast Regional Representative and is a past Chair of NALP’s LGBT Section.  Chris is an active member of the Massachusetts Legal Recruitment Association (where he currently serves as Secretary) and the Massachusetts Law School Consortium, and he is a frequent speaker and author on a wide range of career- and technology-related topics.

By: Steve Grumm

The jobs picture  has not been rosy for law students who are pursuing careers in civil legal services.  Funding cuts have hurt many organizations.  Layoffs and hiring freezes have been implemented.  (Read this report from the Legal Services Corporation about layoffs even as more and more would-be clients need services.)

It’s important, then, for job seekers to keep abreast of funding developments.  Where there is new funding, there may be new jobs.  Attorneys general throughout the U.S. are channeling millions of dollars to the legal services community so that its lawyers can serve low-income clients with housing problems.  The source of funding is a multi-million dollar class-action settlement over fraudulent mortgage foreclosure practices.  Individual states, in most cases through their attorneys general, have been directing some of this settlement money to legal aid organizations.   See this recent news out of Illinois, Nevada, and Washington State.

We track these developments in our weekly news bulletin, which we release every Friday.   I know it can be disheartening to read a lot of bad news about public interest jobs – to say nothing of the effect that job cuts have on client communities.  But there are good funding developments out there, and we consistently post legal services jobs on PSJD.  So keep up with the latest news and don’t lose heart.

The National Association of Latino Elected & Appointed Officials (NALEO) seeks a Voting Rights Fellow to lead and coordinate a broad range of voter protection related activities on behalf of the National Latino Civic Engagement Table (NLCET), a consortium of organizations that includes the NALEO Educational Fund, Center for Community Change, the Hispanic Federation, the Labor Council for Latin America Advancement (LCLAA), the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), Mi Familia Vota, the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), Presente.org, and Voto Latino. Duties will include coordination with member organizations’ communications teams around earned media, and identifying strategic opportunities for opinion-shaping and community education on voting rights issues.

The Voting Rights Fellow will also work closely with members of the Table working on community-focused voter protection efforts, to ensure coordination and maximization of organizational resources, and provide updates on emerging relevant issues at the national, state, and local level. Lastly, the Voting Rights Fellow will serve as a liaison between the NLCET and the larger voter protection infrastructures in which the NALEO Educational Fund and its partners participate, including but not limited to the Election Protection Coalition and Voting Rights Taskforce. Regular tasks will require project visioning, management, and execution; composition and editing of external documents; coordination and leading of group meetings and presentations; and management of external relationships with a diverse array of partners and stakeholders.

View the full listing here (login required).

South Carolina Legal Services (SCLS), a statewide law firm that provides civil legal services to protect the rights of low-income South Carolinians, is looking for two staff attorneys to join its office in Columbia, SC. Practice areas include, but are not limited to, consumer, housing, and family law.

SCLS is looking for candidates that are members of the South Carolina bar with excellent litigation and trial advocacy, research, and legal writing skills. In addition, applicants are expected to have demonstrated competence in working with diverse clients and client communities.

For more detailed description, view the full listing at PSJD.org (log-in required).

Here’s a terrific international human rights opportunity: Based in the Open Society Foundations’  New York office, the Legal Officer for Pretrial Justice, National Criminal Justice Reform (NCJR), will engage in litigation, oversee the development of pilot projects, direct research and supervise consultants and staff as part of the Global Campaign for Pretrial Justice. The Global Campaign seeks to promote rights-based pretrial detention and legal aid reform as an issue of priority on the agendas of relevant governments, private and state donors, and inter-governmental organizations. The Global Campaign aspires to create sustainable mechanisms of funding and project implementation on these two important inter-related issues. The objective is to foster greater investment and attention to the problem of excessive pretrial detention and the challenge of providing adequate legal representation to the indigent by creating a more active “market” for ideas, research and programing in these two areas.

View the full job listing here on PSJD (login required)!

EarthJustice, an independent non-profit law firm dedicated to serving the environmental movement, is looking for law students with strong academic credentials and a demonstrated commitment to protecting the environment and wildlife to work as summer law clerks in its Rocky Mountain office.

The following is a sample of their current docket:

* Defense of Public Lands: Our office is involved in challenging the Bureau of Land Management’s attempt to eliminate protection for wilderness-quality lands throughout the West; efforts to stop the damage caused by off-road vehicles in Utah’s canyon country and Colorado’s mountain forests; and many other efforts to protect our western public lands.

* Responsible Energy: We are involved in numerous cases, both national and regional in scope, that challenge irresponsible and illegal energy development on public and private lands, including sensitive Wyoming sage grouse habitat, Utah canyon country, and wilderness-quality lands in Colorado.

* Ecosystem Protection: We work to protect the rich riparian corridors and forests throughout the West that are home to abundant native wildlife and many federally listed species. Earthjustice represents citizen groups in efforts to obtain protection for these important areas using the Endangered Species Act, the National Forest Management Act, and other federal statutes.

To check out the full listing, visit PSLawNet.org (log-in required)!

By: Steve Grumm (with an assist from John Kapoor)

Happy Friday, ladies and gents.  An important housekeeping item: the PSLawnet Blog is becoming the PSJD Blog.  We are relaunching our PSLawNet public interest jobs database as PSJD, effective 8/27.  The blog will move from http://pslawnet.wordpress.com to https://blog.psjd.org (link not active yet).  Those of you who receive from me a weekly email message about this bulletin will continue doing so.  Launching PSJD, which will offer an even better jobs database and career center for the public interest community, represents an exciting transition.  We look forward to all that’s new, but just as much look forward to our continued daily blogging.

Some nonprofit news before the public interest news.  This Nonprofit Quarterly post came to my attention this week.  Entitled “A Too-sad Truth about the Nonprofit Sector,” the post laments the culture of martyrdom which many nonprofits take on.  This can manifest itself in unreasonably low salaries and a shortage of office resources to work efficiently.  Many of the best nonprofit law offices, in my experience, tend to emphasize “law office” over “nonprofit” in terms of how they operate and present themselves to the world.  Of course the recession has made funding scarce, and many organizations are struggling just to keep afloat now.  Nevertheless, some executive directors argue that they will only go so far in keeping staff salaries down and skimping on infrastructure expenses because they will not sacrifice quality of service.  It’s a very difficult balance to strike for nonprofits.  And this debate is always worth having because it brings out some terrific ideas and solutions from organizations with starkly different cultures.

On a lighter note, the annual “Mindset List” for this year’s incoming college class is out.  The list looks at how an 18 year-old would view the world in light of what has, and hasn’t, happened during her lifetime. The list, while a little weak this year compared to its predecessors, succeeds at making me feel old if nothing else.  Funny to think that an incoming college freshman might see Bill Clinton only as a grandfatherly, elder statesman as opposed to, well, any of the many other things Bill Clinton’s been.

Okay, the week’s access-to-justice and public interest news, in very brief:

• Legal Services Corporation board chair on the community’s funding woes and the latest LSC newsletter;
• law school clinic at Santa Clara U. is sued by law firm for, well, operating;
• legal services providers in Nevada receive $1.2m from mortgage foreclosure class-action settlement funds;
• when fiscal woes plague nonprofits in the justice system, local communities suffer;
• prosecutors moonlight to 1) supplement income and 2) perpetuate Irish-American stereotypes;
• maybe prosecution work is for the dogs;
• North Dakota’s economic boom is straining the both the civil and criminal legal-aid camps;
• Think Progress thinks about LSC cuts;
• DOJ petitioned to think about how its crime-fighting spending affects all players in justice system;
• would narrowing the definition of “pro bono” lead to lawyers handling more poverty law cases?
• the rise of, and importance in, pro bono from Chicago-area in-house counsel;
• more needed from pro bono lawyers and the justice system is strained by increased numbers of low-income litigants;
• a Texas County signs on for multi-county capital defense cost-sharing program;
• Michigan goes online to help pro se litigants;
• 10 tips for getting hired into a public defender’s office;
• a NY State county wants to go from paid staff defenders to an assigned-counsel system to save $;
• Deferred Action participants should be wary of those offering legal services.
• Music!

The summaries:

• 8.23.12 – LSC board chair John Levi writes about the legal services funding shortages in Michigan and throughout the U.S.: In Michigan, LSC funds six programs with 29 offices across the state. These offices, both in Michigan and nationwide, are increasingly overwhelmed with requests for help. Nearly one in five Americans — 63 million people — now qualify for LSC-funded civil legal assistance because they live at or below 125% of the federal poverty guideline. That is an all-time high. As demand has been rising, the combined funding for LSC programs from federal, state, local and all other sources has dropped from $960 million in 2010 to $878 million in 2012.  As a result, legal service programs are turning away more and more people who seek help — 50% or more according to recent studies.  More than 21% of the state’s population now qualifies for LSC-funded civil legal assistance. Resources from LSC and other funders, however, have dropped dramatically. Projected overall funding for the six LSC grantees in Michigan for 2012 is $19.6 million — a decrease of nearly 24% from 2010 funding levels.”  (Op-ed in the Detroit Free Press.)
  • On a related note, LSC’s 8/21 edition of “LSC Upates” covers likely job cuts at grantee organizations, a recent board meeting, promoting access to justice through technology, LSC’s receipt of grant funding to improve data collection(!), and other odds/ends

• 8.23.12 – “A Los Angeles law firm claims in court that Santa Clara University’s pro bono law center is practicing law for poor people illegally.  The Brachfeld Law Group sued Santa Clara University and Scott Maurer, supervising attorney for the university’s Katharine and George Alexander Community Law Center, in Superior Court.  Brachfeld claims that the Community Law Center improperly uses Maurer’s law license to collect attorneys’ fees, which Maurer shares with the university.  (Story from the Courthouse News Service.)

• 8.23.12 – some of Nevada’s share of national mortgage foreclosure class-action settlement funds will go to legal services.  Legislators approved a one-year, $11 million plan.  (There is more for appropriation in future budget cycles.) Of this $11 million, “…nearly $1.2 million will go to Nevada Legal Services and the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada to provide assistance to homeowners.” (Article from the Nevada News Bureau.)

• 8.22.12 – when fiscal woes plague nonprofits like Jacksonville Area Legal Aid and the Jacksonville Justice Coalition, which offers support services to crime victims, the entire Jacksonville community suffers.  (Story from the Florida Times Union.)

• 8.21.12 – having grown up in northeast Philadelphia, I can say with certainty that there’s nothing unusual about a guy named Colin working behind a local bar. What is unusual is when he’s an assistant district attorney.  The Philadelphia Inquirer looks at the ends local prosecutors go to when they struggle financially on civil-servant salaries.
  • It’s noteworthy that their public defender counterparts have it worse.  From an Inquirer story in June: “An experienced assistant [DA] in Philadelphia, one with seven years on the job, can make $65,000 yearly.  A public defender with exactly the same experience makes a lot less: $51,500.”

• 8.21.12 – I’m a sucker for a story about a pooch in a law office.  “A new four legged volunteer is working at the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s office. It’s part of an innovative pilot program, to provide emotional support to crime victims and witnesses.
  Malvern is a two-year-old, highly trained service dog.  District Attorney, Joyce Dudley, has been working to get a dog…into her office as…to provide a calming presence and create a more compassionate environment for victims and witnesses of crimes within Santa Barbara.  Over the next few months he will work in the D.A.’s office.”   (Story from KEYT.)
• 8.21.12 – unforeseen consequences. North Dakota’s economic boom is straining both the civil and criminal legal aid camps. On the civil side, stakeholders are dealing with “an increase in demand for Legal Services lawyers— …requests for help have shot up at least 50 percent in the last year—that coincides with a series of budget cuts. Federal funding, which accounts for about 60 percent of the organization’s annual spending plan, shrank by 5 percent in 2011 and 14 percent in 2012, leaving the agency with a budget of about $1.6 million this year.”  On the criminal side, a state bar task force’s “final report, which the bar association’s board of governors adopted on August 16, draws the bleak conclusion that the widening gap between the indigent defense commission’s resources and the demand for its services has put the agency on the verge of a ‘constitutional crisis’.”   (Story from the American Lawyer.  Ho-hum; the PSJD Blog noted this back in July.)

• 8.20.12 – a short post on the Think Progress blog highlights the financial straits of LSC grantee organizations.

• 8.20.12 – Two national defense attorney groups are asking the Department of Justice to better analyze how proposed criminal laws and crime-fighting strategies might add additional costs to the rest of the justice system [including indigent defense].  The Nat’l. Assoc. of Criminal Defense Lawyers joined the…National Legal Aid and Defender Association in passing a resolution this month that calls for the DOJ to conduct “justice system impact statements” statements on future policy changes. The resolution suggests the DOJ could fund the studies through its criminal justice grant programs.  The American Bar Association adopted a similar resolution more than 20 years ago, but the NACDL and NLADA resolution also asks DOJ for impact statements for the grants it distributes to local police and prosecutors.”  (Story from the Blog of the Legal Times.)

• 8.20.12 – would narrowing the definition of “pro bono” lead to more volunteer lawyers handling poverty law cases and providing direct representation to low-income clients?  The Pro Bono Institute’s Esther Lardent doesn’t think so: “The reality is that choosing pro bono work is often a matter of blending personal interest with client need. Restricting personal choices will not increase poverty law pro bono. It is, rather, far more likely to reduce the total amount of pro bono and the percentage of lawyers who undertake it.  Our goal should be to educate lawyers about the unparalleled need for legal services to the poor. We should put, as our Pro Bono Challenge and American Bar Association Model Rule 6.1 do, a special emphasis on poverty law pro bono (which led to 58 percent of total Challenge law firm hours devoted to pro bono focused on poverty), and review and revamp the processes for referring, accepting and handling pro bono matters for the poor to make them more appealing and more efficiently undertaken.”  (Full piece in the National Law Journal.)

• 8.20.12 – the rise in, and importance of, in-house pro bono in Chicago: “As more people have turned to them for help, Cabrini Green, like an increasing number of Chicago nonprofits offering legal services to low-income people, has sought help from new allies. Though legal nonprofits traditionally have recruited volunteers from the hallways of Chicago’s big law firms, they have begun courting lawyers who work in the legal departments of the region’s corporate giants, including McDonald’s Corp., Exelon Corp., Abbott Laboratories, Caterpillar Inc. and Allstate Corp.”  (Full story from Crain’s Chicago Business.)
• 8.19.12 – with the number and needs of pro se litigants rising, and with the civil legal services community weathering a severe funding storm, much is needed of pro bono advocates throughout the U.S.  (Full story from Associated Press.)

• 8.19.12 – in Texas, Angelina County is set to participate in the Regional Capital Defender Program.  Participation in the “shared-cost, multi-county” program is expected to save money on providing indigent defense services to those facing capital chartges.  (Story from the Lufkin Daily News.)

• 8.19.12 – as many other jurisdictions have done, Michigan goes online to help pro se litigants: “A new legal  Website, www.michiganlegalhelp.0rg offers information and many resources for Michigan residents who need to represent themselves in simple civil legal matters.”  (Story from the Ionia Sentinel-Standard.)
  •  Friend of the PSLawNet Blog Richard Zorza offers thoughts on the site’s look and functionality in this short blog post.

• 8.17.12 – for the aspiring public defenders, here’s a UVA law student’s 10 tips on PD hiring, which she learned while attending the Public Defender Advocacy, Training, and Hiring (PATH) conference run by the Public Defender Service here in DC.  I moderated a PATHY program on PD hiring, and I agree with the blog author that applicants must convey their passion for indigent defense work in their application materials and interviewing.  Public defenders want to know that their employees have a deeply-rooted commitment to defending the constitutional rights of all of their clients, who are not all angels, and who are not all innocent.  Also, applicants must be prepared for hypotheticals during interviews.

• 8.17.12 – Warren County is seeking to request permission from the New York State Mandate Relief Council to contract with lawyers to perform legal services for the indigent rather than having the work handled by its own county office in which the attorneys are county employees. The county estimates this change, if authorized, will save $200,000 annually.  (Story from the Post Star.)

• 8.16.12 – After implementation of the Obama Administration’s “Deferred Action” program for unauthorized immigrants who arrived in this country as youth, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., is renewing warnings to those immigrants to guard themselves against scam artists posing as immigration attorneys. He suggests asking questions about the attorney’s background and qualifications and calling the New York State Unified Court System’s Attorney Registration Unit to see if the individual is accredited before hiring them to ensure that they are in fact qualified to perform that kind of work. Many scam artists will take thousands of dollars from immigrants while offering little if anything in return.  (Here’s Mr. Vance’s press release.)

Music!  That Beloit Mindset List has me thinking about the college years.  So let’s travel to the 1990s for Boulder, CO’s own Big Head Todd and the Monsters.  (The man does in fact have a physically big head.  Not sure about his ego.)  “In the Morning” is one of my favorite songs -and it’s a pretty love song, tempo notwithstanding – from the under-appreciated album Stratagem.