This is a 3-year Foreclosure Fellowship position at the Central Regional Office of Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation.

Represent low income homeowners who are unable to meet current mortgage obligations and who need legal assistance to avoid foreclosure. The position will involve: individual case work, including advice, budget counseling and loan modification negotiations; defense of homeowners in foreclosure (including in mediation); possible affirmative litigation in state or federal court; and education and outreach efforts directed at courts, homeowners and service providers in the community.

Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation is a non-profit organization providing free legal services to low-income individuals and to senior citizens in civil cases through five (5) offices in central and southern Illinois.  The program has a long history of high quality and innovative advocacy for our clients.  The Central Regional Office is located in the St. Louis metropolitan area. This position is funded by a three year grant from the Illinois Attorney General under the national bank foreclosure settlement.

Find out how to apply at PSLawNet!

As part of a new AmeriCorps award from the Serve Illinois Commission, The Chicago Bar Foundation (CBF) is hiring for a new position, the Illinois JusticeCorps Program Coordinator.  The Illinois JusticeCorps Program Coordinator will be responsible for day-to-day program functions, directing member recruitment and training activities and providing direction and leadership of the JusticeCorps members and additional volunteers who will assist people without lawyers in various legal court-based help centers throughout Cook County.

Illinois JusticeCorps is an innovative new program to enhance access to justice for the growing number of unrepresented people in the courts by empowering and training student volunteers and AmeriCorps members to help people without lawyers navigate the court system.  Illinois JusticeCorps is modeled after the successful California JusticeCorps program, which has demonstrated that AmeriCorps members can assist in providing access to the legal system for those who lack legal representation.

This new program is getting ready to launch – find out how to apply at PSLawNet!

The New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG) is a not-for-profit law office that provides free civil legal services to the poor and near-poor in New York City. NYLAG’s Foreclosure Prevention Project provides legal representation and court-based services for borrowers with subprime and unconventional mortgages facing foreclosure. The project also includes community education and financial counseling.

The Foreclosure Prevention Project is seeking a Law Student Intern. This position requires a commitment of approximately 20 hours per week during the fall semester.

Find out how to apply at PSLawNet!

Wanna be a legal aid lawyer?  Like Ben & Jerry’s?  This could be the job for you:

Vermont Legal Aid seeks a full-time attorney in its Medicare Advocacy Project through August 31, 2013. The position will be located in either Springfield or Burlington, Vermont. Responsibilities include representation of Medicare beneficiaries in administrative appeals and Medicare reform issues through systemic litigation in the federal courts.

Applicants must have excellent written and oral skills and demonstrated experience in public interest law, civil rights law or legal services. Experience with health care policy or other medical issues is desirable. Applicants must be admitted to practice in Vermont, eligible for admission by waiver, or willing to sit for the next examination.

Here’s the full job description on PSLawNet.

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  Things are busy, so this week you’re spared from my rambling preamble.  Lucky you, Friday the 13th notwithstanding.  Here’s the week’s access-to-justice news:

• budget cuts hit North Penn Legal Services hard;
• pro bono up in the Volunteer State (thus marking the 1546th time I’ve made a pro bono/Volunteer State pun);
• a look at California’s pilot Civil Gideon projects;
• Shpoonkle Pro Bono(?);
• Uncle Sam’s new hiring processes are officially in place;
• Chicago’s John Marshall Law School secures HUD grant to fight housing discrimination;
• an Illinois county goes online with civil legal aid resources for clients;
• cuts in indigent defense funding in the Empire State;
• how Washington State indigent defense programs are responding to newly imposed caseload limits;
• a 16-county, West Texas indigent defense project is a clinical program housed at Texas Tech Law.
• Super Music Bonus

The summaries:

• 7.12.12 – terrible news out of Pennsylvania: “A budget shortfall of $1 million for North Penn Legal Services, the only free civil legal aid provider in Northeast PA and a member of the Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network, forced the organization to lay off 15% of its staff, and close two offices effective June 30. Those layoffs consist of attorneys, paralegals, support staff, intake workers, and administrators. The combined loss of service from office closings and staff layoffs will be 1,538 fewer cases handled and mean that NPLS employs one legal aid advocate for every 10,000 people living in poverty in its twenty county service area.”  (Full story on the PA Legal Aid Network website.)

• 7.12.12 – this data had surfaced a few weeks ago, but it’s a pleasure to re-report on Tennessee’s increased pro bono numbers: “More attorneys in Tennessee are performing free, or pro bono, work for clients. That’s according to new data from the state Board of Professional Responsibility, which show that more than 46 percent of Tennessee attorneys reported performing pro bono work for deserving clients.  The percentage is up 6 percent from last year. Not only that – it’s the highest percentage of pro bono reporting since attorneys began to voluntarily report their pro bono work in 2009 and more than twice the level of reporting during the initial year. The 46  percent figure does not include attorneys who have yet to renew their licenses and report hours.”  (Full from the Memphis Daily News.)

• 7.11.12 – Tiela!  My friend Tiela Chalmers does an interview with ProBono.Net about her stewardship of a pilot program in California to expand the availability of civil legal services for individuals whose basic needs – housing, health, etc. – are threatened.  “The Shriver projects were created by statute in California with the idea of exploring what it would look like if we provided legal services on a really large scale. The Legislature, via the Sargent Shriver Civil Counsel Act, ultimately funded seven pilot projects in areas of basic human need – essentially housing and family law –around the state. LA’s Housing Project is the largest. It’s a collaboration between the LA Superior Court and four legal aid agencies: Inner City Law Center, Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA), Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles (NLSLA) and Public Counsel.  The system is based on centralized intake in the downtown courthouse, at the Eviction Assistance Center, run by Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles. Once cases are taken and initial papers done, we decide whether the case should be full scope, or limited scope. If it’s appropriate for full scope, we refer the case to Inner City, LAFLA, or Public Counsel.”  Here’s the full interview.   

• 7.11.12 – via a press release, lawyer-client matching site Shpoonkle (yes, that’s the name) announces that it’s getting into the online pro bono clearinghouse game with the launch of Shpoonkle Pro Bono: “Shpoonkle Pro Bono is an innovative non-profit organization focused within the legal community, whose mission is to serve as a national exchange for various charities and legal aid organizations by offering a centralized portal for both online fundraising and vetting legal work to attorneys.”  (I’d never heard of Shpoonkle before.  Wikipedia says it’s a recently created “reverse auction” clearinghouse, through which people with legal needs solicit dollar bids from attorneys on how much their legal work would cost.  It’s evidently stirred controversy in the legal community.)

• 7.9.12 – big news for law students and recent grads who want jobs with Uncle Sam: “The government’s new program to attract students and recent graduates to public service takes effect Tuesday.  Agencies must transition from the current system to Pathways Programs, an initiative that grew out of a 2010 executive order directing agencies to make it easier for students and recent grads to pursue careers in the federal government. The new program includes three tracks: for current students, recent graduates and Presidential Management Fellows. Participants will be classified under a new Schedule D within the excepted service, and each program will honor veterans’ preference. Excepted service positions are designed to streamline the hiring process and have different evaluation criteria from the competitive service, in which applicants compete for jobs under the merit system.”  (Full article from Government Executive.)

• 7.9.12 – in Chicago, the John Marshall Law School gets a big grant to fight housing discrimination.  From a press release: “With a 20-year history of working on behalf of those discriminated in their housing choices, The John Marshall Law School Fair Housing Legal Clinic announces $840,000 in new HUD funding to help continue its initiatives.  Work on behalf of those discriminated in their housing choices will continue through the Fair Housing Legal Clinic at The John Marshall Law School in Chicago thanks to a three-year grant of nearly $840,000 from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).  The grant will help the Clinic continue its broad-based, full-service work assisting those who have been discriminated against in their housing choices.”

• 7.8.12 – an Illinois county is going online to connect residents with civil legal aid resources: “Legal assistance for low-income residents of Woodford County is as close as their personal computers. Or, absent those, their local library. The Woodford County Legal Self-Help Center came online last week. The website is designed to provide information and answers to questions about simple, civil legal issues.”  Illinois Legal Aid Online developed the website.  Here’s the site itself, and here’s the reporting from the Peoria Journal Star.

• 7.8.12 – “[New York State] is reducing funding to counties for indigent defense by 25 percent – and offering the same amount through grants to improve the quality of the defense.”  This piece in the Hornell Evening Tribune homes in how Steuben County, NY will handle the cuts.

• 7.8.13 – a glimpse at how Washington State counties are responding to the state high court’s newly imposed public defender caseload limits: “In the three weeks since the state Supreme Court announced a new cap on public defender caseloads, Tri-City court officials have been busy crunching numbers from almost 9,000 criminal cases spanning two years.  As head of the Benton & Franklin Counties Office of Public Defense, Eric Hsu must devise a numerical case-weighting system that will satisfy the newly adopted standards and each county’s budget constraints.  Yet, while the annual limits might be dropping for many contract lawyers who represent poor defendants, it does not necessarily mean they will see fewer cases.  That’s because the value given to each crime based on its complexity and other factors could end up being just a fraction of one point, leaving room for adding more cases before hitting that magical number set by Washington’s highest court.  Of equal concern is the fact that private law firms that handle some of the defense work in the Tri-Cities may no longer be allowed to continue taking cases.”  (Full story in The Tri-City Herald.)

• 7.3.12 – here’s a piece looking at a West Texas public defense program, serving 16 counties, which is housed at Texas Tech Law and incorporates students into its operations.  It’s a sort of large-scale clinical office.  “The [Caprock Regional Public Defender Office], a program administered through the Texas Tech University School of Law Clinical Programs and funded by a Texas Indigent Defense Commission grant to Dickens County provides representation to indigent and juvenile defendants in 16 counties in Northwest Texas….  The CRPDO works to give access to legal counsel and increase the quality of representation provided to indigent citizens and juveniles accused of crimes. The CRPDO uses a cost-effective delivery model for indigent defense services and uses experienced defense counsel, and the resources available through the Texas Tech School of Law, including the assistance of qualified law students. The program is the first of its kind and will serve as a model for the state of Texas and possibly the entire country.”  (Full story from Texas Tech Today.)

• Music!  Everybody should listen to Centro-matic on Fridays. 

We are looking for a Practitioner in Residence (PIR) to improve our current international placement opportunities.  The  Clinical Programs at the Law School already provides students with a broad array of high quality internship placement opportunities for credit — with two tenured faculty members and two Practitioners in Residence supplying the teaching in our mandatory classroom co-requisite and student placement counseling and support.  We seek to build upon and expand the existing internship opportunities for students in the areas of transnational, international and comparative law, both in domestic placements and abroad.  Suffolk has a summer study program in Lund, Sweden, and is planning an expansion of internship opportunities in the Caribbean.

PIRs at Suffolk are administrative appointments hired on year to year contracts, but there is certainly an expectation that this particular position, which is hard money funded, will be a permanent position which may be converted to clinical faculty status in the future.

Find out how to apply at PSLawNet!

By: Maria Hibbard

Last year, a law school professor of mine used the phrase “in the weeds” so often that it became his trademark – we all knew that we were “getting into the weeds” whenever we were talking through a difficult or laborious issue to understand. As I look forward to the next few months of job searching for my 2L year and next summer, I’m trying to create a plan to avoid getting overwhelmed – with a tough job market, limited opportunities, and the pressure to figure out what to do with my whole life – I know I need to create a roadmap to navigate through “the weeds.” Here’s a list of some things to think through:

• Dream the ideal. What is your dream job? At what organization? Where? Dreaming up “the ideal” and then pursuing opportunities that show some similarity to that ideal position is not settling – it’s taking steps in the right direction. I’ve become acutely aware of the way in which location plays into the legal job search – if the ultimate goal is to work in Los Angeles, for example, then taking a job in LA that might not be ideal can show interest and commitment to staying there. Harvard has a great self-assessment guide that can help in figuring out what that ideal may look like.
• Think through the deadlines.Like me, you may be at a law school that is starting the beginning of the on-campus recruiting process – and the pressure to find your next summer job or clerkship has begun to mount. If you want to apply broadly to a number of types of employers, it may be best to think about the different stages of applications in chunks based on general recruiting schedules. If you can, front-loading your semester with job searching can get the most time-consuming part out of the way before finals come up in November and December. For example:
  • July-early/mid August: focus on OCI applications as per your school’s deadlines
  • August: research opportunities at large federal and state agencies and organizations, some of which have application deadlines in early September.
  • September: focus on networking with and researching smaller organizations and agencies in your target location
  • October: invest time in following up on applications and networking contacts
  • Think long term. Knowing where you want to be and what you want to do long term can help give direction to your 2L job search – but you don’t have to have it all figured out yet. For example, if you’re committed to a certain issue and thinking about applying for a sponsored fellowship after graduation, you could target your internship applications toward organizations that advocate for that cause. Interning during your second summer could allow a potential sponsoring organization to get to know you and your work, and could give you the opportunity to develop specific fellowship project ideas.
  • Create short term goals. Once the school year starts over again, we’re all going to be balancing new coursework with the job hunt – but it doesn’t mean that you need to be sucked into a vortex of class/schoolwork/job searching/sleep/eat/repeat. If you can create short term goals for yourself, just like school assignments – like “I will write two cover letters tonight after I read the cases for criminal procedure,” you’ll make slow and steady progress on the job hunt without spending days on end aimlessly looking for jobs.

Obviously, I’m a novice at all of this myself, but hopefully planning ahead and thinking intentionally about my 2L job search will help me -and you- avoid “going into the weeds.” As you think through your job search, check out PSLawNet’s Career Central section, as well as the site’s continually updated public service job postings!

The Southern Poverty Law Center seeks to sponsor applicants for postgraduate legal fellowships to start in September 2013 for its Immigrant Justice Project, based in Atlanta, Georgia.

We are seeking applicants for the Skadden Fellowship, Equal Justice Works Fellowship, Liman Fellowship, or other public interest fellowships. The Immigrant Justice Project protects the employment and civil rights of migrant farmworkers and other low-wage immigrant workers and brings high-impact cases in nine states in the Southeast.

The deadline to apply is 7/23 – find out how at PSLawNet!

Whether or not you’re going on any hiking trips this summer, the trail is not the only pathway you need to keep your eye on;  now, the federal government has their own “pathway.”

A few weeks ago we outlined the ways that federal hiring will change via the new Pathways program created by an executive order in 2010; as of today, the new “pathway” to federal employment is in effect. It will take a while to for jobs to become available under this new program, however; if you visit usajobs.gov/studentsandgrads, the opportunities will be posted as they become available. Check PSLawNet and USAJobs for postings throughout this hiring season!

The ABA Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI) is seeking an unpaid legal intern for its Research and Assessments Office based in Washington, D.C. The intern will work supporting a variety of short- and long-term research projects related to rule of law reform in ABA ROLI’s Focal Areas, which include: access to justice and human rights, anti-corruption and public integrity, criminal law reform and anti-human trafficking, judicial reform, legal education reform and civic education, legal profession reform, and women’s rights. For example, current projects include development of a technical assistance guide on judicial integrity reform for the UN, analyses of draft legislation, the review and revision of our International Convention on Civil and Political Rights assessment methodology and implementation of ABA ROLI’s various assessment tools.

Find out how to apply at PSLawNet!