The Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) is the nation’s leading organization of people who believe the war on drugs is doing more harm than good. In its vision of the future, individuals will not be punished simply for what they put into their bodies, only for harm done to others. DPA fights for drug policies based on science, compassion, health and human rights and seeks to promote dialogue on cutting-edge drug policy issues around the country. Its work spans issues from ending marijuana prohibition and promoting more honest and effective drug education to reducing the many harms of drug use and drug laws. DPA works to ensure that our nation’s drug policies no longer arrest, incarcerate, disenfranchise and otherwise harm millions of nonviolent people, especially people of color.

The Law Fellow will be based in DPA’s Office of Legal Affairs in Berkeley, California, and will work alongside DPA’s three attorneys supporting DPA staff in a wide range of matters in state and federal courts and legislative bodies. The Law Fellow will also work closely with DPA staff and coalition partners across the country. Some travel will be required.

Find out how to apply at PSLawNet!

We’ve recently updated our Career Fair page through the end of 2012: check it out! As you’re planning your budget for next year, it might be worth it to plan on attending a couple of these events throughout your next job search–career fairs and mini conferences offer valuable opportunities to network, interview with, and potentially find jobs with many employers in an efficient way. Many law school career services offices offer reimbursements or limited grants for conference registration fees and/or travel–check with your individual school to see if you can benefit from these programs!

Yakima, Washington! (courtesy: eagle cap communications)

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  I’ve largely tuned out of non-legal news coverage this week.  The weather in DC – no humidity and plenty of sun – has been awfully seductive.  And things around the office have kept me occupied.  But one of my favorite weekly rituals is to rise around 4:30 on Friday mornings to enjoy the quiet predawn, go for a run, and catch up on news I’ve missed.  It’s a sort of relaxing beginning to the end of the week. 

So having looked at the news, the two big political items have been the presidential race taking form – both in terms of fundraising and messaging – and of course the Wisconsin recall election.  I do not underestimate how difficult and divisive are the times in which we live.  Pressures in the economy, the workplace, and the home will pull at our social fabric.  But it has still surprised me to see Wisconsinites so bitterly divided over the past several months.  (In my view, the recall’s real outcome has less to do with Gov. Walker retaining his post and more to do with the cloud of long-term uncertainty looming over unions.)

As for the recall itself, what a weird bit of business.  While dozens of local and state officials have been recalled throughout U.S. history, only two governors have.  Of course the infamous one that everybody remembers is the……1921 recall of Gov. Lynn Frazier of N. Dakota.  He was a popular guy but the agricultural economy went south and he got booted.  Then there was that other one from America’s beautiful, wondrous loony bin – California.  In that one The Terminator ousted Gray Davis to save Cal-eeee-for-knee-yaa from itself.

Oh, and speaking of California, it’s June and they’re still playing hockey in Los Angeles to determine the NHL’s Stanley Cup winner.  June.  Los Angeles.  C’mon now.  Shorten up the playoffs, NHL.

I’ll segue into public interest news with news of the broader legal economy.  NALP just put out employment data for the graduating law school class of 2011.  Not rosy.  View some data points and analysis here.  Two items worth highlighting:

• The overall employment rate for this cohort was 85.6%, which is the lowest since 1994.  But more alarming is this: [O]f those graduates for whom employment was known, only 65.4% obtained a job for which bar passage is required. This figure has fallen over 9 percentage points just since 2008—when it was 74.7%—and is the lowest percentage NALP has ever measured.

• The figures in the public service arena have been relatively static.  But one must remember that the greater number of law-school funded “fellowships” and bridge programs which place grads in public service positions factors into these data.  And this report measures the percentage of grads going into different types of jobs, not how many jobs there are all told.  Anecdotally we’ve all seen cuts in public service jobs.

Okay, this week in short:

• Florida’s high court hears arguments about whether overly burdened public defenders can limit caseloads;
• the CBS law department’s successful, wide-ranging pro bono program;
• IOLTA disbursement in the Hawkeye State;
• county budgets & weighty criminal dockets & prosecutorial discretion – it’s a tough mixture;
• NALP research shows that public interest lawyers took greater advantage of clinical programs while in school, relative to law firm attorneys;
• DOJ promotes AtJ on the international stage;
• some long-form reporting on LSC’s funding history;
• great legal services funding news from the Empire State;
• Oklahoma City School of Law put DOJ anti-domestic-violence funds to use;
• an Illinois attorney license fee bump will benefit legal services providers;
• foundation funding to support public interest scholarship programs at U. of Minnesota Law;
• huzzah, Illinois Legal Aid Online!;
• discussion of the NY 50-hour pro bono rule continues.
• BONUS MUSICAL TREAT! for those who read all the way to the bottom.  Or just see this and scroll to the bottom.  It’s a loophole.

The summaries:

• 6.7.12 – from the Miami Herald: “Grappling with whether poor people are getting adequate representation, the Florida Supreme Court heard arguments Thursday about whether the Miami-Dade County public defender’s office should be able to decline to take cases because of overwork. The dispute raises constitutional questions about the quality of representation provided to criminal defendants and the relationship between the courts system and the Legislature. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office and a statewide group of prosecutors have fought the Miami-Dade public defender’s attempts to decline to take certain types of felony cases.”
  • More coverage from the Associated Press.
  • And here’s a Tampa Bay Times editorial published before the arguments. “What’s needed are objective workload standards for public defenders that set manageable limits. Florida’s high court should allow public defender offices to decline new appointments when caseloads exceed reasonable limits, pushing the Legislature to provide the necessary resources. A new workload study will soon be conducted through the Florida Public Defender Association with money appropriated in 2012 by the Legislature.  In the meantime, the justices have a responsibility to ensure that public defenders are not so overwhelmed that poor defendants receive an attorney in name only.
  • And a little more from the Orlando Sentinel. 

• 6.7.12 – here’s an informative interview with the CBS Law Department’s bigwigs about their corporate pro bono program, which was started in 2006 and has since grown considerably in breadth and depth.  (From the Metropolitan Corporate Counsel.)

• 6.7.12 – the Iowa Supreme Court has made IOLTA fund disbursements, splitting $232,000 among 14 organizations.  (Short story from KCRG.)

• 6.7.12 – here’s an interesting piece that highlights how concerns of budgeting and efficiency affect county criminal justice systems.  A recent report out of Yakima, WA is critical of the county prosecutor’s policy of taking so many cases to trial.  Fully 82% of the county’s general funds have been going to courts and law enforcement.  The report also dismissed the idea of doing away with the county’s public defense program, noting that mix of full-time defenders and assigned counsel seems to work efficiently in Yakima.  (Story from the Yakima Herald-Republic.)
  • The reason you got a picture of Yakima atop this week’s bulletin is because I spent some time there before law school.  Some of my fondest hiking memories involve hiking the Cascade foothills in Eastern Washington. 

• 6.6.12 – “Law firm leaders have made it clear in recent years that they want to hire “practice-ready” associates, but government and public interest lawyers are more likely than associates to take advantage of clinics and other so-called experiential learning while in law school.  A survey of lawyers in a variety of jobs conducted by NALP…reached that conclusion regarding clinics, externships, practical skills courses and pro bono work.  Nearly 56 percent of the responding public-service attorneys said they had participated in a clinic during law school, compared to slightly more than 30 percent of law firm associates.”  Full story from the National Law Journal.

• 6.6.12 – DOJ is promoting AtJ on the international stage.  From the Dep’t. of Justice’s blog: “Recognizing that criminal legal aid – or indigent defense – “is an essential element of a fair, humane and efficient criminal justice system that is based on the rule of law,” the United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (the UN Crime Commission) adopted the first international principles and guidelines on indigent defense at its recently concluded 21^st session.  The United Nations Principles and Guidelines on Access to Legal Aid in Criminal Justice Systems affirm the importance of legal aid at all stages of the criminal justice system.”  The U.S. was one of the cosponsors pushing this initiative through.  

• 6.6.12 – here’s a thoroughly reported article exploring the up-and-down history of LSC funding, including look at how much of a political football LSC has become in spite of its straightforward mission to advocate for those on society’s margins: “At first glance, it appears that the LSC’s current budget is marginally higher than it was in 1981: a total of $348 million in this fiscal year versus $321 million back then. But this comparison fails to take into account either inflation or the increasing number of people who are eligible for services. Even if the number of those eligible for services had remained constant, Congress would have had to appropriate $812 million this year to account for inflation over the past three decades.  In view of the fact that the number of people eligible for LSC-funded services had, by 2010, grown to more than 60 million from just under 43 million, the inflation-adjusted and eligible-population equivalent to 1981 services would require a budget of at least $1.1 billion (in fact, the LSC estimates, an additional 5 million people have been eligible for services since 2010, which would mean that a 1981-equivalent budget would need to be in excess of $1.2 billion). Thus, that ostensible 8 percent increase over 31 years represents in real terms a cut of between 69 and 71 percent.”  (Full story on the Remapping Debate website.)

• 6.6.12 – some great legal services funding news from the Empire State: “Nonprofit groups that provide free civil legal services to low-income people in New York have received twice the state funding they were awarded last year, state court administrators said.  At the request of Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, state lawmakers this year doubled to $25 million total funding for the programs, court administrators announced on Tuesday. The programs have lost millions of dollars in federal and local funding over the last few years.”  (Story from Thomson Reuters.)

• 6.6.12 – great use of DOJ funds by the Oklahoma City School of Law: “The Native American Legal Resource Center (NALRC) housed at Oklahoma City University School of Law, in partnership with the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma, is using a $450,000 grant from the Grants to Indian Tribal Governments Program to assist victims of sexual assault in southwest Oklahoma.  The law school received the grant from the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women.  With the grant funds, Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) examination equipment has been purchased and placed in hospitals in Caddo, Grady, Jefferson and Stephens counties to assist law enforcement with the collection of evidence in sexual assault cases.  Previously, victims would have to travel hours to be examined by a sexual assault nurse.”  Full announcement from OKC School of Law. 

• 6.6.12 – an attorney license fee increase in Illinois may not rub every member of the bar the right way, but it will generate desperately needed funding for legal services providers: “Attorneys will now have to pay an additional $53 a year to practice law in Illinois…. The state high court this week announced the rule change…. Under the amended rule that took effective Tuesday, the annual attorney registration fee jumped from $289 to $342. The court has earmarked the $53 hike for The Lawyers Trust Fund of Illinois (LTF), a nonprofit foundation that awards grants to some of the state’s civil legal aid providers…. The Lawyers Trust Fund has been hit hard in recent years as the tough economy has forced banks to reduce the amount of interest they pay out on pooled trust funds. The court said in its press release that in 2008, LTF received about $17 million in interest from the trust accounts it administers, but expects to get only about $2.7 million this year.”  (Story from the Madison Record.)

• 6.5.12 – some great news for the U. of Minnesota’s Law School’s public interest students: “The University of Minnesota Law School has established a public-interest scholarship program with a $3.5 million donation from the Robina Foundation. The school announced the gift on June 4, saying the program will assist students interested in public-interest law careers from the time they enroll to when they enter the job market. The Robina Public Interest Scholars Program will combine elements of existing programs at other law schools into one, including scholarships; financial support for summer public-interest projects and post-graduate fellowships at public interest organizations; and loan repayment assistance.”  (Story from the National Law Journal.) 

• 6.4.12 – kudos to Illinois Legal Aid Online: “A decade ago a small group of Chicago attorneys mapped out plans on a bar napkin to deliver Internet-based legal services to the poor. Today, 2.5 million people access Illinois Legal Aid Online’s statewide websites, mobile apps and community-based self-help centers when a lawyer is out of reach.”  (Read more via the Skokie Review.)

• 6.2.12 -and how could I go a full week without mentioning the New York 50 pro bono hour rule?  Last week the New York Times solicited reader input on about the rule’s propriety and effectiveness.  Sentiment was most favorable toward the rule, but some interesting points were made on both side.  Check it out here. 

If you’re made it to the bottom of this week’s rather robust – if not meandering – bulletin, you deserve a treat.  Here’s a song from punk rock outfit Bouncing Souls that speaks to me about staying true to my principles as a public interest lawyer.

By: Steve Grumm

Some good funding news for a change.  According to Thomson-Reuters:

Nonprofit groups that provide free civil legal services to low-income people in New York have received twice the state funding they were awarded last year, state court administrators said.

At the request of Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, state lawmakers this year doubled to $25 million total funding for the programs, court administrators announced on Tuesday. The programs have lost millions of dollars in federal and local funding over the last few years.

Judge Lippman has of late been getting a lot of press regarding the new rule which will require 50 hours of pro bono before one can be licensed to practice in New York.  (Here is our super intern Maria Hibbard’s take on that.)  But for a much longer stretch he’s been working tirelessly to support access to justice – and he’s backing it up with funding.  This is great news for legal services providers – and perhaps also for law grads who may see more employment opportunities as a result of this cash infusion.

By: Steve Grumm

No time to comment but here’s some in-depth reporting on LSC’s historical funding struggles from Remapping Debate.

Urban Alliance, founded in Washington, DC in 1996, is seeking its first Chicago Program Director to implement a proven program model during an exciting expansion into Chicago, IL.

The mission of Urban Alliance is to empower under-resourced youth to aspire, work and succeed through paid-internships, formal training, and mentoring. Urban Alliance provides high school students with long-term, paid internships in professional settings where each student’s supervisor also serves as his/her mentor. Additionally, we provide job readiness, life-skills, and financial literacy workshops, as well as assistance with college and vocational planning. Over the last decade, Urban Alliance has served over 10,000 youth, maintained a 99% high school graduation rate, and facilitated 88% of program alumni enrolling in college.

As the focus of the non-profit and foundation community has shifted to evidence-based practices, Urban Alliance has been consistently recognized for measuring and delivering outcomes that make a difference in the lives of youth, and the results have led to increased funding and rapid growth. Urban Alliance opened its first Program Office outside of Washington, DC in 2008 in Baltimore, Maryland. Building on that successful expansion, Urban Alliance is currently opening a Chicago Office and will serve Chicago Public School students in the fall of 2012.

Urban Alliance is looking for a youth development professional to implement its proven program model and establish Urban Alliance as the standard for excellence in youth employment in Chicago. The position will report to the Chicago Executive Director as well as to the Chief Program Officer. The Program Director is charged with ensuring that program fidelity is maintained while the Urban Alliance core values are followed in the new office. Urban Alliance is seeking a youth expert, who is as comfortable speaking with youth as speaking with business and community leaders in all sectors. The individual must be committed to Urban Alliance’s mission and values and willing to put youth first while working to realize the larger organization’s goals.

Find out how to apply at PSLawNet!

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  And happy June.  June is the sunniest month, at least for those of us living on the Earth’s northern half.  Speaking of where we are, I am in motion – aboard an Amtrak train and destined for my hometown of Philly.  I’m in Maryland now.  This state’s beauty is sadly unheralded.  To cross the bridges spanning the Chesapeake Bay tributaries just after sunrise is to observe a wonderful bit of scenery.  And the City of Baltimore is like Philly’s cool little brother, except with crabs.  There has to be a better way to phrase that.

Shortly I’ll be at the Philadelphia Bar Association, where I’ll have the pleasure of speaking with a group of law students about maximizing their summer public interest experiences.  Later I’ll join my childhood friends Billy and Sean – neighborhood riff-raff like myself – to watch the Glorious Philadelphia Phillies Baseball Franchise reel in the Marlins of Miami.  (If you think it’s bad that we call a grown man by his yesteryear nickname of Billy, imagine how bad it is for our friend Stinky.  He’s a medical doctor these days.  He really wishes we’d call him Duane.)

As you know I focus mainly on access-to-justice developments in this newsletter.  I feel strongly, though, that the AtJ community must itself monitor happenings in the law-firm world, especially those affecting the “business of law.”  So I commend to you this incisive AmLaw article by Professor Bill Henderson.  He uses this week’s demise of the storied law firm Dewey & Leboeuf to explore how large law firms must quickly rework their business models lest they risk running themselves into the ground.  (You may be required to register to read the piece; a trial registration should be free.)  Also, every Friday NALP’s executive director Jim Leipold produces a terrific legal industry digest that you may access here.

On to our news:         

This week:

• Upside: the U.S. has a strong civil justice system. Downside: poor people don’t get to use it
• The New York State Bar’s incoming president is a legal aid leader
• Student loan debt is a real big problem
• Maine’s got some King-size indigent defense funding problems
• More debate around the 50-hour pro bono requirement for admission to practice in New York
• A veteran PA children’s rights advocate moves into retirement
• Merck’s in-house team has launched a pro bono project to serve vets in need
• The Northern District of Alabama is finally going to host some federal defenders
• A great new report out of Illinois about the economic benefits generated by civil legal aid

The summaries:

• 6.1.12 – an ABA Journal piece covers one of the central access-to-justice dilemmas in the U.S.: “Two recent studies provide news good and bad for the U.S. legal system. The good: The United States’ civil legal system is one of the best in the world, according to the results of the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index 2011.  And the bad? According to this same study, millions of Americans can’t use this fine system because they can’t afford it. They have legal rights—to child support, Medicare benefits or protection against an improper home foreclosure—but they find these rights meaningless because they can’t enforce them….  A plethora of government and volunteer programs provide free legal aid, but they are overstretched…. To make matters worse, the system for providing free legal services is a mess. There is “an enormous diversity of programs and provision models with very little coordination at either the state or the national level,” according to Access Across America, a 2011 report (PDF) authored by Rebecca L. Sandefur and Aaron C. Smyth and funded in large part by the American Bar Foundation.”

• 5.31.12 – a legal aid leader takes the helm of the New York State Bar.  “Seymour W. James, Jr. of Brooklyn, a 38-year veteran of The Legal Aid Society of New York, assumes office on June 1 as the 115th president of the New York State Bar Association….  James is the attorney-in-charge of the criminal practice for The Legal Aid Society, which provides criminal and civil legal services for low-income individuals in New York City.  The theme for his presidency is “making a difference” with an emphasis on access to justice.”  (Story from realMedia.)

• 5.30-31.12 – the PBS Newshour aired a two-part report on the increasing crisis of skyrocketing educational debt-loads being carried by higher-ed grads, including law students.  Indeed, part two contained a lot of content about the plight of law grads.
  • Here’s part one: “The State of Student Loans: More Debts, More Defaults, More Problems”
  • Here’s part two: “Student Loan Debt: To Pay or Not to Pay”

• 5.30.12 – “Maine’s Commission on Indigent Legal Services, which provides lawyers for criminal defendants who can’t afford their own, gets inadequate funding every year. Its budget for this fiscal year recently bottomed out, and it will not be sufficient to pay lawyers for the month of June. They will be paid at the start of the new fiscal year in July, but dwindling funds are an ongoing problem.”  Thanks for the (bad) news, Maine Public Broadcasting Network.

• 5.30.11 – debate continues around the new 50-hour pro bono requirement for admission to practice law in New York.  In the New York Times, David Udell of the National Center for Access to Justice at Cardozo Law defends the initiative as one that is not overly burdensome on law students and that could have great outcomes for students and clients.  (I believe that the devil remains in the details – e.g. will work satisfying the definition of “pro bono” for a law school’s internal program count toward the requirement if that work does not meet New York’s definition? – but I generally agree with David.  More importantly: what do you think? The Times writes: “We invite readers to respond to this letter for the Sunday Dialogue. We plan to publish responses and Mr. Udell’s rejoinder in the Sunday Review. E-mail: letters@nytimes.com.”
  • And here, from Bloomberg, is a nice summary of the key considerations driving the debate.

• 5.29.12 – we bid “Happy Trails” to a veteran, Pennsylvania-based children’s advocate.  From the Philadelphia Inquirer:  “Shelly Yanoff, a longtime champion of children’s causes, will step down this fall from her role as head of the nonprofit Public Citizens for Children and Youth, the organization’s board of directors announced yesterday.”  The Inquirer did a Q&A with Yanoff which captured her thoughts on what her job had taught her: “That people can respond to the needs of kids. That there are many different ways to get to a good result and that nothing ever stays done. You have to keep at it.”

• 5.29.11 – when pharmaceutical giant Merck began supporting veterans support group Community of Hope, Merck’s in-house lawyers “…realized that they could provide services through their substantial pro bono program that would be as helpful if not moreso than the checks their company was writing to support Community of Hope. Thus was born the Hope for Veterans Program.”  Read about it in the Huffington Post.

• 5.28.12 – some federal court news: the Northern District of Alabama finally has some full-time federal defenders.  From Al.com: “North Alabama’s first crew of federal public defenders, working out of Birmingham and Huntsville, in August will begin defending indigent clients charged with crimes…. The district is one of only four federal court districts out of 94 nationwide that don’t [presently] have some form of federal public defender’s office.”

• 5.24.12 – this may even cause my friend Bob Glaves to forget about the misery of the Chicago Cubs for a bit.  The Chicago Bar Foundation was one of a few stakeholders involved in producing “Legal Aid in Illinois: Selected Social and Economic Benefits.”  This report does a wonderful job of exposing the concrete, financial benefits that inure to Illinois’s population at large because of the work that legal aid organizations do to keep families in their homes, stop domestic abuse, secure government benefits, and obtain child support for clients.  This is the so-called “business case” for legal aid, and this report makes a strong one.  Here’s the report and an accompanying press release.

Finally, this being graduation season, I leave you with the transcript of this commencement speech by Professor Lawrence Lessig.  In it, he emphasizes that if lawyers are stewards for the rule of law and for meaningful access to justice, then we must not make it a priority to serve moneyed interests at the expense of society at large – particularly our society’s most vulnerable members.  I think 90% of commencement speeches are hot air – bromides strung together lazily so as to offend no one and congratulate everyone.  This one resonates with me, though.  Happy June.  Enjoy the sun

Human Rights Initiative is currently seeking a participant for our Asylum Program Paid Internship for fall 2012. The Asylum Program represents immigrants who have fled their home countries due to persecution and torture based on their religion, political opinion, race, nationality or membership in a particular social group. This program will provide practical, hands-on litigation experience in the area of immigration law and removal proceedings while serving some of the agency’s neediest clients.

As an Asylum Intern you will shadow attorneys who prepare applications for various forms of immigration relief.  You will also assist in conducting client interviews, draft supporting affidavits and outline direct and redirect examinations. You will observe the witness preparation that is crucial in Asylum cases and perform legal research, brief writing, and country conditions research. Finally, at the end of the semester you are expected to provide a final report to the Litigation Section of the State Bar of Texas summarizing the internship experience with HRI.

To learn how to apply, see the listing at PSLawNet!

The Center for Collaborative Change is seeking an energetic, dedicated graduate student or recent graduate with inter-disciplinary skills and a passion for collaboration to join our team as a Summer 2012 Community Law and Policy Intern.  Current projects that interns could be involved with include a community wide needs assessment for Newark, community input portions of the Newark Master Plan, and a non-profit community organization incubation summit.

The Center for Collaborative Change is a community-based nonprofit that brokers collaborative solutions to make Newark thrive. Our mission is to engage community and civic leadership in policy and program development in order to accelerate Newark’s revitalization while ensuring that the process includes and responds to the priorities of its community members. The Center is committed to restoring trust between Newark’s decision-makers and residents, realigning them to be on the same team, and using the knowledge and resources of that alliance to establish a critical mass of reforms that will bring Newark to a tipping point where a positive cycle of health, abundance and opportunity can achieve momentum. For more information about the Center, please visit our website: www.newarkchange.org.

See the full listing at PSLawNet!

Alliance for Justice is a national association of over 100 organizations, representing a broad array of groups committed to progressive values and the creation of an equitable, just, and free society. AFJ works to ensure that the federal judiciary advances core constitutional values, preserves human rights and unfettered access to the courts, and adheres to the even-handed administration of justice for all Americans. It is the leading expert on the legal framework for nonprofit advocacy efforts, providing definitive information, resources, and technical assistance that encourages organizations and their funding partners to fully exercise their right to be active participants in the democratic process.

AFJ is seeking a Director of Justice Programs.  The Director of Justice Programs is a senior staff member who will be responsible for managing research and developing and implementing strategy around AFJ’s justice policy initiatives.   The Director of Justice Programs reports to the executive vice president.

The Director of Justice Programs is expected to be a national authority on the broad range of legal policy issues handled by AFJ.