The Southern Environmental Law Center is accepting applications for a two year associate attorney position in its Chapel Hill, North Carolina office to work on a range of transportation advocacy and policy issues. This is an excellent opportunity to be part of an organization that is successfully addressing some of the most important and challenging environmental issues in the Southeast. Associates gain valuable experience and knowledge working with senior attorneys on litigation and policy advocacy in a range of venues in all three branches of government.

SELC’s Land & Community Program uses legal advocacy, policy reform, and public education to promote sustainable transportation polices and land use outcomes in our fast-growing region. Our Transportation Initiative constitutes a major aspect of this program area, and includes a mix of project specific advocacy, as well as administrative and legislative policy initiatives.

Learn more about SELC and the associate attorney position at PSLawNet!

The Michigan Immigrant Rights Center seeks an attorney to focus on impact representation involving immigrant rights issues. Tasks will include direct client representation in state and federal litigation, case investigation and development, legal research and writing, negotiation, community task force participation, training, document preparation, and policy analysis.

The Michigan Immigrant Rights Center (MIRC) is a resource center for advocates seeking equal justice for Michigan’s immigrants. MIRC works to build a thriving Michigan where immigrant communities are fully integrated and respected.

In order to realize this mission the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center:

• Builds capacity through education and training about immigration law and the complex relationship between immigration status and immigrants’ rights in areas including access to public benefits, family law and child welfare, civil rights, and worker’s rights.

• Answers questions and provides technical support to attorneys and advocates serving low-income immigrants.

• Recruits, trains, and mentors volunteer pro bono attorneys.

• Leads systematic advocacy to advance the rights of low-income immigrants and their families.

• Tracks and analyzes legislative and legal developments related to immigration law and immigrants’ rights.

• Builds coalition among immigrant advocacy and other social justice and civil rights organizations statewide.

• Represents individual clients in priority areas including naturalization and citizenship matters and the rights of survivors of domestic violence, refugees, and unaccompanied minors.

• Promotes respect and understanding among immigrants and receiving communities through our Welcoming Michigan initiative.

MIRC is a joint project of Legal Services of South Central Michigan’s Michigan Poverty Law Program and Farmworker Legal Services divisions. The work of the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center is made possible by grants from the Michigan State Bar Foundation, the Arcus Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and a U.S. Department of Justice Legal Assistance for Victims Grant (from MIRC’s website).

Learn how to apply for the immigration attorney position at PSLawNet!

The NLRB Special Litigation Branch is currently looking to hire a staff attorney.

The Branch is primarily responsible for representing the Board and General Counsel, as a party or amicus, in miscellaneous litigation in the U.S. District and Bankruptcy Courts, and the U.S. Courts of Appeals, in cases other than those arising directly from the enforcement of Board Decisions and Orders.  The Special Litigation Branch is often involved in politically sensitive issues that have a high public profile.  An attorney in the Special Litigation Branch will be involved in some of the most legally complex questions occurring in the Agency.

While all Special Litigation Branch cases directly relate to National Labor Relations Act proceedings, and knowledge of the NLRA is accordingly necessary, Branch assignments commonly involve cases brought under other statutes such as the Freedom of Information Act, the Bankruptcy Code, the Privacy Act and the Equal Access to Justice Act. The Branch’s caseload also includes actions to mandate or prohibit specific conduct by the Board, the General Counsel and other Agency personnel, appellate and contempt litigation in subpoena enforcement proceedings, and rulemaking litigation.

Interested? Learn how to apply at PSLawNet!

Make the Road New York is looking for a bilingual (Spanish & English) experienced immigration attorney to start in the summer of 2012.

In particular the new attorney will:

• Represent detained and non-detained individuals in removal proceedings;
• Provide legal advice to immigrants in removal proceedings about options for obtaining or maintaining lawful status; and
• Advocate to obtain favorable exercises of prosecutorial discretion where appropriate.

The new attorney will also screen, refer and, in some cases, provide representation to members on affirmative immigration filings (including family petitions, citizenship applications, U and T visas, SIJS applications, and others).

The new attorney will provide outreach services and know-your-rights workshops to educate immigrant communities about how to avoid notario fraud, the immigration consequences of criminal infractions, the risks of traveling, and other important legal issues.

Make the Road New York builds the power of Latino and working class communities to achieve dignity and justice through organizing, policy innovation, transformative education, and survival services. Make the Road operates neighborhood-based community centers in Bushwick, Brooklyn; Jackson Heights, Queens; Port Richmond, Staten Island; and Central Islip, Long Island. With a membership of more than 10,00 low-income New Yorkers, Make the Road tackles the critical issues facing our community: workplace justice, tenants’ rights, immigrant civil rights, language-access, LGBTQ justice, public education, health care access, and immigration reform.

Learn how to apply at PSLawNet!

The Louisiana Capital Assistance Center (LCAC) is a not-for-profit law office based in New Orleans, Louisiana committed to excellence in the provision of defense services to indigent clients facing the death penalty.
The LCAC is principally a trial level office, representing indigent capital clients in cases throughout Louisiana. In addition, the LCAC provides resource and consultative services to other capital trial counsel throughout Louisiana. LCAC also represents capital defendants in state post-conviction and federal habeas proceedings.

As a part of a defense team, the capital trial attorney will be involved in and/or take direct responsibility for the provision of effective assistance of counsel in accordance with the ABA Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases.

Interested? Learn more at PSLawNet!

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  Today is the 140th anniversary of Arbor Day, which has its roots, so to speak, in a Druidic tree-worship ritual.  I made that up.  It is the 140th.  But we’re just supposed to plant trees, not worship them.  Unless that’s your thing.  Anyway, for the occasion here’s the Screaming Trees’ 90s indie anthem “Nearly Lost You”, a favorite from my flannel-clad adolescence.  Great drums.  Blistering guitar lick.  (Far be it from me to give credence to gender stereotypes, but I predict the fellas will like this one more than the ladies.)

Unrelated: huzzah(!) to our partners at Street Law, Inc., who celebrated a 40th anniversary here in DC on Wednesday.  Special shout-out to exec. director Lee Arbetman, who, based on the photographic evidence I’ve heard about, was an even more dapper dresser in Street Law’s early days than now.  (Congrats, Lee, Megan and company!)

Friday Trivia: there are three words in the English language that begin with “dw”.  What are they?   

Now to business.  This week in access-to-justice, funding, pro bono, and related news:

• the websites of for-profit AZ law firms can use the ol’ dot-org, says ethics opinion;
• in Spokane, WA, client demand for legal aid rising but funding is a challenge;
• the NY AG directs $3 million to legal services on foreclosure matters;
• last week’s White House Forum on the State of Legal Assistance;
• $450K in grants from the NY Bar Foundation split amongst 67 groups;
• Two grants will help U. of Wisconsin law students help vets in need;
• funding challenges confronting the Vermont Bar Foundation and legal services community;
• in the UK, the House of Lords still opposed cuts to legal aid funding;
• Florida governor’s veto of $2 million legal services appropriation draws lots of reaction;
• support for state funding of legal services in Connecticut;
• the LSC board chair on closing the justice gap;
• Illinois AG directs $20 million to legal services.  Nice way to close.

The summaries:

• 5.1.12 (from the future!) – the forthcoming ABA Journal runs a short piece about an Arizona state bar ethics opinion that allows for-profit law firms to use “.org” website domain extensions.  I predict that the “.org” will never, ever be misused by a for-profit outfit providing “legal assistance services” or some such.  No chance.  Right? 

• 4.26. 12 – the Spokane Journal of Business looks at the increased demand for legal services within the local, low-income community even as providers struggle with funding pressures.  (Password-protected.  Sorry.)
  • Personal aside: I gained my first exposure to civil legal aid in Washington State while working as a Jesuit Volunteer with the Northwest Justice Project’s Yakima field office.  One of my fondest Eastern Washington memories is running Spokane’s annual Bloomsday race, a 7.5-miler that, amazingly, draws upwards of 50,000 people.  It’s a beautiful course. 

• 4.25.12 – the New York Attorney general directed $3 million to be shared by 31 public interest law offices for foreclosure defense funding.  The funding comes from settlements over questionable mortgage lending practices.  (Here’s the Legal News Line story.)

• 4.24.12 – last week’s White House Forum on the State of Legal Assistance gathered access-to-justice stakeholders from the legal services world, law firms, and government.  (Read the full summary from the DOJ’s Access to Justice Initiative.)
  • Phyllis Holmen, executive director of the Georgia Legal Services Program, recounts her experience participating in the forum: “Six of us were chosen from around the country, directors of legal aid and legal services organizations accustomed to toiling quietly in the hinterlands. We work on behalf of low-income folks with the kind of life-and-death legal problems that the poor face: the plague of domestic violence, the near impossibility of maintaining a family structure in the face of grinding poverty, the gut-wrenching choices that have to be made between paying medical bills or buying groceries.  The opportunity to tell the president of the United States why we think our work is important was unprecedented. It was a chance to speak at the highest level of our government about the cause to which I have devoted my career: justice for all.”  (From the Daily Report.)

• 4.24.12 – “Sixty-seven organizations across New York State have received grants totaling $450,000, The New York Bar Foundation announced today….Thirteen grants will support Youth Court activities, while others will support programs that assist domestic violence victims, low-income immigrants, public service attorneys, vulnerable senior citizens and incarcerated women.”  There’s a slew of organizations receiving grant money, all of which are listed in the story from the Saugerties Post Star.

• 4.24.12 – “Two new grants will help University of Wisconsin law students gain valuable experience while helping veterans who need legal assistance.  The two Pro Bono Initiative grants for $5,000 each come from the State Bar Legal Assistance Committee and have been awarded to Dane County Veterans Legal Clinic to start a free legal clinic and to the UW Law School Pro Bono Program to expand its efforts to involve more law students in pro bono activities.”  (Story from the University of Wisconsin’s website.)

• 4.24.12 – “[L]ike so many organizations, the Bar Foundation has found itself with less money to give out in the past few years, while the need for the kind of legal services it helps fund has risen.  Vermont Supreme Court Associate Justice John Dooley is a member of the board of directors of the Vermont Bar Foundation. He spoke with VPR’s Jane Lindholm about the financial challenges faced by the organization. (Listen to the interview on Vermont Public Radio.) 
  • As an aside, when I was a 3L my dad and I went skiing in Vermont.  We stayed at a family-owned place called the Swiss Inn.  Turns out the owner was a native Philadelphian (like me and Pa Grumm) and he owned a couple of the Jersey Shore video-game arcades that sucked quarters from my pockets like a vacuum cleaner when I was a youth.  He was very generous to me at the Swiss Inn afternoon happy hour.  My quarters, after all, had paid for his inn. 

• 4.23.12 – in the UK, the House of Lords still refuses to go along with broad-based proposed cuts to the legal aid system. Watch the video on BBC.  Watching British legislative sessions is downright enjoyable.  Ever seen the SNL spoofs? 

• 4.22.12 – all kinds of coverage about Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s veto of $2 million in proposed funding that would have supported the financially embattled legal services community.
  • A News Chief editorial, “Veto Takes Jobs, Help for Poor,” is critical of the governor’s action.
  • “Budget Cuts Impact Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County” is a WPTV story.
  • The Palm Beach Post runs “Lawyers for the Needy Decry Florida Veto.” 

• 4.21.12 – “Shelby County Public Defender Stephen Bush claims state finance officials have been misinterpreting state law regarding funding for the public defenders in Shelby and Davidson counties for 20 years and that the offices are owed $45.2 million — $28.4 million for Shelby and $16.8 million for Davidson.  The public defenders, who appeared before a state legislative committee this week, are asking the state legislature to restore that funding and fix the error going forward.”  (Here’s more in the Commercial Appeal.)

• 4.20.12 – a Hartford Courant op-ed makes the case for a legislative measure that would boost funding for legal aid in the Nutmeg State: “The Judicial Branch has recognized the seriousness of this problem. It has proposed legislation that would use increased court fees to raise $5.2 million for legal aid — enough to maintain the current level of services. There has been broad bi-partisan support to address the legal aid funding crisis. And the Judiciary Committee of the General Assembly has approved the bill on a 45-to-1 vote.  The pending legislation would successfully restructure funding for legal aid, and provide a future anchor to fund access to justice. It is vital that the Connecticut legislature approve this measure. Our system of justice depends on it.

• 4.20.12 – writing in The Hill, LSC Board chair John Levi, who has been very active in his public advocacy of LSC’s mission, explores the “widening justice gap, and why we must close it.”
  • Speaking of closing gaps, as noted last week a House proposal would cut LSC funding from the current, FY12 figure of $348 million –  which itself represents a ~14% cut from the FY11 figure – to $328 million.  A Senate proposal would ratchet funding back up to $402 million.  To put the House proposal in context: in 1981 LSC’s appropriation was about $321 million.  If that figure simply kept up with inflation, LSC’s funding in 2011 should have been over $800 million.  We’ll be lucky to get to half of that this year.

• 4.18.12 – great funding news out of Illinois, from the state attorney general’s website: “Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced that $20 million in funding from the national foreclosure settlement reached this year will be given to legal assistance programs in Illinois to address the current foreclosure crisis and to provide access to the justice system for homeowners and renters.” 

The Maryland Office of the Public Defender is an independent state agency with over 800 employees dedicated to providing superior legal representation to indigent defendants in the State of Maryland.  The Office of the Public Defender seeks dynamic and dedicated litigators to serve as Assistant Public Defenders in District Court locations throughout the State of Maryland. 

Assistant Public Defender I Responsibilities:

• Represents indigent defendants who are charged with misdemeanor criminal and traffic cases in district courts throughout the State of Maryland.
• Prepares for and handles bail review hearings, district court trials, preliminary hearings, violations of probation hearings, sentence review hearings and modification of sentence hearings.
• Handles telephone inquiries and correspondence from clients and the public.
• Participates in Office of the Public Defender trainings.

Assistant Public Defender I positions are located at OPD offices throughout the State of Maryland.

Learn how to apply at PSLawNet!

The Education Law Center (ELC) is looking for an experienced attorney to work in New York City and New York State to enforce the specific education entitlements established in the landmark Campaign for Fiscal Equity case. The attorney will advocate for educational opportunities for the public schoolchildren of New York City and New York State, including the opportunity to obtain a “sound basic education” as guaranteed by the New York Constitution. The work will include litigation, public education, legislative advocacy and policy initiatives.

The attorney will have the support and work under the supervision of the main office in Newark. The attorney must be able to work in New York and be available to come to Newark to meet with ELC staff as needed.

Founded in 1973, ELC serves as the leading voice for New Jersey’s public school children and has become one of the most effective advocates for equal educational opportunity and education justice in the United States. Widely recognized for groundbreaking court rulings on behalf of public school students, ELC also promotes educational equity through coalition building, litigation support, policy development, communications, and action-focused research in the states and at the federal level.

To apply, see the listing at PSLawNet!

By: Steve Grumm

Last week many high-level stakeholders in the civil legal services community and government met to review the health (or un-health) of the civil legal services system.  Even the president partook.  The DOJ’s Access to Justice Initiative was one of the players, and they’ve written an event summary on DOJ’s blog. An excerpt:

Legal aid attorneys, pro bono partners from law firms, government leaders, judges, and advocates from around the country gathered at the White House earlier this month for a forum on “The State of Legal Assistance.”  Moderated by Legal Services Corporation (LSC) Chairman John Levi, the forum looked at the legal challenges faced by America’s most vulnerable groups, including veterans, low-income families, the elderly, and people with disabilities.

A 2009 LSC study(PDF) found that less than 20 percent of the legal problems experienced by poor people were addressed with the help of a private or legal aid lawyer.  At the forum, a panel of LSC attorneys spoke of the strains on their system in the wake of the country’s economic recession, and the hardships faced by those served by legal aid.

…

The City of Kansas City, Missouri Law Department has open positions in its City Prosecutor’s Office and Litigation Section. 

An Assistant City Attorney grant position is available in the City Prosecutor Division of the City Attorney’s Office through the Edward Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program.  The attorney will serve as the neighborhood prosecutor for the communities in the East Patrol Division of the City and be a member of the Neighborhood Prosecution Team.  Neighborhood prosecution is designed to reduce crime, engage citizens, and utilize limited resources in the most efficient manner to make our neighborhoods safer.

A general litigator in the litigation section at the Assistant City Attorney level will appear as first chair before state and federal courts, including jury and bench trials in relatively less complex cases. The litigator will be responsible for the case from the initial filing of the petition or complaint, through the appeals stage. The litigator works with legal investigators to investigate the case, prepares all pleadings, engages in discovery, and works the case through trial and beyond as appropriate. The litigator will meet with department personnel in preparing and trying cases.

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