Yes, here’s another opportunity come work with us at NALP in D.C.! Here are the deets:

NALP is lookging for part-time summer project assistants to update and manage database content on its PSLawNet website. This is an ideal opportunity for law or graduate students who desire to supplement their income while interning or clerking in Washington, DC this summer.

PSLawNet is an online public interest/public sector resource center for law students and lawyers seeking internships, fellowships, or permanent positions. The site contains profiles of over 13,000 employer organizations and over 1,100 job listings, offering the most extensive listing of legal and law-related public service opportunities available anywhere.

We are seeking students with an interest in public interest law to assist us with data update and maintenance projects. Hours are flexible and can be arranged around an internship or other activity.

Since 2003, NALP has housed and administered PSLawNet. Founded in 1971 as the National Association for Law Placement, NALP is a nonprofit educational association of law schools and legal employers. NALP is dedicated to facilitating legal career counseling and planning, recruitment and retention, and the professional development of law students and lawyers.

Find out how to apply at PSLawNet!

By: Steve Grumm

We know that some 1Ls and 2Ls are still interviewing for summer jobs. And of course many 3Ls are on the job hunt.  Here are resources for interview tips and best practices:

• Earlier this year we put on a two-part job search webinar series with our friends at Equal Justice Works, the second part of which focused on interviewing and professional networking.   The webinars were focused on the summer job hunt, but the interview tips would apply in the postgrad job interview context also.
• Also check out PSLawNet’s handout, Interviewing Tips for Postgraduate Public Interest Jobs.
• Harvard Law School has extensive tips on public interest interviewing. 

Good luck!

Mil Mujeres is a non-profit legal services organization dedicated to providing comprehensive immigration legal services to Spanish-speaking survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. 

Mil Mujeres is looking for legal interns for the Fall, Spring, and Summer semesters.

Ideal candidates will have a strong interest in using the law as a vehicle for social change and advanced Spanish language skills required.

To learn more, see the listing at PSLawNet!

The Homeless Persons Representation Project (HPRP) is seeking to hire a full-time law clerk for the summer to assist its public benefits and education attorney.

HPRP’s mission is to end homelessness in Maryland by providing free legal services, including advice, counsel, education, representation and advocacy, for low and no-income persons who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

HPRP is a non-profit organization that provides free legal services and advocacy to maximize our clients’ ability to gain and maintain stable income, healthcare, housing, education and employment. HPRP primarily works with clients located in Baltimore City when providing direct services. The direct representation provided by HPRP informs the organization’s policy work which deals with complex legal and systemic issues facing people struggling with homelessness in Baltimore City and around Maryland. Therefore, HPRP provides both direct legal representation and corresponding client and community education in order to foster and promote the public interest.

Learn more about this position and apply at PSLawNet!

The Legal Aid Society’s Parole Revocation Defense Unit has an opening for one or more Staff Attorneys. The position is based in our Manhattan location, with significant amounts of time spent at the Rikers Island Judicial Center. The PRDU Staff Attorney’s have significant client contact and represent clients at parole revocation hearings held at the Rikers Island Judicial Center, federal detention facilities, and hospital prison wards throughout New York City. The PRDU staff attorneys also appear on behalf of clients at related habeas corpus proceedings, administrative appeals, and other post-conviction proceedings. The practice is fast-paced and litigation intensive.

Key responsibilities include: handling all case appearances, motion practice, negotiations and hearings in parole cases; directing investigations; locating and interviewing witnesses; and identifying cases that are suitable for alternatives-to-incarceration intervention by the Unit’s social workers.

To apply, see the listing at PSLawNet!

The Equal Rights Center is seeking applicants who will be in the Washington, DC area during Summer 2012 to participate in its Civil Rights Internship Program. Civil Rights Interns work closely with the staff of the ERC to combat illegal discrimination in the Washington, DC area and across the nation. Interns work on a variety of substantive tasks related to ongoing studies, investigations, and complaints, and also help out with day to day administrative duties in our Washington, DC office. The Summer Internship runs from June 2012 through August 2012.

The Equal Rights Center (www.equalrightscenter.org) is a comprehensive civil rights organization with a mission to identify, challenge, and eliminate discrimination in housing, employment, public accommodations, and government services in and around the nation’s capital and across the country. Through a variety of activities including education and outreach, complaint intakes and counseling, testing and private enforcement, and filing complaints, the ERC attempts to address the many harmful impacts of discrimination.

Learn how to apply at PSLawNet!

The Civil Legal Clinic’s mission is to provide a capstone course at The University of Mississippi School of Law in which students learn skills that are essential to the competent practice of civil law, how to apply the law and theories learned in the classroom, and how to professionally interact with clients, lawyers and others by providing the highest quality legal assistance to indigent persons in civil matters.

The Civil Legal Clinic seeks to fill two legal counsel positions. These are professional positions, within a non-profit office and free legal clinic, in which the incumbent manages and litigates civil cases on behalf of low-income litigants, supervises and instructs law students in the practice of law, participates in policy research projects, and provides a variety of programmatic and administrative support in the Clinic.

To learn more about the position, check out the listing at PSLawNet!

For more than 30 years Immigration Counseling Service (ICS) has been dedicated to improving the lives of Oregon’s immigrant communities through access to affordable legal services.   Our client base is quite large and our staff is not.  If you like to handle a variety of cases, then please consider our very fast paced, not-for-profit immigration law firm.  We are located in downtown Portland, Oregon.

ICS has an immediate opening for a staff attorney who is bilingual and has considerable experience practicing family related immigration law. We are looking for an individual who is committed to immigration and human rights issues and who works best in a collaborative work environment.

Photo Credit: ChicTraveler website

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  The Spring Equinox has…equinoxed, and with it come Washington DC’s cherry blossoms.  The annual explosion of cherry blossoms, tulips and other cheerful-looking flora has become one of my favorite observances in almost six years of DC residency.  This year marks the 100th anniversary of the planting of two cherry trees just off the tidal basin which sits between the National  Mall and Potomac River.  As for the public interest funding news… 

This week:

• private seed funding for a new diversionary program serving at-risk offenders in Philly;
• a group antagonistic towards LSC enters the appropriations debate;
• Florida’s family lawyers fork over $ to support legal services for children;
• indigent defense funding in Maine needs a boost;
• some judges in Houston aren’t referring cases to the newly created PDs office;
• fiscal woes for Pelican State public defense offices;
• LSC president talks about funding, using technology, and his career path while speaking in NY;
• the DC Bar Foundation awarding over $3 million in grants to local providers;
• the importance of boosting state funding for legal services in Florida;
• a new federal defender’s office in the W. District of Arkansas will open….whenever it gets funding;
• UVA law students volunteered about 10,000 hours over the recent winter break.

Here are the summaries:

• 3.22.12 – a public-private partnership including the Philadelphia DA’s office, the local defender’s office, and two charitable foundations has launched “The Choice is Yours,” a diversionary program that will offer education and other supports for at-risk offenders to help them avoid future criminal activity and offer opportunities to better their education and income prospects.  No tax dollars are used to fund the program.  The story notes that participants in a similar program in San Francisco have a recidivism rate of 10%, compared with a 54% recidivism rate for other offenders.  (Story from the Philadelphia Inquirer.) 

• 3.22.12 – the National Legal & Policy Center, a small-government-minded watchdog group which has long been critical of the Legal Services Corporation, has entered into the LSC appropriations fray with “What the Legal Services Corporation Doesn’t Want Congress to Know.” 

• 3.21.12 – the Florida Bar’s family section donated $75,000 to support legal aid for Children in the Sunshine State.  (Story from the Sunshine State News.) Between IOLTA revenue shortfalls and other funding cuts, Florida’s legal services programs have been among the hardest hit in the Great Recession’s aftermath.

• 3.20.12 – from the Maine Public Broadcasting Network: “The state commission that provides legal services to the poor may run out of money for court-appointed lawyers six weeks before the fiscal year ends June 30. The latest projected budget shortfall for the Maine Commission on Indigent Legal Services may delay payments to the lawyers who represent low-income clients.  The commission requested $1 million in the state’s supplemental budget, an amount that was reduced to $400,000 in the budget proposed by Gov. Paul LePage.”

• 3.20.12 – Houston launched a public defender’s office for the first time in 2011, but some local judges are still referring cases through the old appointed counsel system rather than using the defender.  Is this force of habit?  A form of protest at the decision to move away from the appointed counsel system?  Are politics involved?  It is alleged that the local Republican Party sent a letter to judges urging them not to use the defender’s office.  (Story from Fox 26.)

• 3.19.12 – in Louisiana, the Daily Iberian looks at fiscal woes of Pelican State public defenders’ offices.  

• 3.19.12 – while in Rochester, NY, Legal Services Corporation president Jim Sandman praised New York’s Chief Judge’s efforts to promote access to justice, looked at the state of legal services funding generally, highlighted the effective use of technology in serving clients, and talked about his motivation for leaving law-firm practice for the “best job in American law.”  (Story from the Daily Record.) 

• 3.19.12 – some good AtJ news on the local front.  The DC Bar Foundation is awarding over $3 million in grants to local service providers, according to the Blog of the Legal Times.  This amount is slightly up from last year’s awards.  The Bar Foundation administers funds appropriated by the DC city council, runs the District’s IOLTA funding program, and conducts other fundraising initiatives to raise money for the legal services community. 

• 3.19.12 – an editorial in the Lakeland Ledger urges Florida Gov. Rick Scott to include civil legal aid funding the in the forthcoming budget.  

• 3.18.12 – the go-ahead’s been given to open a new federal defender’s office that would operate in the Western District of Arkansas.  But this development has to wait for funding to materialize.  From the AP: “Available funding from the government will determine when the federal court system’s western Arkansas district can establish its own federal public defender office.  The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in August approved a request from then-Chief Judge Jimm Larry Hendren that the Western District be allowed to open such an office.”  

• 3.17.12 – UVA Law students did some serious volunteering between semesters.  From the Daily Progress: “Students at the University of Virginia School of Law volunteered a record number of hours of pro bono work over winter recess. More than 200 students donated their time and legal services, logging about 10,000 hours in less than a month.” 

By: Steve Grumm

An announcement from Equal Justice Works:

Summer Corps is now accepting online applications for the 2012 program. Due to numerous requests, we have extended the deadline to Tuesday, April 10, 2012 at 11:59 p.m. PDT.  All application materials must be submitted by this time. Late or incomplete applications will not be accepted.

 More info on the program at EJW’s Summer Corps page.