International Rights Advocates (IRAdvocates) is looking for a full-time associate to work on its international human rights cases, which employ legal strategies to hold multinational corporations accountable for human rights abuses. All cases are administered through the Washington, DC office of Conrad & Scherer, LLP.

International Rights Advocates (IRAdvocates) is a new organization that is the successor to the litigation department of the International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF).

IRAdvocates is dedicated to the expansion of ILRF’s successful efforts to use innovative legal mechanisms to hold corporations and governments accountable for human rights violations worldwide.

If this interests you, check out the listing at PSLawNet!

From a New York State Bar Association press release:

 Government and public interest lawyers burdened by student loan debt can apply for grants through the New York State Bar Association.

To be eligible for the Steven C. Krane Special Committee on Student Loan Assistance for the Public Interest grants, attorneys must have practiced for at least five years. Priority will be given to civil legal services attorneys. Each grant will be for a minimum of $2,000.

…

Applications are due November 30, 2011. Applications must be mailed to: SLAPI, New York State Bar Association, One Elk Street, Albany, NY 12207. Recipients will be announced in January.

For more information, please visit: www.nysba.org.slapi.

Last week Office of Personnel Management officials spoke about the problems that job-seekers have experienced with the recently launched USAJobs website.  OPM folks were surprised by the immediate, postlaunch user traffic, and in some respects the new system was overwhelmed by it.  Officials, while apologizing to those who experienced problems, also noted that many of the service requests they received stemmed from user error.   Read the full Government Executive story here.

The Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia is looking for an attorney for its Domestic Violence / Family Law Unit.

The Legal Aid Society was established in 1932 to “provide legal aid and counsel to indigent persons in civil law matters and to encourage measures by which the law may better protect and serve their needs.” Legal Aid is the oldest general civil legal services program in the District of Columbia.

The Staff Attorney will handle a caseload of family law cases, including custody, child support, protection orders, and divorce matters; interview prospective clients; participate in community outreach; and engage in systemic reform efforts.

To find out more and to learn how to apply, check out the listing at PSLawNet!

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers. From my perch at the NALP Global Headquarters I’m looking out at a gray-but-still-beautiful autumn morning.  Well, actually now I’m looking out at a trash truck picking up garbage from a restaurant.  So much of urban beauty is in the eye of the beholder.   

This week: LSC funding movement on the Hill (or in French: le Hill); how Virginia prosecutors and defenders are weathering funding challenges; speaking of, are layoffs coming to the Chicago PD’s office?; the lawyers representing “Occupy” protestors; DV funding for New Hampshire Legal Assistance; controversy surrounding a proposal to put caseload limits on Washington State defenders (story from the glorious city of Yakima, which I once called home). 

• 11.2.11 – our friends at the National Legal Aid & Defender Association offered a useful update about Legal Services Corp. appropriation developments in Congress: “Yesterday the Senate approved by a vote of 69 to 30 a package of three appropriations bills, including the Commerce, Justice and Science (CJS) appropriation bill for FY 2012.   The measure includes an appropriation for the Legal Services Corporation of $396.1 million for next year.  This amounts to a 2 percent cut from the current level of $404.2 million…”  Read on for discussion of how this may be reconciled with the much lower House LSC appropriation.
• The Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog opened up debate about the importance of funding LSC.  You can read the blog post and some commentary (which is pretty good by Internet standards) here.

• 11.1.11 – a piece in the Virginian-Pilot provides numbers on how Virginia prosecutors and PDs are handling funding challenges.  Some data points:
• “In Virginia, the State Compensation Board decreased the budgets for commonwealth’s attorneys statewide by 10 percent in 2010.”
• “Norfolk has lost five prosecutors since last July, dropping the number of attorneys from 44 to 39, Commonwealth’s Attorney Gregory Underwood said.”
• “Chesapeake Commonwealth’s Attorney Nancy Parr said in an email that she…lost two attorney positions, which she said she was able to do through attrition rather than layoffs.”
• “A handful of open positions in the Portsmouth Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office have remained unfilled, prosecutor Earle C. Mobley said.”
• “Virginia Beach public defender Peter Legler said his office has gone several years without raises but has not lost any attorney positions.”

• 10.31.11 – layoffs among Chicago public defenders?  Quite possible.  From the Sun-Times: “Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle sent out the first wave of layoff notices Monday to roughly 100 employees under her authority, a spokesman said….The layoffs will hit a range of offices under her control, from the public defender’s office to the highway department….County Public Defender Abishi Cunningham didn’t have a precise count of workers in his office receiving notices today but said he hopes the county and the unions will work out a deal as they did before.  ‘We’re still negotiating,’ Cunningham said, adding that he initially thought he was going to have layoffs in his office at the start of this year but negotiations avoided that through furloughs.”

• 10.30.11 – a McClatchy piece looks at the role of lawyers assisting “Occupy” protestors throughout the country.  Noting that many protestors are running into legal entanglements, the piece goes on, “The resulting legal skirmishes have spurred the largest mobilization of pro bono protest attorneys since the anti-war movement of the 1960s and ’70s. ‘It’s probably bigger than the anti-war movement, because there are so many simultaneous demonstrations. I’ve never seen anything like it,’ said Carol Sobel, co-chair of the Mass Defense Committee of the National Lawyers Guild.  Some of the volunteer lawyers draft and file motions, or simply monitor the protests as legal observers. Some advise the activists on how to negotiate with city leaders. Others show up in court – usually on short notice – to represent jailed protesters at their initial court appearances.” 

• 10.29.11 – New Hampshire Legal Assistance received good funding news: the DOJ’s Office on Violence Against Women renewed a grant which allows NHLA to serve DV victims.  The Nashua Telegraph reports: “The grant, $540,000 over two years, is the prime funding source for the statewide program that offers civil legal services to low-income victims and survivors of domestic and sexual violence….”  It’s been a tumultuous funding year for NHLA (as has been the case with so many other programs), so this is certainly welcome news.  (Congrats, John and company!)

• 10.29.11 – the Yakima Herald-Republic reports on the controversy surrounding the Washington State Supeme Court’s consideration of a proposal to put upward limits on public defender caseloads:  “In an effort to make sure indigent clients are receiving adequate legal representation, the state Bar Association recently recommended limiting the number of cases public defenders can handle at any one time.”  The story focuses on arguments against the proposal by Washington cities, including Yakima, which don’t have a way to finance the costs that could attend the rule’s promulgation.  (Unsolicited autobiographical tidbit: I spent a post-college year volunteering with a legal services program in Yakima.  Such a wonderful, formative experience.  And I sure miss hiking the eastern Cascades.)   

The Center for WorkLife Law (WLL) is looking for a Summer Law Clerk! WLL is a nonprofit research and advocacy group based at U.C. Hastings College of the Law that works on issues of employment discrimination based family caregiving responsibilities and workplace flexibility.

WLL has a unique “six stakeholder” model, reflecting our belief that many different stakeholders have a role to play in social and organizational change around work-life issues. WLL works with employees, employers, plaintiff-side employment lawyers, management-side employment lawyers, unions, and public policymakers. WLL also works with social scientists to spark interdisciplinary studies of bias against caregivers, and works extensively with the press.

Under the supervision of and reporting to the Director and the Managing Director of WLL, the Law Clerk is responsible for assisting in the work of WLL, and will conduct legal research and writing on topics related to WLL’s work, including in the substantive areas of employment discrimination, labor law, and the legal profession and help develop public education and training materials for WLL’s website and presentations.

To apply, check out the listing at PSLawNet!

Vermont Legal Aid is looking for a full-time, one-year contract attorney in their Burlington office to assist in carrying out their anti-discrimination work.

Responsibilities for this position include representing individual and organizational housing discrimination victims in federal and State courts and in administrative hearings; testifying before State and municipal planning and zoning entities; and limited community legal education and committee work.

Vermont’s most common forms of housing discrimination occur on the prohibited bases of race/color, national origin, ethnicity, families with children, and disability. Help Vermont fight housing discrimination!

If you’re interested, check out the listing at PSLawNet!

MADRE offers three PAID internship sessions throughout the year: Summer (June-August), Fall (September-December), and Spring (January-May). These internships take place in Manhattan, NY.

MADRE is an international women’s human rights organization that works in partnership with women’s community-based groups in conflict areas worldwide. Our programs address issues of sustainable development, community improvement and women’s health; violence and war; discrimination and racism; self-determination and collective rights; women’s leadership development; and human rights education.

MADRE provides resources and training to enable its sister organizations to meet immediate needs in their communities and develop long-term solutions to the crises they face. Since we began in 1983, MADRE has delivered over 18 million dollars worth of support to community-based women’s groups in Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Africa, the Balkans and the United States.

If you’re interested, check out the listing at PSLawNet!

New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI) is seeking applications for a staff attorney position in its Disability Justice (DJ) Program. NYLPI is a not-for-profit civil rights law firm that focuses on issues of racial equality and disability rights. NYLPI pioneered the practice of community lawyering in the five boroughs of New York City.

NYLPI breaks important new ground by drawing on a range of strengths: community trust; proficient organizing; media savvy; established lobbying channels, effective individual representation; and bold, creative approaches to litigation. The work of the DJ Program is founded on principles of equality of opportunity, self-determination, and independence for people with disabilities.

In partnership with individuals and community organizations, NYLPI uses organizing, legislative advocacy and litigation to assert the rights of New Yorkers with disabilities to equal access to a range of programs and services, including education, health care, housing, and police protection.

The DJ staff attorney position will include both systemic advocacy and individual representation, and will focus on the areas of housing, social security benefits, and vocational rehabilitation, among others.

If you’re interested, check out the listing at PSLawNet!

I’ve got another twofer for ya! Happy Friday!

In partnership with Pfizer Inc, Beveridge & Diamond PC, and the American Bar Association Section on Environment, Energy, and Resources, the Environmental Law Institute is looking for law school applicants for two Diversity Program Law Clerk positions for the summer of 2012.

The program’s goal is to encourage additional participation by minority students and students from disadvantaged households in environmental law, policy, and management.

Law clerks work on projects involving both domestic and international environmental law. Subject areas include, among others, wetlands and watershed policy, sustainable land use, biodiversity, environmental enforcement, long-term management of hazardous waste sites, public participation, and international environmental policy.

Law clerks conduct legal and policy research, conduct interviews, attend and report on events, and prepare written materials and scholarly work for publication. Part of a law clerk’s experience includes opportunities to attend ELI seminars on emerging issues in environmental law.

Law clerks may also assist with the editing and production of ELI’s publications, the Environmental Law Reporter (ELR), the National Wetlands Newsletter (NWN), and The Environmental Forum (TEF), as well as various books. Law clerks support editors of these periodicals by conducting research, bluebooking, monitoring and writing summaries of current events, and engaging in various tasks and special projects on an as-needed basis.

If environmental law is your thing, find out more at PSLawNet!