Building Excellent Schools is looking for the most entrepreneurial and driven leaders to make a scholastic difference. Building Excellent Schools is a national organization with more than a decade of experience training leaders to found independently managed urban charter schools.  BES Fellows have founded more than 40 schools across the country.

Fellows complete a practice-based training built around the understanding of the best school practices in the highest performing urban charter schools.  Additional training consists of a residency in a high-performing urban charter school, school visits with the Fellowship cohort of like-minded leaders, and structured work in your home territory. The goal of the year-long fellowship is  to conclude with an approved charter application, inclusive of the best-practices in urban school design, and an exceptional founding board.

For the 2012-2013 Fellowship, BES is accepting applications from individuals who are driven to start charter schools in Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, and Tennessee. However, they will also consider other territories.

For more information about Building Excellent Schools, the fellowship or the application process, see the listing on PSLawNet!

Harvard Law’s Office of Public Interest Advising has just released the Guide on International Development: Public Service Careers and Opportunities.  The Guide includes an overview of the field, specific listings of international development organizations along with internship and fellowship opportunities, and testimonials from students who have had experience working in international development settings.

Here’s an opportunity to represent the university that boasts 76 Nobel Prize winners and 35 National Medal of Science recipients! Counsel in the Office of the General Counsel (OGC) will advise and represent MIT on legal issues related to research, faculty, students, health and safety, and privacy issues. 

MIT’s counsel will also streamline the school’s contracting processes by creating systems, training, and procedures that empower varied units to responsibly draft, negotiate, and enter into a variety of contracts involving copyright, software, licensing, confidentiality, and data protection; and support units in their contracting activities and handle unusual, complex contracts; provide legal, tactical, and strategic advice on policies, best practices, and education.

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

The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) is seeking a legislative associate with two or more years of experience to join its Government Relations team in Washington, D.C.

SELC uses law and policy expertise to protect the South’s natural resources—its land, air, water, coast and wetlands—and to preserve our rural countryside and community character.

SELC’s government relations team works in Congress and with federal agencies to advance policy objectives that enhance environmental protection and quality of life in the Southeast.

Duties include monitoring legislative hearings, working with SELC policy and legal staff to develop support materials and representing SELC at coalition meeting.

If you’re interested in joining SELC in its efforts to protect our environment, check out the full listing on PSLawNet.

Schwerin Campbell Barnard Iglitzin & Lavitt LLP, the Pacific Northwest’s largest union-side labor and employment law firm, is looking for an attorney to join their dynamic litigation practice that includes wage & hour and class action work.

Since the 1920s, Schwerin Campbell Barnard Iglitzin & Lavitt has been committed to serving working people. Their clients range from hotel, hospital, and homecare workers, to educators, machinists, teamsters, longshore and building trades.

If you’re passionate about representing working people and labor organizations, check out the listing on PSLawNet to find out how to apply!

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  This week’s Bulletin comes to you from a small beach cabin on Cape Cod, where the Internets are spotty but the ocean is gleaming beautifully in the morning sun.  Seemingly overnight, summer has given way to a brisk, lovely autumn morning.  Please pardon typos as I’m laboring with an intermittent Web connection and will call it a victory just to get this blog post published.  

This week: law students aiding a New York federal court in handling an influx of mediation cases; also in the Empire State, chief judge Jonathan Lippman is again on the warpath for more legal services funding; what a Legal Services Corporation funding cut would mean in Maryland, and why taxpayer $ should support legal services; big LSC news – Senate appropriators are contemplating a 2% dip in FY12 LSC funding; to narrow the justice gap, pro bono guru Esther Lardent calls for mandatory law school pro bono (among other measures); the Census Bureau’s release of alarming poverty data, and what it means for the legal services community; the state of legal services funding in the Glorious Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; a big medical-legal partnership conference is about to get underway in the Bay Area. 

• 9.16.11 – there has been much coverage lately in legal and national media about resource shortages confronting court systems throughout the U.S. The Southern District of New York is bringing on law students to help handle its caseload.  From the New York Law Journal: “The Southern District has enlisted three area law schools in a new program that will give participating students a practical exercise in client advocacy and managing expectations and help the court cope with an expected upsurge in mediations. Under the supervision of their professors, approximately 30 students at New York Law School, Seton Hall Law School and Brooklyn Law School will represent about 20 employment discrimination plaintiffs in court-referred mediations. They will meet with clients to ascertain their goals, prepare mediation statements and conduct negotiations before volunteer mediators. If a resolution is reached, the students will also help draft the settlement agreement. However, students will not represent plaintiffs in litigation if the mediation is unsuccessful.”

• 9.15.11 – more New York.  The state’s top jurist is once again leading the charge for state legal services funding.  More New York Law Journal: “With grim economic realities persisting in New York, Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman will renew his efforts beginning next week to drive home to the governor and the Legislature the need for greater state funding for civil legal services for the poor. The chief judge will preside over the first of four planned hearings Tuesday in White Plains along with Chief Administrative Judge Ann Pfau, New York State Bar President Vincent E. Doyle III of Connors & Villardo in Buffalo and A. Gail Prudenti, presiding justice of the Appellate Division, Second Department. Presiding justices of the other three departments will appear at later hearings in Manhattan, Albany and Buffalo.”

• 9.14.11 – in a Baltimore Sun op-ed, Legal Services Corporation board chair John Levi explains what’s at stake if LSC funding sees a significant cut in FY12, lays out the growing need for legal services among Terrapin Staters and Americans generally, and makes the case for supporting federal funding of legal services: “Across the country, civil legal assistance supports the orderly functioning of the civil justice system and access to administrative agencies throughout government. Large numbers of unrepresented parties in courts slow dockets and reduce efficiency in the administration of justice for everyone who needs to use the court system. Individuals unable to obtain advice may later be faced with far greater consequences than if they had been able to have their matters sorted out at an early stage.”

• 9.14.11 – the National Legal Aid & Defender Association is keeping us looped in about LSC appropriation  news on the Senate side.  Recall that a House FY12 proposal would slash LSC funding by over 25% (from just over $400m to $300).  Things are looking a little better in the Senate.  From NLADA: “The Senate Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies (CJS) appropriations subcommittee marked up its FY 2012 funding bill today. The bill includes $396 million for LSC, which is a 2 percent decrease from the FY 2011 level of $404 million. Full committee markup is scheduled for tomorrow, September 15. The House full committee recommended a FY 2012 level of $300 million. No appropriations bills have been cleared and appropriators are preparing a Continuing Resolution (CR) to keep the government running after the end of the fiscal year (September 30).”  Here’s an LSC press release about the subcommittee’s markup.  (Unfortunately, being out of DC and with limited Internets I’m not sure what’s happening with the full Approps. Committee.  I’ll tweet word as soon as I have it.) 

• 9.13.11 – the Pro Bono Institute’s Esther Lardent pens an opinion piece asking, “Is It Time for Mandatory Pro Bono?” in light of the ever-widening justice gap.  Her answer: not yet.  “For both philosophical and highly pragmatic reasons, I believe that mandatory pro bono should be the last possible resort.”  But Lardent does offer some options for increasing pro bono service, one of which is mandatory pro bono in law school.  “Including a substantial pro bono contribution to the American Bar Association law school accreditation standards — e.g., 150 hours during the course of law school as a condition of graduation — would create additional pro bono resources while promoting an appetite for pro bono and teaching tomorrow’s lawyers how to integrate pro bono into a busy schedule.”  Interesting stuff. 

• 9.13.11 – as has been well documented in the media, the U.S. Census Bureau released 2010 poverty data.  The data are – I won the Latin Scholar award in high school so you’re darned right I only use “data” in the plural – less than encouraging.  (Some findings below.)  John Levi, the aforementioned Legal Services Corporation board chair, issued a statement reacting to the data: “The U.S. Census Bureau released its official 2010 statistics on poverty this morning, and the data show that nearly one in five Americans qualifies for civil legal assistance at the legal aid offices funded by the Legal Services Corporation (LSC).  The number of Americans now eligible for legal services is staggering: more than 60.4 million, up 3.6 million from the prior year.  These 60 million Americans had incomes at or below 125 percent of the federal poverty line—$13,613 for an individual and $27,938 for a family of four.”  Here’s some data from the Census Bureau’s report:
• “The poverty rate in 2010 was the highest since 1993….  Since 2007, the poverty rate has increased by 2.6 percentage points.
• 15.1% of the population in 2010 was living in poverty.  That’s almost one in six people.
• “In 2010, the family poverty rate and the number of families in poverty were 11.7 percent and 9.2 million, respectively, up from 11.1 percent and 8.8 million in 2009.”
• Over 1 in 5 children lives in poverty.

• 9.11.11 – the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review uses remarks from former U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh about pro bono as a launching pad for a review of the legal services infrastructure  in the Keystone State.  Thornburgh “believes pro bono work should be included among the continuing education requirements Pennsylvania lawyers complete every year. It’s a suggestion he made in Boston last month at the first meeting of the 50-member pro bono task force created by the Legal Services Corp….”  The article goes on to look at recent legal services developments, including a letter from the state’s chief justice, imploring lawyers to do more pro bono work, and a 9% cut in state funding of legal services. 

• 9.9.11 – just a few hours from this blog post’s publication, a bigtime medical-legal partnership conference is taking place in one of our nation’s most beautiful locales.  From a press release: “The Bay Area’s most progressive healthcare and legal professionals, students and educators will gather at UC Hastings on Friday, Sept. 16 (8:30 a.m.-5 p.m.) to mark the first Medical-Legal Partnership conference on the West Coast. Their goal: to transform medicine and law practices to improve community health.  The all-day summit is part of the Medical-Legal partnership movement, a healthcare and legal services delivery model that improves health and well-being of vulnerable populations by integrating health and legal systems. The event has been planned by the Medical-Legal Bay Area Regional Coalition (M-BARC), a partnership that includes 10 Medical-Legal Partnerships with 18 medical sites.”

To celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 to October 15), I’ve got a great opportunity for you — the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is looking for a Lead General Attorney for the Office of Regional Counsel (ORC) , Caribbean Team, in . . . wait for it, wait for it . . . San Juan, Puerto Rico! Not only will you be working to promote a cleaner, healthier environment, you’ll be doing so in a gorgeous, tropical setting.

The attorneys on ORC’s Caribbean Team represent the EPA in administrative and civil enforcement litigation arising under a number of federal environmental laws.

Interesado? Check out the listing on PSLawNet.

The Los Angeles-based Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC), a member of the Asian American Center for Advancing Justice, is looking for a Litigation Director to help provide vision for as well as to manage and expand APALC’s impact litigation work.

APALC’s mission to advocate for civil rights, provide legal services and education, and build coalitions to positively influence and impact Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and to create a more equitable and harmonious society. Annually, APALC serves more than 15,000 clients.

The Litigation Director will be responsible for the overall development of strategic litigation, including identifying broad patterns of abuse or other systemic rights violations and developing strategies to address these patterns of mistreatment as well as fundraising and relationship building.

Additionally, the Litigation Director will lead a team of civil rights professionals, with a focus on serving indigent clients in the Asian American and Pacific Islander community in a variety of substantive legal areas such as worker’s rights, education, race and national origin discrimination and consumer law.

Sounds like a great gig, right?!

Check out the specifics on PSLawNet (login required, but remember — it’s free if your law school is already a subscriber!)

By: Steve Grumm

With 3Ls on the job hunt and bar results coming out (soon) for recent grads I figured it worth resurrecting a webinar that NALP produced earlier this year, “Destination Public Interest: Landing the Ideal Public Interest Job.”  The one-hour webinar offers best practices and tips in the areas of cover letter and résumé drafting, as well as interviewing and professional networking.

Presenters:

• Charlene Gomes, Senior Program Manager, Law School Advocacy and Outreach, Equal Justice Works
• Steve Grumm, Director of Public Service Initiatives, NALP
• Jennifer Thomas, Director of Recruiting, Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia

University of North Carolina School of Law is searching for a public interest career counselor for its Career Services Office to advise law students and alumni interested in public interest careers. Additionally, the counselor will develop and market Career Services Office events, programming and seminars.

This is a great opportunity for public-interest enthusiasts and people who are interested in nonprofit management.

Check out the complete listing at PSLawNet (login required – free registration if your law school is already subscribed!)