GovernmentExecutive.com is keeping up with a critical issue:  federal job postings.  This is a serious concern deserving of attention.  But who knew “KSA” would be part of common parlance in the land of federal employment?  Monday’s article reports that agencies still need to better streamline their job announcements as part of the government’s push to reform the bureaucratic federal hiring process, a top official from the Office of Personnel Management.

Sixty-one percent of agencies have simplified their job vacancy postings, said Nancy Kichak, OPM’s associate director for employee services, while 89 percent of agencies have abolished the much-reviled knowledge, skills and abilities statements that for years applicants painstakingly filled out and managers waded through. Kichak said there is a disconnect between agencies’ desire to eliminate KSAs and the habit of writing long and complicated descriptions of job vacancies.

“We don’t want to hear it [via KSAs], but we’re certainly willing to say it ourselves,” she told an audience during a conference on federal financial management in Washington. Kichak said the goal is to push managers to produce job announcements that are less than five pages long. She said at various times, some postings have been as long as 38 pages.

38 pages?! Yikes.  Progress has been made, though.  During the past year, agencies have transitioned from KSAs to category ratings as well as to a resume- and cover letter-based system. In addition, OPM last month debuted a new online platform that tests applicants for a variety of positions across government.  Not exactly baby steps, but as most agree, there is more to be done.

Our friends at Equal Justice Works, known to industry insiders as Big Equal, have announced the awarding of 44 new fellowships.  Good stuff!

Equal Justice Works, the nation’s leading creator of public interest law opportunities, is proud to announce the 2011 Class of Equal Justice Works Fellows. Forty-four recent law school graduates have been selected as recipients of 2011 Equal Justice Works Fellowships and will spend the next two years working to provide legal services to underserved populations, facing issues ranging from homelessness and domestic violence, to immigration, civil rights and juvenile justice. This year’s fellowship competition attracted more than 365 applicants from law schools across the country, an increase of 18% over last year.

The Sikh Coalition seeks a highly motivated staff attorney based in the organization’s office in New York City.  The Sikh Coalition is a community-based organization that works towards the realization of civil and human rights for all people. In particular, we work towards a world where Sikhs may freely practice and enjoy their faith while fostering strong relations with their local community wherever Sikhs may be.

The staff attorney will provide direct legal services to victims of hate crimes, employment discrimination, public accommodation discrimination, profiling, and other forms of discrimination. This is a full-time position that reports to the Coalition’s Legal Director. 

Interested?  Have the qualifications?:

• Bachelors and Juris Doctor degrees required;
• Bar membership in at least one U.S. based jurisdiction;
• At least 1-3 years of previous legal experience, litigation preferable;
• Demonstrated passion for social justice;
• Excellent written, oral and analytical skills;
• Ability to handle a large caseload and multi-task effectively;
• Ability to work independently in a fast-paced environment;
• Basic computer and Westlaw skills;
• Punjabi language skills a plus.

To view the full job listing, go to PSLawNet (login required).

Earlier this week, we highlighted pro bono and public interest work at the Charlotte College of Law on the blog.  Perhaps we wanted to wet your appetite for an available opportunity at CharlotteLaw…

The Charlotte School of Law invites applicants for the position of Director of the CharlotteLaw Program for Academic Success (“CPAS”). This is a non-faculty full-time administrative position starting as soon as possible, at a salary commensurate with qualifications and experience.

The Director of the CharlotteLaw Program for Academic Success reports directly to the Assistant Dean for Academics.  He or she will work with students seeking to improve academic performance or experiencing academic difficulty.  The Director performs other academic support functions essential to promoting students’ success in law school and to the success and growth of the institution.

The Director must be a licensed attorney with one to three years of legal experience and possess at least two years of full-time professional academic support experience (either as part of a graduate or law school program) or teaching experience (i.e., legal writing or comparable teaching experience in writing and analytical skills training).  He or she must have the ability to think creatively and critically about the goals of academic support in legal education and to design and present programs to meet those goals.

To view the full job listing, go to PSLawNet (login required).

Happy Seis de Mayo, dear readers!  This is the day when many Cinco de Mayo revelers reflect, remorsefully, on just how easy it is to drink margaritas on a nice Spring day.  Your PSLawNet Blog permitted himself no such indulgences, however, as he scrambled to produce this week’s News Bulletin after having spent the first half of the week hiking in the Grand Canyon and driving throughout rural California and Arizona, of which there is much.  But that’s not why you’re here.  Without further ado…

This week: Indiana University law students pitch in to help taxpayers in need; the head of the Pro Bono Institute argues for allowing in-house lawyers to more easily do pro bono; New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman wants to bolster the state’s indigent defense system; a new plan in LA courts to help low-income individuals facing evictions; the Press of Atlantic City worries about the Garden State’s legal services infrastructure; public interest contributions by Charlotte College of Law students; Alabama law students and lawyers rally to assist tornado victims; the importance of better salaries for Wisconsin prosecutors.

• 5.3.11 – April 15th–err, April 18th–meant a little bit more to some this year.  In Indiana, the IU Newsroom reports that there are some low-income, elderly, disabled, and limited-English speaking residents who are appreciative of the efforts of 29 students at Indiana University Maurer School of Law.  The students volunteered 230 hours of their time to aid in filing 63 tax returns.  The students participated in the VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) program, and thus were trained and certified by the IRS.  Participants estimated the refunds to be “many thousands of dollars.”

• 5.2.11 – In the National Law Journal this week, Esther Lardent contends that corporate lawyers should be allowed to provide pro bono services, unsupervised, in states where they work, even if not admitted there.   Many state rules allow in-house attorneys licensed in another jurisdiction to work for an employer-client, but do not allow those same attorneys to provide pro bono legal services.  Lardent argues that states that expressly  permit nonlocally admitted attorneys to undertake pro bono often handcuff them with restrictions that are “unnecessary, insulting and unjustifiable in the face of the crisis in access to justice.”   There are beacons of hope found in some states’ exceptions.   Recently, Colorado and Virginia changed rules for in-house pro bono work by removing problematic obstacles.  Perhaps other states will follow? Until then, we’ll need to keep thinking creatively to fill the widening gap between the legal needs of the low-income and disenfranchised and the assistance available.

• 5.2.11 – In New York, Judge Jonathan Lippman calls state’s routine failure to provide lawyers for poor criminal defendants being arraigned in local courts a problem that cannot be tolerated any longer. The New York Times reports about Judge Lippman’s speech at the State Court of Appeals, in which he cited that too many New Yorkers were needlessly spending nights in jail after appearing without legal counsel at criminal arraignments in small-town and village courthouses.  He vowed that the state would spend $10 million in an effort to improve the availability of legal defense provided to the poor. Acknowledging the ambitious timeline, Judge Lippman said that within a year he hoped to make it rare for criminal defendants to lack counsel at their first court appearances.  After all, we claim to be living in a modern, principled society governed by the rule of law.  Judge Lippman, a longtime favorite of the PSLawNet Blog for his advocacy on the civil legal aid front, seems to be concerned that such a society is actually realized.

• 5.2.11 – from the LA Times, we learn that a quartet of legal services providers is collaborating to bolster services to low-income persons facing evictions: “Thousands of residents in Los Angeles’ poorest neighborhoods will get new legal help in fighting high-stakes eviction cases involving slumlords and foreclosures under a pilot project approved by the state’s judicial leaders Friday.  The new Eviction Legal Assistance Center at Los Angeles County Superior Court’s downtown civil courthouse will provide legal representation to about 15,000 people facing eviction over three years, according to legal aid groups, which will be jointly running the center.”  The Inner City Law Center, Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA), Neighborhood Legal Services, and Public Counsel are joining forces to staff the new project.

• 5.2.11 – sobered by a recent report from Legal Services of New Jersey, the editorial board of the Press of Atlantic City (AC, by the way: great HBO show, great Springsteen song, lousy town) wonders whether slashing government funding for legal services may do more harm than good: “Even the most rabid of the budget-cutters, deficit hawks and don’t-dare-raise-my-taxes crowd must, at some point, think about what kind of nation we are creating” if budget cutting results in the poor being unable to meaningfully access the justice system.  The LSNJ report, released late last month, is indeed sobering.  And as the PofAC editorial notes, at a time of increased client need, LSNJ has been forced to downsize from 720 staff members to 490 in less than three years.  

• 5.2.11 – as we noted in a blog post earlier this week, the Charlotte Observer reports on pro bono and public interest work at the Charlotte College of Law: “Students must perform at least 20 hours of free legal work….  Since the for-profit school opened in 2006, students have performed 27,000 pro bono hours. Under supervision of lawyers, they’ve provided legal assistance to immigrants, the elderly, an entrepreneur program at Central Piedmont Community College and helped nearly 450 buyers of Beazer-built homes file claims from the company’s $50 million restitution fund.  With externships and internships, Charlotte Law students have donated 40,000 hours of legal service.

• 5.2.11 – the National Law Journal reports that advocates from all corners of Alabama’s legal community are coming together to offer pro bono services to victims of last week’s storms.  Those groups which have rolled up their sleeves include the Alabama State Bar, the Alabama Association for Justice, law firms, and the Univ. of Alabama School of Law.  Roll pro bono tide.  (Here’s a little more from the School of Law about a pro bono partnership they’ve forged with the state bar to aid tornado victims: “Disaster Relief Assistance Project will provide free legal services both on-site at local area aid centers and at the law clinic programs office at the University of Alabama School of Law…. Legal advice will be provided concerning public benefits and programs, insurance claims and processes, housing rights, and other civil matters related to the storm and the displacement that resulted from it.”)

• May, 2011 – Wisconsin State Bar president Jim Boll makes the case for adequately funding prosecutors’ offices and boosting prosecutor salaries so that the state can retain talented, experienced lawyers: “District attorneys (DAs) face significant challenges as their offices around the state continue to be inadequately staffed and underfunded…. A 2007 report issued by the Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau showed that prosecutor positions have been cut while prosecutors’ workload has continued to rise, forcing them to spend less time on each case or even to choose which offenses to prosecute…. Further exacerbating the problem is the lack of pay progression, which leads to high turnover and very few mid-level prosecutors…. Thus, DA offices are staffed by a small number of highly experienced attorneys and a large number of recently hired attorneys, with nearly no one in the middle…. The governor has taken a step in the right direction in his proposed biennial state budget by providing $1 million annually to increase retention of experienced assistant DAs in each year of the biennium. However, for the criminal justice system to function effectively the state must be willing to fund all the essential parts of the system.”

Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County is in search of a Staff Attorney!  The Staff Attorney will be an advocate at NLSLA’s innovative and nationally recognized flagship Medical Legal Community Partnership (MLCP) program located at St. John’s Well Child and Family Health Centers in South Los Angeles and at the Northeast Valley Health Corporation Sun Valley Health Center.  Neighborhood Legal Services (NLSLA) is one of Los Angeles County’s leading public interest law offices and has been the primary legal aid program serving the San FernandoValley for 40 years and the San Gabriel, Pomona & Antelope Valleys since 2001. The NLSLA staff of 100+, including 45 lawyers, provides legal assistance to low-income individuals, families and groups in the areas of family law and domestic violence, housing, health care, education, public benefits, economic and job development, immigrant rights, consumer rights, and environmental justice.

MLCPs require advocates who can work effectively with medical personnel and in a medical environment to address the social determinants of health.   Staff Attorney may also be assigned work through NLSLA’s Health Consumer Center.  The Attorney is expected to provide individual client assistance, policy advocacy, and work closely with community organizations.

California Bar membership or pending membership and bilingual verbal, reading and writing skills in Spanish required. Highly motivated attorney passionate about public service work, with sensitivity to those in crisis. Prefer someone with 1-3 years experience; new graduates will be considered.

To view the full job listing, go to PSLawNet (login required).

Fifty years ago today on May 4, 1961, the first bus of Freedom Riders, carrying 13 people — both black and white — set out from Washington, D.C. for New Orleans.  These men and women took to America’s interstate buses to challenge the racial segregation that had become institutionalized in so much of the South.

To remember this day, the Job o’ the Day features an opportunity with The Southern Poverty Law Center.  The Center’s mission is the advancement and protection of the rights of minorities, the poor, and victims of injustice in significant civil rights and social justice matters.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a non-profit legal and educational organization, seeks an attorney/law fellow to join its staff to focus on the educational rights of children, with a focus on immigrant or limited English proficient (LEP) children in the South. This is a new position and will be based in Montgomery, Alabama.

The attorney will be expected to develop and handle cases related to education, particularly related to the rights of immigrant and LEP children and their families in schools throughout the South. Substantial travel may be required.

The attorney will be expected to develop and handle cases related to education, particularly related to the rights of immigrant and LEP children and their families in schools throughout the South.  Substantial travel may be required.   This position provides the chance to help develop a new area of advocacy for the Center, focusing on equal educational opportunities and language access for immigrant and LEP students. The Southern Poverty Law Center is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes applications from people of racial, religious, and ethnic backgrounds that are underrepresented in legal professions, immigrants, women, lesbian, gay, and transgendered people, and people with disabilities.

To view the full job listing, go to PSLawNet (login required).

Seton Hall University School of Law is seeking applications for a Practitioner-in-Residence for the Urban Revitalization Project within its Center for Social Justice from July 2011 to July 2012 with the expectation of renewal of the position for one additional year, dependent on grant funding and performance.

The Practitioner-in-Residence will take a multi-disciplinary approach to addressing issues of urban revitalization, with an emphasis on housing and education, and will work in collaboration with faculty in two sections of the Civil Litigation Clinic of the Center for Social Justice, led by Professors Linda Fisher and Shavar Jeffries.  The Civil Litigation Clinic represents clients in cases addressing foreclosure scams, housing discrimination, and public education reform.  Examples of cases/projects undertaken by the Project include representing homeowners against foreclosure rescue scams, representing tenants in a housing conditions case for appointment of a rent receiver to manage their building, challenges to municipalities’ affordable housing plans, and advocacy for an equal education for all children in New Jersey.  The Practitioner-in-Residence litigates cases, undertakes community education, and generally advocates on urban issues.

All applicants must be members of a state Bar; New Jersey bar membership is preferred but not required.  All applicants should have a strong academic record, an ability to be proactive and work independently, and excellent written and oral communication skills.  We welcome applications from those with at least 5 years of experience working in one or more of the areas of concentration of the Urban Revitalization Project.  This is not a tenure-track position and cannot be converted to a tenure-track line.

To view the full job listing, go to PSLawNet (login required).

The Domestic Law Project of Safe Horizon is seeking to hire a Staff Attorney. The Staff Attorney, using complete autonomy and independence, provides legal representation to domestic violence victims in family offense, custody, visitation and child support cases in Family Court.

Safe Horizon is the largest victims’ services agency in the United States, with 57 locations serving more than 250,000 children, adults, and families affected by crime and abuse throughout New York City each year.  The Staff Attorney, using complete autonomy and independence, provides legal representation to domestic violence victims in family offense, custody, visitation and child support cases in Family Court.  Candidate must have a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from an accredited law school, be admitted to the New York State Bar and have 2 to 4 years of related experience.

The good news for new graduates?

New graduates who have completed an approved fellowship may be considered. Candidate must also have prior experience in and/or thorough knowledge of family law, crisis intervention, criminal justice system, working with victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, family violence, poverty law, feminist law and/ social justice work.

To view the full job listing, go to PSLawNet (login required).

This week: what started as law student project to aid Iraqi refugees has evolved into a shiny new nonprofit organization; LSC cuts impact the grantee up in Maine; Legal Services of New Jersey’s 2011 Civil Justice Gap report is out; Wisconsin’s governor seems to like legal services about as much as labor unions; a week in the life of a deputy district attorney; the loss of government grants could mean the loss of prosecutors in North Carolina; is the Supreme Court going too easy on misbehaving prosecutors?; a grand jury tells Riverside County officials that they’re messing up the county’s indigent defense system; Jacksonville Area Legal Aid gets a $625K HUD grant to help Floridians in foreclosure; the docket’s backed up at the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.

• 4.27.11 – the National Law Journal reports on the story of a true grassroots nonprofit organization, created by law students,  that aids Iraqis seeking refugee status: “What began in 2008 as an effort by Yale law students to help Iraqis seek refugee status has evolved into a nonprofit organization with student chapters at nine law schools and three more on the way.  The growth of the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Program reflects both the commitment of law students to pro bono work and the overwhelming need of thousands of displaced Iraqis to secure refugee status, said recent Yale law graduate and project executive director Becca Heller.  The project…appears to be the only organization in the United States devoted to assisting Iraqis seeking to resettle in other countries.”  The Program already has chapters at 8 law schools besides Yale, and more are on the way. 

• 4.27.11 – up in Stephen King Land, the Maine Public Broadcasting Network reports on the negative impact that Legal Services Corporation funding cuts will have on the state’s LSC grantee program, Pine Tree Legal Assistance.  (PTLA stands to lose only $64,000 directly, but of course those federal dollars help PTLA leverage additional funding dollars.  Also, with rising client demand, every dollar counts.)

• 4.26.11 – Legal Services of New Jersey has released its 2011 Civil Justice Gap report, documenting the severe impact that the Great Recession has had on low-income client communities, the need within those communities for legal assistance, and the resource limitations that LSNJ is trying to work through to meet clients’ demand for services.

• 4.25.11 – this is the umpteenth time we’ve covered it, but here’s yet another article – this one from the Green Bay Press Gazette – about Wisconsin governor’s Scott Walker’s proposal to eliminate funding for civil legal services.  Essentially, filing fee proceeds, part of which now go to support legal services, would be reallocated elsewhere.  This is an interesting turn of events, as the exact same funding scheme – filing fee revenues – has been proposed to help support cash-strapped legal services programs in states like Texas and Nevada (and on a related note, the Minnesota Supreme Court is using attorney licensing fees to boost legal services funding).  And back in Wisconsin, the editorial board of hte Appleton Post Crescent ain’t happy with the funding cut proposal.

• 4.25.11 – want to learn a little more about a week in the life of a deputy prosecutor?  The Register-Guard of Eugene, Oregon follows Chris Parosa, a deputy district attorney in Lane County, for a few days to get a sense not only of what goes into his more public functions – like courtroom work – but the array of responsibilities that prosecutors have behind the scenes: making decisions on whether to charge arrestees, and sometimes explaining to crime victims that he can’t prove guilt in court.

• 4.25.11 – in North Carolina, the Post and Courier reports about the impact that government grant cutbacks can have on local prosecutors: “The Berkeley County solicitor’s office could lose two prosecutors within the next couple of months, unless the county comes up with an extra $143,651.  The Moncks Corner office is losing grants that are supporting two of its seven assistant solicitors. A Department of Justice grant for general prosecution expires at the end of this month. A state Department of Public Safety grant to prosecute criminal domestic violence cases expires at the end of June.  It’s another example of those state and federal budget cuts that leave local municipalities scrambling to make up.”

• 4.25.11 – in a National Law Journal op-ed Erwin Chemerinsky, a Supreme Court advocate and current dean of UC Irvine’s new law school, lays into the Supreme Court about a failure to adequately address prosecutorial misconduct cases: “The U.S. Supreme Court is oblivious to a serious problem in the American legal system: prosecutorial misconduct. Study after study has demonstrated serious prosecutorial misconduct at both the federal and state levels… Twice in the past three years the Court has considered lawsuits by innocent individuals who were convicted and spent years in prison because of prosecutorial misconduct. In both instances, the Court held that the victims could not recover. Together, these cases send a disturbing message that the Court is shielding prosecutors from liability. The result is no compensation for wronged individuals and a lack of adequate deterrence of prosecutorial misconduct.”  (Irrelevant Fun Fact: Chemerinsky taught the PSLawNet Blog’s BarBri constitutional law course.  “Big A, little 2, sub b…”.)

• 4.24.11 – in California, the Press-Enterprise reports on controversy surrounding the indigent defense system in Riverside County: “Riverside County supervisors failed to follow their own policies when awarding a new criminal defense contract earlier this year, a newly released grand jury report concludes. The report, made public this month and set to go before supervisors Tuesday, asserts the board’s action circumvented the recommendations of three Northern California public defenders brought on to evaluate competing bids. As a result, the grand jury is recommending that supervisors construct a bidding process that ensures transparency on future criminal defense contracts.”

• 4.22.11 – the Florida Times-Union reports on over a half-million dollars in HUD grant money going to a Florida legal services provider: “A $625,000 federal grant will help Jacksonville Area Legal Aid give legal assistance to people victimized by businesses promising foreclosure rescue services and debt relief aid.”

• 4.22.11 – the Washington Post reports on the swelling case backlog at the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, which hears appeals from vets who are denied benefits by the Veterans Administration: “The caseload at the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims has doubled in recent years, with the court deciding more than 600 cases per judge each year — far more than other federal appellate courts. Judges are working nights and weekends but say they still have difficulty keeping pace.”