Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public. Noteworthy news this week includes a special advance announcement for readers of the digest. See below!

See you around,
Sam

Public Service Attorney Compensation

• On Monday, NALP will be officially announcing the release of its 2018 Public Service Attorney Salary Report, analyzing data collected during a survey of local public defenders’ offices, local prosecutors’ offices, legal aid offices, and public interest organizations conducted earlier this year. For the first time, the report is available for free to PSJD account holders. (Students and alumni of PSJD subscriber schools can create a PSJD account for free.) The big splash is next week, but if you check out the link above now (and you have a PSJD account) you can get an early look at the new, interactive tool.
• In New Mexico, “[f]ive female employees of the statewide Law Offices of the Public Defender have filed a lawsuit accusing the agency of violating New Mexico’s Fair Pay for Women Act.”
• In Philadelphia, PA, the Philadelphia Law Department announced an across-the-board pay increase for its 217 attorneys.
• In New York, NY, the Legal Aid Society asked for increases in public defender pay, as the city prepares a pay bump for entry-level prosecutors.

Immigration

• In Sacramento, CA, “[a] federal judge rejected the U.S. Justice Department’s request to block California’s ‘sanctuary laws’ protecting undocumented immigrants…But the judge also temporarily barred a law that had required employers to restrict federal immigration officials’ access to workplaces.”
• “Thirty-four large corporate law firms — half of them with offices in Texas and two firms based in Texas — have signed a pledge to provide legal support and resources for immigrant families who are separated from their children when crossing the border to seek asylum.”
• In Tuscon, Arizona, the federal public defender’s office put together “a legal education class for attorneys and advocates on how to handle cases of separated families.”
• In New Jersey, the governor and state legislators passed a budget that includes “$2.1 million to help pay for attorneys for immigrants fighting deportation.”
• The Huffington Post reported that “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are telling detained migrant parents that to be reunited with their children they must sign a voluntary deportation form.”
• The Nation published an article documenting how “[a] sudden surge in the number of children starting deportation proceedings in 2017 and 2018 means that tens of thousands of more children have entered courtrooms with attorney representation.”

Disaster Relief

• “A judge has ordered federal emergency officials to extend vouchers for temporary hotel housing for nearly 1,700 Puerto Rican hurricane evacuees, saying ending the program could cause irreparable harm.”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Spokane, WA, the county public defenders’ office has reached caseload limits set by the state. “Officials say some defendants charged with felony crimes will not have a chance to speak to a court-appointed attorney and could spend up to seven days behind bars.“

Music Bonus!

“Baby of Mine” (from Dumbo) [German lyric version]

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public. Lots of news this week. I’ll let the pieces speak for themselves.

See you around,
Sam

Immigration

• According to Law.com, “[t]he ABA is coordinating volunteers and donations through its South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project.”
• PRNewsWire.com reports that HKM Employment Attorneys “agree[d] to provide pro bono legal assistance to any federal employee who refuses to separate children from their parents at the border.“
• In Texas, the President of the State Bar Association released a statement to members of the bar, urging Texas attorneys to volunteer: “Whenever we have had manmade or natural disasters in this state, Texas lawyers have risen to the occasion to help those who cannot help themselves.“
• In Austin, Texas, the Austin Bar Association held clinics preparing lawyers to assist families through the initial steps of the asylum process.
• Also in Texas, the Texas Tribune published a “list of organizations that are mobilizing to help immigrant children separated from their families.“
• In Oregon, the ACLU “sued the federal government…to open access for attorneys to work with immigration detainees housed in Sheridan’s federal correctional institution.” The District Court has granted a temporary restraining order forcing the Department of Homeland Security to Allow attorneys to visit or communicate with civil immigration detainees.
• In Albany, NY, lawyers from Greenberg Traurig “working pro bono with LegalHealth, New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG), helped draft and lobby for legislation [now] signed into law to allow parents who are at risk of detainment or deportation based on immigration status to designate a standby guardian to care for their children in the event the parent is detained or deported.“
• Also in New York, “[a]fter demonstrators began protesting outside a New York City immigration court and temporary detention facility, federal authorities started holding immigration hearings through video conference.“
• Also in New York, “[t]he New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) announced a plan yesterday to bring pro bono leaders from several New York law firms and attorneys throughout the state to help the families that have been separated after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.“
• In Florida, “[several]…law firms have pledged to help reunify separated immigrant families and volunteered to represent asylum seekers on the U.S.-Mexico border.”
• In California, “[i]mmigrant-rights advocates asked a federal judge to order the release of parents separated from their children at the border, as dozens of demonstrators decrying the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown were arrested Tuesday at a rally ahead of a Los Angeles appearance by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.“
• Also in California, the state legislature sent two bills to the governor’s desk “that would boost legal aid for immigrant students by $21 million.“
• The ABA reported that “[t]he Lawyers for Good Government Foundation is organizing an effort to reunite immigrant families separated by the federal government after they were caught crossing the U.S. border…[the project] brings together large law firms and immigration law nonprofits.“
• According to the Huffington Post, “[h]undreds of Georgetown University alumni are calling on Kirstjen Nielsen, a fellow alumna, to resign as homeland security secretary over her role in separating migrant children from their parents at the border.“

Student Loans

• In California, “California’s attorney general said he would file a lawsuit accusing the company of widespread deceptions and mistakes that cost borrowers millions of dollars…California would be the fourth and largest state to sue Navient, joining Illinois, Pennsylvania and Washington.“
• Also in California, “[a] U.S. judge on Wednesday threw out a lawsuit by the state of California accusing the Trump administration of illegally reneging on an Obama-era commitment to quickly forgive the loans of students defrauded by the Corinthian for-profit college chain.” The state has an opportunity to amend its suit to establish standing.

Pro Bono

• In Pennsylvania, “[r]etired Pennsylvania attorneys interested in providing pro bono legal service will now be eligible for emeritus status through a new program approved by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.“
• Law.com profiled a number of large firms’ recent contributions to cases seeking to redress gerrymandering.

Environmental Law

• The Daily Caller reported that “Bloomberg Philanthropies launched a $6 million campaign to embed experienced attorneys in states attorneys offices across the country to push back against Trump administration efforts to roll back environmental regulations. So far, only Democratic attorneys general have hired Bloomberg-funded legal fellows.“

Legal Technology

• At Amazon.com, “[e]mployees…are calling on chief executive Jeff Bezos to end the sale of facial recognition technology to law enforcement agencies and to discontinue partnerships with firms that work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).“
• In a gloss on the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Carpenter v. United States, the Director of NYU’s Policing Project wrote in the New York Times that “[t]he growing use of technology by law enforcement agencies to monitor or target people — particularly people and communities of color — is expanding at head-spinning speed, and nothing the courts do is going to stop that…What we need is regulation, and fast, and it is going to have to come from the local, state and federal governments, not the courts. Even Justice Samuel Alito, in his dissent, understood that “legislation is much preferable.” He said that was “for many reasons, including the enormous complexity of the subject, the need to respond to rapidly changing technology, and the Fourth Amendment’s scope.”
• In California, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 became law. “The law, which takes effect in 2020, gives consumers sweeping control over their personal data.“

Public Interest Funding

• The University of South Carolina School of Law received a second gift of more than $1 million from the Kondurous Fisherman Fund. The gift will build on programs established by the fund’s previous gift, including scholarships and summer internships for students aspiring to work in public service through governmental and non-profit agencies.

Criminal Justice Reform

• In Suffolk County, MA, “[a]t a forum described as the first-of-its kind in the country…[c]andidates hoping to lead the largest prosecutor’s office in Massachusetts field questions from…inmates at a Boston jail.“

Music Bonus!

Bruce Springsteen, “American Land”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! It’s been quite a week, with major developments in Access to Justice, Student Loans, and Immigration. In Colorado and Connecticut, the right-to-counsel-for-eviction-cases movement seems to be gaining ground. Meanwhile, Wisconsin is engaged in some soul-searching about its pay rate for private attorneys assigned indigent defense cases. And in DC, the DoE’s Inspector General accused the Department of slow-walking applications for student debt forgiveness while Senators Warren and Rubio introduced a bill to protect the professional licenses of student loan borrowers in default. Last but far from least, General Sessions issued an immigration ruling with a dramatic impact on asylum seekers.

See you around,
Sam

Immigration

• According to Reuters, “[ICE] has entered into a 120-day agreement with the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and the U.S. Marshals Service to house to up about 1,600 people awaiting immigration hearings or deportation in prisons.” Prison workers and immigration advocates argue the move “puts [both immigration] detainees and prison staffers at risk”.
• In an agency adjudication, U.S. Attorney General Sessions “overturn[ed] a precedent set during the Obama administration that allowed more women to claim credible fears of domestic abuse [as grounds for asylum].” General Sessions’ decision also affects the asylum claims of victims fleeing gang violence.
• The US DoJ threatened the Seventh Circuit, which has stayed an en-banc rehearing of its April 19th decision in Chicago v. Sessions pending the Supreme Court’s resolution of Trump v. Hawaii. It a letter, the DoJ threatened to take its appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court if the Seventh Circuit has not ruled by Monday on the DoJ’s “effort to block a nationwide injunction restricting its power to deny certain funds to so-called sanctuary cities.“
• Following a deeply-disturbing visit to a migrant processing center, and after being denied entry to a separate immigration detention facility, Senator Merkeley announced he would promote a bill “allow[ing] members of Congress to visit any detention facility in the United States given 24 hours notice.“

Student Loans

• The Washington Post reported that “[a]s thousands of applications for student debt forgiveness poured into the U.S. Education Department, the Trump administration cut the staff working on the claims and ordered a halt to an overhaul of the system, according to the agency’s inspector general.“
• According to Law.com, “U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Marco Rubio on Thursday introduced a bill that would prohibit states from suspending professional licenses and driver’s licenses of those who fail to pay their federal student loans.“
• An opinion column in The Hill argued that “the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)…should stay out of the federal student loan program. That’s the business of the U.S. Department of Education.“

Law & Technology

• Joyce Raby (the 2018 NALP Education Conference Public Service Luncheon Speaker!) argued on the ABA’s “Legal Rebels” podcast that technology is a compliment to other access to justice efforts but not the “saving grace for the justice ecosystem” which is it sometimes presented as.
• Fordham Law School’s Center for Legal Information Policy published a report calling attention to the lack of regulations protecting student information and documenting the “commercial ecosystem” for student data.
• In San Francisco, CA, the district attorney announced plans to partner with Code for America to automate the task of clearing past cannabis convictions under a provision of California’s Proposition 64.
• According to CTV, “Apple is closing a security gap…that will thwart law enforcement agencies that have been exploiting the vulnerability to collect evidence in criminal investigations.”

Access to Justice – Civil

• The NLADA released its 2017 Impact Report!
• In Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court modified its rules to reduce obstacles for retired attorneys who want to perform pro bono service.
• In Denver, CO, “Colorado Legal Services and other lawyers are participating in [a] pilot program [providing free legal services for people facing eviction.” The program has strong support from the Denver City County, many of whom “donated money from their office budgets or personal accounts to start the program.“
• In Connecticut, the Editorial Board of the Connecticut Law Tribune argued that “this may be the best time to explore whether an investment in a right to counsel in eviction matters would help improve outcomes for Connecticut families, while also alleviating financial burdens placed on our state and municipal governments.“
• Others are also taking notice of the growing trend of right-to-counsel movements focused on eviction and immigration. The 2018 Equal Justice Conference featured a panel discussing the trend. You can hear from the panelists, who spoke with the Legal Talk Network about their work.

Access to Justice – Criminal

• The NLADA released its 2017 Impact Report!
• In Wisconsin, attorneys petitioned the Wisconsin Supreme Court, seeking to increase pay rates for private attorneys appointed to indigent defense cases. Wisconsin has the lowest compensation in the country for private attorneys taking such cases.
  • Meanwhile, officials in La Crosse County, WI, argued that low pay for indigent defense translates into longer jail stays, costing taxpayers millions of dollars.
  • Finally, the Wisconsin State Bar published a thorough overview of the situation.
• In Louisiana, a lawsuit challenging the state’s indigent defense system argued for class action certification.
• In Bexar County, TX, the Editoral Board of the San Antonio Express-News argued that “[t]he Bexar County Public Defender’s Office must grow [because]  a more robust office would serve as a much-needed complement, and competitor, to private attorney representation. One that could set the bar for indigent defense but also serve as a hub for continuing legal education, providing assistance to private lawyers and mentoring new attorneys.“

Criminal Justice Reform

• In Chittenden County, VT, a state prosecutor announced her office will decline to prosecute any citations or arrests for misdemeanor possession of certain opioid compounds. The move presents a challenge to the U.S. District Attorney for Vermont, who recently scuttled an initiative from county leaders to open a supervised injection facility in the county by “suggesting her office would prosecute anyone who tried to open [such a site] and seize the property.”
• In Clark County, Nevada, a progressive candidate running for district attorney was defeated in Tuesday’s primary.
• In Wisconsin, the Wisconsin State Bar published an article on the fiscal and social costs of mass incarceration in the state.

Music Bonus!

Barbara Streisand, “Children Will Listen” (Into the Woods)

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! The past week has been an eventful one, particularly concerning Federal agency action (and responses to such action by other government and civil institutions). Additionally, the Movement Advocacy Project (MAP) released a report on the changing dynamic between state legislatures and local authorities. You’ll find these tidbits first, ordinally, below. Along, of course, with other news of interest.

See you around,
Sam

Federal Government

• The Washington Post reported that “Mick Mulvaney, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, fired the agency’s 25-member advisory board Wednesday, days after some of its members criticized his leadership of the watchdog agency.“
• According to Waterworld.com, a broad coalition of interest groups, “including public health, environment, faith-based, farming and ranching, and legal advocacy groups” signed a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services “calling for the immediate release of a suppressed federal study that says perfluorinated chemicals in drinking water are hazardous at much lower levels than the [EPA]’s guidelines state.”
• Courthousenews.com reported that “[a] host of legal advocacy organizations, human trafficking survivors, attorneys and prosecutors called on the Justice Department Wednesday to reinstate funding for post-conviction relief to expunge trafficking survivors’ criminal records.“

State & Local Government – Civil Rights

• The Movement Advancement Project published a report chronicling the efforts “many state legislatures” are taking to limit local governments’ authority to “protect their residents on a range of issues, including workers’ rights and benefits, the minimum wage, nondiscrimination protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, pro-immigrant policies, environmental efforts, and more.”
• Governing.com profiled efforts within state governments to reduce barriers to hiring individuals with disabilities into government positions.

Legal Employment

• In Brooklyn, NY, “staff attorneys at CAMBA Legal Services…announced that they have won union recognization after a card check agreement was reached.“

Immigration

• The Mayors of Los Angeles, CA; Houston, TX; Tucson, AZ, and Albuquerque, NM sent a letter to Attorney General Sessions condemning the Department of Justice’s policy of separating children from their families at the border as “cruel,” “morally reprehensible,” “not an appropriate use of taxpayer resources,” and “utterly inconsistent with our values of decency and compassion.”
  • Meanwhile, Vice reported that the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement–“a federal program that for over a decade has funded organizations representing unaccompanied minors in immigration court…told the groups [it funds] to stop taking new cases just days after the family separation policy began.”
• In New York, NY, Human Rights Watch released a report criticizing New York City’s “criminal carveout” excluding immigrants with certain criminal convictions from city-funded immigrant legal services.
• Haaretz profiled the joint efforts of faith communities across the country to provide sanctuary to immigrants within their spaces of worship.

Access to Justice – Civil

• In San Francisco, CA, “[a] ballot measure to give tenants facing eviction lawsuits the right to taxpayer-funded legal representation won Tuesday…with nearly 56 percent in favor[.]“
• In Quebec, legal aid eligibility thresholds increased by 6.67%, as a result of minimum wage increases implemented on May 1st.
• In the Northwest Territories, the Court of Appeal ruled that a Legal Aid Commission policy against funding human rights complaints is not discriminatory.

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Texas, reporting out of Austin decried the fact that indigent defense, “a program that’s supposed to be fully funded by the state[,] now has local tax dollars covering about 90 percent of the costs.”
• In Maryland, the Court of Special Appeals ruled that “[c]onvicts have a right to counsel when being resentenced after a determination that their original sentence was illegal.”
• In Livingston County, NY, the Public Defender Office announced plans to hire new attorneys in order to comply with a new state mandate providing a right to counsel at arraignment.

Criminal Justice Reform

• In Minneapolis, MN, the Minneapolis Police Department announced plans to stop conducting stings of low-level marijuana sales due to their disproportionate racial effects.
• In California, “voters appeared to reject liberal challengers in three closely watched district attorney races on Tuesday, delivering a sharp defeat to a national network attempting to reshape the criminal justice system by electing left-leaning prosecutors.”
• In Kansas, the Federal Public Defender’s Office said it has discovered that the Core Civic prison in Leavenworth, a Federal holding facility, recorded over 1,300 conversations between public defenders and their clients over a two-year period.

Music Bonus!

Mumford & Sons, “Not in Nottingham” (Disney Cover)

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! Two BIG highlights this week:

• The Federal Student Aid Office has published a page describing the Temporary Expanded Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which may be able to help borrowers whose PSLF applications have been denied. See “Student Loans,” below.
• An article in The Practice attempts an empirical examination of “public-interest drift,” the phenomenon wherein law students with nonprofit or government career ambitions decide instead to pursue positions in private law firms.

See you around,
Sam

Public Service Career Development

• In The Practice (the journal of Harvard Law School’s Center on the Legal Profession), CLP Research Fellow John Bliss conducted “a systematic qualitative look at the public-interest drift process.” Bliss defined “public interest drift” as the phenomenon wherein students with nonprofit or government career ambitions decide instead to pursue positions in private law firms. He concluded that “these students struggle most with a lack of preparation for the job market.” The article concludes with “policy recommendations focusing on preparing students to broker the job market.”

Student Loans

• The Federal Student Aid Office published a guide to the Temporary Expanded Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, under which “[i]f your PSLF application was denied because some or all of your payments were not made on a qualifying repayment plan for PSLF, you may be able to receive loan forgiveness under a temporary opportunity.”
• In the U.S. Senate, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand discussed a pair of bills she hopes to schedule votes on which would help alleviate student debt.

Immigration

• In Montgomery County, MD, the county council “passed a special appropriation that creates a legal fund for undocumented immigrants who live in the county and could face deportation.“
• In California, the State Senate “and more than 20 cities and counties have come out in support of the state’s ‘sanctuary’ law, which limits police and sheriff agencies from cooperating with federal immigration agencies” in amicus court filings authored by former U.S. Attorney General Holder, submitted in the federal lawsuit brought by Attorney General Sessions against California’s immigrant policies.
• Meanwhile, also in CA, NPR examined whether the Trump administration’s new “zero tolerance” border policy is having its desired effect.

Access to Justice – Civil

• In Washington, DC, the President of the ABA testified before a Senate subcommittee that “[t]he Legal Services Corp.’s funding should be restored ‘at least’ to inflation-adjusted 2010 levels.“

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Missouri, the Director of the State Public Defender’s Office filed a motion in a high-profile first-degree murder case arguing that “it’s not fair that the state is stepping in to help county prosecutors while also ‘depriving the defense of the resources necessary to provide diligent, effective, and conflict-free representation.'” According to the National Post, “[t]he motion is the latest effort to draw attention to funding problems that have prompted an ACLU lawsuit and increasingly led Missouri public defenders to turn down new cases.”
• In New Mexico, the president of the state prosecutors’ association suggested that public defenders should turn to charitable donations and other sources of private fundraising, instead of seeking to decline new cases in the face of unconstitutional caseloads. The Public Defender Commission in the state is developing new rules “that would allow overburdened public defenders in New Mexico to refuse new cases rather than provide inadequate legal representation.”
• In Wisconsin, the Supreme Court “voted to raise the hourly rate of pay for court-appointed attorneys from $70 to $100 per hour [in response to] a petition from a coalition of lawyers and judges who say Wisconsin’s current system for public defense attorneys is so underfunded, it’s facing a constitutional crisis.” However, the ruling “leaves the pay rate for state-funded public defenders at $40 per hour, the lowest in the nation.”
• In Buffalo, New York, local TV spoke with a public defender at the Legal Aid Bureau of Buffalo about his hopes for the state’s new Public Defense Reform law.
• In Mississippi, a local television station reported on the unacceptable lengths of pre-trial detentions in Mississippi–an issue the Mississippi Public Defender Task Force and the ACLU have been working to raise with state lawmakers.
• In Texas, a local county commissioner called out the state government at a conference of county judges and commissioners. According to reporting from Go San Angelo, the official claimed “the State of Texas is seriously in arrears when it comes to reimbursing counties for indigent defense attorneys, and that could make it difficult for county officials to balance the budget in the future.”

Criminal Justice Reform

• In Baltimore, MD, “[s]chool discipline reform advocates have asked the Baltimore city schools police to adopt a youth-specific Miranda warning to let children know their legal rights.”
• In New Orleans, LA, Court Watch Nola (CWN) called out the New Orleans District Attorney’s office for recording and listening to inmates’ calls to their lawyers.

Music Bonus!

Phil Collins, “In the Air Tonight”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! The big news for this week once again grew out of our recent conference, as the conversation we were having during the Public Service Luncheon about diversity and legal technology became a talking point in the ABA Journal. And folks working on proposals for NALP’s 2019 Conference may want to check out the Center for Court Innovation podcast below (see Criminal Justice Reform), where a longtime public defender discusses the power of prosecutors to change the system.

See you around,
Sam

Legal Technology

• The ABA Journal discussed the implications of a new report calling attention to the lack of diversity among the founders of legal technology firms.
• The New York Times published a primer on the European Union’s new “General Data Protection Regulation”–a new legal regime that is attempting to force companies to be more transparent about what data they collect, and to offer consumer more say in how their information is used.

Access to Justice – Civil

• In Massachusetts, the Supreme Judicial Court is accepting applications for volunteer, at-large appointments to the Massachusetts Access to Justice Commission.

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Alberta, negotiations continued between the provincial government, Legal Aid Alberta, and the Law Society of Alberta over funding for legal aid.
• In Montana, the Public Defender’s Office reported that the agency’s total caseload has decreased by 5 percent since last year, crediting the reduction to indigent defense reforms the Montana legislature introduced in 2017.
• In Michigan, the Lansing State Journal profiled the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission.

Criminal Justice Reform

• The Center for Court Innovation interviewed a public defender about how reform-minded prosecutors have the power to reshape the justice system.

Music Bonus!

Childish Gambino, “Stand Tall”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! I must confess, with the Annual Education Conference very much on my mind the news that leapt off the page for me this week concerned coverage of efforts in Newark and San Francisco to create a right to counsel in eviction cases, in the model of New York City. The Public Service Section’s Conference Proposals Committee is considering proposing a conference session on these kinds of new initiatives and their implications for legal hiring; if you’re a NALP member feel free to reach out to me for details on how to attend the open meeting where we’ll be discussing this proposal and others, today at 1:30pm EST.

See you around,
Sam

Funding & Loans

• In Canada, uncertainty around a federal pay system has led to a situation in which “thousands of public servants [] don’t know whether they have been paid the raises and back pay owed to them [and won’t know] before June 30, 2019.”
• The President of the ABA argued in The Hill that “Congress must increase funding for the Legal Services Corporation.”
• In the US, major private industry leaders participated in a panel discussion discussing whether payroll-integrated student loan repayment and financing support should be a new form of job benefit.
• The US Department of Education revealed in court filings details of its new plan for serving borrowers in default on their federal student loans.

Legal Technology

• In Ohio, the Toledo Legal Aid Society launched a website, toledolegalaid.com, “intended to better connect underserved populations with legal representation.”
• The Center for Agriculture & Food Systems released the “Farmland Access Legal Toolkit,” an online resource designed to “support[] current and aspiring farmers in finding and transitioning farmland.”
• In Canada, “the federal government is willing to accept the privacy and security risks of storing data in the internet cloud as an alternative to its own aging computers that are ‘at risk of breaking down,’ says an internal policy paper.”
• Ars Technica’s Senior Technology Policy Reporter previewed arguments from his forthcoming book, Habeas Data, in the Los Angeles Times.
• In California, the ACLU wrote in support of SB1186, “a bill that helps restores power at the local level and makes sure local voices are heard when surveillance proposals are on the table.”

Access to Justice – Civil

• In Newark, NJ, the Mayor proposed a “municipal ordinance that would provide Newark’s low-income residents with access to free legal representation in landlord-tenant disputes.” The proposed ordinance would cover tenants facing eviction in Essex County Landlord Tenant Court earning up to 200 percent of the federal poverty line.
• In San Francisco, CA, the San Francisco Public Press profiled Proposition F–an upcoming ballot initiative that would provide free legal aid to tenants facing eviction.
• In Minneapolis, MN, the Star Tribune profiled the medical-legal partnership at the Community-University Health Care Center–one of the first such programs in the country, and an idea that has gained increasing traction at clinics and hospitals nationwide.
• In Albany, NY, the Legal Aid Society of Northeastern New York held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its new Center for Legal Services.
• In South Dakota, the State Bar of South Dakota sponsored a 3-day Ask-A-Lawyer event, an annual program allowing people to call in and ask anonymous questions about legal issues for free.

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Louisiana, “the Louisiana Public Defender Board recently reached a compromise on a new plan intended to more fairly distribute state funds used to pay lawyers who represent indigent defendants…[b]ut because the amount of money available under the new plan is still limited, almost all districts are still worried.“
• In Wisconsin, “[t]he number of lawyers…willing to defend indigent clients for $40 an hour dropped 16 percent in five years, the head of the State Public Defender’s office told the supreme court.”
• In Missouri, the Pulitzer Center published a story detailing how “Missouri Public Defenders are Overloaded with Hundreds of Cases While Defendants Wait in Jail.”

Music Bonus!

2Cellos, “Thunderstruck”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! I wish I could tell you that NALP’s Annual Conference is my highlight for you this week–I think it’s certainly provided more than a few highlights for those of us lucky enough to be here. However, the news I want to call your attention to most is Secretary Session’s dramatic reversal of his position on legal support for immigrants, which he announced this week before a Senate oversight committee. (See Immigration, below.) In addition, you’ll likely be interested in a new report out of Delaware showing a dramatic return on investment for legal aid.

In general, it’s been an eventful week. Read on to see what I mean.

See you around,
Sam

Funding

• In Delaware, the Combined Campaign for Justice produced an independent report showing a more than 700% return on investment for the state’s three legal aid providers. The providers are hoping to leverage the study as they seek to reverse cuts to their funding suffered in last year’s state budget.
• In New York, the 2019 State Budget restored over $1m in funding to Neighborhood Legal Services of Buffalo, which the organization had lost the previous year due to an administrative error.
• In Florida, Community Legal Services of Mid-Florida announced it received a $326,000 donation from Liggio Law–a proportion of $4m of unclaimed damage awards in a class action lawsuit.
• At Harvard, Ralph Nader and six other HLS alumni wrote an open letter “asking Law School Dean John F. Manning ‘82 if he intends to publicly respond to a report published last fall that criticizes the school’s commitment to public interest.”
• At Yale, “Professor Judith Resnik, the founding director of the Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law at Yale Law School, was selected as a member of the 2018 class of Andrew Carnegie Fellows, awarded to support innovative scholarship on pressing contemporary issues.” The fellowship will allow Professor Resnik to “analyze[] how obligations of democratic states toward people in and out of prison are forged, and why the debilitation that many prison systems impose is beyond what governments should be able to inflict as punishment for crimes.”

Immigration

• “At a Senate committee hearing, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced he’s restoring funding to a program that provides free legal help to people in immigrant detention centers.“

Access to Justice – Civil

• In Florida, legal aid organizations and private attorneys filed amicus briefs in Marie Ann Glass v. Nationstar Mortgage et al., expressing concern that an unfavorable result “would discourage attorneys from defending homeowners if the lawyers couldn’t collect fees from defeated plaintiffs.”
• In New York, NY, the Right to Counsel NYC Coalition and Catholic Migration Services held a town hall meeting in Queens to explain the details of the city’s new law providing universal access to legal representation in wrongful eviction cases.
• The Hill published an opinion piece advocating in support of efforts in the Senate to provide civil legal aid specifically for veterans.
• In Ontario, community legal clinics across the northern portion of the province announced plans to band together in order to expand services. The new collaboration is called “Advocacy North.”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Alberta, criminal defense groups continued their protest of legal aid funding in the province, calling the legal aid program “a starving system.” (See previous coverage of this issue in past weeks of the Digest.)
• In Travis County, TX, the Texas Tribune reported that the county’s indigent defense system still has lawyers working unsustainable caseloads, despite a highly-touted overhaul of the system in 2015.
• BET promoted its new show, “In Contempt”–a courtroom drama it believes will stand out for its decision to represent the work of public defenders. “[Y]ou’ll get a nice peek behind the curtain of their world, to see why these people are fighting, because it’s not for the money, because they’re underfinanced, they’re understaffed, they’re underinformed.”

Music Bonus!

Lauryn Hill, “To Zion”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! A number of major criminal justice-related legal changes are underway at both the federal and provincial levels up in Canada, detailed below. But the highlight of the news this week, for us, is our 2017 Pro Bono Publico Award Winner, Lydia X.Z. Brown, who received a feature article in Northeastern’s online publication. Lydia is a truly exceptional advocate, and the article does an excellent job illuminating the many reasons they became our 2017 PBP Award Winner. If you can’t make it to the Annual Conference next week, or you want an early glimpse of photos from Lydia’s award ceremony late last month, check out Northeastern’s coverage.

Hope to see you next week at NALP’s Annual Conference!
Sam

Student Debt

• “The Trump administration announced plans to make it easier for permanently disabled military veterans to have their federal student debt wiped away.“

Immigration

• America Magazine reported that the Department of Justice will temporarily halt its Legal Orientation Program, “[a] federal program that has help detained immigrants navigate the courts for the last 15 years”, at the end of the month while an audit assesses its cost-effectiveness.
• In Montgomery County, MD, the County Council discussed spending $374,000 to fund legal aid for immigrants facing deportation.

Legal Technology

• In Chicago, IL, Baker McKenzie relaunched its Homeless Youth Handbook, described as “a pro bono project led by the law firm to help homeless youth better understand their legal rights.”

Access to Justice – Civil

• In Ontario, the provincial government increased the threshold for financial eligibility for legal services by six percent, meaning “about 153,000 more people will be able to access [Legal Aid Ontairio’s] services.“
• In Kansas, businesses and other organizations joined Kansas Legal Services in an attempt to increase the amount of pro bono work performed in the state by petitioning the state Board of Law Examiners “to level the playing field by allowing in-house counsel with a restricted license to provide pro bono legal services.”
• In Ohio, the Ohio Supreme Court’s Civil Justice Program Fund provided a $50,000 grant to Southeast Ohio Legal Services “to increase legal assistance for ‘low income individuals who have children in their care but need help to get custody of the children.’“

Access to Justice – Criminal

• Legal experts criticized a Canadian Federal proposal for reducing delays in the courts, arguing that shifting caseloads from Superior Court by increasing the maximum available penalty for provincial court cases would “effectively prevent paralegals and law students from representing defendants in provincial court…because the Criminal Code only allows them to act in cases [with a lower maximum penalty.]“
• In Alberta, “[m]embers of a Calgary defense lawyers group say they will no longer do unpaid work to pressure the Alberta government to boost Legal Aid funding.”
  • Also in Alberta, the provincial government expanded duty counsel services to include defendants’ first appearance bail hearings as part of an initiative to reduce court backlogs.
• In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced plans to restore the franchise to paroled felons, a move the Chautauqua County public defender has already praised as “the first of many steps in createing ‘equal justice’.“
• In St. Lawrence County, NY, the public defender’s office proposed hiring two additional public defender positions in order to meet new caseload guidelines the New York State Office of Indigent Defense Services established last year. According to the Watertown Daily Times, “[t]he new guidelines begin taking effect this year and will phase in fully by 2023, with $50 million being added to cover the increased costs each year.”

Music Bonus!

Brass Against the Machine, “Freedom” (Beyoncé/Rage Against the Machine Mashup)

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! There’s a fair amount of news this week, including some major new developments in law-school public-interest funding at Yale, Harvard, and in Ontario.

It was Louisiana that really caught my eye this week, though. Look at the two crim-law related sections below to read about how the state legislature is looking to slash funding for indigent defense and a local judge is calling into question a method by which some public defender offices have been trying to create alternative funding streams, in partnership with district attorneys.

Until next week,
Sam

Law School Public Interest Funding
& Student Loans

• At Yale Law, a classmate of Hillary Clinton is working to create a Public Interest Fund, in Ms. Clinton’s name, that would allow for two recent Yale grads to obtain year-long fellowships–and ultimately to create additional legal clinics at the school.
• At Harvard Law, students continued their advocacy efforts with the University, aimed at convincing the school to “strengthen its support for graduates pursuing public interest and lower-paying work.”
• In Ontario, the provincial government allocated an additional $7.3m for community legal clinics and law student legal aid services throughout the provinces in 2018-2019.
• In Alberta, a lack of legal aid funding from the provincial government fueled ongoing speculation about a potential legal aid strike.
• In Texas, state lawmakers called for changes to the a state statute barring workers from renewing professional licenses if they are in default on their student loans.
• 29 State Attorneys General wrote a letter to select members of Congress expressing opposition to the PROSPER Act’s provisions that would shield student loan collection companies from regulation by individual states.
• One of the country’s largest student loan servicers “sued the Connecticut Banking Department, challenging the agency’s demands for confidential information about its student loan borrowers.” [full article behind paywall]

Hiring Trends

• In Pittsburgh, PA, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette chronicled the difficulties the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office has had with turnover over the last year.

Immigration

• “More than two dozen elite private law firms filed amicus briefs…backing Hawaii in its U.S. Supreme Court challenge to President Trump’s executive order barring people from several Muslim majority countries from entering the United States.”
• A federal district judge ruled that the Commerce Department International Trade Administration (ITA) must comply with FOIA requests for its records on alien ingress for the same fees as other records. (The ITA had been charging $13,000 per year to access its data.)
• In New Jersey, prominent attorneys argued for the State Supreme Court to “promulgate a rule on an expedited basis imposing a special fee of $100 per year on every lawyer in the state…[with t]he proceeds…dedicated to enlisting attorneys to defend New Jersey residents facing possible deportation.”

Emerging Service Models

• Slate.com published an excellent piece on medical-legal partnerships in the United States.

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Idaho, the Idaho Statesman reported on how “[a] growing body of research on Idaho’s overworked and underfunded public defenders has led to consensus across the board — from defendants to politicians to the public defenders themselves — that the system needs to change.”
• In Louisiana, public defenders spoke out against House Bill 167, a state legislature proposal that would shut down efforts to identify and exonerate the wrongfully convicted, cut funding for death penalty defense, and restrict funds for appealing convictions. The defenders warn these changes could slow the administration of justice and possibly cost the state more, long-term, than the status quo.

Criminal Justice Reform

• In Canada, the federal government proposed legislation that would “scrap most preliminary inquires, abolish peremptory challenges and make it easier for accused people to be released on bail as part of sweeping legislation intended to speed up Canada’s snail-like criminal-justice system.”
• In New York, NY, the Legal Aid Society argued to an appeals court that the City made false claims to the court below in a lawsuit concerning transparency for disciplinary records in the NYPD.
• In DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, a judge raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest in a new cooperative endeavor agreement under which the District Attorney’s Office will pay the Public Defender’s Office a portion of money the DA collects from a pretrial diversion program. Meanwhile, the Public Defender moved to recuse the judge, alleging the court itself had a “personal interest” in the matter. All public-defender-represented cases have been suspended until the issue is resolved.

Music Bonus!

William Shatner, “Common People”