Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public!

Hope 2020 is treating everyone well so far. I’m reeling a bit from the onslaught of news, so this is our first Digest of the year. We’re off to a roaring start. The right to counsel in immigration and asylum cases saw major developments, with a federal judge in California affirming asylum seekers’ right to counsel while New York State legislators debated creating a statutory right to publicly-funded counsel in deportation cases. Student loans also continue to make headlines, with the House of Representatives repudiating Secretary DeVos’ new regulations concerning student loan forgiveness in situations of fraud and a bankruptcy judge in New York discharging a lawyer’s student loan debt. Criminal justice reform has also been a major topic, from Minnesota, where Attorney General Ellison called for an investigation into the summary firing of Hennepin County’s Chief Public Defender, to Missouri, where the St. Louis District Attorney filed a federal suit against the city and its police union under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. Oh! And former PSJD Fellow and Georgetown OPICS alum Katie Dilks was named the Executive Director of the Oklahoma Access to Justice Foundation. Congratulations Katie!

As always, these stories and more are in the links below.

See you around,

Sam

Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Issues

• In Ciudad Juarez MX, “Mexican authorities [] removed almost 100 Mexican migrants seeking asylum in the United States from a camp in downtown Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, according to a Reuters witness, after state police threatened to separate parents from their children.”
• In San Francisco CA, “the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office filed a Motion for Temporary Restraining Order against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Yuba County Sheriff’s Office with the U.S. Federal District Court, Northern District of California, requesting an immediate hearing on behalf of a female transgender immigrant who was illegally transferred on Christmas night to a remote detention facility in Texas.”
• In Los Angeles CA, the Council on American-Islamic Relations Los Angeles (CAIR-LA) is “working to educate the Iranian community about their legal rights in light of reports of increased profiling and discrimination against Iranians across the nation.”
• In San Diego CA, “[f]inding asylum seekers have a right to counsel when undergoing interviews to determine whether they can be returned to Mexico under the “Remain in Mexico” program, a federal judge [] confirmed immigration law guarantees attorney access for migrants.”
• In Albany NY, “[l]egislation is being introduced [] that would create a statutory right to a lawyer for any New Yorker facing deportation who cannot afford an attorney on their own.​”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In Los Angeles CA, “the UCLA School of Law is enhancing its Loan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP), starting in January. …Under new LRAP guidelines, alumni with incomes up to $75,000 will have their eligible loan payments fully covered, an increase from the previous threshold of $60,000.”
• In Washington DC, “[Senator Elizabeth] Warren said that as president, she would not wait for Congress to approve her plans to cancel or modify federal student debt. Instead, she would directly authorize the Department of Education to provide as much as $50,000 in relief to about 95% of student loan borrowers.”
• Also in Washington DC, “[t]he House voted 231-180 to overturn new regulations introduced by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos that critics argue limit student loan forgiveness when a college closes due to fraud.”
• In California, “[t]he CFPB filed a complaint last week in a California federal district court against several companies and individuals involved in offering student loan debt relief services for allegedly obtaining consumer reports unlawfully, charging unlawful advance fees, and engaging in deceptive conduct.”
• In New York NY, “[a] bankruptcy judge excused a U.S. Navy veteran with a law degree from repaying more than $220,000 in student loan debt, the latest court ruling to lower the barriers to discharging educational debt.”

Disaster Law & The Environment

• In Washington DC, “US President Donald Trump's administration announced Thursday sweeping changes to an environmental law that would speed up the construction of highways, airports and pipelines [by] rais[ing] the threshold for what types of projects require an environmental impact assessment.”
• In Portland OR, Willamette Week described how “[i]n just a few months, the city of Portland will begin investing the proceeds from a groundbreaking new tax on large companies [in a] local version of the Green New Deal proposed in 2019 by U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).”
• In Cambridge MA, “[d]ozens of Harvard Law School students disrupted a first-year student recruitment event held by corporate law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP[], calling on the firm to stop representing the oil and gas company ExxonMobil in ongoing climate change litigation.”

Legal Technology

• In Las Vegas NV, Amazon’s top hardware executive “said he’s proud of the [Ring law enforcement] program, believes the partnerships with police departments are good for neighborhoods, and hinted at a future in which Ring cameras could use Amazon’s facial recognition technology—a scenario that some of Ring’s critics have already expressed concerns about.”
• In Montreal QC, the Cyberjustice Laboratory launched “Autonomy through Cyberjustice Technologies (ACT)[:] the largest international mutlidisciplinary research initiative that seeks to leverage AI to increase access to justice while providing justice stakeholders with a roadmap to help them develop technology that is better adapted to justice.”
• In Canada, the Canadian Bar Association published a statement on “Modernizing the Federal Court”.
• The ABA Journal interviewed Richard Susskind about his thoughts on “[o]nline courts, the future of justice and being bold in 2020.”

Non-Profit & Government Management & Hiring

• In Chicago IL, “Executive search firm Isaacson, Miller has been enlisted to find the next president and chief executive officer for the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law[.]”
• In New Jersey, “[t]he New Jersey Supreme Court [] questioned why public defenders should not receive the state Tort Claims Act protections afforded to other state employees as the justices challenged a wrongfully convicted man’s bid to revive his legal malpractice suit[.]”
• Also in New Jersey, “state lawmakers approved a bill that will compel employers to give more notice and pay severance to laid-off workers, after a public backlash against the treatment of workers who lost their jobs in the retail apocalypse…Maxine Neuhauser, an attorney with Epstein Becker Green in Newark, said nonprofit employers could be in a bind if they suddenly lose out on government grants or funding.”
• In Above the Law, an op-ed argued that “Public Interest Organizations Must Use Their Surge In Donations To Pay Their Lawyers A Living Wage.”

Access to Justice – Civil

• In Connecticut, the State Bar Association created a “State of the Legal Profession Task Force[; a move] driven by the access-to-justice gap, as well as the challenges lawyers face in the current system.”
• In New York NY, “[e]victions [] have plummeted nearly 20% in the six months since Albany lawmakers enacted sweeping new tenant protection laws.The drop. revealed in city data compiled over the past two years, shows evictions in the last half of 2019 stood at 8,951, down from 10,958 over the same period in 2018.”
• Law360 published a list of “4 Access To Justice Cases to Watch in 2020”.
• In Indiana, “Chief Justice Loretta Rush issued a call to arms for everyone involved in the state’s justice system in her annual State of the Judiciary Address[:] one glaring area of need is legal aid. Too many people, she says, go unrepresented in court.”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Minneapolis MN, “Attorney General Keith Ellison [] called for the Minnesota Board of Public Defense to examine the process that led to the suspension of Hennepin County's chief public defender, saying he believes Mary Moriarty was targeted for speaking out against racial bias in the criminal justice system.”
• In Alaska, the state’s Public Defender Agency responded to a recent gubernatorial report which claimed “defender caseloads are reasonable when compared to established professional measures.” The Public Defender Agency asserted that “Alaska shouldn’t join other states in failing to represent low-income defendants.” (As characterized in third-party reporting.)
• In Jefferson County OH, “County commissioners [] agreed to create a commission to study whether the county should create to a public defender’s office.”
• In Berrien County MI, “[f]or the second time since the Berrien County Public Defender’s Office opened three years ago, Berrien County is losing its chief public defender to a larger county.”
• In Fresco County CA, “[t]he [] County Public Defenders Office will be adding much-needed lawyers to its ranks as part of a legal settlement between the county and the American Civil Liberties Union.”

Criminal Justice Reform

• In New York, “[a] group of 64 activist groups called on Cuomo to “immediately prioritize the full statewide repeal” of a law known by its statute number, 50-a, which guards the confidentiality of personnel records of police, firefighters, correction officers and other uniformed officers.”
• In Virginia, “Gov. Ralph Northam [] announced his criminal justice reform agenda for 2020.”
• In San Francisco CA, “[n]ewly elected San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin fired multiple prosecutors on Friday afternoon as he reshapes the office and begins implementing his progressive vision two days after being sworn in.”
• In St. Louis MO, “[a] top prosecutor has filed a federal lawsuit against the city of St Louis and its police union citing a nearly 150-year-old law used to combat the Ku Klux Klan white supremacist group.”
• In related news, “[o]ne day after St. Louis’ top prosecutor filed a federal lawsuit alleging a concerted and racist conspiracy to push her out of office, other black female prosecutors from across the U.S. defended Kim Gardner, saying they’ve faced the same resistance in their own communities.”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! Hope the final days of this decade are treating you all well. Among the many retrospectives this week, you may find the one by Slate interesting, which describes the 2010’s as “The Decade Class Actions Were Gutted.” In the here-and-now, immigration and student loans stories continue to dominate, with a new federal lawsuit accusing the Trump administration of “weaponizing” the immigration court system and the Trump administration announcing its intention to take up student loan debt reform. 

In sunnier news, the right to counsel in eviction just received bipartisan federal attention in the Senate! As usual, these stories and more are in the links below.

See you around,
  Sam

Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Issues

• In Portland OR, “[l]egal service providers filed a federal lawsuit…challenging the ‘weaponization’ of the U.S. immigration court system. The filing is asking a federal judge in Portland to declare that the court system is illegal.”
  • Relatedly the Wall Street Journal ran an article under the headline “Immigration Tent Courts at Border Raise Due-Process Concerns”.
• In Washington DC, Human Rights First released a report on “escalating human rights abuses against asylum seekers returned to Mexico by the Trump administration” alleging that “Trump administration officials continue to knowingly send people who have asked for refugee protection to be kidnapped, exploited, beaten, raped and even killed in Mexico[.]”
• In Milford CT, “[m]embers of Unidad Latina en Accion renewed its call for the ban Thursday after ICE agents attempted to arrest a woman at Superior Court in Milford and demanded identification from a second woman who is in the United States legally.”
  • Relatedly, “[t]he Trump administration is defending U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement’s authority to arrest suspected unauthorized immigrants at Massachusetts state courthouses, telling a Boston federal court…that the agency can make its arrests anywhere.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In Washington DC, “[a] new report prepared by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) for Vermont senator and 2020 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders [finds that] millennials are financial worse off than their parents and may not have the opportunity to do better.” Specifically, “student loan debt is what really differentiates millennial finances from other generations, with millenials more likely to have student debt that exceeds their annual income.” (Full report available here.)
• Also in Washington DC, “[t]he Trump administration is considering ways to help Americans with their student-loan debt, according to senior administration officials, including by refinancing loans at lower interest rates and eliminating debt in bankruptcy.”
• Also also in Washington DC, “Education Secretary Betsy DeVos [] vigorously defended her decision to grant partial or no loan relief to tens of thousands of students who were misled by for-profit colleges, blaming the Obama administration for overpromising debt relief.”
• Again also in Washington DC, “[l]awmakers continue to berate Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Kathy Kraninger over failures related to the oversight of student loan servicers, blaming her for allowing the massive problems in the student loan system to ‘fester.’”
• The Motley Fool reported that “only 44% of millennials with student loans say they completely understood their repayment terms before officially taking them on. And more than 33% of younger borrowers admitted that they didn’t even understand some of the basics associated with student loans — concepts like monthly payments, interest rates, and refinancing.”
• The Urban Institute updated its Debt in America Interactive Map, which allows users to filter specifically for student debt.
• In San Francisco, MeasureOne released its “Private Student Loan Report, an industry leading research report leveraging MeasureOne’s custom analytics services. This 13th edition of the report again affirms that students and families continue to responsibly use private student loans to cover college costs.”
• In New York, Pillar, a personal finance app, “launched a new feature for the holidays called Boost. Boost is the first gifting platform for consumers exclusively dedicated to paying off student loan debt. With Boost by Pillar, a person’s friends and family can make payments towards their loved one’s student loans. Pillar automatically applies these crowdfunded payments directly towards the user’s student loan debt[.]”
• Forbes published a discussion about “the unexpected dangers of paying off student loans with your 401(k) savings”.
• The New York Times published a discussion of “‘income-share agreements,’ [] new financial instrument[s] being promoted by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.”

Legal Technology

• In Florida, an unauthorized practice of law case filed by “traffic-ticket goliath The Ticket Clinic” against the technology service TIKD, which “invite[s motorists] to ‘spend two minutes or less’ taking a photo of [their] ticket, uploading it and paying a fee based on the fine amount[,]” is heading to the Florida Supreme Court: “Justices set arguments for March 4 to help them decide whether the app should be allowed or shut down.”
• In California, “Verogen, a California-based forensic genomics company, acquired GEDmatch, a user-sourced DNA genealogy site. The acquisition suggests that GEDmatch’s transformation from a popular genealogy site to a crime-fighting tool is almost complete. The privacy implications will be enormous, even for those who have never considered taking a consumer genetic test.”
• In St. Louis MO, after studying “the state bars of Arizona and Florida[, which] employ programs that match attorneys with pro bono work via software[,]” the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis has begun developing its “Pro Bono Software Project”.
• OpenGlobalRights argued that “the wild west of online political campaigning threatens to damage our democracies irreparably[; and w]e should be turning to international human rights law to set [] boundaries.”
• In South Dakota, “[a] new online tool that links lower-income South Dakotans and lawyers seems to be much faster than the old way, where legal-aid staff directly took people’s initial information.”

Non-Profit & Government Management & Hiring

• In Washington DC, “under a bill that could become law this week [t]he United States government would be prohibited from asking job applicants about their criminal history at the start of the hiring process.”
• In Seattle WA, “the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington ordered the Department of Defense to turn over documents that it has withheld regarding the Trump-Pence administration’s ban on open military service by transgender people, including its purported justifications for the policy.”
• In Montgomery AL, “employees at Southern Poverty Law Center took the next step in their drive for unionization, successfully voting to join the Washington-Baltimore News Guild in a vote of 142-45. The vote comes after SPLC management declined to voluntarily recognize the union and hired legal counsel that raised fears about pushback against union efforts[.]”
• Phys.org published a study in which “sociology researchers [] analyze[d] 41 predominantly white organizations and their leaders [where t]hese organizations seek to address local, state, and national issues by organizing community members to help influence public policy.” Researchers found that “all else being equal, organizations with a leader of color were more likely to address racial issues internally and when shaping public policy.”

Access to Justice – Civil

• Slate.com published a retrospective on the 2010’s as “The Decade Class Actions Were Gutted.”
• In Washington DC, “[a] bipartisan group of legislators introduced a bill yesterday that would provide aid for renters facing eviction[.] ..In addition to providing funds to avoid eviction, the bill would also improve legal representation for tenants by supporting the expansion of landlord-tenant community courts, increasing the presence of social service representatives for at-risk tenants, and funding the Legal Services Corporation, a public-private partnership that provides legal services to low-income Americans”
• In Toronto ON, Toronto Life published an interview with three local attorneys in which they weighed in on the effect of Premier Ford’s cuts to legal aid.
• In New York NY, “the Mayor’s Office announced an expansion of the Right to Counsel program that provides free legal assistance to New Yorkers fighting eviction. The Right to Counsel program, implemented by a ZIP code by ZIP code approach, will be expanded to five more ZIP codes across the City.”
• In Puerto Rico, “[a] Puerto Rican bar association is challenging the commonwealth’s new pro bono requirements, arguing they violate attorneys’ constitutional rights including due process and equal protection.”
• The Center for American Progress published “5 Principles for Civil Justice Reform”.

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Wyoming, “[t]he Wyoming Legislature’s Joint Judiciary Committee advanced legislation…that would create a new state agency committed to representing children in juvenile court.”
• In Oregon, the Blue Mountain Eagle profiled “the Forensic Justice Project[, a] small Portland-based nonprofit…dedicated to helping defense lawyers understand, find and challenge scientific evidence introduced during trials.”
• In Buffalo NY, “[a]s part of a five-year program, the Legal Aid Bureau of Buffalo will receive enough state aid to increase its staff of defense attorneys from 24 to 50.”
• In Columbiana County OH, “[t]he non-profit organization of attorneys created to provide public defender representation in Columbiana County is getting more funding in 2020, which in the end will reduce the amount of money county commissioners have to spend on the program.”
• In Richland County OH, “[r]epresentatives of the Richland County Bar Association have indicated that the association could act this week to accept a compromise fee schedule for attorneys who represent indigent defendants and end their boycott of those cases, following a promise that the new fees will be reviewed again in mid-2020.”

Criminal Justice Reform

• In Los Angeles CA, “[t]wo candidates on the left are challenging [] the current D.A. One of the challengers [is] a former public defender for both LA County and the federal government.”
  • In a related news story, “[t]wo candidates running to become the district attorney of Los Angeles County are voicing support for decriminalizing possession of all drugs.”
• In Prince Edward Island, “Charlottetown and Summerside [are] asking the province to give police new power to seize property[.]”
• In New York, “[u]nder new bail restrictions [taking effect Jan. 1], judges will no longer be able to weigh the risk to public safety and order defendants jailed with bail unless they are charged with certain violent or sex felony charges. Instead, defendants will be issued appearance tickets in nearly all cases. The legislation also compresses the prosecution’s timeline for sharing information with defendants and their legal counsel.”
• In Philadelphia PA, “the state Superior Court has ruled [that the] Pennsylvania Supreme Court is the only appellate court with the authority to review a Philadelphia trial judge’s controversial decision to replace the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office with a special prosecutor in a probation violation matter.”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! Big news this week included revised plans for legal aid funding out of Ontario and a Department of Education decision not to issue full refunds to student debt-holders who were victims of fraud by for-profit colleges. You may also want to give the first article in the immigration section a look. I’d say more, but unfortunately I have to run.

See you around,

  Sam

Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Issues

• BuzzFeed reported that “US Border Officials Are Issuing Fake Court Notices to Keep Out Immigrants Who Have Won Asylum[.]”
• Minnesota Lawyer reported that “[w]hile the government previously targeted immigrants with a criminal history, undocumented immigrants today are being put into removal proceedings even though they have no criminal record in the United States, lawyers say. As a result, a backlog of immigration cases is clogging the docket…across the country. Immigration attorneys say the sheer number of cases has outstripped their ability to help asylum-seekers. The [DOJ] has instructed immigration judges to pick up the pace of their cases.”
• In California, “[a]n immigration nonprofit accused [ICE] in [] federal court [] of preventing detainees from calling its hotline for reporting detention center abuses.” (Nonprofit Quarterly also covered this story.)
• In Utah, “a federal judge…decided.. [that p]eople born in the territory of American Samoa should be recognized as U.S. citizens[.]”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In Washington DC, “Education Secretary Betsy DeVos came under intense scrutiny from congressional Democrats on Thursday for refusing to fully forgive student loans for people who say they have been defrauded by for-profit colleges. DeVos has instead proposed a loan forgiveness plan based on earnings data.”
  • Meanwhile, “Secretary…DeVos…defender her decision to move ahead with partial loan forgiveness for students defrauded by for-profit colleges.”
• In Pennsylvania, the Penn Capital-Star published a profile of the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, titled “How an obscure Pa. state agency became one of the nation’s biggest student loan servicers.”
• The Chronicle of Higher Education profiled the various legal challenges to the Trump administrations’ efforts to “roll back student-loan oversight”.
• The Roosevelt Institute published an analysis concluding that “[t]he [US] Education Department could cancel all U.S. student debt itself–and without any action by Congress[.]”

Legal Tchnology

• In Washington DC, “Attorney General William P. Barr [] signaled that the Justice Department plans to [] explor[e] new legal tools to probe [tech] companies for their privacy abuses and the way they police content online.”
• In Fresno CA, “[t]he Fresno Public Defender’s Office and Uptrust the social justice text messaging communication platform, has [sic] announced a partnership to reduce the number of Failure to Appear (FTA) incidents, arrest warrants and technical violations in the county.”
• In Pennsylvania, “the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled [last month] that it is a violation of the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination to compel a defendant to disclose a password to allow policy access to a “lawfully seized, but encrypted, computer.”
• In New York NY, the city’s “Automated Decision System Task Force” “failed at even completing a first necessary step in its work: getting access to basic information about automated systems already in use, according to task force members and observers.”
  • Meanwhile, AI Now Institute published a shadow report last week that, according to CityLab, “has issued a stark warning cry about ‘the limitations of existing bureaucratic procedures’ to tackle automated decisions.”\
• Fast Company reported on “[a] new chatbot called Mona, designed for Facebook Messenger and Telegram, [that is designed to] get reliable information and services on[to] the same platforms that refugees are already using, and reach them on their own terms with information and services that they [can] use when they actually need it most[.]”

Non-Profit & Government Management & Hiring

• LegalNewsLine published a warning from a partner at ReedSmith that “[c]ity, county and tribal governments’ strategy of hiring private lawyers in opioid and other litigation is causing a ‘misalignment of the values’ between those entities and the traditional primacy of state attorneys general[.]”
• In Dallas-Fort Worth TX, “[u]nion representatives for Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas employees [picketed] the group’s board meeting.”
• In Houston TX, “[a] coalition of advocates, legal groups and a workers’ union [opposed] the district attorney’s upcoming budget request for 58 more prosecutors and questioning her commitment to justice reform.”
• Government Executive analyzed “All the Federal Workforce Provisions Tucked into the Defense Policy Bill[.]”
• In Alberta, the president of the Alberta Crown Attorneys’ Association described the province’s working conditions for prosecutors as “a state of continual crisis[.]”
• In Philadelphia PA, “Philadelphia Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, the 41-year-old pro bono legal services organization serving emerging artists and arts organizations, will return to being an independent nonprofit after more than a decade of being funded by the Chamber of Commerce of Greater Philadelphia’s Arts and Business Council.”
• The Environmental Integrity Project reported that a survey of “annual expenditures and staffing levels from fiscal year 2008 to 2018 for state agencies that protect public health and the environment [revealed that] state eliminated 4,400 positions at agencies responsible for protecting the environment.”
• The Arizona Republic reported that “[e]ven in a lengthy economic expansion, many nonprofits still have trouble providing social services and all the other support needed by the community…[as n]ationally, the pattern has been one of lower donations from middle-class sources.”

Access to Justice – Civil

• In Toronto ON, the province’s “attorney general [] cancell[ed] planned cuts to legal aid funding, but this year’s 30-per-cent budget cut is being made permanent.”
  • However, an opinion columnist at CBC argued that “despite walking back $30 million in planned cuts to Legal Aid Ontario (LAO), [Attorney General] Downey’s legislation is a Trojan horse for his ultimate goal — a cruel gutting of access to justice for the impoverished.”
• In Canada more broadly, the Globe and Mail reported that “[l]egal experts say the justice system is failing Canada’s working poor, many of whom are unable to afford lawyers and end up pleading guilty or representing themselves in court.”
• NextCity Magazine surveyed changes in local government to ask, “Is Tenants’ Right to Counsel on Its Way to Becoming Standard Practice?”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Wyoming, the State Public Defender, who “has warned the Legislature that her office is essentially in crisis due to heavy caseloads and struggles to retain attorneys,” “spoke in favor of Gov. Mark Gordon’s budget proposal for the 2021-22 biennium[.]”
• In Maine, “[t]he Main Legislature’s government watchdog agency [announced] a more thorough investigation into how the state provides legal services for the poor, with a specific focus on the oversight of the program and its procedures.”

Criminal Justice Reform

• In North Carolina, “[t]he State Judicial Council convened…to discuss judicial branch reforms and to push for increased funding…for improved case management, bail reform, and improved drug treatment courts…It was the first time the council had convened in five years[.]”
• In New Hampshire, “[Governor] Sununu appoint[ed a] former public defender to head [the] parole board.” The new Chairman, Jennifer Brooke Sargent, also has experience as a judge and a prosecutor.

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! Hope everyone had a chance to relax over Thanksgiving, because we’ve got a lot of ground to cover in another two-week span of news.

There’s an upcoming law review article arguing there’s a generational gap in the approach public interest lawyers take to their work (that’s the Editor’s Pick this week). Additionally, major changes to immigration law are underway as DOJ published memos limiting service providers’ ability to assist unaccompanied migrant children and the Supreme Court granted cert. on a case in which the federal government appealed a circuit decision striking down a statute criminalizing activity that “encourages or induces an alien come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such [behavior] is or will be in violation of the law” as overbroad in violation of the First Amendment. Meanwhile, Secretary of Education DeVos proposed spinning off the Department of Education’s student loan portfolio into a separate federal agency, the Miami Herald reported a “staggering exodus” of underpaid government attorneys in their city, and the Deputy Attorney General of the United States wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post expressing alarm over the recent trend toward “progressive prosecution” among city District Attorneys.

As always, these stories and more are linked below.

See you around,

Sam

Editor’s Pick: Rise of a New Generation of Legal Advocates

TheCrimeReport.org previewed arguments from a forthcoming law review article that Professors Luz E. Herrer (Texas A&M) and Louise Trubek (U Wisconsin) will publish in the New York University Review of Law and Social Change:

“ ‘Critical lawyers are creating an architecture that leverages their expertise to help clients and communities advance their social justice missions,’ the authors said. Their practices differ from the traditional non-profit public interest firms of the earlier generation that assumed justice would result if there [sic] law and lawyers were accessible.”

Should be an interesting read, when it comes out.

Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Issues

• In Washington DC, “[t]he Supreme Court has agreed to take up United States v. Sineneng-Smith, a case that involves an obscure provision in the immigration laws that imposes liability on anyone who “encourages or induces” someone to reside in the United States knowing that such residence is in violation of the law. Broadly written, this provision and the ultimate decision by the Supreme Court could have a devastating impact on the legal advocates community, not just sending a chill but grinding to a halt most of the legal work [they] do.” (More on this case from ScotusBlog.)
• Also in Washington DC, “[a] pair of recent policy memos issued by the U.S. Department of Justice places more limits on legal service providers offering assistance to unaccompanied migrant children[.]”
• Also also in Washington DC, “[a] new U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services policy will increase the price of citizenship applications by 83%. DACA renewals are also increasing to almost $800.”
• Again also in Washington DC, “U.S. Attorney William Bar denounced Oregon’s new rule that federal immigration agents must have warrants to make arrests on courthouse properties.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In Washington DC, “Education Secretary Betsy DeVos…said the government’s $1.5 trillion student loan portfolio should be someone else’s problem[:] …Ms. DeVos said it should be spun off into its own federal agency.” The DC bureau chief of The Intercept opined that “[t]his very much appears to be a [] scheme to block the next president from unilaterally forgiving federal student debt.”
• Also in Washington DC, “Senator [Rand] Paul introduced the Higher Education Loan Payment and Enhanced Retirement (HELPER) Act. His bill would allow Americans to take up to $5,250 annually from a 401(k) or IRA to pay their student loans, tax and penalty free.” (Here’s Sen. Paul’s press release and the text of the bill.)
• Also also in Washington DC, “[l]awmakers are calling for an investigation into a troubled student loan discharge program one day after an NPR report revealed that the program–meant to erase the student debts of borrowers with significant, permanent disabilities–wasn’t helping the vast majority of those who are eligible.”
• Again also in Washington DC, “consumer advocates filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, accusing these government agencies of failing to protect student loan borrowers.” (Here’s the complaint.)
  • Meanwhile, “Attorney General Phil Weiser has joined 20 other states in filing a brief in a federal case in support of public servants who were promised student loan debt forgiveness in exchange for 10 years of public service, but were denied that relief due to the U.S. Department of Education’s mismanagement of the program.” (See Weingarten et al. v. DeVos et al.)
• In Iowa, “Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren suggest[ed] her plan to eliminate student loan debt may address population losses in rural Iowa…’Folks who’ve got to meet that nut every single month are a lot more likely to head out to the two coasts. I hear this from families all over Iowa.’ ”
• The Wall Street Journal analyzed data recently released by the U.S. Department of Education to observe that “[t]he vast majority of law-school graduates carry debt loads that exceed their initial earnings[.]”

2020 Census

• In the United States, “[t]ribes, voting activists, urban American Indian organizations and attorneys are collaborating closely with the federal government as the 2020 census looms and taking the wheel on outreach efforts to make sure Native Americans don’t lose out on federal funding or the political benefits of an accurate count.”
  • Meanwhile, “[a] new lawsuit in New York accuses the Trump administration of starving the U.S. Census Bureau of necessary funding, likely causing an undercounting in the 2020 census of racial and ethnic minorities and depriving them of crucial federal funds. In a complaint on Tuesday, the Brooklyn-based nonprofit Center for Popular Democracy Action and the city of Newburgh, New York said the government arbitrarily and capriciously slashed resources to count blacks, Hispanics, immigrants, the homeless and other members of “hard-to-count” communities.”

International Law

• In Washington DC, “[t]he U.S. has revoked the visa of the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, weeks after warning it would take such an action against anyone from the ICC who is investigating allegations that U.S. personnel might have committed war crimes in Afghanistan.”

Legal Technology

• In Washington State, “Bellingham-based lawyer Ziad Youssef…has seen hundreds of people sign up for his company’s free online service, Busted911.com. If you’re a member and you’re arrested and taken to a local jail, you’ll receive a free call from a lawyer and your emergency contacts will be notified…If your name appears on a jail roster, a criminal defense lawyer is immediately notified to contact you and help you get released.”
• In Ontario, “a report by former Attorney General Chris Bentley [argued that b]ecause lawyers have a ‘monopoly’ on giving legal advice, consumers may be depreived of the faster, simpler and cheaper options potentially available via direct to consumer automated legal tools.”
• Law.com profiled the “New York City and Philadelphia[] public defender offices[, which] started rolling out digital forensic labs this year. The two cities are among the very few in the U.S. to find the budget and expertise for such an endeavor.”
  • Meanwhile, “New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has appointed a rising star in the field of law-enforcement technology to reboot the agency that oversees the city’s internet services and telecommunications[.]”

Non-Profit & Government Management & Hiring

• In Washington DC, “[l]awmakers…have just a few weeks to agree on a budget deal to keep the federal government open [and n]onprofits across the nation..are dreading another government shutdown especially after the last one left some organizations still struggling today.”
• In Miami FL, the Miami Herald reported “a staggering exodus over the past year among the ranks of prosecutors and state-funded defense lawyers in Miami-Dade County. With the economy humming, private law firms have expanded hiring attorneys prized for the invaluable trial experience gained in the grind that is Miami-Dade’s criminal courthouse…Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle and Public Defender Carlos Martinez will travel to Tallahassee next week to lobby the Legislature for a significant pay increase for their lawyers.”
• In San Joaquin County CA, “[t]he…Office of the Public Defender has been sued by a former employee alleging repeated sexual harassment, failure by management to adequately address her complaints, retaliation, and fear for her safety at work even after some of her allegations were substantiated by an independent investigation.”
• In Richmond VA, “[p]ublic defenders who represent nearly half of the people facing criminal charges in Richmond’s court system … [are] campaigning to get City Hall to provide the same kind of taxpayer-funded salary supplement that the city has long granted the attorneys who prosecute the alleged offenders and the Richmond Sheriff’s Office that jails those who are convicted.”
• In Philadelphia PA, “[a] majority of the attorneys at the Defender Association of Philadelphia have announced their intent to unionize in partnership with the United Automobile Workers, a manufacturing workers union that also represents legal aid groups.”
• In Manitoba, “defense attorneys are considering job action if the province doesn’t increase the amount it pays for legal aid.”
• In Alberta, “[t]he government of Alberta announced that it is doubling the number of Crown articling students, ensuring homegrown talent stays in Alberta.”
  • Meanwhile, “Alberta Justice is preparing to lay off 90 civil-law lawyers as its legal services division struggles to absorb a $20-million budget cut[.]”
• The Electronic Frontier Foundation argued that “[t]he .ORG top-level domain and all of the nonprofit organizations that depend on it are at risk if a private equity firm is allowed to buy control of it….[because] it would give Ethos Capital the power to censor the speech of nonprofit organizations (NGOs) to advance commercial interests, and to extract ever-growing monopoly rents from those same nonprofits.”

Access to Justice – Civil

• In Calgary AB, “[l]egal experts say the justice system is failing Canada’s working poor, many of whom are unable to afford lawyers and end up pleading guilty or representing themselves in court.”
• In California, “[a]…state bar task force crafting proposals to overhaul regulation of the state’s legal marketplace has drawn criticism from attorneys who believe some of its members evaluating whether to open up the legal industry to nonlawyer ownership and greater technology-driven legal services have conflicts of interest.”
• In San Antonio TX, after “the [] City Council earmarked $100,000 for a ‘Right to Counsel’ pilot program to offer legal help for renters facing evictions[, t]he city is in the midst of negotiating with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid to provide the services.”
• In New York, New York Attorney General Letitia A. James argued that “[p]roposals to streamline New York state’s sprawling and cumbersome court system are leaving out an often overlooked but critical part of the system: the state’s more than 1,250 randomly operated and loosely regulated town and village courts.”
• In Ontario, the Law Society of Ontario recently approved a budget “which reduced fees for lawyers and paralegals [but which] Nima Hojjati, the chair of the law society’s Equity Advisory Group, [argued] was a ‘missed opportunity’ to assist access to justice and that the profession should have been consulted.”
  • • Relatedly, “[a]n Ottawa defence lawyer sa[id] some the city’s most vulnerable people are feeling the effects of a court system that’s been “gutted” by a massive cut to Legal Aid Ontario’s [LAO] finances.”
• In Texas, “New Texas Lawbook data shows that even as corporate law firms in Texas earn record profits, they have not increased the amount of pro bono legal work they do on behalf of the poor and disadvantaged. Many law firms, in fact, are doing less pro bono work than they were just a few years ago. Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht estimated that between 20 and 30 percent of all Texans who seek help from legal aid offices in Texas are turned away because of staff shortages. “The situation is dire,” Hecht said. The state’s biggest and most successful firms, however, are not stepping up to ease the shortage.”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Austin TX, Community Impact published an update on ongoing work to create a public defender’s office for Travis County, authorized last August: “[w]hen the grant expires in 2024, Travis County will have a 67-person staff—about two-thirds attorneys—taking on 30% of indigent cases. The remainder will continue to be appointed private attorneys.”
• In Missouri, “state legislators say the state’s broken public defender system needs to be properly funded, but caution that budgetary and political concerns could get in the way.”
• In Utah County UT, “public defenders have taken on an average of 367 cases per attorney this year [while] public defenders in Salt Lake County handle between 140 and 160 caseloads annually [and] although annual funding has increased the county has not put forward money to hire new attorneys in nearly a dozen years.”
• In Spalding County GA, the “Board of Commissioners has once again tabled the indigent defense contract for State and Juvenile courts[.]”

Criminal Justice Reform

• In Philadelphia PA, “[District Attorney Larry Krasner‘s office] has quietly launched an interim version of an unprecedented ‘diversion’ program, in which prosecutors simply withdraw charges for those who show proof they’re in drug treatment.”
• The Center of Media Crime and Justice at John Jay College’s Crime Report covered a recent argument by Prof. Jeffrey Bellin (William & Mary) that “[t]he wave of so-called progressive prosecutors elected around the nation signals a return to the ‘checks and balances’ originally envisioned in the U.S. justice system[.]”
• The New York Times published a profile of “[a]lmost 60 local prosecutors across the country [who] have created special units…to review questionable convictions…tracking an increase in reform-minded prosecutors winning election in mid-size and large cities.”
  • Meanwhile, Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen argued in the Washington Post against “[a] small but troubling number of state and local prosecutors are vowing that they will not enforce entire categories of core criminal offenses, as part of a misguided experiment in “social justice reform.” A prosecutor has a vital role: to enforce the law fairly and keep the public safe. These purportedly progressive district attorneys, however, are shirking that duty in favor of unfounded decriminalization policies they claim are necessary to fix a “broken” system.”
  • Also meanwhile, the Washington Examiner argued that if you “strip away the “progressive” branding of the policies and the left-leaning personalities advocating on their behalf, and most of these initiatives are not intrinsically left-wing. Indeed, some even look downright [fiscally] conservative.”
• In Orange County CA, “[a] rapidly growing evidence scandal has swept the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and threatens to alter the criminal justice landscape[:] …Thousands of criminal cases…are potentially tainted after…internal reports revealing that hundreds of sheriff’s deputies sat on evidence and dozens of others lied about filing it.”
• In Queens NY, “[t]he Queens District Attorney’s Office reseased its list of cops who would be an issue on the witness stand[]–despite previously denying it had any lineup of ‘bad cops’[.]”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! Playing catchup after last week and it’s a bumper crop of news stories for you all, so buckle in. Of particular note: the Washington State Attorney General’s office published a report based on interviews it has conducted with children in Washington formerly detained on the southern border, unionization drives at two major civil rights organizations have met with resistance from management, and California is considering first-in-the-nation enforceable borrower protections for student loan debtors.

As always, these stories and more are linked below.

See you around,

Sam

Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Issues

• In Washington State, the state attorney general’s office released an investigative report “based on interviews with children who spent time in border detention facilities and are now living in Washington” as part of a challenge by 20 attorneys general to a Trump administration proposal “that would indefinitely detain migrant families and override current detention standards for children.” The report cannot be easily or adequately summarized; its assertions are lengthy, detailed, and grave.
• In Tuscon AZ, an “[f]ederal court jurors…drew a line between harboring and help [] when they acquitted border aid worker Scott Warren on felony charges for the assistance he gave to two Central American men last year….’The government failed in its attempt to criminalize basic human kindness,’ Warren told the crowd outside the downtown courthouse.”
• In Oregon, “Oregon Supreme Court Chief Justice Martha Walters enacted a new rule Thursday that will make it harder for immigration agents to make civil arrests in the state’s courthouses.”
• In New York NY, “[a] federal judge said [] that he plans to rule by the end of the year on the Trump administration’s bid to dismiss a suit led by New York Attorney General Letitia James to challenge its policy of arresting undocumented immigrants in and around state courthouses.”
• Also in New York NY, “[t]he Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office has announced a major initiative that could lead to the reduction or removal of criminal convictions for…immigrants who entered into plea agreements and have convictions for non-violent offenses that subject them to deportation[.]”
• In Colorado, “Governor Jared Polis says [the state] is limited in what it can do to protect DREAMers if the [DACA] program is ended.”
• Law 360 reported that “the federal government has increasingly used in immigration proceedings across the country since 2017 to try to whittle down a massive backlog of cases. At the same time, critics have pointed to breakdowns in the technology and wonder if it is limiting access to counsel for detainees, who can be warehoused hundreds or even thousands of miles away from the courthouse and their attorney.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In California, “[l]awmakers [] have put forward the first legislation in the nation that would create clear, enforceable borrower protections to rein in abuses by student loan companies[.]”
• Student Loan Hero shared “a rare example of success getting student loans forgiven with the federal PSLF program.”
• Forbes published an analysis of federal data discussing how “most PSLF applications were rejected because borrowers have not met program requirements.”
• Higher Learning Advocates released a policy brief arguing that “[o]ne of the primary accountability metrics used by the federal government [in deeming an institution ‘eligible’ for their students to receive federal student aid] … falls short of fully assessing student loan repayment outcomes[.]” The report goes on to assert that “[h]ow institutions are held accountable for defaults can be strengthened by coupling a new program-level cohort repayment rate (CRR) with the existing institution-based CDR to determine eligibility for federal student aid.”
• In Washington DC, “[u]nder threat of a subpoena, the Trump administration [has] agreed [] to provide documents detailing the Education Department’s handling of student debt relief claims to [the] House Education and Labor Committee Chairman[.]”

International Law

• Human Rights Watch released “comments on the…(draft Strategic Plan) of the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court,” noting that “As we see it, the court has achieved limited successes at a time when weakened regard for the global rule of law and politicized attacks on the court have decreased its margin for error. Court officials need to urgently address shortcomings in policy and practice to confront an emerging crisis of public confidence in the institution.”

Legal Technology

• The Knight Foundation announced plans to fund “[t]wenty-two universities, think thanks and advocacy organizations [work] delving into policy issues around technology and the internet [with a] goal[] to ‘help meet the urgent needs of federal lawmakers and other decision-makers as they shape the future of the internet, as the impact of technology on our society and democracy becomes ever more significant.’”
• In New York NY, “Axiom, the global leader in specialized on-demand legal talent, today announced a strategic partnership with Pro Bono Net, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing access to justice and legal support for the disadvantaged.”
• Also in New York NY, reformers argued that “[the] NYPD fingerprint database [recently destroyed, as mentioned in last week’s digest] [is] just part of ‘big data’ that needs oversight[.]”
• In Portland ME, “[the] City Council voted [] to postpone consideration of a proposal to ban city employees from obtaining, retaining, accessing or using facial recognition technology, or information provided by facial recognition technology.”
• In San Diego CA, “a new online tool unveiled by county prosecutors [] allows people to report suspected abuse of students in school.”
• In Kentucky, “[t]he Legal Services Corporation (LSC) [] announced that Legal Aid of the Bluegrass (LABG) will receive a $176,966 Technology Initiative Grant (TIG) to reinvigorate and improve the Kentucky statewide legal information website, kyjustice.org.”
• In Santa Barbara CA, “[t]he Santa Barbara County Public Defender’s Office and Uptrust, the social justice text messaging communication platform, has announced a pilot program to reduce the number of Failure to Appear (FTA) incidents, arrest warrants and technical violations in the county.”
• TechCrunch.com reported that “[w]ith the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) taking effect in January 2020, companies have a limited time to get a handle of customer information they have and how they need to care for it.”
• The Atlantic published an article discussing the recent revelation “that Google had secretly harvested ‘tens of millions’ of medical records–patient names, lab results, diagnoses, hospitalization records, and prescriptions–from more than 2,600 hospitals as part of a machine-learning project code-named Nightingale.”
• In Washington DC, “[a] group of top Senate Democrats said on Monday that any federal privacy legislation should include the possibility that violators will face criminal penalties or consumer lawsuits.”
• Also in Washington DC, “Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) [] introduced a bill that would curtail the flow of sensitive information about people in the US to China through large tech companies like Apple and TikTok.”

Non-Profit & Government Management & Hiring

• In Washington DC, “the National Center for Transgender Equality discharged all employees in a bargaining unit organized under the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union (NPEU); the employees were seeking recognition of a union.” According to an open letter from former staff members:
  • “Over the last decade, it’s been abundantly clear that members of the executive team hold an inconsistent and irreconcilable view of how to make the organization itself a strong social justice movement — including recognition of a union and steps needed to ensure NCTE itself is an equitable place for people of color, people with disabilities, and other marginalized members of the transgender community.”
• Meanwhile, in Montgomery AL, “staff at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) went public with their union organizing campaign. SPLC staff [sought] voluntary recognition from the nonprofit, so that contract negotiations may begin promptly.” But, according to other reports, “Southern Poverty Law Center management said [] they would not voluntarily recognize a union organized by employees at the civil rights nonprofit and have hired a Virginia law firm whose website boasts about victories over labor organization attempts.”
• In New York NY, “[f]ollowing years of complaints from the contracted providers…the New York City Council approved a budget that allows support of indirect cost rates (ICR) exceeding 10 percent of a contract between community-based organizations and the city, starting this week.”
• Also in New York NY, “[t]he New York City Council is considering legislation that would create a new office to assist non-profit organizations in navigating regulations and applying for city contracts and funding.”
• Also also in New York NY, “[a]pproximately two-thirds of unionized so-called nonattorney advocates…need to find second jobs simply to make ends meet, according to the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys[.]”
• In the United States, “[e]mployees at Jewish nonprofits all over the country are disseminating a spreadsheet meant to help inform workers–especially female ones–about the salaries of their peers[.]”
• In Alberta, the “justice ministry’s operating budget…which covers everything from jails to legal aid to prosecutors to government lawyers — is expected to shrink from $1.45 billion to $1.35 billion. The UCP government argues this can be done by modernizing labour-intensive court procedures, including digitizing services as part of an “eCourts” system[.] It has also set aside money to hire 50 additional Crown prosecutors, and increased funding for drug treatment courts[.]”
• In Washington DC, “[a] new strike force of federal and state investigators is targeting antitrust violations in government procurement…The [initiative] is part of DOJ’s focus to reverse a downturn in antitrust prosecutions and collections in recent years.”
• In Georgia, a professor at Georgia State University discussed his research indicating that the US policy of “giving [veterans] a leg up in getting a job with the federal government…has had some negative effects…particularly in terms of lessening the civil service’s diversity[.]”
• In Connecticut, Nonprofit Quarterly discussed the “[b]udget and inequity issues [that] have plagued the state of Connecticut and its nonprofits for years.”
• In Oregon, “[a] contract public defender recently dropped by Weber County says he thinks it happened because he rocked the boat by filing a conflict of interest motion against prosecutors. [He] also says he saw enough during his tenure to conclude that the county’s system of hiring and managing public defenders ‘is in complete violation of the Sixth Amendment.’”

Access to Justice – Civil

• In Philadelphia PA, “[the] City Council unanimously passed a bill Thursday that will provide free legal representation to low-income tenants facing eviction, all but cementing Philadelphia on a list of cities that have strengthened renters’ rights amid what many say is a growing national eviction problem.”
• In British Columbia, “legal aid staff lawyers will start [a] work-to-rule job action [] as they seek wages closer to those of other lawyers in the system.” According to a different story, “[a]ll legal aid centres will remain open. However, the 26 LSS staff lawyers will now only be completing their essential client and case work [and] no longer [] performing other administrative duties[.]”
  • Meanwhile, “[t]he government of B.C. is committing $2 million to fully fund eight legal clinics across the province, money which will be dedicated to enhancing access for people on issues of poverty law, disability, tenancy and immigration.”
• In Milwaukee WI, local radio profiled Legal Action of Wisconsin’s Eviction Defense Project.
• In New York NY, “[o]rganizations advocating for a right to counsel for tenants facing evictions [hosted] a town hall in Elmhurst [] as part of an effort to expand the law and ensure all tenants know about it.”
• In California, “[a state] task force aiming to broaden access to legal services now has a few more months to make its final recommendations, as debate continues about whether nonlaywers should be allowed to assist consumers with legal matters.”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Maine, “[a] three month-investigation by Pine Tree Watch into the Maine Commission on Indigent Legal Services found that attorneys’ invoices are frequently incorrect, resulting in them often being overpaid for representing Maine’s poor. For nine years, the commission’s director has uncovered these inaccuracies on a daily basis, but he did not change how attorney payments are approved even as the agency’s spending nearly doubled. Lawmakers began to question the commission’s financial oversight earlier this year after a report by the nonpartisan Sixth Amendment Center revealed that 33 attorneys could have over-charged the state $2.2 million between 2014 and 2018 by billing hours that greatly exceeded full-time work.”
  • Meanwhile, “[l]ast April, a national civil liberties organization released a report on Maine’s indigent defense system — which is farmed out to private attorneys — warning that the state is not adequately providing low income Mainers with the effective legal counsel to which they are constitutionally entitled.”
• In Wyoming, the state “Supreme Court has heard opposing arguments in a case involving public defender representation in state courts [after] State Public Defender Diane Lozano…declared the public defender’s office unavailable for misdemeanor cases due to heavy caseloads and an understaffing crisis [and Campbell County Circuit Judge] Phillips found Lozano in contempt of court[.]”
• In Missouri, the Kansas City Star published a profile of the state’s public defender crisis.
  • The Star additionally published a piece noting that “[p]rosecutors across Missouri have overwhelmed public defenders by filing more and more cases every year, charging some people with much more serious offenses than they committed…In some cases, prosecutors seem confident about the charges until it’s time to show evidence in court.” When prosecutors drop charges just before trial, the result is that “many [Missourians] serve[] time without ever being convicted of anything.”
• On a related note, in New Mexico, “[a state] legislator said [] he intends to reintroduce legislation to reform the state’s bail bond system and crack down on what he called the potentially deadly problem of pretrial release of defendants connected to serious crime…Rehm’s legislation, tabled during the last legislative session, is intended to ‘turn the table, and now the defendant must prove that he should be released[.]’ However, attorneys in the New Mexico Law Offices of the Public Defender say that turning the table and putting the burden on the defendant is unconstitutional and fundamentally unfair.”
• In Louisiana, “[p]ublic defenders…get extra funding when their clients are convicted, creating perverse incentives that make it harder to establish trust between poor defendants and their attorneys[:] an accused offender who gets a court-appointed attorney can be charged $45 for ‘special costs,’ but the public defender’s office only gets the money if the client is convicted.”
• In Oregon, efforts continued in a “recent push to overhaul the state public defense system [after] a January study by the Sixth Amendment Center finding that Oregon’s public defender system was so unfair to defendants it was unconstitutional.”

Criminal Justice Reform

• In New York NY, “[t]he attorney of a Black teen allegedly punched and harassed by New York Police Department officers is releasing new video he hopes will show a pattern of illegal stop-and-frisk searches targeting his client.”
• In New Jersey, “[i]n conjunction with the release of a report by the Transgender Equality Task Force,…the [state] Attorney General issued a directive to all state, county, and local law enforcement agencies that governs interactions with transgender individuals.”
• In Iowa, “[a] supervisor in the Iowa public defender’s office quit his longtime side job as a police officer after critics said his dual roles created a conflict of interest[.]”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! I was travelling last week for the NLADA’s annual conference; it was a fantastic event to have been a part of but it did take me away from my digest feeds for a while. I’ll be working through my backlog for the rest of the month to bring you all up to speed, but here’s some news for today: major stories include student debt, where the New York Fed. analyzed data that places racial disparities in student debt into stark relief, and civil access to justice, where the Utah state government is researching possible regulatory changes which would allow nonlawyers to provide legal services. (Meanwhile, researchers in Canadian academia launched a survey concerning limited scope services in family law matters.)

As always, these stories and more are linked below.

See you around,

Sam

Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Issues

• In San Diego CA, “[a] federal judge asked for clarification…about how exactly the federal government’s “Migrant Protection Protocols” are being employed by immigration agents at the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego as he considers whether asylum seekers have a right to counsel when being interviewed about their fear of being returned to Mexico.”
• In Louiville KY, “[o]ne…nonprofit is offering small loans to help former doctors, nurses and other[ profesionals whose certificants haven’t transferred over when they immigrated to the United States] overcome the financial obstacles preventing them from pursuing their professions in their new home.”
• In Hartfort CT, “[t]he Hartford Courant reports that [] immigration agents say a Connecticut court security officer tried to prevent them from entering a courthouse where they planned to detain a Jamaican man.”
• In Harris County TX, “County District Attorney Kim Ogg on Friday announced her decision to fire a prosecutor who allegedly refused to file charges in a case after questioning whether the Mexican victim was ‘illegal.’”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In New York, the New York Federal Reserve published a blog post highlighting racial disparities in both the size and the growth rate of student loan debt.
• Also in New York, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips published a legal update concerning “[o]versight of student loan servicing[, which] remains top of mine for state regulators[.]”
• In Washington DC, Pew Charitable Trusts released a report finding that “[a]pproximately a quarter of [student] borrowers defaulted within five years of entering repayment.”
• Also in Washington DC, “[f]acing a federal lawsuit and mounting criticism, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos [] said she will forgive certain student loans for more than 1,500 borrowers who attended a pair of for-profit colleges that shut down last year.”

Legal Technology

• In New York NY, NYU Law’s Policing Project published an article discussing its recent efforts (and successes) building relationships with technology companies as they consider the ethics of their partnerships with law enforcement.
• Also in New York NY, [t]he Legal Aid Society alleged that “‘The NYPD’s fingerprint database of juveniles included children who were never even prosecuted, children whose cases may have been dismissed or they may have been acquitted,’ …Legal Aid says it discovered the NYPD database after a 14 year old was arrested based on fingerprints kept by the department. Legal Aid, which represents most juvenile defendants, says it also learned the state was improperly holding on to fingerprints…The NYPD did not admit any wrongdoing, although it now says it destroys the fingerprints of minors after those prints are sent to the state. Legal Aid is now calling on the City Council to immediately hold oversight hearings on police surveillance, technologies and databases.”
• In Washington DC, “[a] federal regulator is investigating whether the federal privacy law known as HIPAA was followed when Google (GOOGL) collected millions of patient records through a partnership with nonprofit hospital chain Ascension.”
• In Redmond WA, “Microsoft [announced it] will follow California’s landmark online privacy law nationwide when it goes into effect next year[.]”

Non-Profit & Government Management & Hiring

• In New York NY, “[t]he paralegals and social workers who help vulnerable New Yorkers need raises just as badly as the attorneys they support, the lawyers’ labor union says.”
• In Washington DC, the President issued an Executive Order ending an Obama-era policy that required federal contractors and subcontractors “to make bona fide job offers to employees of the predecessor contractor who had worked on the contract site for at least three months and who would otherwise be terminated.”
• In Montgomery AL, “Southern Poverty Law Center management said…they would not voluntarily recognize a union organized by employees at the civil rights nonprofit and have hired a Virginia law firm whose website boasts about victories over labor organization attempts.”

Access to Justice – Civil

• In Canada, researchers at King’s University College and the Queen’s University Faculty of Law “invit[ed] lawyers across Canda who have undertaken [limited scope services] in family cases or [who] are considering doing so to complete a confidential online survey.” (Survey available here.) Their goal is to publish the results in order to “help improve access to family justice by providing greater access to affordable legal services.”
• In Utah, “[a]n independent legal research center will work with Utah officials to test what could be groundbreaking regulations on allowing nonlawyers to provide legal services.”
• In New York NY, “New Yorkers indicted city landlords for criminal and civil crimes against tenants’ rights during a mock trial hosted by the Right to Counsel NYC Coalition in Tribeca.”
• In British Columbia, “Legal aid services are back to normal after a one-day walkout disrupted some services at the Vancouver Regional Centre[.]”
• In Richmond VA, “[a] task force has been created to come up with ways to help mitigate and prevent evictions in Richmond, Virginia. The group will include affordable housing and social justice advocates, youth and family homelessness specialists, public housing residents and property management professionals.”
• In New Mexico, “[a] newly formed task force is searching for ways to improve the state’s system for providing legal representation to parents and children embroiled in abuse and neglect cases.”
• In Vermont, “The Access to Justice Coalition, a joint venture between the Vermont Supreme Court, the Vermont Bar Association and the primary providers and funders of low-income legal services in the State released a recently completed Economic Impact Study.”
• In Kansas City MO, “[t]enants’ rights are at the forefront at the Kansas City City Council as a growing group tries to pass a ‘Tenants Bill of Rights.’”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Alaska, the state “commissioner of the Department of Administration acknowledged staffing and workload issues for the state’s Public Defender Agency and highlighted the administration’s commitment to fixing them[.]”
• In Oregon, “the Oregon Office of Public Defense Services…recently decided not to renew [a] local attorney group’s contract, making numerous allegations of misconduct.”
• In Sarpy County NE, “[t]he…Public Defender’s office will stop accepting misdemeanor appointments beginning Nov. 18…citing increasing workloads for assistant public defenders.”
• In Missouri, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch speculated about how recent political changes in Missouri suggest that public defenders in the state may be more successful getting assistance with their caseloads than they have been previously.
  • For more on the public defense in Missouri, there’s this article in the Scottsbluff Star Herald.

Criminal Justice Reform

• In Oklahoma, “Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater stands accused of launching an illegal criminal investigation into former state House Speaker Kris Steele and Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform, a nonprofit he leads. The accusations stem from a wrongful termination claim by Prater’s former employee William Muller, [who claims] Prater ordered him in the fall of 2017 to obtain a grand jury subpoena from the state attorney general’s office so he could find “incriminating or compromising information” on Steele and his reform group, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union.”
• In Connecticut, “[s]tate police…began using various social media platforms to provide “use of force” statistics to the public, an initiative that comes with the passage this year of legislation aimed at better accountability that requires police quicken timelines for the release of information and video to the public.”
• In Portland OR, “public defense attorneys…began a coordinated effort [] in advocating against cash bail for their clients, in collaboration with a national legal nonprofit.”
• In New York, “[v]ideo of what appears to be the unprompted stop-and-frisk of a Bronx teen without a criminal record is further evidence that cops still target New Yorkers of color for illegal searches, attorneys say.”
• In San Francisco CA, “[t]he new San Francisco district attorney has said his office will not prosecute prostitution or public urination crimes in the city.”
• In Los Angeles CA, “[f]ormer public defender Rachel Rossi announced…she is entering the race to become the next Los Angeles County district attorney.”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! Busy week, both here at NALP and in the world. Thanks to everyone who made it here for the 2019 NALP/PSJD Public Service Mini-Conference. You all make this event what it is, and this year I think it turned out pretty well. Good luck to everyone who has students interviewing at EJW’s CCF this weekend (or who is an interviewing student)!

And now, the news: the Trump administration suffered a pair of high profile court defeats on its immigration policies this week, while in student loan news data indicates student debt is now worth twice as much as the entire housing market and the CFPB has an open call for a task “to examine ways to harmonize and modernize federal consumer financial laws.” In Canada, the Legal Services Society of British Columbia reached an unprecedented bargaining agreement shortly after a unanimous vote to authorize strike action.

As always, these stories and more are available below. But before I go, I’ll leave you with one more, from last spring:

“Speaking six blocks from where he grew up in South Baltimore, Congressman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., ‘begged’ lawyers to advance and protect voting rights in the nation…’Voter suppression remains a clear and present danger to the effective functioning of our democratic republic – and it must be stopped,’ Cummings said….He told the lawyers, ‘Without you we’re doomed.’”

See you around,

Sam

Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Issues

• In Toronto ON, panelists at the Law Society of Ontario’s Hispanic Heritage Month “sa[id] they are navigating stricter policies and unstable legal aid funding, even as there is more need for their services amid humanitarian crises in Latin America.”
• In Hawaii, “[A] Shortage of Hawaii Pro Bono Attorneys Hobbles Legal Aid To Asylum Seekers”
• In Mississippi, “[t]he impact of the largest single-state work site immigration raid continues to reverberate through southern Mississippi as more criminal indictments for immigration-related felony charges…are stretching an already overloaded federal public defender’s office, with local civil rights attorneys and volunteers stepping up to assist those who have been charged.”
• In the Western District of Texas, “[a] federal judge ruled…that President Donald Trump violated federal law when he used his declaration of a national emergency to get millions for building a wall on the southern border.”
• In the Southern District of New York, “Attorney General Letitia James announced…that a judge…granted a nationwide preliminary injunction on the [Trump Administration’s ‘public charge’] rule as multiple lawsuits against it snake their way through the court system.”

Environmental Law & Disaster Legal Aid

• In Washington DC, “[t]he Supreme Court is set to decide soon whether to greenlight state-court proceedings for several cases in which state and local government officials seek to hold oil companies accountable for their role in climate change.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• The Washington Informer reported that “[w]hen likely voters across the country were recently asked their opinions about student loan borrowing, 82% agreed that the still-growing $1.5 trillion debt is a national crisis[:] 74% of Republicans, 80% of independents, and 90% of Democrats.”
• In Washington DC, “Senator Elizabeth Warren [] urg[ed] the Trump administration to end its contract with Navient, one of the biggest contractors that collects payments on federal student loans.”
• Also in Washington DC, “[t]he College Affordability Act[] was introduced by the House Committee on Education and Labor[. It] aims to lower the cose of college, improve the quality of higher education and increase student opportunities[.]”
• Also also in Washington DC, “[Thirty] attorneys general around the nation…requested that the U.S. Department of Education extend the time frame to cancel student loans for students of now-closed schools.”
• Again also in Washington DC, “[f]our U.S. senators told the head of [the CFPB] that they want her to launch examinations into serious problems with a program designed to offer loan forgiveness to public service workers.”
• Yet again also in Washington DC, “[a] cross section of Capitol Hill staffers say the congressional-sponsored student loan repayment program can help mitigate costs for those [staffers] with large educational loans, while spurring recruitment, retention and diversity in the labor pool.”
• Yet again also also in Washington DC, “the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says it’s forming a task force ‘to examine ways to harmonize and modernize federal consumer financial laws’. The CFPB’s [Director] Kraninger said that ‘as we work to set up the task force, we encourage interested individuals to apply to be considered to be part of the task force.” You can find the application here (Deadline 10/25/19)
• In Washington…State, “Attorney General Bob Ferguson is urging the state’s student loan borrowers struggling with public service loan forgiveness to register a complaint with the Attorney General’s office.”
• Benefit News published “5 reasons employers should offer student loan repayment benefits.”
• Realtor.com published data showing that “[t]he total student debt in the United States has grown to nearly double the housing market.”

Legal Technology

• In Mississippi, “Low-income Mississippians who have legal questions may [now] find assistance from the free legal information website ms.freelegalanswers.org.”
• In South Carolina, the Charleston Chronicle reported that “Amazon has been promoting DIY [] surveillance products to consumers….[b]ut what Amazon shoppers and most everyday Americans are just starting to find out is that the real target customers for these surveillance tools are police departments and other law enforcement agencies.”
  • In related news, in Tippecanoe & Clinton County IN, “police are joining 400 other law enforcement agencies across the country in using the new Neighbors by Ring [Amazon] app as a resource.”
• In Washington DC, the National Security Agency “worked with Penn State University, as part of a broader initiative from the Department of Homeland Security, to develop a free online course to educate people on cybersecurity operations, law and policy.”

Non-Profit & Government Management & Hiring

• In New York NY, “Niketa Sheth, Executive Director of Womankind, formerly the New York Asian Women’s Center, said…nonprofits like Womankind are struggling to pay staffers and keep programs running because 80 percent of domestic violence action are not reported.”
• In Miami FL, the Miami Herald reported that “[t]he Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence…for the last 13 months[] has flouted the state’s oversight with little consequence.”
• In Washington DC, the Federal Circuit ruled that “[a] pair of nonprofit entities were correctly paid a lower interest rate on their tax refunds because they are incorporated under state law.”

Access to Justice – Civil

• In Canada, the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice released a report concluding that “[m]oney spent on justice programs pays off in terms of economic gains and efficiencies.”
• In Victoria BC, “[s]taff lawyers from The Legal Services Society (LSS), who service Legal Aid centres across BC, voted 100 per cent in favor of strike action[.]” The action appears to have been averted, as “[t]he British Columbia government has reached an agreement with legal aid lawyers [for a] two-and-a-half-year deal [that] will ensure better access to legal support and more stability for lawyers who have been giving services at below cost.”
  • In related news, “the association representing legal aid lawyers in the province is calling [the deal] unprecedented in Canada.”
• In Pennsylvania, “[t]he state Supreme Court heard argument…on whether it should grant a preliminary injunction that would restore the Pennsylvania General Assistance program that provided funding to some 12,000 people before it was eliminated Aug. 1.”
• In Rutland VT, “[r]epresentatives from two nonprofit agencies that help low-income and vulnerable Vermonters with civil cases…will be in the city at the end of the month to hear from the community about the needs and challenges in the state.” [Ed. Note: These agencies are holding meetings at locations around Vermont this month, as previously mentioned in this digest.]
• In Minneapolis MN, “city officials are applauding the first year of a program intended to help families maintain stable housing and keep them out of homeless shelters. …[When] Legal Aid and the Volunteeer Lawyers Network studied 374 eviction cases in Hennepin County…it found that fully represented tenants are twice as likely to stay in their homes and get twice as much time to move if they choose to.”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Missouri, “[m]embers of the state public defender commission met Thursday to outline the process for replacing Michael Barrett as director of the financially strapped agency[.] [The c]ommission chairman [] said his goal is to bring a new director on board no later than mid-January.”
• In Tulare County CA, “[a] design oversight at [the] newest jail may be putting the civil rights of prisoners in jeopardy. The problem, say defense attorneys is a lack of interview rooms…and the video conferencing system the [sheriff’s office] has chosen as a substitute.”
• In Butler County OH, “[t]he…Public Defender’s Office submitted the largest request for new staff to the commissioners at 12 [staffers].”

Criminal Justice Reform

• In New York, Indypendent.org published a story arguing that “[a]lthough the NY Working Families Party deserves credit for helping [Queens DA candidate] Tiffany Cabán initially prevail on primary night, there are some important questions surrounding the WFP’s handling of the next stage of the campaign, which ended last week with Cabán’s concession.”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! Hope you’ve had a chance to check out the new face of PSJD.org, which went live yesterday morning. If you haven’t, please do! We’d love to know what you think. Or, drop by the 2019 NALP PSJD Public Service Miniconference (you can still register, here) and let us know in person! Hope to see you next week.

Now, on to the news. It’s been a big week. Rolling Stone reports that ICE has relocated hundreds of women in detention and will not tell their lawyers where they are. Secretary DeVos defied a federal court order to stop collecting student loan payments from borrowers who had been found eligible for forgiveness, and the Cato Institute published a study revealing that “lawyers whose formative professional experiences include serving as courtroom advocates for government[] are vastly overrepresented on the federal bench.”

As always, these stories and more are available below.

See you around,

Sam

Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Issues

• Rolling Stone reported that “[after] RAICES began collecting female detainees’ testimones [concerning ‘egregious medical situations’ at the Karnes County Family Residential Center] and sharing them online…the hundreds of women who were housed there have been scattered to detention centers across the country, and ICE won’t tell [RAICES] where the women, many of whom are the organization’s clients, are.” [Ed. Note: the digest discussed the original complaints of these women in the 10-4-19 edition.]
• Courthouse News reported on six couples who have “[filed] a class action accusing federal agents of luring families to marriage interviews in Baltimore, only to detain the immigrant spouse for deportation…[T] American Civil Liberties Union says a growing number of [US CIS] officers have ‘cruelly twisted’ the rules by detaining immigrant spouses after marriage interviews…in Massachusetts[, …] New York, Virginia, Florida, Illinois and California.”
  • In related news, “U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agreed…to release three undocumented immigrants who have U.S. citizen spouses as a Massachusetts federal judge grilled ICE officials about the process they use to determine whether to keep immigrants jailed as they pursue green cards.”
• In University Park PA, Penn State Law’s Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic released a report on “Detained Immigrants and Access to Counsel in Pennsylvania,” which recommends “that Pennsylvania should fund and implement a public defender-style program for detained immigrants in removal proceedings to improve fairness and due process.”
• In Los Angeles CA, “City Attorney MIke Feuer…announced the filing of a brief [before the Supreme Court] in support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration program[.]”
• In Washington DC, “[p]rotesters prevented acting homeland security secretary Kevin McAleenan from giving a keynote address at an immigration conference at Georgetown University on Monday, the latest example of a Trump administration official being blocked from speaking in public.”

Environmental Law & Disaster Legal Aid

• In South Royalton VT, “the Environmental Advocacy Clinic at Vermont Law School [announced it] will serve as legal counsel to [the] National Wildlife Federation in its high impact litigation and policy advocacy.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In Washington DC, “U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos faces potential sanctions or a finding she’s in contempt of court for continuing to collect on the debt of former students at bankrupt Corinthian Colleges Inc., going so far as seizing their tax refunds and wages…The judge said she was ‘astounded’ that the department violated her June order to stop collecting the debts from students, who had been promised refunds of their tuition.”
• Also in Washington DC, “U.S. Representatives Mike Levin (D-CA) and Katie Porter (D-CA) introduced legislation to expand the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program for individuals who work at Veteran Service Organizations (VSOs).”
• The Wall Street Journal discussed how “a handful of companies are trying to prevent [student debtholder employees] from falling behind on retirement savings by matching their student-loan repayments with contributions to a 401(k) plan.”

Legal Technology

• Bruce Scheier, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, gave a talk on “why technologists need to get involved in public policy.”
• In Berkeley CA, “UC Berkeley received a $3 million grant…from the Public Interest Technology University Network, or PIT-UN, a partnership between 21 different universities intended to grow the field of public interest technology…It aims to facilitate collaboration between technologists and public policy leaders in ‘serving society’.”
• In Mississippi, “[a] first-ever cybersecurity audit of Mississippi showed that a considerable percentage of the state’s agencies regularly failed to comply with its cybersecurity protocols.”
• In Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Appleseed Center for Law and Justice released a study recommending that the state “help litigants deal with their cases by developing an online help center that could guide people through the basics of legal proceedings, assisting them as they deal with their cases without crossing the line and actually imparting legal advice[.]”
• In Illinois, the Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing, Illinois Legal Aid Online and the Lawyers Trust Fund of Illinois released Rentervention. The tool is “a free service [that] shows tenants how to advocate for themselves when it comes to things like evictions and maintenance issues[.]”
• In Washington DC, “[a] group of more than 30 civil rights groups on Tuesday signed an open letter calling on lawmakers to cut partnerships between Amazon’s Ring doorbell surveillance systems and local police.”
• In Washington DC, “U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr called on U.S. technology companies to give law enforcement ‘secure legal access’ to encrypted data as a way to provide ‘greater safety to the public.’”

Non-Profit & Government Management & Hiring

• The Cato Institute published a study confirming the “general[] perce[ption] that a disproportionate number of federal judges served as government lawyers before donning a robe.” According to their findings, “[f]ormer government lawyers–and more specifically, lawyers whose formative professional experiences include serving as courtroom advocates for government–are vastly overrepresented on the federal bench.”
• In Alaska, “Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration is negotiating a contract extension that would pay a Virginia law firm $125,000 for its services in a legal fight with Alaska unions…Under [state] Attorney General Kevin Clarkson’s interpretation of a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, the state’s unionized public employees must inform the state annually of their intention to remain union members. The system would be the first of its kind in the nation.”
• In Sebastian FL, the City Attorney “has given 60-days notice that he intends to resign [saying] ‘it [is] time to consider restructing the position to full time’.”
• In Philadelphia PA, the Defender Association of Philadelphia “has failed to secure a quick win in a case…where it faces allegations that it violated federal law by terminating an attorney found to have mental health problems rather than transfer her to another role.”
• In NonProfit Quarterly, a senior counsel with the Alliance for Justice wrote to examine the question: “Can a 501c3 Advocate for Impeachment of a Federal Office Holder?”

Access to Justice – Civil

• In Winnipeg MB, “[h]undreds lined up [] downtown [] for the chance to witness the Supreme Court of Canada hear cases outside Ottawa for the first time in its 144-year existence.”
• In Ontario, the Federation of Ontario Law Associations, in a “Submission Regarding the Review of the Legal Aid Services Act,” told the government that “[e]nlisting the services of the private bar is more efficient than loading more work onto duty counsel[.]”
• In Vermont, “Legal Services Vermont and Vermont Legal Aid…are holding seven meetings around the state to hear from Vermonters, their community partners and supporters. …They will use the information gathered to help decide where to put their legal aid resources.”
• In Charleston SC, “[r]enters facing eviction f[ound] help as Charleston’s housing court g[ot] underway.”
• In New York NY, “[m]ore than half of Bronx tenants facing eviction in housing court were unaware of the city’s new ‘right to counsel’ law, according to a survey conducted by a Bronx advocacy group.”
• In Chicago IL, “[as p]roposed reforms to further open the legal system to nonlawyers and tech companies to increase access to justice are being considered by several western state bar groups,” ABA president Judy Perry Martinez told Bloomberg Law these “[s]tate bar efforts to reform law firm ownership rules could spur the American Bar Association to eventually do the same[.]”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Pittsburgh PA, “[t]wo Duquesne University professors and one University of Pittsburgh professor have been given funding…to see if their innovative approach to holistic legal representation can improve the [sic] juvenile indigent defense representation.”
• In Greene County MO, “[County] Comissioners…approved spending $25,000 for contracted private attorneys to defend people in criminal court who are too poor to afford their own representation, making Greene County the first in the state to do so. Officials said they hoped the money would help ‘unclog’ a local criminal justice system [facing] a shortage of public defenders and a growing need for criminal representation.”
• In Crawford County PA, county government “is looking to fill the top two jobs in the county’s Office of Public Defender as a new country court criminal trial term looms next month.”
• In Montgomery County NY, the county “Public Defender’s Office is seeking to create its first full-time assistant public defender[.]”
• In Gregg County TX, “[t]he cost of providing adequate legal representation for [the county’s] indigent defendants continues to rise.”
• In Coshocton OH, “[l]ocal judges…recently met with Coshocton County Comissioners to discuss the [sic] possibly raising appointed [defense] attorney fees.”
  • In related news, “Coshocton County Commissioners are considering raising fees for appointed attorneys based on increased state funding in order to ensure those who need legal representation are properly represented.”

Criminal Justice Reform

• In California, “Governor Gavin Newsom…signed 25 bills aimed at setting a path to reform California’s criminal justice system. The bills include support for those reentering the community after serving their sentences, including creating a system to automatically expunge records of individuals previously convicted of low-level offenses, as well as reform unfair sentencing practices, and enhance support for victims of crime.”
• In San Francisco CA, Mayor London Breed appointed “Suzy Loftus, a former prosecutor and president of the San Francisco Police Commission [district attorney] on an interim basis until an election is held early next month…Critics of the move say Breed appointing a candidate she endorsed gives Loftus an unfair advantage over her rivals.”
• In Connecticut, “[state] residents for the first time have a chance to help the state appoint its top prosecutor, thanks to a new law that aims to make the criminal justice system more transparent.”
• In New York NY, “[t]he Bronx District Attorney’s Office has released some of its internal files on police dishonesty–the first D.A.’s office in the city [to] make such records available to the public.”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! Busy days here at NALP, where we’re putting the finishing touches on the 2019 NALP PSJD Public Service Miniconference (you can still register, here) and on the new design for PSJD, which will launch late next week!

In the meantime, though, the news marches on. Lots of big stories this week, including revelations from the National Association of Immigration Judges that judges are making decisions concerning asylum based on a fear of reprisals and a decision by the CEO of the loan servicer responsible for PSLF not to testify before Congress. As always, these stories and more are available below.

See you around,

Sam

Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Issues

• In Washington DC, “[t]he union representing the nation’s immigration judges filed two labor complaints against the justice department[.]”
  • In related news, “Ashley Tabbador, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, disclosed… in a panel discussion on sweeping changes to the nation’s immigration courts [that s]ome immigration judges hearing cases at the U.S.-Mexico border have confided to their fellow jurists they have issued decisions on an immigrant’s ability to enter or stay in the United States based on whether the decision would get them fired.”
  • More on this story from Prospect.org.
• On the U.S. southern border, the Associated Press reported that “Migrant child detention centers shifting from nonprofit to private sector.” The AP story observed that “[s]o far, the only private company caring for migrant children is…owned by beltway contractor Caliburn International Corp. …Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly joined Caliburn’s board this string after stepping down from decades of government service [and] critics say this means Kelly now stands to financially benefit from a policy he helped create.”
• In Texas, “[i]mmigrant women being held in a [] detention center say they are being denied proper medical care — in some cases cancer treatment — and have become suicidal after lengthy stays in the facility.”
• In New York, “New York City together with the state has invested $1 million for legal services for immigrants who are facing imminent deportation.”
• Also in New York, “[t]he Trump administration asked a New York federal judge to let it enforce a new policy that would penalize immigrants for using certain public benefits, claiming the nonprofits and states behind a pair of lawsuits challenging the policy won’t be affected by it.”
• Also also in New York, “[a]t least two lawsuits have been filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York challenging the legality of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency of making civil immigration arrests for Caribbean and other immigrants without a judicial warrant or court order in and around New York State courthouses.”
• In Ontario, “Legal Aid Ontario said [] it will plan to make payments on refugee and immigration certificates up to and including March 31, 2020. The announcement is an update after the federal government announced on Aug. 12 it would offer LAO a one-time influx of $25.7 million for immigration and refugee services.”

Environmental Law & Disaster Legal Aid

• In New York NY, “[s]ixteen young people from around the world brought a legal complaint about climate change to the United Nations[.] Their petition outlines how their human rights are being violated by the failure of nations to seriously address the climate crisis.” [Ed. note: Here’s the petition.]
• In Washington DC, “[a] group of fossil fuel companies have appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in a last-ditch effort to stop Baltimore’s climate liability suit against them from going to trial in state court.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In Washington DC, “[o]ne of the nation’s largest student loan servicers has refused to testify before Congress as lawmakers try to obtain more information regarding allegations of widespread mismanagement of student loan programs.”
• In The Hechinger Report, one of the co-founders of Student Defense discussed the Department of Education’s mishandling of a Presidential order “to automatically discharge [total and permanently disabled] veterans’ [student] loans”: “Because the federal government holds both the loans and the information about who qualifies, Secretary DeVos [could] erase the debt today. Instead, though, the Department of Education has instructed [] one of its contracted [] loan servicers [] to mail applications to the last known address of each borrower…As a direct result, fewer than half of the nearly 400,000 eligible borrowers identified by the SSA have received the relief they are owed.”
• In Rhode Island, “[l]egislation…to protect student loan borrowers and establish oversight of student loan servicers operating in Rhode Island was ceremonially signed by Gov. Gina M. Raimondo[.]”
• In New York, “[state] Attorney General Letitia James alleged in a new lawsuit [that t]he company that services loans eligible for the federal government’s Public Service Loan Forgiveness program has ‘proven itself unwilling or unable’ to do the job.”

Legal Technology

• In Los Angeles CA, “[t]he Los Angeles County Public Defender, which named its inaugural Chief Information Officer Mohammed Al Rawi in March, plans to modernize and integrate 23 legacy [technology] systems including the 1960s-era Trial Court Information system…with a go-live target date of summer of 2020.”
• In Michigan, “State Senator Jim Runestad [] introduced legislation to fix the state’s constitution [by] inject[ing] the words ‘electronic data’ and ‘electronic communications’ into the list of items protected by [the] state constitution[‘s protections from unreasonable searches and seizures.]”
• In Philadelphia PA, “you can monitor arrest and prosecution numbers in real time, thanks to a new public dashboard set up by the office of District Attorney Larry Krasner.”

Non-Profit & Government Management & Hiring

• In British Columbia, “[the province’s] Human Rights Tribunal has gagged both the province’s legal profession regulator and a law student who claims the regulator’s entry requirements are discriminatory…against those with mental health issues[.]”
• Law.com reported that “[a] study by the Clinical Legal Education Association finds that women are over-represented among law school clinical faculty, while black and Latino clinicians have made few gains over the past three decades.”
• The NonProfit Times reported that “the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) announced [a strategic] evolution with a restructuring to direct more philanthropy dollars toward social justice movements.”
• In Tokepa KS, “[the] mayor and city council next week will consider joining other government entities [by hiring attorneys to] su[e] prescription drug producers for the role they have allegedly played in bringing about the opioid crisis. The action being considered would seek to recoup increased costs Topeka’s city government has incurred[.]”
• In Dauphin County PA, local news reported that “the state attorney general’s office will soon charge Dauphin County’s chief public defender[, who] allegedly directly employees to work on the election campaigns of Dauphin County candidates while on county time.”

Access to Justice – Civil

• In Charlotte NC, the Charlotte Observer reported on the impact of the county’s decision to “allocat[e] $300,000 for Legal Aid [for tenants] in the last fiscal year … put[ting] Mecklenburg [County] among a small but growing number of places…spending government money to give tenants access to lawyers in eviction cases.”
• In Mankato MN, local news observed that “[t]he legal aid office established at Open Door Health Center could serve as a model for future legal/medical partnerships in rural settings.”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Wyoming, “[a]ttorneys for Circuit Court Judge Paul Phillips argue[d] that Phillips acted within his authority and interpreted state law correctly when he found State Public Defender Diane Lozano to be in contempt of court this summer, according to a brief filed with the Wyoming Supreme Court[.] … On May 1, [Lozano] notified Circuit Court judges that her attorneys in Campbell County would no longer represent people charged with misdemeanors [as they] had such a heavy workload that they were unable to fulfill their ethical obligations[.]”
• In Wisconsin, “[a] bipartisan group of lawmakers are sponsoring a bill that would increase merit-based pay for public defenders by roughly $4 million over the next two years.”
• In Richmond VA, “[l]awyers in [the] public defender’s office, in the midst of a campaign to increase their salaries, say they’re paid so much less than the prosecutors they face in court that it raises questions about whether low-income defendants are getting a fair shake at justice.”
• In Missouri, “[t]he head of [the state’s] public defender system–who in 2016 appointed former governor Jay Nixon to defend a case in protest of funding cuts–is resigning.”
• In Ionia County MI, “[a] new position has been created in the [county] Public Defender’s Office following a vote from the county’s board of commissioners.”
• In Adams County NE, “[a]n effort to make the Adams County Public Defender a full-time position failed[, leaving the position at ¾ FTE].”
• In Oklahoma, Oklahoma Watch reported that “despite reforms, high caseloads continue to stress [the state’s] public defender system.”

Criminal Justice Reform

• In Wichita KS, “[t]he federal public defender’s office [] is seeking nearly $224,000 in legal fees and expenses from the federal government because of prosecutorial misconduct during an investigation into recordings of phone calls between inmates and their attorneys at a prison.”
• In Seattle WA, “according to a report released Monday by local business groups…Seattle’s city attorney won’t prosecute approximately 50 percent of the non-traffic arrests brought to his office by police[.]”
• In Baltimore MD, “[the city’s] top prosecutor has begun asking judges to throw out nearly 800 convictions that she said were tainted by officers linked to a corruption scandal.”
• In San Francisco CA, local news interviewed “Chesa Boudin[, who] worked as a public defender in San Francisco for seven years and is currently on leave while running for office [in a bid to become San Francisco’s district attorney].”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! Interesting news week to share with you all, including a rare prosecutor/defender team-up in New York State (see Immigration, below). You’ll also want to look at the civil access to justice section, where there’s news out of Chicago concerning non-attorney involvement in the delivery of legal services and a Lexpert article analyzing proposed class action reforms in Ontario.

Thanks to all of you who have already turned in nominations for the 2019-2020 PSJD Pro Bono Publico Award! I look forward to reading what you have to say about your students.

One more thing: There’s still time for the public interest career counselors, pro bono program managers, and other public service career professionals out there to register for the 2019 NALP PSJD Public Service Miniconference, here in Washington DC on October 17th. It’s an ideal opportunity to meet and network with colleagues from across the country, attend substantive and skills-based programs, and interact with NALP staff members!

See you around,

Sam

Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Issues

• In Texas, “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will soon resume detaining migrant families at a [] facility outside of San Antonio, clearing the way for the agency to detain hundreds of additional parents and children.”
• In New York, “Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit [] against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, alleging the agency’s practice of making arrests in and around Empire State courthouses violates the U.S. Constitution, federal law and state court rules.”
  • In further news, “[p]rosecutors and public defenders teamed up Wednesday to announce lawsuits against the federal Immigrations and Customs Enforcement [sic] for arrests of undocumented people in courthouses, which have spiked across New York state since President Trump took office.”
• In Hawaii, “[a n]ewly formed nonprofit, The Legal Clinic, an affiliate of national network Justice for Our Neighbors [began] working to provide free or low-cost services to immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers in need of legal assistance in Hawaii.”
• In Washington DC, “[t]he District will award $2.5 million in grant funding to provide legal help to undocumented residents and, for the first time, assist those detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”

Disaster Legal Aid

• In Washington DC, a new report from the LSC’s Disaster Task Force “says that as natural disasters become an even greater concern, legal aid organizations should be working to establish relationships with disaster-relief agencies and community groups, as well as educating the public and training volunteers, so that when a disaster strikes, they will be poised to start helping right away.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In Forbes Magazine, a senior contributor argued that “while the rejection rate [for public service student loan forgiveness] is still high, it improved almost 3x in a year, and the [recent] report tells a better story of success than past reports.”
• ThinkAdvisor discussed the “Equity for Education” benefit designed by Chegg, “a publicly traded company that provides an online educational platform”. Under the benefit, “[Chegg] provides entry-level through manager-level employees with at least two years tenure at the company a $5,000 annual grant of company stock to help the employee pay off their student debt[.]”
• Access Lex published an argument that “PSLF Serves the Public Interest,” including a “fact sheet on the topic.”
• Inside Higher Ed reported that “[d]ata released by the Education Department Wednesday showed that the share of borrowers defaulting on their student loans has declined for the sixth straight year.”

Legal Technology

• The World Justice Project launched its Access to Justice Data Portal, a “new data microsite [that] brings [its] latest global report to life with user-friendly visualizations of global survey data on legal needs and access to justice.”

Non-Profit & Government Management & Hiring

• In Illinois, JDSupra warned that “Illinois employers must begin preparing for the host of new legal requirements impacting the workplace beginning in 2020[ when] legal changes on topics ranging from hiring practices and pay equity to drug testing and severance agreements [will come into force].”
• In Washington DC, Kiva Zytnick gave an interview to Equal Justice Works on “the Importance of Facilitating Opportunities for Future Public Interest Leaders.”

Access to Justice – Civil

• In Ontario, Lexpert analyzed the potential impact of the “47 recommendations aimed at improving judicial efficacy, access to justice, and reducing legal costs” that came out of the “Law Commission of Ontario[‘s] Final Report recommending changes to Ontario’s class action legislation and practice.”
• In California, “a new survey released by the state bar shows [that i]ndigent California residents have more legal problems than wealthier counterparts but less access to legal professionals who could help them[.]”
• In Illinois, “the Chicago Bar Foundation and Chicago Bar Association pan to launch a join task force Oct. 7 to explore how state attorney regulations could be modified to encourage more innovation in the legal sector and ultimately increase access to justice.” Law360, discussing the story, observed that “some say [this move] could be a ‘tipping point’ for such efforts to increase access to legal help, despite heated attorney opposition in places like California.”
  • Relatedly, in California “[h]undreds of responses…about various California bar proposals that could…open a door to nonattorney ownership of firms reveal[ed that m]ost of those who shared their thoughts don’t support a wholesale reshaping of how legal clients are served[.]”
• In New York, the “state has committed an unprecedented amount of funding to provide legal representation for low-income individuals in civil matters in recent years, but leaders from organizations that provide those services testified at a hearing Monday in Albany that the demand for that help has continued to grow.”
• In Massachusetts, “[f]our new members have been appointed to the Massachusetts Access to Justice Commission, [namely] Superior Court Judge Valierie A. Yarashus; Laura W. Gal, supervisory attorney at Northeast Legal Aid; Benjamin K. Golden, health law clinical fellow at Suffolk University Law School; and J.D. Smeallie, litigation partner at Holland & Knight.”
• In Columbia SC, “[u]nder a new city [] ordinance, ‘extreme risk’ residents who are poor might get a court-appointed lawyer — despite not facing any criminal charges — before they could be ordered by a municipal judge to turn over their guns.”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Wisconsin, the state’s “2019-2021 budget won’t provide Door and Kewaunee counties with additional assistant district attorneys. Increased compensation for public defenders, however, is expected to help process cases faster.”
  • Meanwhile, “until that new rate kicks in Jan. 1, the public defender’s office is having a difficult time finding lawyers willing to handle their cases.”
• In Georgia, the “Public Defender Council will have to furlough public defenders across the state for 10 days between now and next June to meet Gov. Brian Kemp’s budget-cut requests, according to state budget documents.”

Criminal Justice Reform

• In Chicago IL, “the ABA’s Death Penalty Representation Project reached a major milestone[:] 100 capital cases have been finalized with a sentence of less than death with the assistance of the project and its pro bono partners.”
• In St. Louis MO, “[m]ore than 65 prosecutors have quit or have been fired from the Circuit Attorney’s Office since January 2017. That’s more than 100% turnover — a half-dozen more lawyers have left the office than were on the roster when [Circuit Attorney] Kimberly M. Gardner took charge 2 ½ years ago.”
• In Cambridge MA, “researchers at Harvard Law School’s Criminal Justice Policy Program la[id] out a road map for reforming how courts across America can reform the imposition of excessive fines and fees, the devastating impacts of which fall disproportionately on the poor and on people of color.”
• In Los Angeles CA, “City Attorney Mike Feuer announced [] that the Dispute Resolution Program his office oversees is expanding to include both traditional community mediation services and community policy outreach effort.”
• In San Diego CA, “City Attorney Mara W. Elliott [] announced that her Office is moving forward on the dismissal of thousands of low-level marijuana cases prosecuted by the San Diego City Attorney’s Office under laws that are no longer on the books.”