This week: cutbacks at Idaho Legal Aid Services; an interview with Disability Rights Advocates’ ED; Biglaw partners can play bigger role in funding legal services; in one Ohio county, a debate about a debate about creating a public defender’s office; gloomy, gloomy news on law school debt; shakeups in Shasta County’s (CA) prosecutor’s office; the nonlawyer at Legal Aid of West Virginia’s helm.

• 5.12.11 – funding woes are affecting Idaho Legal Aid Services, and more cuts are coming.  From a short AP story on the KMVT website: “Idaho Legal Aid Services, which has already cut hours of its staff and 21 attorneys, has a $250,000 hole in its $2.6 million annual budget. Leaders say employees across the state will take forced days off without pay starting on May 27. The move comes after a bill failed in the 2011 Idaho Legislature that would have shored up its coffers.”

• 5.11.11 –  The National Law Journal recently interviewed  Disability Rights Advocates’ Executive Director Ben Foss about the hot issues in disability law, his decision to become a lawyer and his appearance in a film documentary called Journey Into Dyslexia, now showing on HBO2. For Foss, a former director of access technology at Intel Corp, his recent transition hits home: “I’m severely dyslexic. I was in special ed all through school. My mom used to read out loud to me as a kid. When I went to college, that’s when it all caught up to me. I had to fax term papers home to my mom to have her read aloud to me so I could find my spelling mistakes. As a result, I’ve been part of the disability community for a long time….  [At Intel,] I decided I wanted to build technology for people with disabilities, which is something Intel hadn’t done before. I invented a device called the Intel Reader, which takes a photograph of any printed material and reads it aloud to you right on the spot. I invented it so that I don’t have to call Mom every time I run into syntax.”  Foss also highlighted a few pressing challenges in disability law right now that include access to the virtual world and all transportation systems and veterans with disabilities.

• 5.11.11 – On Wednesday, the PSLawNet Blog looked at a proposal, featured in The American Lawyer, to create a private-bar-funded “Lawyers Foundation” to support civil legal services.  In the piece, Aric Press argues that Biglaw partners could greatly advance the cause of access to justice by endowing and supporting a foundation to help fund both the Legal Services Corporation and other legal services projects.  Press notes that LSC’s funding outlook in Congress is uncertain, but particularly dire given the current fiscal state of affairs and the fact that the federal funder of legal services has enemies on the Hill. While this is a thoughtful proposal, and certainly an attempt to think creatively (which the PSLawNet Blog applauds), the private sector can’t let Congressional appropriators off the hook with respect to funding LSC.

• 5.11.11 – A little less conversation, a little more action? In an article by The Morning Journal, Ohio’s Lorain County Prosecutor’s Office said commissioners need to rethink how to study the pros and cons of whether the county should have a public defender’s office.  Discussion began last month between commissioners and the state public defender’s office to explore if there would be a cost-savings, as compared to paying court- appointed attorneys for indigent criminal defendants. Commissioner Ted Kalo has argued there would be a savings, but Assistant Lorain County Prosecutor Gerald Innes is sticking to his guns, contending that some sort of commission should weigh the cost saving options.

• 5.9.11 – Reader warning: the following news is frightening for those concerned about student debt.  An article in the ABA Journal reports that annual law school loans borrowed has jumped 50 percent since 2001. In the last academic year, law students borrowed an average of $68,827 for public schools and $106,249 for private educations.  Compare this with $46,499, or the average amount borrowed for the public school, and $70,147, average for a private school in the 2001-2002 academic year.  For many of us–PSLawNet Bloggers included, these are not just staggering numbers, they’re lived experiences. Wow-zah.

• 5.9.11 – In the Shasta County, California district attorney’s office, many prosecutors are not amused with recent office/case shuffling. And, as a result, The Record Searchlight reports that the restructuring of sorts have prompted one of its senior prosecutors who specialized in homicide cases to leave the office.  Stewart Jankowitz, who lost only one murder case in his approximately 15 years with the office retired last week.  Prosecutors are required to handle an assortment of cases, although some do have specific assignments, such as sex crimes, felony DUIs and white-collar crime, such as embezzlement.  Jankowitz stated that he did not delight in the idea of handling non-homicide cases after his many years of legal experience.  While many will miss him, it’s time to go.

• 5.8.11 – Charleston, West Virginia’s Gazette feature a piece about Adrienne Worthy, executive director of Legal Aid of West Virginia, oversees provisions for legal assistance for the low-income and disenfranchised.  Her story is about what motivates her: responsibility.  Legal Aid of West Virginia currently has 55 lawyers, a statewide staff of 120 and 12 regional offices, but Worthy is not a lawyer.  After graduating from undergraduate school, she answered an ad in a progressive ad bulletin looking for citizen activist canvassers, then for three years went  door-to-door every night from 4 until 9, five days a week, snow sleet or hail, to raise money and organize around environmental, consumer and utility issues.  She then worked at a library and for the WV Women’s Commission.  She knows she has marched to her own drummer in terms of jobs, but her commitment to find how she’s needed is unwavering.  “I am finding it harder to be motivated by the belief that real changes are going to happen,” Worthy says.  “I don’t understand the vision of what we are supposed to do with the changes proposed for the environment, our old and young people. I don’t know what’s going to happen to our clients here.”  She confesses that she’s thought about leaving, but gets inspired by clients who have overcome incredible odds and, through the help of legal services, have been able to make a difference.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This week: changes to Ohio’s patchwork indigent defense system?; a medical-legal partnership in the City of Fountains (and now you know Kansas City’s nickname – you’re welcome); praise from law firm associates on the value of law school clinical and externships programs, according to new NALP report; legal services funding bills making headway in Texas legislature; “future of legal education” conference gives props to proposal that would teach law students to teach pro-se litigants; $200K in HHS domestic violence victim assistance grant leads to legal services partnership in Michigan; is Birmingham, Alabama’s money better spent on public defenders or appointed counsel?; Colorado Legal Services takes a $170K hit after federal budget compromise; make that figure $300K in Virginia; are law school clinics vehicles for advancing liberal causes?; law school scholarship opportunities for would-be Garden State prosecutors; Quinnipiac (we love that name!) law students run/walk to benefit injured U.S. servicemembers – kudos!; a libertarian proposal to create an indigent defense voucher system; tumult among the leadership of the Peach State’s indigent defense program.

• 4.21.11 – could Ohio see a change in its indigent defense system, with the state easing some of the funding and administrative burdens resting on county shoulders?  An article from the Elyria, Ohio-based Chronicle-Telegram (a/k/a the New York Times of Northern Ohio) sheds light on how a state legislative proposal could impact Lorain County’s appointed-counsel system (and, we would presume, other counties’ systems as well): “County officials have been reviewing whether creating a public defender’s office would save the county money over the approximately $1.8 million spent annually to pay court-appointed attorneys. Under the current system, the state reimburses the county around 30 percent of its annual expenditures for court-appointed lawyers. [County Commissioner Lori] Kokoski said under the proposal being reviewed in Columbus the reimbursement number would jump to 50 percent next year and climb by 10 percent each year until the state was fully funding a county public defender’s office.  She also said that the Office of the Ohio Public Defender would take over operating the county’s public defender’s office — if one exists — under the proposed change to state law.”  

• 4.20.11 – as we’ve noted before on the Blog, an exciting new Medical Legal Partnership has sprung up in Kansas City between Legal Aid of Western Missouri and Saint Luke’s hospital.  Health Leaders Media has a nice write-up: “Legal Aid began its first medical-legal partnership in Kansas City in 2007, but the Saint Luke’s partnership is the first to use legal staff working full-time at a medical site. Amber Cutler, an attorney with Legal Aid, said that has been critical to the success of the four-month-old project.   ‘On site is best, not only because we are more accessible to the patients, but because we are more visible,’ Cutler says…’It’s a critical component.’ … The Saint Luke’s medical-legal partnership is based on the I-HELP model. I stands for income and insurance issues; H is for housing issues; E is for ensuring patient safety in domestic situations; L is for legal status; and P is for power of attorney and guardianship.”  BONUS EASTER SEASON TRIVIA: St. Luke, known primarily as a Gospel writer, was very likely trained as a physician.

• 4.19.11 – law firm associates think law school clinics and externships were just gangbusters in preparing them for the practice of law.  As we noted on the blog earlier this week, a new NALP report indicates that present-day associates benefitted from participating in clinics and externships during their student days.  The report compares the various experiential opportunities to determine their effects on lawyer preparedness.  While only 30 percent of the associates reported participating in at least one legal clinic, almost two in three of these folks (63%) found the experience “very useful,” the highest value on a scale of 1-to-4.   Similarly, 36% of the associates said they took part in an externship or field placement, and 60% of them rated the experience “very useful.”  Pro bono programs and legal skills classes earned lower ratings from associates.  Here’s a link to the report, the 2010 Survey of Law School Experiential Learning Opportunities and Benefits.  And here’s some National Law Journal coverage of the report.

• 4.18.11 – the Texas Lawyer runs a detailed piece on two companion bills winding through the Texas legislature that would generate funding for legal services:  “Senate Bill 726 and House Bill 2174 would create new court costs and document filing fees to help fund indigent civil legal aid, indigent criminal defense and the implementation of electronic filing in all state courts.”  We checked up on the bills on 4/21 via the Texas legislature’s website.  They’re both reported has having passed in committee votes.  Faithful PSLawNet Blog readers will have seen coverage of these bills in past News Bulletins.  One of the most interesting dimensions is the bipartisan support to improve funding for the beleaguered legal services community.  Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht has been a champion for increased funding, and he’s a solid conservative.  Also, Rep. Will Hartnett, the sponsor of HB 2174, is a Republican who noted in the Texas Lawyer piece that legal services is not typically a Republican cause.

• 4.18.11 – at the intersection of technology, legal aid, and legal education sits a project proposal to have law students create self-help software for people who have legal problems but may not be able to afford an attorney.  The proposal, “Apps for Justice: Learning Law by Creating Software,” won accolades at the “Future Ed” conference, a recent gathering of stakeholders in the legal education world that explored ways to improve the way tomorrow’s lawyers are trained.  The National Law Journal covered both the conference and the “Apps for Justice” proposal, which is designed to help law students learn legal principles and processes as they create self-help software for pro se clients.  The “Apps for Justice” project proposal contemplates a grant from the Legal Services Corporation to fund pilots at 5 law schools.  (Here is a press release about Apps for Justice being honored at Future Ed.)

• 4.18.11 – A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services grant will help domestic violence victims with civil legal needs.  The Times Herald of Port Huron, Michigan reports: “Lakeshore Legal Aid and Safe Horizons, both based in Port Huron, are working together on an Access to Justice project, paid for with a $200,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  Safe Horizons was awarded the grant last fall to develop a program to help survivors overcome obstacles that often prevent them from getting help with civil matters. The effort includes hiring an advocate to help with navigating the legal system; hiring an advocate to help survivors access child care while dealing with court matters; hiring someone to train area lawyers willing to take on pro-bono cases; and contracting with Lakeshore Legal Aid to take on complex cases.”

• 4.18.11 -a question of how to allocate indigent defense resources in Alabama.  From the Birmingham News:  “Birmingham municipal judges paid private lawyers hundreds of thousands of dollars [$300K in 2009-10] to represent poor defendants, while the nonprofit agency that serves as the city’s longtime public defender claimed it could handle the full caseload and went unpaid for months.”  The presiding judge at Birmingham Municipal Court has defended the increased payments to appointed counsel, even as the court has had to dip in to general funds because the dedicated fund for indigent defense services was depleted.

• 4.18.11 – the federal budget compromise earlier this month means depleted funding for LSC grantee Colorado Legal Services, to the tune of $170,000.  From Law Week Colorado: Colorado Legal Services will lose $170,000 over the next seven months as a result of the congressional budget compromise, the Colorado Bar Association said today…. ‘This loss will have a serious impact on the program’s ability to meet the most essential legal needs of low-income, elderly, and disabled Coloradans,’ the bar association said in a statement.  Law Week publishes the full Colorado Bar Association statement here.

• 4.17.11 – the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports on how LSC budget cuts will affect grantee programs in Old Dominion:  Virginia’s legal aid chapters, which provide free legal representation to Virginia’s poor and working poor, were told this week by their federal funding source that they must immediately implement a 4 percent cut….The 4 percent cut [which LSC will have to absorb] will be passed along to the corporation’s 136 grantees, which resulted in a nearly $300,000 loss for Virginia.

• 4.17.11 – the right-of-center Washington Times runs a review about a book criticizing legal education in the U.S. as being, well, elite and leftist.  According to the review of Schools for Misrule: Legal Academia and Overlawyered America, law school clinics in particular are vehicles to make social change: “The advent of law school ‘clinics’ brought both foundation funding and pedagogical cover for ‘social justice’ projects. In reality, the professed goals of training lawyers and serving indigent clients often were eclipsed by the quest for ‘test cases’ and ‘social change.’ Poor people, it turned out, wanted legal services (divorce, traffic violations, misdemeanor defense) that had “little to do with changing society.” The clinics preferred to turn away such matters in favor of ‘high profile cases,’ so that the lawyers could ‘save thousands instead of a few.’ And in numerous cases, the ‘public interest’ remedies pursued by law clinics brought results harmful to the communities they professed to serve.”  Yikes!  While the PSLawNet Blog supports changes in the legal education model that would lead to skill-based training, we’re not sure that’s a fair characterization of clinical education writ broadly.  Political ideology aside, we think most clinics handle everyday cases involving evictions, public benefits terminations, domestic violence prevention, and other matters that directly impact clients’ health and economic security. 

• 4.17.11 – the New Jersey Star-Ledger reports on three law school scholarship opportunities for Garden State residents who are aspiring prosecutors.  The scholarships are sponsored by the state’s County Prosecutors Association, and the application deadline is June 23, 2011.  Click through to the article for more detail, but here are some basics:
• To be eligible for the Oscar W. Rittenhouse Memorial Scholarship, an applicant must be accepted for admission to a law school and must have an interest in becoming a prosecutor.
• The Harris Y. Cotton Memorial Scholarship is also for applicants accepted for admission to law school who want to be prosecutors with an emphasis on domestic violence or hate crime prosecutions.
• Applicants for the Andrew K. Ruotolo Jr. Memorial Scholarship must be accepted to law school or graduate school and exhibit an interest, and commitment to, enhancing the rights and well-being of children through child advocacy programs.

• 4.17.11 – Running for our men and women in uniform.  As we noted in the PSLawNet Blog earlier this week, four student groups at Quinnipiac’s law school sponsored a 5K run/walk to benefit the Wounded Warrior Project, which builds awareness and raises funds for severely injured servicemembers.  (Here’s the original story from the Quad News.)

• 4.15.11 – an indigent defense voucher system?  A blog post on the Right on Crime website looks at a conservative solution to the indigent defense resources crisis as articulated in a paper published last year by the Cato Institute.  From the blog post: “Late last year, The Cato Institute published an intriguing paper on indigent defense reform. It is an attempt to apply limited government principles to an exceptionally difficult criminal justice problem….  [T]he Cato paper suggests replacing the inefficient indigent defense system with a voucher system. Indigent defendants can be provided with vouchers — and perhaps a list of options – and they can select whomever they prefer. It is a market-based solution that emphasizes personal liberty and minimizes the role of government.”

• 4.15.11 – according to the Daily Journal, there are big changes affecting the embattled Georgia Public Defender Standards Council (which is the statewide indigent defense service): “…Georgia lawmakers voted to replace the [Council’s] current 15-member board with nine new appointees tapped by the governor, the lieutenant governor and the House speaker. The measure, which must be signed by Gov. Nathan Deal, also gives the [Council’s] director more power over whom the system hires.”  The Council has been in the legislative doghouse for some time, particularly among conservative lawmakers.  As noted by the Daily Journal one departing board member complained that “the measure only marginalizes the council, turning it into a mere advisory board while putting more power in the hands of the director, ex-prosecutor Travis Sakrison, who is the third leader of the group in the past six months.”  Indeed, he referred to the move as a “pig in a poke,” which we suspect constitutes fightin’ words in the Peach State.

A dog-loving law student at the University of Kansas wants to make sure criminal cases of animal cruelty are prosecuted as thoroughly as violence against people. At the suggestion of a professor, Katie Barnett is organizing what her research suggests would be the first animal cruelty prosecution clinic at a U.S. law school.

Law students taking part in the clinic will work with animal control, animal cruelty investigators at the Humane Society, police and prosecutors in Douglas County to make sure cases are prosecuted to a conclusion.

“This is the chance for me to give the animals a voice and a place in the justice system,” said Barnett, a 30-year-old third-year law student.

“She has a long history in involvement in animal rights issues,” said law professor William Westerbeke, who approached Barnett about starting the clinic.

Many law students do clinical work already, and he said designating one to specifically coordinate and keep track of the animal cases would be beneficial for all involved. It also would save the Humane Society money and be terrific experience for the student, he said.

The first student in the program will begin in fall 2011, and Westerbeke said other eastern Kansas counties have expressed interest in the program if it succeeds.

The PSLawNet Blog couldn’t help but notice this innovative program!  High fives from the animal kingdom and public interest world!

This week’s Bulletin, cats and kittens, is shorter than normal.  But it’s packed with legal services funding news, including: how LSC $ cuts will affect New York programs; Equal Justice Works’s CEO David Stern talks public interest careers; a look at the fiscal challenges confronting Western Massachusetts Legal Services; coverage of the FY2011 federal budget agreement which pared down LSC funding by about 4%; a law school/legal services partnership provides pro bono services to those who serve in uniform; Wisconsin may cut all state funding for civil legal services. 

• 4.14.11 – a New York Law Journal piece looks at the impact the Legal Services Corporation funding cuts will have on Empire State legal services providers.  (Note: the LSC funding cuts are covered in item 4 below.)  From the NYLJ: “Even though a $15.8 million funding cut for the Legal Services Corp. included in a federal budget agreement is smaller than legal aid advocates had feared, the reduced funds will be acutely felt by New York groups already struggling with state funding cuts…. New York City-based Legal Services NYC will suffer the biggest cut in LSC funding, losing $701,411. That will probably mean having to let go of six or seven lawyers or paralegals, according to Raun J. Rasmussen, the chief of litigation and advocacy for the 220-lawyer group.”  The piece goes on to detail how cuts will affect other LSC grantees in New York.

• 4.12.11 – our friend David Stern of Equal Justice Works is profiled in the Washingtonian’s “Capitol Comment” blog.  David explains how his career path took him to Equal Justice Works’s helm, and offers a criticism of legal education’s emphasis on cold, analytical thinking: “Unfortunately, yes, law school strips [the desire to practice in public interest] away in many respects. It tries to teach lawyers to think in sterile, analytical ways without a lot of heart. There’s also a lot of competition in law schools for those coveted six-figure-salary jobs, and so people are malleable, they’re generally young, and all of these activities—the sterile thinking, the going after the coveted job, the very large educational debt—often strips away those public-service aspirations. Our job is to keep those embers burning.”  Bonus trivia: quite aside from being one of the nation’s most vocal advocates for the value of public interest work, David’s a pretty solid softball player.  Good glove, surprising power, and he can pitch.

• 4.12.11 – the Business Journal of Western Massachusetts looks at the fiscal challenges confronting Western Massachusetts Legal Services – “its current budget of $2.5 million is roughly half of what it was just a few years ago” – and the organization’s recent fundraising efforts.

• 4.12.11 – the Blog of the Legal Times reports on the federal budget compromise’s impact on Legal Services Corporation funding (which we also blogged about earlier this week).  From the BLT: “The bipartisan deal on the federal budget includes a $15.8 million midyear cut for the Legal Services Corp., according to new details released on Tuesday. The cut is smaller than the $70 million that House Republicans proposed to take in February from the Legal Services Corp., which is the nation’s largest funding source for civil legal aid to the poor. Still, program officials had hoped to avoid any cut because demand for legal aid has increased during the economic downturn. Legal Services Corp. received $420 million from Congress last year, so the cut represents a 3.8% reduction in its full-year budget. But because the federal government’s fiscal year began Oct. 1, officials will need to find the money with more than half the year already passed.”  Also, here’s LSC’s press release about the funding cut.

• 4.11.11 – the Jacksonville Daily Record looks at a terrific pro bono project that serves Army reservists with legal needs.  In particular, volunteer law students and attorney help reservists, who can be called up to active duty on very short notice, with “the creation of advance directive documents: Durable Power of Attorney, Health Care Surrogate Designation, Designation of Preneed Guardian, a Living Will and a Simple Will.”  The model for this program, set up by Jacksonville Area Legal Aid and Florida Coastal School of Law, is simple and easily replicable.  The “legal teams” consisted of a volunteer attorney and a law student, and they worked off of laptops that had the necessary form templates loaded on to them.

• 4.11.11 – a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel blog notes that Wisconsin legal services providers face sharp cuts in state funding: “Among the big losers in Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed budget are groups who provide legal services to the indigent in civil cases — all $2.6 million that used to help finance such representation would be cut.”

This week: pay for PA capital punishment counsel is peanuts; Sin City D.A. gambles on refusal to make budget cuts; a wrap-up of LSC funding news from Capitol Hill; speaking of, Idaho Legal Aid Services has a lot riding on a federal government shutdown; a great new transactional clinic at Wisconsin Law; update on state funding of legal services and indigent defense in Minnesota; legal services funding woes along the Iowa/Illinois state line; and legal services funding within the Texas state lines.

• 4.7.11 – Keystone State capital punishment news from the Philadelphia Inquirer: “The amount of public funding paid to Philadelphia court-appointed criminal-defense lawyers is so low that it violates the constitutional rights of indigent people facing the death penalty.  So argues a petition filed Wednesday by a group of Philadelphia court-appointed death-penalty lawyers who told a city judge that the commonwealth should pay them adequately or stop seeking capital punishment…. The gap between the fee schedule and reality has led some Philadelphia criminal-defense lawyers to refuse to accept capital-case appointments.”

• 4.7.11 – from the Las Vegas Sun: “The Clark County District Attorney is refusing to comply with a request from county managers to prepare 9 percent budget cuts for the department.  In a memo to county commissioners and staff dated last week, District Attorney David Roger informed county officials that his department has fewer attorneys than the Public Defenders Office, his staff is overworked and he made big cuts in previous years.”  It’s become a battle of statistics between D.A. Roger and county officials.  The county has cited statistics showing that both the D.A.’s budget and prosecutor compensation has grown recently, but the D.A. disputes that.

• 4.6.11 – there has been a good deal of recent news about how budget wrangling on Capitol Hill will affect the Legal Services Corporation.  There are two main uncertainties now.  The first deals with what will happen to LSC’s budget in the very near term as Congress and the president try to reach a funding agreement for the rest of the current fiscal cycle (FY 2011), or face a shutdown.  The second uncertainty deals with LSC funding for FY 2012, the fiscal cycle that is due to begin this October.  There was an appropriations hearing on the Hill this week about LSC’s FY 2012 funding.  Let’s look at news about current funding, then FY 2012 funding:
  • FY 2011 LSC Funding news:
    • 4.4.11 – a current and former LSC board member, who are now law school deans, submitted an op-ed in a Boston Globe blog sharply critical of possible LSC cuts: “Today as the House…calls for cutting $70 million from [LSC funding], many of the 900 [grantee organization field offices] will need to close — 370 staff attorneys will be let go and 162,000 fewer people will be served — just as the recession pushes the highest number of Americans into poverty in 51 years. Such cuts abandon some of the most vulnerable people in our nation.
    • Late last week the Blog of the Legal Times noted that this current week is “crunch time” for LSC funding: “The next week will likely determine whether the Legal Services Corp. is forced to make sharp midyear cuts in its budget, as lawmakers and Obama administration officials attempt to finish negotiations for federal spending through Sept. 30…. As part of a broad Republican plan to trim federal spending, the House in February approved a $70 million midyear cut to the Legal Services Corp., the nation’s largest funding source for civil legal aid to the poor. The proposal failed in the Senate, but a cut could still be part of any compromise.”
    • in late March the LSC board chairman and a former chairman co-authored an Atlanta Journal-Constitution op-ed explaining what’s at stake for legal services providers and their clients if cuts go through: “For the last 36 years, Congress has appropriated funds for civil legal assistance, and the current level is $394.4 million. Now, in the middle of a fiscal year, the House has targeted LSC for a $70 million cut in these funds…. The timing could not be worse. The work of legal aid attorneys has become ever more important since the 2008 recession and the significant rise in poverty across the land. Fifty-seven million Americans qualify for civil legal assistance…”
  • FY 2012 LSC Funding news:
    • 4.5.11 – the Blog of the Legal Times covered a House hearing on LSC’s FY 2012 budget: “The chairman of a House appropriations subcommittee said today that private-sector lawyers aren’t doing enough to help the nation’s poor with legal problems, warning that they might need to make up for expected cuts in federal funding.  U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) is a longtime supporter of funding for civil legal aid, but he said [LSC] still faces proposed cuts from the House’s new Republican majority. LSC and its local partners should turn to resources from large law firms, state bar dues and law schools.”  LSC president James Sandman and board member Robert Grey Jr. both noted that legal services providers already do leverage not only pro bono contributions from law-firm attorneys, but also financial resources.  On the issue of pro bono substituting for, rather than supplementing, legal services attorneys, the PSLawNet Blog is reminded of this recent op-ed from the Pro Bono Institute’s president, which argues that pro bono work can not be efficiently delivered without a well funded legal services infrastructure to guide that work.  (The PSLawNet Blog attended the hearing and we’ll put a larger blog post together in a couple of days.) 

• 4.6.11 – good news and bad news for Idaho Legal Aid Services.  First the bad: Boise’s KTVB television station explores what difficulties may befall the organization (and other LSC grantees) if Uncle Sam closes up shop today.  Idaho Legal Aid Services takes in two-thirds of its funding from federal sources.  “Money for the month of April is guaranteed, but after that they could see a delay, and it would lead to a considerable impact.  ‘If that cut was substantial then it may mean we wouldn’t be able to operate at all. If the cut is something less than that, then we have to look at how big the cut was and determine how many literally how many attorneys how many staff would have to be laid off,’ said [executive director Ritchie] Eppink.  Another noteworthy fact from the story: “Eppink says Idaho is the only state in the country that doesn’t provide state funding for legal assistance programs.”  Regarding state funding, Idaho Legal Aid Services may have a small reason to celebrate.  According to a Greenfield Daily Reporter article that ran earlier this week – and you better believe, cats and kittens, that the PSLawNet Blog reads the Greenfield Daily Reporter religiously – the state house narrowly approved a bill to “help provide free legal counsel to low-income residents in cases involving domestic violence, child abuse, and exploitation of the elderly.”  The bill would authorize revenue generation via a court filing fee.     

• 4.6.11 – the WisLaw Blog reports on Wisconsin Law School’s Law and Entrepreneurship Clinic, which matches low-income entrepreneurs with law students who provide help on transactional matters.  The clinic also enlists the help of pro bono attorneys to supervise the students’ work.  The PSLawNet Blog once had the privilege of helping to start a transactional pro bono program, and we’re big fans of pro bono projects that offer opportunities to advocates who are on business law career paths.  It greatly broadens the pool of pro bono advocates, and there are many nonprofit institutions and micro-entrepreneurs who are doing great work but are unable to afford counsel when needed.

• 4.6.11 – the Twin Cities Daily Planet reports on some Minnesota legislative proposals which could have a kryptonite-like effect on legal services providers: “State funding for civil legal services has fallen by 11 percent between 2008 and 2011 and is currently below 2006 levels. The Governor recommends flat funding for these services, the Senate cuts funding by six percent, and the House cuts funding by 17 percent in FY 2012-13 and 25 percent in FY 2014-15. The House proposal also limits the ability of legal aid and similar state-funded programs to lobby the legislature and pursue legal actions against the state and federal government on behalf of their clients.”  Public defenders, which have been victims of past budget cuts, stand to fare better; they may see funding increases.

• 4.4.11 – the Quad-City Times looks at funding troubles which confront Prairie State Legal Services in western Illinois as well as Iowa’s HELP Legal Assistance.  Both organizations have drawn considerably on reserves to make budgetary ends meet.  Prairie State’s reserves are gone, and its executive director reports that “Thirty-five percent of our budget…is at risk.”  The picture isn’t much better for HELP, which is bracing for funding news this spring that will affect the size of its staff going forward.

• 4.3.11 – Two stories involving legal services in the Lone Star State:
  • The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal highlights funding troubles that confront the Legal Aid Society of Lubbock, which devotes a considerable amount of time helping domestic violence victims and others with family-law related problems.  “As officials at all levels of government have tightened the purse strings, Legal Aid has seen cuts in funding, Graham said. She expected total funding to be down 10 percent to 30 percent this year.  And the budget cuts come when the organization has seen a 22 percent increase in clients over last year….  Last year the organization served 1343 clients.  Of those clients, 1100 were women.”
  • And now for some bipartisanship.  Last week a Dallas Morning News editorial urged the state house to pass HB 2174, which would raise some public filing fees to support legal services providers.  “The Texas Access to Justice Commission wants the state to put a small fee on non-judicial documents filed with a county clerk, such as for mortgages. They also want a minor fee put on judicial documents filed with justices of the peace and in municipal courts, such as for misdemeanor cases.  The fees would be paid by users of the justice system, so the money wouldn’t come out of general revenues. And estimates show they could bring in $58 million over the next two years.  Interestingly, liberal lawyers aren’t the only ones advocating this solution. Supporters include Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht, arguably the court’s most conservative jurist. Hecht recently told this newspaper, “This is about the rule of law. Access to the courthouse shouldn’t be dependent upon your ability to pay.”  Indeed, HR 2174, which is still in committee, is sponsored by a conservative Republican.

We’ll close by noting, with all due modesty, that the Glorious Philadelphia Phillies Baseball Franchise is 5-1, having absolutely thrashed the hapless New York Mutts last night.  Happy weekend!

The 2011 Major League Baseball season began yesterday, and the Glorious Philadelphia Phillies Baseball Franchise opens its season today.  Alas, the PSLawNet Blog’s dream of securing the world’s easiest job – the fifth man in the Phillies rotation – has not come to pass.  So here we sit at the NALP office, plugging away at the Public Interest Law News Bulletin – until a very, very long lunch break at about, oh, 1:05pm EDT.

Speaking of the Bulletin, here’s what we’ve got: prospects bleak for legal services funding from the New York legislature; news about state/local government revenues across the nation is mixed, at best; news about indigent defense reform in New York is not mixed, it’s bad; meet the federal official who’s responsible to recruit and retain the next generation of civil servants; workplace discrimination hits low-income women hardest, according to a new report; cash bonuses for convictions in a Colorado prosecutor’s office?; just say no to boosting attorney registration fees to support legal aid; legal services funding shortages may kill a popular Florida disability advocacy project; some great public interest funding news at UVA Law; a constitutional showdown in Washington State pits legal services advocates against budget-cutting state officials.

• 3.31.11 – well, we should have known it would be a tough row to hoe.  New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman has been a vocal, and active, advocate for bolstering civil legal services during a time of tremendous client need.  In addition to creating an Attorney Emeritus Program to make it easy for retired lawyers to do pro bono, he has been pushing hard for state funding to beef up the legal services infrastructure.  Well, New York state legislators are working away at a final budget proposal, and things are looking bleak for funding.  From the New York Law Journal:  “Lippman has aggressively sought an additional $25 million for civil legal services in the fiscal year beginning tomorrow, the first installment in a four-year $100 million increase. But that was thrown into doubt by a budget agreement Sunday that slashed another $70 million on top of an earlier $100 million Judge Lippman had offered in the Judiciary’s proposed budget….  Judge Lippman, who had said Monday that the budget cuts could mean “hundreds” of nonjudicial layoffs, declined to discuss specific cost-saving measures under consideration by court administrators. However, it is unlikely that the full $25 million would be available for civil legal services.”

• 3.29.11 – the PSLawNet Blog has frequently covered job cuts affecting state and local government lawyers in the recession’s wake.  Some new census data show how state and local governments are faring in terms of fiscal health.  Short version: some immediate good news, but a lot of uncertainty in the longer term.  From the Washington Post: “State and local tax revenues grew during the last three months of 2010, continuing a recovery from the steep drops that followed the recession, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday.  Despite the modest revenue growth, state and local governments are contending with huge budget gaps that have led to service cuts and reductions in pay and rights for public employees…. Though the recovery in state revenues is good news for state and local governments, it has not been sufficient to compensate for the huge revenue losses caused by the recession. States also are coping with fast-increasing costs for Medicaid and higher education, while they are bracing for the loss of about $50 billion in federal stimulus money in the coming budget year.”

• 3.29.11 – the North Country Gazette reports on some bad news for indigent defense funding in the Empire State:  “The just-announced State budget deal cuts funding for the Office of Indigent Legal Services in half according to the Justice Fund.  ‘This ill advised compromise cut threatens to gut reform before it begins,’ lamented Edward Nowak, chair of the Justice Fund board. ‘The injustices resulting from New York State’s failure to fulfill its duty to provide adequate representation to people charged with crime or threatened with loss of their children have gone on too long,’ he added.”  According to the story, New York State has historically farmed out indigent defense responsibilities to its counties, leaving a patchwork system filled with qualitative inconsistencies.  The Office of Indigent Legal Services is part of a recent effort to put the state’s weight behind indigent defense reform.  But due to the funding cut, it’s now a smaller part.

• 3.29.11 – the Washington Post’s “Federal Player of the Week” is a woman whose work will affect hundreds and hundreds of law students who aspire to federal government careers: “Juanita Wheeler has a big job ahead of her.  In December, President Obama issued an executive order that called for reforming the way our government recruits and hires student interns and recent graduates. Wheeler’s task now is to set up the new processes that federal agencies will use to bring young talent into the federal fold….  As head of federal student programs at the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM), Wheeler oversees the intern and student hiring and recruiting under the newly created ‘Pathways Program’ She also helps manage the Presidential Management Fellows Program, a two-year leadership development initiative for entry level individuals with advanced degrees, now operating in approximately 80 agencies.”

• 3.29.11 – a National Law Journal article looks at a new report on the issue of low-income women suffering from workplace discrimination: “Discrimination lawsuits brought by working professionals tend to draw public attention, but it’s low-wage workers who suffer the harshest consequences in those circumstances, according to a report by the Center for WorkLife Law at University of California Hastings College of the Law.  The report, titled ‘Poor, Pregnant, and Fired: Caregiver Discrimination Against Low-Wage Workers,’ analyses [sic] 50 workplace discrimination lawsuits — most resolved during the past five years — brought by low-wage workers. It highlights ways in which employers violate workers’ rights.”

• 3.29.11 – we blogged earlier this week about an interesting story coming out of the Denver suburbs: a controversy is brewing about a county prosecutor’s past policy of awarding financial bonuses which were tied in part to her prosecutors’ successes in getting convictions at trial.  The concern is that pinning a financial award to winning in court may motivate a prosecuting attorney to forgo plea deals in order to secure more convictions.  It could essentially give a prosecuting attorney a financial interest in the cases they handle.  Most recently, a public defender moved to have a prosecutor working for District Attorney Carol Chambers removed from a case on account of concerns about a financial conflict.  Here’s some coverage:
  • a 3.29.11 Denver Post article covers the motion: “A motion questioning an Arapahoe County prosecutor’s ability to try a felony kidnapping case in light of District Attorney Carol Chambers’ controversial bonus criteria survived its first hearing Monday.  Eighteenth Judicial District Court Judge Carlos Samour Jr. gave the defense more time to subpoena documents from Chambers’ office detailing the bonuses paid last year that rewarded felony prosecutors who tried at least five cases and won conviction in 70 percent of them.”  Chambers disputes the notion that her prosecutors have financial stakes in cases and noted that budget constraints will prevent any future bonus awards anyway.  (The bonuses totaled over $164,000 in 2010 and averaged $1100 for felony prosecutors.)
  • 3.25.11 – here’s some earlier coverage, including  a video story, from Denver-based TV station KUSA.  In it, Chambers is adamant in defending of the bonuses, noting that they were offered not just to trial lawyers but also to support staff.  She also argues that courtroom success was but one criterion in the bonus calculations, and that attorneys did not know it was a criterion at all.

• 3.28.11 – on the Minnesota Lawyer’s “J.D. Rising” blog, a former legal services attorney opposes the state high court’s order for a $100 increase in attorney registration fees that will channel funds to the Board of Public Defense and the Legal Services Planning Committee.  While the need for additional funding in both the criminal and civil legal aid communities is obvious, writes Leah Weaver, she believes that cobbling together funding via the fee increase takes some of the burden off of the parties who should carry it.  “I am opposed to the fee increase because I believe it gives the Governor and the Legislature a pass on dealing with the real crisis facing our courts. As Justice Stras wrote in his [concurring opinion re the court’s fee increase order], ‘it is not the responsibility of lawyers alone to disproportionately fund a core, constitutionally-mandated service of government through a fee that was designed solely to regulate our profession.’ But by extending the fee increase, the Court allows Governor Dayton and the Legislature to continue not to make court funding a priority.”

• 3.28.11 – the Florida Times-Union reports that funding shortfalls at Jacksonville Area Legal Aid threaten a path-breaking project that provides advocacy for the hearing impaired.  Sharon Caserta, a Class-of-2005 Equal Justice Works Fellow now working as a staff attorney at JALA, “has become recognized as a trailblazer statewide for protecting the rights of the deaf and hard of hearing.  Trouble is brewing, though. The career Caserta sprouted five years ago…could be fading away as funding becomes scarce. The prospect has…Legal Aid Executive Director Michael Figgins and Florida Association of the Deaf President June McMahon bracing themselves.  Figgins said the program costs $150,000 annually, but this year Legal Aid has come up $75,000 short. The biggest part of the problem, he said, is the Florida Bar Foundation’s trust accounts are still struggling from the recession.”

• 3.28.11 – the Daily Progress reports on UVA Law’s use of some legal services grant funding: “The University of Virginia School of Law will use a $150,000 grant to help provide legal services to the region’s poor.  The grant from the Jessie Ball DuPont Fund will be used to develop the Access to Justice Partnership, which officials hope will ultimately draw on pro bono services from roughly 75 private attorneys and about as many law students annually.  Law school officials will collaborate with the local bar, the Legal Aid Justice Center and the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society.”  This isn’t the only public interest funding news from UVA Law.  Earlier this week we blogged that the school’s Public Interest Law Association raised over $375,000 to fund summer public interest work for rising 2 and 3Ls.

• 3.27.11 – a constitutional showdown about the fate of a state-funded food stamp program could portend many battles between public interest lawyers and state governments as the latter push to shrink budget deficits by cutting social services.  The Seattle Post Intelligencer reports that Columbia Legal Services is leading the charge to stop Washington State from discontinuing the Food Assistance for Legal Immigrants (FAP) program.  Here’s the posture of the federal class-action litigation: “[A federal judge] on Tuesday denied the state’s request that she reconsider her preliminary injunction last month forcing the state Department of Social and Health Services to fully restore…FAP. The program, which had been cut on Jan. 31, serves more than 10,300 households and provides benefits to immigrants who are ineligible for federal food stamps.  The state had hoped to save an estimated $7.2 million for the remainder of the current biennium and about $60.5 million for the next one by terminating the FAP.  But [the court] found that by cutting off food assistance to a certain class of legal immigrants while continuing to operate and partially fund the federal food assistance program – which serves some immigrants – the state may be in violation of the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.”  The facts driving this case are a bit nuanced, but as noted in the article a similar federal case originated in Hawaii last year.  And it’s our bet that, as state governments leave no stones unturned in looking to cut expenses, we’ll see more such actions filed by legal services providers elsewhere in the U.S.

This week: the NYT profiles an EJW Fellow doing holistic defense work; Project Salute is serving Michigan veterans; a legislative proposal to fund legal services for foster children in Nevada; how badly will the Granite State cut funding to New Hampshire Legal Assistance?; a slight bump in charitable giving in the 2010, according to the Nonprofit Research Collaborative; an LSC $ cut could badly gum up the works in Connecticut’s legal services system; the incoming ABA president comes out swinging for legal services funding.

• 3.24.11 – the New York Times runs a nice profile of Equal Justice Works Fellow Michelle Parris, who graduated from law school in 2010 and is completing her fellowship with the Bronx Defenders.  Parris’s project focuses on providing holistic services to Bronx Defenders clients, helping them to avoid homelessness, to access health care, and to steer clear of the criminal justice system in the future.  (For those wondering why an Equal Justice Works fellow is working with a defender when fellows traditionally focus on civil justice matters – some advocates now see the provision of ancillary, civil legal services as being intertwined with, and maybe even essential to, providing successful indigent defense services.  We recently blogged about a Crime Report story on the traction that holistic indigent defense programs are gaining.)  On an unrelated, and lighter, note, we’ve also blogged from time to time about the fact that many lawyers feel comfortable working in either prosecution or indigent defense.  No so Ms. Parris!  When asked about working as a prosecutor: “No, never! I can’t imagine being in the position of prosecuting someone. Our job is to essentially look at the best in a person. Just because a person made mistakes doesn’t mean they’re not redeemable.”

• 3.24.11 – the Detroit Free Press offers an update on Detroit Mercy’s innovative veterans clinic: “University of Detroit Mercy School of Law’s (UDM Law) Project SALUTE is traveling across the State of Michigan in a mobile law office (a recreational vehicle custom designed, built and generously donated by General Motors Corporation) providing free legal advice to low-income veterans on their federal veterans’ disability and pension benefits claims. Utilizing a grant from the State of Michigan, Project SALUTE will host a veterans’ legal clinic in Detroit on Wednesday, March 30, 2011 … The state grant is also being used to establish a freestanding Veterans Clinic at the school dedicated to specifically addressing veterans’ disability and pension benefits matters.”

• 3.23.11 – as state governments are tightening budgetary belts, we’ve seen a number of efforts made in the legal services community to ensure that the poor and vulnerable don’t suffer too much in the name of fiscal austerity.  The Reno Gazette Journal reports on a proposal to shore up legal services funding for children in Nevada’s foster care system: “Former Nevada Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley is promoting a bill in the Legislature to increase fees at county recorders’ offices and funnel the money to legal services for abused or neglected children … The bill would raise a surcharge for recording a document, deed, map or survey to $3 from its present $1, and direct the additional money to provide legal services to children in the foster care system … Three nonprofit organizations — Nevada Legal Services, Washoe Legal Services and Buckley’s organization, the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada — would gain from the revenue.”  According to an official at the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada, half of the roughly 3000 children in the foster care system do not have representation.

• 3.23.11 – speaking of state funding and legal services, the Nashua Telegraph reports on the potential impact of budget cuts on New Hampshire Legal Assistance as legislators wrangle with the Granite State’s two-year spending bill.  In a Tuesday night mark-up session, some NHLA funding was reinserted into a proposed measure.  But NHLA is still looking at a significant cut: “Among the spending changes approved as add-ons to the plan was $250,000 so that New Hampshire Legal Assistance would not close its only office in the North Country. The spending plan from the House panels reduces grants to the legal aid group by $1.4 million, and advocates have warned this could lead to closing offices in Nashua and Concord.”

• 3.23.11 – The Atlantic picks up on a new report showing a slight, post-recession uptick in charitable giving:  “As the U.S. economy recovers from the recent recession, so is charitable giving. In 2010, 43% of charities reported more contributions than in 2009, according to a survey (.pdf) conducted by the Nonprofit Research Collaborative (“NRC”). Of the charities surveyed, 24% reported approximately the same level of giving, while 33% reported a decline.”

• 3.21.11 – the Connecticut Law Tribune reports that potential LSC funding cuts could wreak havoc in the Constitution State because its main case intake program relies on federal dollars: “A proposed $70 million cut in federal legal aid would devastate a Connecticut clearinghouse that assists 15,000 clients a year and further hobble three other agencies still reeling from a dramatic drop in state-based funds, officials said.  Janice Chiaretto, executive director of Statewide Legal Services, said her agency is receiving about $2.7 million this year in federal Legal Services Corp. funding. The proposed cut would mean a $500,000 reduction, or the equivalent of half a dozen staff positions and thousands of clients assisted. Statewide Legal Services is the only Connecticut agency to receive the federal funds, but others would feel the loss because many of their cases are pre-screened and referred by Statewide.”  Funding for the state’s legal services community has been greatly reduced as a consequence of the recession.  “[O]verall budgets at the Connecticut legal aid agencies are still down 18 percent from 2007 levels.”  Fifty lawyers at Connecticut Legal Services are taking once-a-month furloughs to help make ends meet.

• 3.18.11 – a piece in North Carolina’s Asheville Citizen Times shows that it’s not just the ABA’s current president, but also its president elect, who’s going to bat for legal services funding.  President-elect Bill Robinson, at a recent engagement in Asheville, said, “The proposed cuts to legal services are going to hurt the most vulnerable citizens in our society…What has defined us as a constitutional democracy has been access to justice…If our most vulnerable citizens can’t get access to justice, access to our courts, then justice for all of us is compromised.”

This week: the ABA president on an underfunded justice system; death, taxes and educational debt; the Lone Star State reckons it needs legal services funding; ditto the Tennesseans; ditto ditto the Pennsylvanians; the National Law Journal runs a multi-article feature, putting its finger on the pulse of civil legal services; a San Francisco prosecutor shines during a dark time; and she gets paid, unlike some prosecutors in L.A., the ABA says, “Fund legal services!”; and New Yorks’ prosecutors and defenders get some loan repayment help.

• 3.17.11 – writing in The Hill’s Congress Blog, ABA president Stephen Zack laments that funding shortages hamper access to the justice system.  Courts are underfunded, the legal services community is facing Congressional funding cuts despite overwhelming demand for their services, and it is difficult for law graduates to make a living as “Main Street” lawyers.  (There’s more from the ABA and Zack specifically on legal services funding cuts a few stories down.)

• 3.16.11 – one of the chief concerns among new public interest lawyers is loan repayment.  On the issue of how policymakers and the general public perceive the problem of student debt, a new report dispels the notion that a borrower must be financially comfortable if they are not in default.  From Inside Higher Ed: “Much of the discussion about college student debt revolves around the 15 percent of borrowers who default on their loans…”  And this leaves many with the impression that the other 85% are in decent shape.  “Yet a study released Tuesday by the [Institute for Higher Education Policy] suggests otherwise, showing that a majority of borrowers at least delay some loan payments, and a full quarter (26 percent) actually go into delinquency on their debt at some point during their first five years of repayment.”  The study looks at a cohort of grads whose repayment periods began before the federal Income Based Repayment program became available.  Nevertheless, we find the report’s findings compelling.  They highlight the fact that many borrowers who do not actually default still struggle with educational debt.  In a great blog post our friend Heather Jarvis notes the following about graduate students as reported in the study: “Although graduate and professional borrowers were less likely than other borrowers to have been delinquent or defaulted on their student loans, 42% couldn’t manage to make timely payments without either postponing their payments, becoming delinquent, or defaulting on their student loans.”

• 3.15.11 – the Fort Worth Star-Telegram runs an editorial in support of state legislative proposals that would boost legal services funding, mainly via increases in court filing fees.  The editorial notes that the state’s two most significant legal services revenue streams – federal funding and IOLTA revenues – are, respectively, likely to shrink and already shrunken.  Anticipating cuts in Legal Services Corporation (LSC) funding, “Legal Services of Northwest Texas already is planning to eliminate paid law school internships and not fill six attorney vacancies.”  A state appropriation to shore up legal services, which was made last year, is out of the question this year.  So the newest proposed solutions are the best bets: “This session, a bipartisan collection of bills has been filed to generate the revenue IOLTA accounts aren’t. Proposals include increasing District Court civil filing fees by $10 ($6.6 million over the 2012-13 biennium); adding costs for filing county records and for misdemeanor convictions in justice and municipal courts ($58 million to $68.9 million, split between legal aid and indigent criminal defense); and dedicating court-ordered restitution in consumer-protection lawsuits to legal aid in consumer cases (possibly more than $1 million).”

• 3.15.11 – in a Tennessean op-ed, Gary Housepian, executive director of the Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands, makes the case for LSC funding.  Housepian writes that not only are federal dollars very efficiently used by LSC grantee programs like his, but those dollars also allow grantees to raise private sector funds to boost service capacity.  Housepian acknowledges that government funds are scarcer, but argues that we can not sacrifice equal justice.  An essential component of [equal justice] is the availability of legal aid, especially to those most vulnerable to losing the absolute necessities of life. Providing access to justice to every American is not a luxury; it is an obligation.”

• 3.14.11 – the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that state funding for civil legal services would remain close to current levels under Gov. Tom Corbett’s budget proposal.  “[Corbett] proposes to keep $5.05 million in legal services, funded through a Social Services Block Grant (SSBG) that involves federal funds targeted to urban or rural areas in economic distress, at the same level. He also proposes that funding for the Department of Public Welfare to contract with the Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network (PLAN) to provide low-income people legal assistance be held at $3.01 million, down from $3.04 million in this fiscal year.”  But, because it seems that no good news about legal services funding can exist these days without some offsetting bad news, a filing fee revenue stream that had channeled some money to legal services is set to expire in early 2012.  And of course there is uncertainty about federal funding via LSC.

• 3.14.11 – the National Law Journal runs an extensive, multi-article report on the state of the legal services community, exploring the need for assistance among clients, funding uncertainties, political considerations, etc.  Among others, the NLJ’s “Power of Hope” report includes:
  • A story on work done by Maine’s Pine Tree Legal Assistance to empower a domestic violence victim;
  • A history of the Legal Services Corporation’s funding roller-coaster ride; and
  • An interview with one of LSC’s most vocal critics, Kenneth Boehm of the National Legal and Policy Center. 

• 3.14.11 – The Recorder in California has a nice profile of San Francisco prosecutor Sharon Woo, who had sent warning signals to superiors about strange events at the city’s crime lab.  Those strange events blossomed into a full-on scandal, as a crime lab technician admitted stealing narcotics.  Woo successfully managed the thorny, politically charged fallout, and has emerged as a star in the office.  Woo has been promoted by the new district attorney to the “newly created position of chief assistant for operations.”

• 3.14.11 – speaking of California prosecutors, a Los Angeles Times article begins this way: “Malibu resident Ashley St. Johns-Jacobs, 40, typically rises before 5 a.m. to get to her job at the Los Angeles city attorney’s office by 8 a.m. After a full day prosecuting misdemeanors, she often brings work home.  What she doesn’t bring home is a paycheck. With no position open, she has been working as an unpaid intern for nearly a year in hopes of eventually getting hired when a job opens up.”  The piece goes on to look at the phenomenon of would-be employees taking unpaid positions during an economic recovery that has been stingy about producing new jobs.  “Interns” are exempted from labor wage regulations, but is an “intern” an “intern” if they are essentially doing the work that a professional would do?  As you may guess, it depends on the nature of the “internship.” 

• 3.11.11 – “In written testimony submitted to the Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies today, American Bar Association President Stephen N. Zack called on Congress to fund the Legal Services Corporation at $450 million, citing increased need for assistance for the poor and working class during tough economic times.  ‘Appropriations for the Legal Services Corporation is not just about funding another federal agency.  This is about providing legal services for the 57 million Americans at or below the poverty line, including 19 million children, who are eligible for assistance,’ said Zack.”  Here’s an ABA press release, and here’s the text of Zack’s testimony.

• 3.10.11 – prosecutors and public defenders in New York State may now benefit from federal John R. Justice Act loan repayment assistance funds, which are being administered by the state’s Higher Education Services Corporation.  Here’s a press release with more info.  The application deadline is May 1, 2011.