By: Steve Grumm

This ABA Journal piece is a must-read if you’re interested in how legal education is financed (i.e. the widespread availability of loans), the intersection of the lending system with a bleak job market, and what may happen from here.  The news ain’t all good.  Authors William Henderson and Rachel Zahorsky begin with some sobering present-day statistics…

In 2010, 85 percent of law graduates from ABA-accredited schools boasted an average debt load of $98,500, according to data collected from law schools by U.S. News & World Report. At 29 schools, that amount exceeded $120,000. In contrast, only 68 percent of those grads reported employment in positions that require a JD nine months after commencement. Less than 51 percent found employment in private law firms.

The influx of so many law school graduates—44,258 in 2010 alone, according to the ABA—into a declining job market creates serious repercussions that will reverberate for decades to come.

…

The piece then goes on to trace the historical role of federal lending (both in backing private loans and direct lending) in funneling cash into the legal education system.  Henderson/Zahorsky identify a serious, looming problem for federal lending.  Now that Uncle Sam is doing so much direct lending he is betting that, as a lender, he’ll make money back on future interest revenues paid by law-student/attorney borrowers.  But is this realistic in light of a stagnant (and maybe in the long term, shrinking) job market?

By failing to make rigorous, realistic actuarial assumptions in deciding who to lend money to and how much to lend, the federal government avoids politically uncomfortable trade-offs. Everyone can go to college. And if you can get accepted into law school, the government will finance that, too.

But as the economist Herbert Stein once said, “If something cannot go on forever, it won’t.” The federal government’s gamble that higher education will continue to result in higher personal incomes eerily echoes Wall Street’s risky assumption that historical patterns in real estate values would carry forward forever and enable many sliced-and-diced mortgage-backed securities to attain AAA ratings.

While it may be politic, even patriotic, to assume that the higher-education-equals-higher-income equation is fact, for investors it remains, at best, aspirational. Since 2008, private investment in nearly any market has been reluctant. The capitalists aren’t taking this education-equals-high income bet; if they did, the terms they would demand would likely change the choices that student borrowers are now making.

Unless the government’s actuarial assumptions on student loan repayments turn out to be correct, federal funding of higher education is on a collision course with the federal deficit.

Optimistic assumptions of future growth and earning power, however, are completely at odds with the financial landscape that has given rise to the so-called scamblogger movement and some recent lawsuits by graduates alleging their schools committed fraud and other deceptive practices regarding portrayals of job prospects.

I wish I had more time to go into depth on this article, but for now the above must suffice as a teaser.  It’s worth a full read.

The Huffington Post brings us a handful of websites that are designed to spread the word about the good work of nonprofits and micro-enterprises, and to give donors – whether you’re a high-falutin’ philanthropist or a guy/gal with a few extra dollars for a good cause – opportunities to support them.  Maybe some fundraising avenues for cash-strapped nonprofit law offices…

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  2011: the end is nigh.  At the close of every year the Washington Post publishes a “what’s going out?/what’s coming in?” piece about cultural trends, the changing zeitgeist, etc.  The piece seems perfeclty designed if the goal is to remind me how out of touch I am.  For instance, “Ovaltine nostalgia” is out while a “Tang renaissance” is coming in.  I love Ovlaltine!  How did I miss that!?  And, while seemingly crass but otherwise a mystery to me, “Pippa’s bum” is losing in favor of “Kate’s uterus.”  Sorry, Pippa.  Greek yogurt, which I had noticed was all the rage in 2011, is being pushed out by something called Icelandic skyr.  I hope Pippa’s not Greek.  That would be a double-whammy for her.  Anyway, as we turn to 2012 I wish you a happy and safe New Year’s holiday.

Here’s what we’ve got in the public interest department:

• it’s a revolving employment door for Wisconsin’s assistant prosecutors;
• lots of news about how LSC cuts will affect Virginia legal services providers;
• Michigan Community Resources expands to provide more than legal assistance to its nonprofit clients;
• DC’s LRAP program is coming up dry (boo!!);
• study shows that a homicide defendant with a public defender will fare a lot better than with court-appointed counsel;
• prosecutors and defenders square off, but this time everybody wins;
• Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma bracing for the LSC funding cut pinch;
• a good idea for raising legal services funding from law firm associates.

This week:

• 12.28.11 – Wisconsin struggles to retain its prosecutors, according to a new study.  Here’s a report from WISC-TV: “They carry much of the workload in Wisconsin’s criminal justice system, and a study found that many assistant district attorneys, or ADAs, are leaving their posts at an alarming rate.  The study called “Public Safety and Assistant District Attorney Staffing in Wisconsin” surveyed past and present ADAs and found that while an overwhelming majority of these state workers went into the field to perform a public service, for several years most are leaving for better paying jobs with better benefits in the private sector….”

• 12.28.11- three stories about how LSC cuts will impact Virginia-based legal services providers:
  •  From WVIR: “Legal aid groups across the commonwealth are preparing to lobby the Virginia General Assembly for losses in funding. That funding has decreased by $8 million since 2008, affecting the services available to more than a million Virginians that cannot afford other legal help.  For some, it could mean job cuts. That is why groups across the state plan to ask the General Assembly for increased funding when its session begins in January.”
  • The News-Leader reports on how Blue Ridge Legal Services, in central/western Virginia, will be impacted: “Congressional action in mid-November reduced federal funding for civil legal services to low-income residents by 15 percent. This cut came on the heels of an earlier 4 percent cut in federal funding in April, sparking Blue Ridge’s first round of cuts, halving the number of attorneys at its Harrisonburg office, which serves Staunton, Waynesboro and Augusta County, said John Whitfield, executive director and general counsel for the organization.”
  • Here’s a statewide look at the potential for cuts, from the Northern Virginia Daily: “A statewide agency that gives legal aid to the poor faces layoffs as a result of congressional funding cuts.  Representatives with Legal Services Corp. of Virginia said Friday they plan to ask the General Assembly to help restore funds lost this fall when Congress reduced grants by 15 percent, according to a news release.  The agency provides funding and oversight of the state’s legal aid system — nine direct-service programs in 38 offices statewide and the Virginia Poverty Law Center, which assists with advocacy, education and litigation support.  Statewide the agency faces losing 20 attorneys and 10 support staff, according to legal services group’s executive director, Mark D. Braley. 

• 12.27.11 – Michigan Community Resources, formerly known as Community Legal Resources, outgrew the “Legal” in its name.  MCR used to provide legal assistance to under-resourced nonprofit organizations.  Now it offers a broader range of services, and works with an expanded circle of client organizations.  From the Huffington Post: “MCR now services the entire state and offers planning, technical and educational support in addition to legal aid. Its clientele has expanded, too. Many of the groups MCR assists are 501(c)3 nonprofits, but the organization also helps groups like block clubs and neighborhood associations.”  I used to work with a transactional pro bono program that served nonprofits in need of legal help.  Often times, they would also require technical assistance that was not directly legal in nature.  Taking a more holistic approach to client services makes a lot of sense to me.  Congrats, MCR.  

• 12.25.11 – the LRAP program for DC-based poverty lawyers is short on the cash to meet demand from debt-laden lawyers.  From the Washintgon Post: “For the first time in its five-year history, the privately funded program that helps lawyers at Washington nonprofits repay law school debt — the Loan Repayment Assistance Program — fell short of covering the majority of lawyers’ eligible monthly loan payments. In past years, the program managed to cover at least 90 percent of those monthly loan repayments; this year, they only have enough money to cover about half.  That’s because the need for aid is outpacing the money coming into the program. In 2007, the first year of LRAP, 14 percent of lawyers applying for the grants had debt of more than $150,000, and their average debt was $92,000. Today, 27 percent have debt of more than $150,000, and their average debt has jumped to $119,000.”

• 12.24.11 – here may be our data points of the week.  A study of indigent homicide defendants that took place in Philly found a sharp difference in outcomes based on whether they had a public defender (on staff w/ the Defender Association of Philadelphia) or a court-appointed lawyer.  An NY Times editorial summarizes the RAND study: “The study examined murder cases of indigent defendants with similar profiles in the city from 1994 to 2005. The conviction rate of clients represented by staff lawyers working for the public defender association…was 19 percent lower than those represented by court-appointed lawyers working alone. Their expected time served in prison was 24 percent lower, and they were far less likely to get a life sentence.”   

• 12.24.11 – on a lighter note, prosecutors and defenders in Alaska engaged in some non-hostile combat to generate a whole bunch of food donations for the needy.  From the Peninsula Clarion: “A friendly competition between the Kenai’s District Attorney’s Office and the Public Defender Agency helped people in need this holiday season. The two offices, which generally compete toe-to-toe at the Kenai Courthouse, collected food last week as part of a private food drive. The public defenders won the competition, donating 1,547 pounds of canned and dried foods. The district attorneys donated 978 pounds of food.”

• 12.23.11 – on the heels of the LSC funding cut, Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma is bracing for impact.  From the Express-Star: “Oklahoma’s statewide nonprofit law firm providing free civil legal services to elderly and low-income persons who are about to lose their children, housing, health care or income or who are victims of domestic violence, is preparing for a federal funding cut of approximately $700,000 for the coming fiscal year.”  ($700,000 represents about 10% of LASO’s budget.)  “No decisions have been made by LASO’s Board of Directors regarding implementation of LSC’s funding cut.”

• 12.22.11 – a good legal services fundraising idea.  Here’s some information on the “One Hour of Sharing Associates’ Campaign, which encourages Minnesota-based law firm associates to make a cash donation, in the amount of their hourly billing rate, to the Fund for the Legal Aid Society.  The JD Rising blog has more detail. 

By: Steve Grumm

Much ink has been spilled in the past year about the quickly rising cost of legal education, and the return on investment that law grads receive from that education.  A latest installment in the ongoing conversation comes from the American Lawyer, in a piece entitled “ABA Regulations Don’t Cause Tuition Increases, Law Schools Do.”

In the piece, author Matt Leichter deconstructs what he perceives to be the core arguments arising from the most recent of New York Times reporter David Segal’s articles on the value of legal education.  Leichter begins:

In his latest New York Times piece on law schools’ problems, “For Law Schools, a Price to Play the A.B.A.’s Way,” David Segal places the responsibility for needless tuition increases on the American Bar Association’s (ABA) accreditation regime.

…

I think Segal is trying to make three claims here:

(1) The consent decree caused law school tuition to increase over the inflation rate.

(2) Tuition increases at the most well-regarded law schools are caused by U.S. News‘s rankings and the Federal Direct Student Loan Program.

(3) The ABA’s standards cause tuition increases in law schools that are not well regarded by U.S. News.

These are bold statements, particularly the third one, because if they are true, then criticism toward law schools ought to be redirected towards the ABA, and the solutions would probably not require significant modifications to the federal student loan system as it works with law schools.

…

By: Steve Grumm

City/municipal funding is often an important piece in the public interest funding pie.  In Philadelphia and Seattle, for instance, the municipal governments fund public defense programs.  Legal services organizations rely on city grants and other collaborative funding efforts to serve clients.  So it’s worth noting that, even as the recession has officially ended, the worst may lie ahead for city budgets.  The Washington Post explores looming budgetary woes for city governments:

The nation’s housing crisis is five years old, but for local governments across the country, the worst of the reckoning might only now be at hand.Because of the time it often takes for property assessments to reflect falling home values, the bust that began in 2007 has just begun to ravage tax revenues in communities from coast to coast. The problem is unlikely to subside soon.

…

State governments, which rely heavily on sales and income taxes, saw massive hits to their bottom lines early in the crisis as unemployment skyrocketed. But those revenues have begun, ever so slowly, to recover.

Meanwhile, many local governments weathered the early years of the financial crisis in part because the property tax revenues they rely upon so heavily held steady or actually increased as a result of assessments that still reflected inflated prices. Many municipalities are now being forced to recognize the collapse in home prices and the shrinking tax base that comes with it. At the same time, they are seeing state and federal aid dry up.

 

By: Steve Grumm

2011 was a great year for legal education, right?  Right?  [Crickets.]

In “The Year the Chickens Came Home to Roost,” the National Law Journal’s Karen Sloan offers her top 10 legal education stories.  Making the cut: schools fudging admisssions data, grads use their legal skills to sue their alma maters, Sen. Boxer takes the ABA to the mat, law school finals go to the dogs, etc., etc., etc.

By: Steve Grumm

Happy FridayHolidays, dear readers.  And if the religious holidays are not your bag, I wish you a wondrous Winter Solstice Season.  According to the Wikipedias, “The winter solstice occurs exactly when the axial tilt of a planet’s polar hemisphere is farthest away from the star that it orbits. Earth’s maximum axial tilt to our star, the Sun, during a solstice is 23° 26′.” If axial tilts don’t warm your heart and make you want to be in fellowship with humanity, I don’t know what will.  Regardless of what you celebrate or how you celebrate it, I wish you a joy-filled, relaxing holiday season.  In summary, here’s what we’ve got:

• NOLA’s defender office has made serious, post-Katrina progress;
• our buddy Tom Maligno is profiled for his remarkable public-interest work at Touro Law on Lawwng Eye-laaand.  (Don’t worry, the interview is translated out of their strange local dialect and into regular English.);
• just a few miles west, is public defender hiring on the horizon in New York?;
• Legal Aid of West Virginia looking at layoffs in wake of LSC $ cuts;
• as has happened elsewhere in the country, a Northeastern PA defender announces he’s triaging the kinds of new cases he can accept;
• controversy in MA about an apparent failure to screen indigent defendants for indigence;
• an MLP in East Tennessee;
• making the case for an indigent defense system, Minnesota-style;
• Quiz: what will cause a public defender’s office to burn through cash right quick?;
• NYC legal aid lawyers hop in the bus and bring justice to Brooklyn and the Bronx;
• from the Department of Bad Timing: public defender layoffs, prosecuting attorney raises, in Central Florida;
• Houston, TX finally has a public defense program, and its chief wants you to know how their first year went.

This week:

• The Jan./Feb. edition of Mother Jones looks at the remarkable, post-Katrina progress of the Office of the Public Defender in New Orleans, which has transformed from a beleaguered to an award-winning program.  Nevertheless the OPD, led by Derwyn Bunton (whom we interviewed here in early 2010), faces new funding challenges and is pitted against a district attorney’s office which brings cases in historically high volume.

• 12.22.11 – Tom Maligno, executive director of a unique (and quite robust) “Public Advocacy Center” at Touro Law School, drops some wisdom about why/how the PAC operates.  The center houses several independent public interest law offices, which gives Touro students direct access to employers and experiential learning opportunities.  On the ABA Center for Pro Bono’s blog, Maligno notes, “Through the William Randolph Hearst Public Advocacy Center (PAC) we give free space to advocacy organizations so they have working offices within the law school. What we get in return is a plan for them to involve our students in their work. We have a mandatory pro bono graduation requirement at Touro. One of the ways students can fulfill that requirement is by working within these agencies that are all housed within the law school.  We try to select various groups so the types of organization available for student volunteers run the gamut. We work with legal services programs, immigration groups, civil liberties organization, domestic violence advocates and much more.”

• 12.21.11 – public defender hiring on the horizon in New York?  Thomson Reuters reports: “State court administrators have requested millions of dollars in funding to help legal-aid offices in New York City come into compliance with a new law limiting the number of criminal cases a public defender can handle each year…. The law, proposed by Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman in 2009, bars public-defender offices in the city from averaging more than 400 misdemeanor or 150 felony cases per attorney in any 12-month  period…. While the law creating the cap doesn’t take effect until April 1, 2014, the current state budget includes $6.8 million to allow the handful of public-defender offices in the city to hire new attorneys. The largest office, the Legal Aid Society of New York, has already hired 105 new lawyers, according to Attorney-in-Chief Steven Banks, but is still only about halfway toward its bid to meet the cap. Earlier this month, in a spending proposal for the upcoming fiscal year, state court officials requested an additional $6.4 million to come into compliance with the law.”

• 12.20.11 – following November’s LSC funding cuts Legal Aid of West Virginia is bracing for attorney layoffs.  From the Charleston Gazette: “Federal spending cuts will likely force the overburdened Legal Aid of West Virginia to lay off several lawyers in order to compensate for its annual budget woes.”  It’s not like LAWV is overly staffed right now: “Legal Aid has just 40 lawyers to handle cases in the state’s 55 counties, according to Legal Aid’s website, and demand for more lawyers is not getting any lighter.  In 2010 alone, demand for Legal Aid services increased 20 percent from the previous year.”

• 12.20.11 – resource shortages are compelling a Northeastern Pennsylvania public defender to refuse some new cases.  From an editorial in the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader: “Chief Public Defender Al Flora Jr. said his office will limit the number of new cases it takes beginning this week. Flora pinned the problem on a shortage of funding for a sufficiently large defense staff to handle the caseload, saying, ‘We are overwhelmed right now….’  By taking this action, Flora might finally force county and state officials to confront troubling shortfalls here in money and personnel devoted to the court system. He’s justifiably perturbed at being asked to provide competent counsel without being provided the resources to supply it.  Until the dust-up can be resolved, however, the most likely casualties are – again – the people with the least.”  Flora is basically limiting case intake to juvenile and some felony matters.  Here’s additional coverage from the Associated Press.
   
• 12.19.11 – in Massachusetts, trouble with the system to screen client eligibility for a public defender.  The AP reports: ‘Massachusetts has spent nearly $48 million on free legal services for the poor without verifying whether those making the claims are truly indigent, according to a new report released Monday by state Auditor Suzanne Bump.  The report looks at the Office of the Commissioner of Probation, the agency responsible for verifying that a person claiming to be poor meets the definition established by the Supreme Judicial Court to be eligible for free legal services.  Bump’s review of fiscal year 2010 records at 27 of the state’s 70 district courts found what she called ‘near total noncompliance with the indigency verification laws, rules, and regulations.’  None of the 27 courts performed any verification of documentation at an applicant’s initial screening.  In the sample of cases pulled from these courts, only 1.7 percent contained adequate documentation that court officials performed a required 60-day reassessment, and less than 1 percent had any evidence that a required six-month reassessment had been conducted.”  More coverage from the Boston Herald.

• 12.19.11 – a new medical-legal partnership (MLP) in East Tennessee.  WDEF reports: “It’s the first of its kind in the Chattanooga area.  Erlanger Health System announces a partnership with Legal Aid of East Tennessee.  The Erlanger Health Law Partnership aims to improve the health of low-income patients….  [The] Partnership will help low-income patients with legal problems that affect their health…issues like education, the Family Medical Leave Act, Powers of Attorney, Public Benefits and Housing.”

• 12.18.11 – a column by Minnesota judge Terrence E. Conkel emphasizes the importance of public defenders’ roles in the judicial system, and the importance of providing them with the resources they need to operate effectively.  Read the column in the Jordan Independent, a/k/a the New York Times of Scott County, Minnesota.

• 12.18.11 – what causes public defenders’ offices to burn through funding right quick?  Capital cases.  To wit, in Northampton County, PA the defender’s office saw its “budget ballooning nearly 400 percent from $150,000 to $600,700,” mainly on account of having to handle four death-penalty cases in the past year.  Read more in the Express-Times. 

• 12.16.11 – NYC legal services lawyers have justice, will travel.  From WNYC: “A large truck with the words ‘Access to Justice’ written on it has been making its way through low-income communities on the outskirts of Brooklyn and the Bronx this week. Its purpose is to bring the courts and free legal services to people who often don’t have access either because of language barriers, physical disabilities or other issues. It’s the first of its kind in the state.  Lawyers from the New York Legal Assistance Group or NYLAG operate the mobile center with the New York State Courts’ full cooperation. The so-called justice on wheels truck is expected to make stops in 30 different locations a month and serve 2,000 city residents a year.”

• 12.16.11 – worst of times, best of times: public defender layoffs, and prosecutor raises, in Florida.  The Orlando Sentinel reports:  “Orange-Osceola Public Defender Robert Wesley says a combination of economic factors has led his office to lay off 11 attorneys, meaning several long-time assistants will lose their jobs by year’s end….  Factors contributing to the layoffs include: lack of natural turnover with defense attorneys finding fewer jobs available with private firms; a decline in collections from clients of Wesley’s office – normally such collections account for 30 percent of funds for operations; a number of staffers who left and then returned under the Family Medical Leave Act; and an increase in health insurance costs.”  In a strange juxtaposition, the local prosecutor’s office announced raises: “…State Attorney Lawson Lamar, just announced raises for staffers in his office, which prosecutes state-level crimes in the circuit covering Orange and Osceola….  ‘[Increased collections have enabled me to provide salary increases for the remaining majority of our team members this year,’ Lamar wrote in a statement to employees. ‘This comes at a particularly important time of year since we all saw our take home pay shrink due to inflation [and] no cost of living increases since October 2006’.” 

• 12.15.11 – in Texas, Harris County (that’s Houston) Public Defender Alexander Bunin catches us up on his newly created office’s activity.  (Houston had been using an appointed counsel system for indigent defense all the way up until last year.)  Contributing a piece to the Houston Chronicle, Bunin reviews his office’s successes and reinforces the economic and moral cases for funding a stand-alone public defense agency. 

By: Steve Grumm

Radical left-wing commy pinko magazine Mother Jones looks in on indigent defense in the Big Easy.  Oddly enough, it was from Hurricane Katrina’s devastation that a renewed defender’s office emerged. 

“When the storm hit, it certainly did better than any lawsuit could have done to show the problem,” says Derwyn Bunton, the chief of the Orleans Public Defenders. Katrina demolished the city’s public defense system: The lawyers were funded by traffic fines, and there was no traffic anymore. Civil rights activists, lawyers, and the Justice Department stepped in, and by August 2007, a brand new OPD office was ready to do things differently.

The office culture has changed, too:

“Their vigorous client-centered representation is such a dramatic contrast to the previous meet-’em-and-plead-’em system of days past,” says Sara Totonchi, executive director of the Southern Center for Human Rights. In 2006, the center published a damning report on the city’s indigent defense; in 2009, it gave OPD its prestigious Frederick Douglass Human Rights Award, calling it “an inspiration.”

But the program still faces challenges, funding chief among them:

In order to keep up [with demand for services], OPD needs $12 million a year; in 2012, it will get only $9.5 million. The Justice Department grant has run out, and the cash-strapped state has cut its funding. New Orleans’ mayor has, for the first time ever, prioritized public defense in the budget, but that won’t cover the difference. After my visit, OPD cut nine lawyers and froze hiring. Bunton vows to continue to provide representation to anyone who needs it, though it’s unclear how his remaining staff will manage.

The PSLawNet Blog interviewed Mr. Bunton back in early 2010 about his career path and advice he would offer to law grads on public interest career paths.

By: Steve Grumm

Really tough.  Here’s a piece from the California-based Recorder about a recent round of attorney hiring in Santa Clara County.  It’s noteworthy that the Santa Clara prosecutor and defender are ramping up hiring at a time when many prosecutors and defenders are losing staff.  And it’s encouraging.  What’s discouraging, however, is the fierce competition for the open Santa Clara positions.  That’s the real story here.  Observe:

In the past year, the [Santa Clara County D.A.’s] office has hired 14 lawyers but still has 12 slots to fill — and 700 people have applied.

…

Like the DA’s office, the public defender’s office is hiring to staff the arraignments. [Public Defender Mary] Greenwood says she received 400 applications for seven new attorney positions in her office.

What’s not the real story, in my view, is the headline’s – “Healthy Pay Scale Makes District Attorney’s Office a Lawyer Magnet” – suggestion that the high salaries are causing the glut of job applications.  No doubt, the D.A.’s office starting-salary figure – $92,000 – is an eye-opener.  (In 2010 the national median starting salary for a local prosecutor was $50,000.)  But I bet there’d be an enormous applicant pool even if the salary was markedly lower. 

The piece also offers a nice look at what kind of experience and credentials the DAs are looking for in Santa Clara and neighboring counties.  It’s a bit of a mix.  Some prosecutors hire law grads with minimal experience, some take on laterals from law firms, and some prefer to stick with the more narrow approach of recruiting via their own internship programs.

My suggestion to aspiring prosecutors and defenders, from wherever they’re coming, is to get some courtroom and, if possible, case management experience.  For defenders especially, it’s also rewarding to gain experience working with low-income clients.  In 2010 we asked prosecutors and defenders what they would advise law students/grads to do to make themselves the best job candidates. A representative sample of their responses:

• Public defenders desire candidates with clinical and/or pro bono experience working with incarcerated and low-income clients. According to one public defender, “previous experience in a PD’s office is always a plus for law students and a must for attorneys.”
• Local prosecutors value trial experience, whether obtained through a clinical program, through a third-year practice rule experience, or in some other capacity.

By: Steve Grumm

Even before the government-wide hiring freeze which now curtails – but it’s important to remember has not fully stopped – federal recruiting, Uncle Sam had long been criticized for protracted application processes which could leave qualified job candidates in limbo for months.  The Obama Administration’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has undertaken reforms to, among other things, cut down on application processing time.  How have recent reform efforts been going? The Government Executive takes a look, and they include responses from some of the bigger agencies like the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security.