By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  Thanks for reading our weekly attempt to track goings-on in the business of public interest law – particularly developments that affect funding and employment – as well as news from the legal education world that impacts the way we train tomorrow’s public interest advocates.  If you are  also interested in keeping up with similar developments in the larger legal industry, check out NALP’s Industry News Weekly Digest.  Published every Friday morning, the digest is authored by NALP executive director Jim Leipold, one of the industry’s closest watchers, and a darned fine dresser (read: my boss). 

This week: some funding for a new Northeastern Law pro bono program; nonprofits bracing for impact from looming federal budget cuts; the University of Maryland’s law school also gets pro bono dollars; the 20^th century saw the dawn and significant evolution in public interest law practice; a new Chicago-area legal helpline for undocumented immigrants is fielding calls from across the nation; a California public defender seeks to undo county budget cuts (we suspect he’s not alone in this endeavor); from tragedy emerges a creative means to support a public defense program; the Dallas D.A.’s family violence unit faces a budgetary axe; and, significant changes to both the Massachusetts and Missouri public defense systems.

• 9.22.11 – good news for Northeastern Law students and Beantown micro-entrepreneuers.   According to the Boston Business Journal the law school “has been awarded a $500,000 grant by the U.S. Department of Commerce to set up a center at the school that will provide free legal services to local low-income or under-served entrepreneurs, the school said on Thursday.  The new center will focus on several emerging industries in Massachusetts including clean energy; green technologies; science and health technologies; and small and ethnically diverse businesses, according to Northeastern.”  One of the particularly nice things about these kinds of pro bono programs is that law students who participate will be able to develop transactional skills, which is not the norm with most pro bono opportunities.

• 9.21.11 – noting that the Legal Services Corporation’s congressional appropriation is on the chopping block, the Nonprofit Quarterly offers some broader perspective on how other nonprofit sectors which rely on federal dollars may fare in the FY12 budget process.  The picture’s not pretty.

• 9.20.11 – more good news on the law school pro bono funding front.  The National Law Journal reports that the University of Maryland’s law school received a $1 million grant from the Moser Family Philanthropic Fund to “establish the Moser Ethics in Action Endowment, which will fund projects and courses centered on ethics, pro bono and professionalism.”

• 9.19.11 – Chip Mellor of the libertarian Institute for Justice pens a Forbes.com piece looking at “Public Interest Law, Then and Now.”  In the early 20^th century both the NAACP and the ACLU “realized that without an effective and persistent courtroom presence, they would not be able to secure the rights and goals they sought. In the coming decades, their programs evolved and other organizations on both the left and the right launched their own public interest law efforts. As a result, the role of the courts and the nature of legal advocacy were transformed.”  As time passed, “public interest law came to involve more than just litigation. The tactics incorporated media relations and mobilization of the public. And it involved appearing in court representing a client and advocating a cause for the purpose of achieving larger social and legal goals.”

• 9.19.11 – from the Huffington Post: “The nation’s first 24-hour hotline for undocumented immigrants seeking information about deportation went live in Chicago Monday….  Created by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR), the Deportation Family Support Hotline is run by volunteers. During the monthlong trial, 67 volunteers responded to 173 calls from across the country seeking advice about deportation law, the Chicago Tribune reports.”  We’re not sure, but it doesn’t appear that law students are engaged as hotline volunteers.  This seems like a great opportunity for student pro bono work, however.

• 9.19.11 – in California, Riverside County’s public defender is asking county officials to reconsider budget cuts put into place earlier this year.  From the Southwest Riverside News Network: “Riverside County Public Defender Gary Windom is expected to ask the Board of Supervisors Tuesday for $1.4 million to cover a gap in his office’s budget that, if not closed, will result in layoffs.”

• 9.19.11 – here’s a creative way to support a public defender program.  According to the Arizona Daily Star the widow of an attorney who was killed earlier this year has donated his wardrobe to the “Yuma Public Defender’s Office so destitute defendants can increase their chances of having a fair trial” by looking presentable during courtroom proceedings.

• 9.19.11 – some dark clouds looming over the Family Violence Unit in the Dallas D.A.’s office.  According to KERA, the unit “could take a hit when County Commissioners approve a new budget tomorrow. KERA’s BJ Austin says state grant money is running out, and the county can’t pick up the cost….  Officials with the District Attorney say the loss of [the unit’s three positions] will make prosecution of domestic violence cases much slower.”

• 9.17.11 – Significant changes in the Massachusetts indigent defense system are moving forward.  The Taunton Daily Gazette reports: “Leaders of the state’s public defender system will soon detail a plan to hire more staff attorneys to represent the poor and contract less of that work to about 3,000 private lawyers across Massachusetts.  The cost of defending low-income people came under the spotlight on Beacon Hill this year when Gov. Deval Patrick proposed hiring about 1,000 new state attorneys and ending the use of private attorneys altogether…..  Patrick ultimately signed a state budget that makes less ambitious reforms. It requires at least 25 percent of cases with indigent defendants to be handled by state attorneys by next July, up from about 10 percent now.  [An official with the state’s public defense administration] said the plan will likely require hiring 346 new full-time employees, including attorneys, support staff, social workers and investigators.”

• 9.16.11 – change is also afoot in the Show-me State’s indigent defense system.  From the Columbia Missourian:  “The Missouri State Public Defender Office has changed the way it contracts with and oversees private attorneys to reduce the wait time for indigent defendants who need an attorney and increase the monitoring of private attorneys who take cases…. It’s been 22 years since the public defender system had enough lawyers to handle the number of cases it received. The gap between capacity and caseload grew through the ’90s and “escalated dramatically” from 2000 to 2009,” according to Missouri Public Defender System director Cat Kelly.

by Kristen Pavón

Career Builder featured a great article outlining 8 tips to battle job-search fatigue. I definitely could have used this list a year ago! Job searching is a ridiculously daunting task and I know it can be difficult to keep your eye on the prize.

I’m going to highlight a few of their tips and add a few public-interest law related ones of my own (mainly things I used to get through the job search period while keeping my sanity).

1. Consider your job search a full-time job.

Yes, yes and yes. If you’re unemployed, job searching cannot be something you do randomly when the urge arises. Like lots of things in life, you’ll get out of job searching what you put in. The more time and effort you dedicate to landing a job, the more likely you’ll actually get one.

2. Explore how social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, a personal blog and LinkedIn, can help your job search.

You can use these platforms as methods to either meet prospective employers or showcase skills or past accomplishments.

3. Craft a formal plan.

This tip is critical. I had a pretty good method, if I do say so myself. I set up a color-coded spreadsheet with job titles, organizations, application instructions, location, contact information, deadlines and the date I applied. Jobs I needed to apply to were highlighted in green, jobs I had already applied to were highlighted in red, and jobs that didn’t work out (read: rejected!) were in gloomy gray.

4. Set tangible (realistic) goals.

Write down the number of jobs you will apply for each day. Write down the number of jobs you will add to your queue each day.

5. Volunteer.

I know searching for and applying to jobs 8 hours a day can suck the life out of you and even leave you feeling low on the self-esteem meter. So, schedule a specific chunk of time to search for jobs and leave some time to volunteer for your favorite legal services organization in the area.

This will not only get you out of the house, but it will also be a great bullet on your résumé and more likely than not, you’ll meet some interesting people that may lead you to a job!

6. Go out and meet people.

Look up your local bar association and check out their events calendar. Make it to next networking event, bring a stack of business cards, and get to work!

Feeling awkward about it? Keep in mind lawyers know how to network, they expect it and they want to introduce you to other lawyers who may be able to help you out.

Still not feeling it? Well, I’m a success story. I went to a networking event in the D.C. area for public interest attorneys and law students, and I met two people. I had a great chat with one over coffee a few weeks later, which led me to meet another attorney who I set up a volunteering schedule with before landing a job. The other attorney I met at the event is now my colleague at work. Networking works.

7. Set up PSLawNet alerts!

Ok, yes. This tip is a bit self-serving but I actually used these during law school and during my job search. Through PSLawNet, you can get daily or weekly emails with job opportunities that fit your customized criteria. It’s too easy not to use. Check it out at PSLawNet.

I hope these tips help you. You can read all of Career Builder’s tips here.

Do you have any other tips to overcome job-search fatigue? What do you do to keep your head in the game? Post your own tips below!

by Kristen Pavón

The Institute for Justice President and Forbes contributor Chip Mellor wrote a great piece about public interest law’s beginnings and the changes it has gone through over the last century.

In his article, Mellor notes that with the filing of the NAACP’s first amicus brief in 1914, the era of public interest law began. He mentions that early public interest advocacy “arose around a particular conflict and not as part of a sustained, multifaceted litigation campaign,” but then says that that changed when the NAACP launched a campaign with the goal of ending racial segregation in the 1930s.

After that, public interest law was not just litigation. It was litigation-plus. It involved media relations and public mobilization for larger social and legal goals.

Very, very interesting article — I had no idea about the history of public interest law! It’s a quick read, check it out here.

by Kristen Pavón

An article in The Miami Herald reports that South Florida public school enrollment dropped this year due to a rise in charter school popularity.

Broward and Miami-Dade counties has experienced a loss of more than 4,000 students to the 109 charter schools in the area. Charter schools in Miami-Dade saw an increase of 6,341 students from last year, totaling 41,488 students this year.

With capacity and quality issues at the helm of the nation’s education policy debate, charter schools have an opportunity to fill necessary gaps in the education system. However, what does the proliferation of these privately run schools mean for the public school system?

Read the whole story here.

Will this charter school competition spur drastic changes in public schools? Will school boards attempt to work cooperatively with charter schools? Are there other areas experiencing the same situation? What do you think?

By Andrea Nehorayoff

People are just sick over our foreclosure crisis. No really, foreclosures are literally making people sick. A study based on new research relating health problems to foreclosures states that the two are directly correlated.

According to two university researchers, “an increase of 100 foreclosures corresponded to a 7.2% rise in emergency room visits and hospitalizations for hypertension, and an 8.1% increase for diabetes, among people aged 20 to 49,” based on statistics since 2005 in Arizona, Florida, New Jersey, and California. These high-foreclosure areas are also faced with large populations of unemployed, underemployed and uninsured. People are driving themselves sick and they need help!

These numbers are flat-out scary. One solution to this problem is to help people find ways to avoid financial duress and keep their homes. Legal aid is a viable option for people facing foreclosure.

A Staten Island resident was able to receive a loan modification and stop her from losing her home altogether with the help of Staten Island Legal Services. Solutions like this one can help relieve the stress-related ailments—- respiratory problems, pneumonia, chest pain, shortness of breath and suicidal thoughts– associated with financial hardships, but by no means is a permanent one. We need to fix this problem. The research might only cover four states, but the statistics could be just as bad, or even worse, in other states.

What are your ideas about how attorneys can help alleviate the stress that foreclosures create?

Andrea, a newbie PSLawNet Blog contributor, is a Project Assistant at NALP. She is a senior at The George Washington University pursuing a degree in Political Science. Prior to joining NALP, Andrea’s political interests had her working for a variety of New York State political campaigns, including Governor Paterson’s reelection campaign, Kathleen Rice for NYS Attorney General, candidates for state senate, congressmen for reelection and the New York State Democratic Committee. She can be reached at anehorayoff@nalp.org.

By Kristen Pavón

In the midst of an access-to-justice crisis (as a result of the country’s economic situation, funding cuts at every turn and sky-high poverty rates), it’s easy to forget about the needs of organizations trying to do good work in their communities when thousands of low-income individuals are in dire need of effective representation.

However, many new or small non-profits, especially in this climate, do not have the resources to obtain effective legal representation and advice. Florida Legal Services, Inc. (FLS) recognized this need and is coordinating a statewide initiative to bring non-profits and transactional attorneys together for pro bono legal clinics.

On Oct. 6 at Florida Coastal School of Law, representatives of local nonprofit organizations will have the opportunity to meet one-to-one with attorneys from the Florida Bar Business Law Section who can provide legal guidance and direction for their organizations.

With sound legal advice, non-profits will be able to continuing serving their communities and providing essential services.

If you’re a Florida non-profit organization and are interested in setting up an appointment with an attorney, contact FLS Pro Bono Director Sheila Meehan at sheila@floridalegal.org.

For more information about the program, click here.

What do you think about this project? Would you be interested in setting up a similar project?

By Kristen Pavón

LegalZoom, the nation’s leading provider of online legal document services and legal plans to families and small business, unveiled an innovative new cost-effective service that combines technology with a network of law firms to prove one-on-one consultations.

Here’s more about how the service would work from The Sacramento Bee,

In most states, users can access an experienced attorney for free at the LegalZoom website. After an initial trial period, users can continue to get advice from an attorney on virtually any legal matter, as well as have legal documents reviewed on their behalf, by paying a low monthly fee.

There is no word on exactly how much this low-cost alternative will be or what legal issues will be handled, but with the access-to-justice crisis in full effect and no real end in sight, it’s definitely worth a look.

What do you think about this initiative as an option for providing legal aid to low-income populations?

Check out more details here.

By Kristen Pavón

The ABA Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service is trying to revamp how we think about and how we deliver pro bono services. Additionally, the Committee wants to talk to people like you to let them know your ideas about increasing access to justice.

Twice a week, on Mondays and Wednesdays, they’re asking you questions about pro bono. Today’s questions are: 1) What methods have you found most effective in engaging law students in pro bono? and 2) What type of legal work have you found is both most appropriate for law students and helpful for clients?

My voice has already been heard today!

Here’s a snippet of my response: Speaking from a recent law graduate perspective, I gained the most useful legal experience from representing clients from the intake phase to the research, advice or representation phases with a structured sense of supervision — meaning I was able to think and analyze independently but then spoke with an attorney to put my proposals through a vetting process. . . .

To read my entire response and have your voice heard, click HERE!

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  This week’s Bulletin comes to you from a small beach cabin on Cape Cod, where the Internets are spotty but the ocean is gleaming beautifully in the morning sun.  Seemingly overnight, summer has given way to a brisk, lovely autumn morning.  Please pardon typos as I’m laboring with an intermittent Web connection and will call it a victory just to get this blog post published.  

This week: law students aiding a New York federal court in handling an influx of mediation cases; also in the Empire State, chief judge Jonathan Lippman is again on the warpath for more legal services funding; what a Legal Services Corporation funding cut would mean in Maryland, and why taxpayer $ should support legal services; big LSC news – Senate appropriators are contemplating a 2% dip in FY12 LSC funding; to narrow the justice gap, pro bono guru Esther Lardent calls for mandatory law school pro bono (among other measures); the Census Bureau’s release of alarming poverty data, and what it means for the legal services community; the state of legal services funding in the Glorious Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; a big medical-legal partnership conference is about to get underway in the Bay Area. 

• 9.16.11 – there has been much coverage lately in legal and national media about resource shortages confronting court systems throughout the U.S. The Southern District of New York is bringing on law students to help handle its caseload.  From the New York Law Journal: “The Southern District has enlisted three area law schools in a new program that will give participating students a practical exercise in client advocacy and managing expectations and help the court cope with an expected upsurge in mediations. Under the supervision of their professors, approximately 30 students at New York Law School, Seton Hall Law School and Brooklyn Law School will represent about 20 employment discrimination plaintiffs in court-referred mediations. They will meet with clients to ascertain their goals, prepare mediation statements and conduct negotiations before volunteer mediators. If a resolution is reached, the students will also help draft the settlement agreement. However, students will not represent plaintiffs in litigation if the mediation is unsuccessful.”

• 9.15.11 – more New York.  The state’s top jurist is once again leading the charge for state legal services funding.  More New York Law Journal: “With grim economic realities persisting in New York, Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman will renew his efforts beginning next week to drive home to the governor and the Legislature the need for greater state funding for civil legal services for the poor. The chief judge will preside over the first of four planned hearings Tuesday in White Plains along with Chief Administrative Judge Ann Pfau, New York State Bar President Vincent E. Doyle III of Connors & Villardo in Buffalo and A. Gail Prudenti, presiding justice of the Appellate Division, Second Department. Presiding justices of the other three departments will appear at later hearings in Manhattan, Albany and Buffalo.”

• 9.14.11 – in a Baltimore Sun op-ed, Legal Services Corporation board chair John Levi explains what’s at stake if LSC funding sees a significant cut in FY12, lays out the growing need for legal services among Terrapin Staters and Americans generally, and makes the case for supporting federal funding of legal services: “Across the country, civil legal assistance supports the orderly functioning of the civil justice system and access to administrative agencies throughout government. Large numbers of unrepresented parties in courts slow dockets and reduce efficiency in the administration of justice for everyone who needs to use the court system. Individuals unable to obtain advice may later be faced with far greater consequences than if they had been able to have their matters sorted out at an early stage.”

• 9.14.11 – the National Legal Aid & Defender Association is keeping us looped in about LSC appropriation  news on the Senate side.  Recall that a House FY12 proposal would slash LSC funding by over 25% (from just over $400m to $300).  Things are looking a little better in the Senate.  From NLADA: “The Senate Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies (CJS) appropriations subcommittee marked up its FY 2012 funding bill today. The bill includes $396 million for LSC, which is a 2 percent decrease from the FY 2011 level of $404 million. Full committee markup is scheduled for tomorrow, September 15. The House full committee recommended a FY 2012 level of $300 million. No appropriations bills have been cleared and appropriators are preparing a Continuing Resolution (CR) to keep the government running after the end of the fiscal year (September 30).”  Here’s an LSC press release about the subcommittee’s markup.  (Unfortunately, being out of DC and with limited Internets I’m not sure what’s happening with the full Approps. Committee.  I’ll tweet word as soon as I have it.) 

• 9.13.11 – the Pro Bono Institute’s Esther Lardent pens an opinion piece asking, “Is It Time for Mandatory Pro Bono?” in light of the ever-widening justice gap.  Her answer: not yet.  “For both philosophical and highly pragmatic reasons, I believe that mandatory pro bono should be the last possible resort.”  But Lardent does offer some options for increasing pro bono service, one of which is mandatory pro bono in law school.  “Including a substantial pro bono contribution to the American Bar Association law school accreditation standards — e.g., 150 hours during the course of law school as a condition of graduation — would create additional pro bono resources while promoting an appetite for pro bono and teaching tomorrow’s lawyers how to integrate pro bono into a busy schedule.”  Interesting stuff. 

• 9.13.11 – as has been well documented in the media, the U.S. Census Bureau released 2010 poverty data.  The data are – I won the Latin Scholar award in high school so you’re darned right I only use “data” in the plural – less than encouraging.  (Some findings below.)  John Levi, the aforementioned Legal Services Corporation board chair, issued a statement reacting to the data: “The U.S. Census Bureau released its official 2010 statistics on poverty this morning, and the data show that nearly one in five Americans qualifies for civil legal assistance at the legal aid offices funded by the Legal Services Corporation (LSC).  The number of Americans now eligible for legal services is staggering: more than 60.4 million, up 3.6 million from the prior year.  These 60 million Americans had incomes at or below 125 percent of the federal poverty line—$13,613 for an individual and $27,938 for a family of four.”  Here’s some data from the Census Bureau’s report:
• “The poverty rate in 2010 was the highest since 1993….  Since 2007, the poverty rate has increased by 2.6 percentage points.
• 15.1% of the population in 2010 was living in poverty.  That’s almost one in six people.
• “In 2010, the family poverty rate and the number of families in poverty were 11.7 percent and 9.2 million, respectively, up from 11.1 percent and 8.8 million in 2009.”
• Over 1 in 5 children lives in poverty.

• 9.11.11 – the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review uses remarks from former U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh about pro bono as a launching pad for a review of the legal services infrastructure  in the Keystone State.  Thornburgh “believes pro bono work should be included among the continuing education requirements Pennsylvania lawyers complete every year. It’s a suggestion he made in Boston last month at the first meeting of the 50-member pro bono task force created by the Legal Services Corp….”  The article goes on to look at recent legal services developments, including a letter from the state’s chief justice, imploring lawyers to do more pro bono work, and a 9% cut in state funding of legal services. 

• 9.9.11 – just a few hours from this blog post’s publication, a bigtime medical-legal partnership conference is taking place in one of our nation’s most beautiful locales.  From a press release: “The Bay Area’s most progressive healthcare and legal professionals, students and educators will gather at UC Hastings on Friday, Sept. 16 (8:30 a.m.-5 p.m.) to mark the first Medical-Legal Partnership conference on the West Coast. Their goal: to transform medicine and law practices to improve community health.  The all-day summit is part of the Medical-Legal partnership movement, a healthcare and legal services delivery model that improves health and well-being of vulnerable populations by integrating health and legal systems. The event has been planned by the Medical-Legal Bay Area Regional Coalition (M-BARC), a partnership that includes 10 Medical-Legal Partnerships with 18 medical sites.”

By Kristen Pavón

When it comes to taking on our nation’s growing access-to-justice crisis, the Pro Bono Institute’s President and Chief Executive Officer Esther Lardent is not willing to wait around for a solution to conveniently present itself, especially because she has sensed apathy outside the legal profession.

In a recent National Law Journal article, she proposed seven bold steps that can alleviate the gap between the need for legal assistance and the availability of free legal services for the poor (teaser: one is mandatory pro bono hours for law students, gasp!).

Lardent contends that the situation is now dire because of the “Great Recession” and budget cuts for legal services organizations and courts across the country. For Lardent, the last resort should be mandating pro bono service for attorneys. However, she has other interesting options. Here’s a quick rundown of her proposals:

1. Voluntary-plus pro bono. Assume all attorneys are willing to take on pro bono cases. Allow uninterested attorneys to opt out of the program, instead of recruiting individual attorneys.

2. Law student pro bono. In contrast to her prescription for attorneys, Lardent suggests law students be required to complete 150 hours of pro bono hours to graduate. She emphasized the value in awakening an appetite for pro bono work and engaging in a hands-on legal experience for students.

3. Pro bono as a criterion for leadership. Attorneys should have a consistent portfolio of pro bono work before becoming eligible for any leadership position.

4. Revise ABA Model Rule 6.1 (the volunteer pro bono publico provision). Rule 6.1 is too broad for Lardent. The definition of pro bono should be narrowed, and should only mean free legal work for low-income or disadvantaged clients (fun fact: Lardent co-authored Rule 6.1 in the 1990s).

5. Bar association contributions. These associations should actively support local legal services programs, financially and on the legislative front.

6. Make pro bono reporting meaningful. Put procedures in place so that accuracy, consistency, disaggregation and transparency are reflected in annual reporting.

7. Triage and simplification. Come up with an effective triage system that would include effectively diagnosing a client’s legal issues and treating them with the “best and least costly legal intervention.” This could include brief advice, education, unbundled assistance or full-fledged zealous representation.

Check out the article in its entirety here. To learn more about Esther Lardent, read her bio here.

What do you think? Do these seem like viable solutions to access-to-justice issues?