By: Steve Grumm

One of the more interesting post-recession trends in the public interest legal arena has been the growth of full-time volunteer attorney
positions within nonprofit and government agencies. It has not been unusual, historically, that public service law offices would recruit volunteers to bolster their staffs amid swollen caseloads. But in the recession’s wake we’ve seen larger-scale efforts to recruit un- or under-employed attorneys for full-time stints ranging from 6 to 18 months. Budget cuts and caseload pressures felt by employers have given birth to creative staffing solutions, while the anemic legal job market has left thousands of recent law graduates
looking for ways to gain practice experience. Although there are certainly some upsides to this trend, some worry that these unpaid positions could become institutionalized, leaving some debt-laden, public service-minded law grads with a rocky financial path to traverse immediately out of law school.

Over the coming months I will look at the emergence of volunteer attorney positions in different types of public service law offices.   I began in this month’s NALP Bulletin with a piece on the rise of the “Uncompensated Special Assistant U.S. Attorney.”

[W]ith Uncle Sam poised to squeeze his fiscal belt even more tightly, federal prosecutors across the country are looking for creative, effective, staffing solutions.  The Department of Justice (DOJ) implemented a hiring freeze in January of this year.  Given the current political climate, in particular the recent passage of sweeping federal deficit-reduction legislation, federal prosecutors’ budgets are likely to, at best, hold fast.  According to one Assistant U.S. Attorney whose office has recruited for uncompensated Special Assistant U.S. Attorneys (SAUSA), given the circumstances it makes perfect sense for U.S. Attorneys’ Offices to mine a talented – and nearly free – source of labor.

 A review last month of several “SAUSA Uncompensated” job listings on the DOJ’s Office of Attorney Recruitment and Management website was helpful in sketching out the nature of uncompensated SAUSA positions and applicant eligibility criteria…

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  Greetings from a rainy, gloomy Washington, DC.  This is perhaps appropriate, as most everyone inside the Beltway is mindful that almost 10 years have passed since the September 11th attacks.  Things here livened up a little bit this week with the Republican presidential candidates’ debate and last night’s presidential address, the combination of which suggests that the 2012 election season is already upon us.  Thirteen months of this.  Oh, what unmitigated joy. 

This week in public interest news: the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau hits the century mark; a handful of law schools create “incubation programs” for aspiring solos, and at least two of them are serving low-income clients; some much-needed matching funding for Pisgah Legal Services; an eleventh-hour layoff aversion in the Sacramento D.A.’s office; Vermont Law School’s doing its part to aid flood victims; the Mass. Bar Association goes all medical-legal partnership on us;  UVA Law’s Innocence Clinic scores some big wins;  read about a not-so-good proposal to change Tennessee’s indigent defense system; an in-depth look at pro bono programs within large, Windy City law firms; Utah prosecutors support bolstering indigent defense; how a huge, potential LSC $ cut will impact Legal Services of Southern Missouri; an anonymous, non-lawyer drops $2 million on the Maine Bar Foundation’s’ doorstep (metaphorically).  My money’s on Steven King. 

• 9.8.11 – I’ve been feeling my joints creak since I turned 35 in August, but the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau is 100.  That’s really old.  WBAL has details on the community birthday party that MDLAB is hosting in Charm City tomorrow.

• 9.7.11 – the National Law Journal looks at a handful of law schools that have created “incubation” programs which provide in-kind support and mentoring for recent grads who aspire to solo practice but want to hedge against the insecurity of going it entirely alone.  Why am I mentioning this?  Two of the schools, the Univ. of Maryland and CUNY, have built a public interest dimension into their programs: “At CUNY, incubator participants do a significant amount of…”low bono” work. They earn $75 an hour for providing legal representation to underserved communities…, paid for by contracts with New York City. The work provides the new attorneys with experience and exposure, and provides representation to people who otherwise could not afford an attorney….  The University of Maryland’s solo incubator…also promotes civil justice. Participants…assist on grant-funded cases through Civil Justice Inc., a nonprofit law office that serves low-income clients….”  

• 9.7.11 – some good news for Pisgah Legal Services in North Carolina.  It may not seem that having $17K in county grant money restored is newsworthy.  But the money constitutes matching funds for domestic-violence grants.  So it’s important.  The Times-News reports: “The Henderson County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to give Pisgah Legal Services money it needs to match domestic-violence grants, essentially reinstating the funding that they denied the regional nonprofit in June.  While the grant was requested by Pisgah Legal Services Executive Director Jim Barrett to match domestic violence prevention grants his organization has secured through the Governor’s Crime Commission, it is nearly the exact same amount — $16,833 — that Barrett previously asked the board for during county budget talks.”

• 9.6.11 – layoffs averted in the Sacramento DA’s office.  And we can thank Big Oil.  Sort of.  KCRA reports:  “Three months ago, [District Attorney Jan] Scully said budget cuts were forcing her to lay off 64 people, eliminate several units and stop prosecution of most misdemeanor crimes.  Now, Scully said a $24.5 million settlement in a lawsuit against Chevron for violating the state anti-pollution laws is making the difference.”  The DA’s office will get 6.5 million from that pot of money.

• 9.6.11 – news from the Great Wet North.  Vermont Law School, which itself fell victim to post-Irene flood damage, has been doing its part to help its neighbors, according to the National Law Journal: “The law school’s land use clinic and its South Royalton, Vt., legal clinic have teamed up to assist residents in filling out applications for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Students are on hand daily in the school’s law library to help people complete emergency paperwork.  The law school has designated two staff members to work full time on relief efforts and is allowing staff members to receive full pay while volunteering.”

• 9.6.11 – the Massachusetts Bar Association has gotten into the medical-legal partnership game with a new pro bono initiative, according to a piece in The Republican:  “To address the intertwined health problems and legal needs of such vulnerable patients, the Massachusetts Bar Association and Massachusetts Medical-Legal Partnership network have joined forces to launch the MBA Pro Bono Prescription.  This pioneering effort unites health-care teams and lawyers toward a shared goal of strengthening struggling communities. The MBA Pro Bono Prescription aims to increase the supply of lawyers who can prescribe legal remedies to help avert both legal crises and health emergencies.”  (For the law students in our readership, you can learn much more about medical-legal partnerships, which have been steadily increasing in number across the country, via the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnerships.  The basic goal is for poverty lawyers to work with other social services providers in providing more holistic services to clients, and ideally addressing root causes of medical and legal problems to avoid their recurrence.)

• 9.6.11 – the Cavalier Daily reports that the University of Virginia School of Law’s Innocence Project has done well in the overturned conviction department, first removing a man from Death Row and then having his other, related convictions tossed: “Twelve University Law students helped overturn the wrongful drug and weapon conviction of Northern Virginian man Justin Wolfe last week, bringing an end to a decade-long struggle for freedom. The decision comes more than a month after the students, as part of the Law School’s Innocence Project Clinic, helped convince a federal judge to dismiss Wolfe’s murder-for-hire conviction and death sentence.  The clinic, part of the Innocence Network, is an organization which works to overturn wrongful convictions of prisoners in Virginia who could be proven innocent — many of whom are convicted as a result of ineffective legal counsel or flawed police techniques.”

• 9.4.11 – an op-ed in The Tennessean appropriately skewers a really bad idea for saving cash on the state’s indigent defense funding:   “The state’s indigent defense fund’s cost has grown from $19.9 million to $37.5 million since 2004. There were 126,000 legal bills submitted by attorneys to represent poor clients last year. Lawmakers cried “whoa!” and asked the courts’ administrative office to figure out how to save money.  What they came up with is a proposal that has been widely poo-pooed by attorneys, judges, experts and professional groups. It would set up a bidding system in which attorneys or law firms would get the right to represent the indigent for a flat fee if they are the lowest bidder. All the sudden, in Tennessee, justice would be akin to road contracts or buying computers.”  (“Poo-pooed” did not pass spellcheck, but frankly I have no interest in learning how to spell it.) 

• 9.4.11 – the Chicago Lawyerhas a long, detailed piece surveying the pro bono models at several of the Windy City’s large law firms: “In recent years, as pro bono leaders in Chicago law firms worked to increase pro bono participation, they began to integrate pro bono…into the operations of their firms. Many of these programs now serve as separate practices, often with their own staff and policies….  While some…firms still encourage lawyers to select their own projects, other firms take a more focused approach, searching for specific opportunities to help those in need while training young associates. They also adopt and offer holistic services to nonprofit organizations and secure finance or real estate matters for transactional lawyers.”  Firms highlighted in the article include Katten, SNR Denton, Holland & Knight, DLA Piper, Winston & Strawn, and Mayer Brown, among others.  Chicago Bar Foundation executive director Bob Glaves, a friend of the PSLawNet Blog and a superb advocate for the local public interest community, is quoted in the piece.  This provides an opportunity for me to note that the Cubs record is 62-81.  Hi, Bob!

• 9.2.11 – three county prosecutors in the Beehive State take to the pages of the Salt Lake Tribune to argue, wait for it, for bolstering Utah’s patchwork of county indigent defense systems:  “Because prosecutors are committed to doing justice, we support a strong and vigorous indigent defense system. We stand ready to work together with all interested parties to meet our constitutional obligations to do justice as effectively and efficiently as possible.”  But there’s a catch, of sorts.  The authors are writing in the wake of an ACLU of Utah Report, Failing Gideon, which called for a statewide fix for what is now an uneven county-by-county system.  The three prosecutors prefer a local approach, as they don’t think a statewide solution is feasible in the present economic climate. 

• 9.1.11 – the Ozarks First website looks at how the House’s proposed 26% cut to Legal Services Corporation will impact the local LSC grantee, Legal Services of Southern Missouri.  LSSM executive director Douglas Kays “says proposed federal cuts would translate to about $500,000” lost.  “‘We help about 2,500 people a year [out of 10,000 applications for assistance, on average],’ says Kays. ‘We’d probably have to reduce that by 500 or 600’.”

• 9.1.11 – Ready, set, $2million.  The Bangor Daily News reports unexpected good news on the legal services funding front in Maine: “The Maine Bar Foundation has announced the receipt of a $2 million gift from an anonymous donor. The endowment, the first of its kind for the foundation, is dedicated to providing support for people in need of legal assistance in Washington and Hancock counties, according to a press release issued Thursday…. The foundation will set up an endowment with the gift and use the interest to pay for legal services.”  This has got to feel good for the bar foundation after some disappointing IOLTA years.

Hello, PSLawNet Blog readers!  NALP is conducting a survey to get a sense of the public interest job market.  We’ll publish a free report with our findings later this Fall.  We hope this will be helpful to law students, lawyers, and other stakeholders in the public service community. Please pass along the below to public interest and government law offices.  Thanks. 

The National Association for Law Placement (NALP) is conducting a brief, anonymous survey of nonprofit and government public-interest law offices throughout the country about 1) recent law student and attorney hiring and 2) hiring expectations for the immediate future. We will use the data to produce a report about what the public interest employment market looks like now and how it may change in the near future. NALP will release the report later this fall. The report will be made freely available online. The report will NOT identify any responding organizations by name. We hope the report will benefit the public interest legal community as well as law students and attorneys who are on public interest career paths. Please participate in the brief, online survey by clicking here. The response deadline is Wednesday, 9/28/11.  Please contact Steve Grumm with any questions: sgrumm@nalp.org.

By: Steve Grumm

There’s an interesting piece in today’s National Law Journal about a handful of law schools that have established incubation programs for recent grads who want the independence of hanging their own shingle without the insecurity of going it entirely alone:

[The City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law] offers low-cost office space in midtown Manhattan and staff support for up to two years to a select number of graduates aiming to establish themselves as solos or launch small firms. The program offers more than office space; participants have access to a large network of experienced solo practitioners who function as mentors, and they enjoy an internal support network among their colleagues in the incubator, which helps to reduce the isolation many solo practitioners experience.

…

CUNY’s program was the first of its kind when it debuted in 2007, but now law schools around the country have launched solo incubators, and more are on the way. The University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law unveiled its solo and small-firm incubator last fall, and the University of Maryland School of Law introduced its incubator in January.

The Charlotte School of Law plans to have its Small Practice Center up and running next summer. Faculty and administrators at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, Georgia State University College of Law and the University of Dayton School of Law are among those considering adding similar programs.

CUNY and Maryland both enjoy reputations as being schools with a strong emphasis on public interest work, so perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that their incubation programs incorporate some aspect of public interest practice.

The few solo incubators that are up and running employ slightly different models. Several have a clear civil justice emphasis, while others are more business-oriented. They vary in length from six months to as long as two years.

At CUNY, incubator participants do a significant amount of what [the program’s director, Fred Rooney,] calls “low bono” work. They earn $75 an hour for providing legal representation to underserved communities throughout New York, paid for by contracts with New York City. The work provides the new attorneys with experience and exposure, and provides representation to people who otherwise could not afford an attorney, Rooney said. Incubator attorneys take on their own cases in addition to the contract work.

The University of Maryland’s solo incubator, which lasts between six and 10 months, also promotes civil justice. Participants work in an office across the street from the law school and assist on grant-funded cases through Civil Justice Inc., a nonprofit law office that serves low-income clients.

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday/Labor Day Weekend/September, dear readers.  As summer is (unofficially) winding down this week, we wish you all a happy Autumn, and we wish the best of luck to law students, clinicians, and law school administrators who are beginning a new academic year. 

This week: the first months of the Last Resort Exoneration Project; indigent counsel reform in Tennessee(?); USAJobs due for some downtime in October; AtJ news in the Mountain State; a dispatch from the ABA’s oval office; reaction to an ACLU report about Utah’s rickety indigent defense infrastructure; in NOLA, physical altercations and officers of the court and lawsuits, oh my!; unpaid legal internships raise eyebrows across the pond; USA Today presents the short version (as always) of legal services funding struggles nationwide; changes (and hiring!) in the Massachusetts indigent defense system; pro bono on a DLA Piper salary ain’t so bad.    

• 9.1.11 – the new Last Resort Exoneration Project, housed at the Seton Hall University School of Law, is complementing the work of the Innocence Project.  While the Innocence Project operates nationally and primarily uses DNA evidence to free the wrongfully convicted, Last Resort operates only within the Garden State and focuses on cases in which DNA evidence is not in play.  Check out this profile of Last Resort, which began operations this past February, on MyCentralJersey.com.

• 8.31.11 – is change afoot in the way that Volunteer State public defenders are assigned?  The Tennessean reports on a proposal being kicked around by the Tennessee Supreme Court: “To rein in the state’s fast-growing indigent defense fund, the court has drafted an amendment to its rules that would allow the cash-strapped state Administrative Office of the Courts to solicit bids and award contracts to lawyers or firms ‘to provide legal services to indigent persons for a fixed fee.’ The proposal has come under a barrage of criticism from lawyers, judges and state and national legal organizations who warn that flat-fee contracts will put many lawyers out of work, undermine the authority of local judges and deny poor people the effective assistance of legal counsel.”

• 8.31.11 – heads up, federal job seekers!  Government Executive reports that USAJobs will go down temporarily in October while Uncle Sam readies a new version of the website: “The Office of Personnel Management will take the government’s job application platform offline in October to transition to a new system. USAJobs 3.0, designed to make the process smoother for potential hires and federal recruiters alike, will debut on Oct. 13. Agencies will have to close all open job announcements before Oct. 6, when the system will be made unavailable to all applicants for nearly a week. The downtime will allow agencies to transition data to the new platform built by OPM and create a level playing field for job seekers and human resources staff, said Angela Bailey, the agency’s associate director of employee services.”

• 8.30.11 – two access-to-justice developments in West Virginia. 
• First, the Journal reports on hearings held by the state’s 2 year-old AtJ Commission to explore the problems that low-income West Virginians confront in navigating the justice system: “A shortage of funding for more Legal Aid attorneys [and] the difficulties citizens face when trying to hire an attorney…were among several issues discussed Monday night in Martinsburg during the second of six statewide public forums on the issue of access to the state’s civil justice system. The forum was held by the West Virginia Access to Justice Commission, which was formed two years ago.”  Here’s a troubling statistic (emphasis mine): “There are only 52 Legal Aid attorneys for the state’s 55 counties.”  And of course many of those attorneys are concentrated in population centers, which makes things very difficult for would-be clients in rural locales.
• Second, on a more positive note the Record reports that Legal Aid of West Virginia has launched a LawHelp site to empower litigants with self-help resources.

• 8.30.11 – In a letter to editor of the New York Times, new ABA president William T. Robinson, III offers perspective on a recent NYT editorial which presented solutions to narrow the civil justice gap. The letter supports the Times’s view that LSC funding should be expanded, but takes issue with the Times’s call to deregulate the delivery of legal services.  Writes Robinson: “[A] rush to open the practice of law to unschooled, unregulated nonlawyers is not the solution. This would cause grave harm to clients. Even matters that appear simple, such as uncontested divorces, involve myriad legal rights and responsibilities. If the case is not handled by a professional with appropriate legal training, a person can suffer serious long-term consequences affecting loved ones or financial security. It also could lead to a violation of the law.”  (Personally I’d look at unbundling – i.e. limited-scope representation – innovations before farming traditional lawyer work out to nonlawyers.  In practice, those outfits that market to low-income clients by offering quasi-legal services have patchy records, and are certainly not substitutes for legal services providers.  Although I grant that it’s the people who are over-income for legal services but can’t afford to retain counsel who present a very difficult challenge.)

• 8.29.11 – in Utah, a Deseret News editorial reacts to a recent ACLU of Utah report on the state’s indigent defense system: “This week, the ACLU released an in-depth study of criminal defense for the poor in Utah, and found the state system woefully inadequate. Utah is one of only two states that doesn’t fund public defenders, requiring counties to foot the bill and resulting in a funding rate of $5.22 per capita, less than half the national average of $11.86.  Attorneys [in rural counties] are ‘chronically underfunded and overworked,’ according to the report, receiving an average of just $400 per case…. There are several things the state can do to remedy the situation, and not all of them require money. For starters, public defenders should be granted greater access to the state’s crime labs, on par with that of prosecutors. It should also institute statewide standards for selecting public attorneys, eliminating conflicts of interest, and provide more oversight of county justice systems. But ultimately, funding for public attorneys must increase.”  Here’s a link to the ACLU report: Failing Gideon.

• 8.28.11 – now this is an adversarial justice system.  A New Orleans Times-Picayune opinion piece looks at the recent, bizarre goings-on between NOLA public defenders and court staff.  “Chief Public Defender Derwyn Bunton was getting a bit worried a couple of years ago because his attorneys were coming back injured after appearing before Judge Ben Willard.  First Steve Singer had to have surgery for a torn ligament after Willard ordered sheriff’s deputies to kick him out of the courtroom. A few months later, Stuart Weg also needed medical treatment following a similarly unceremonious departure, and Bunton asked for a Judiciary Commission investigation.”  This quoted passage notwithstanding, it does not appear as if the defenders are entirely without blame.  They seem to take seriously their responsibilities as zealous advocates.  (On a related note, the PSLawNet Blog interviewed Mr. Bunton several months ago.  He struck us as one cool cat.  Let’s hope cooler heads prevail in the Big Easy.)

• 8.29.11 – a little legal internship hullabaloo across the Pond.  A piece in the Guardian laments the increased number of unpaid legal internships in both public interest and for-profit law firm settings.  The author argues that some “employers” may be skirting regulations that distinguish paid employment relationships from volunteer learning opportunities, and that blossoming lawyers are too vulnerable at this early stage in their careers to raise a stink.  The author further contends that the entities charged with regulating the legal profession are not paying sufficient attention to the issue.  It’s hard for me to draw parallels with the U.S market because it seems that our labor regulations may be a bit more permissive, particularly in allowing government and nonprofit entities to take on unpaid interns. Nonetheless, it’s an issue worth watching in the U.S. given the glut of law graduates looking for practice experience.

• 8.29.11 – a piece in USA Today highlights the deteriorating condition of the nation’s civil legal services infrastructure, especially as the Legal Services Corporation is threatened with a 25% funding cut by congressional appropriators.  Some notable data points:
• “The House Appropriations Committee has proposed slashing…$104 million [from LSC’s budget] for fiscal 2012, rolling back funding to $300 million — a level not seen since 1999.”
• “The number of people eligible, based on income levels, for LSC programs across the country has gone up 27% since 2007. About 64 million people qualify [according to LSC president Jim Sandman].”
• “Idaho Legal Aid Services has started unpaid monthly furloughs, and offices are closed one day each month. Several employees have been downgraded from full-time to part-time status.”
• “Legal Services of New Jersey plans to lay off 100 employees by the end of the year.”

• 8.28.11 – big news on the indigent defense front in Massachusetts, including some new public-defender hiring.  From the Milford Daily News:  “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….  After lawmakers offered less sweeping proposals of their own, Patrick ultimately signed a state budget last month 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…. Lisa Hewitt, the committee’s general counsel, said the plan will likely require hiring 346 new full-time employees, including attorneys, support staff, social workers and investigators.  A final number is still in the works, she said. The state now has 252   public defenders on its payroll.”

• 8.26.11 – DLA Piper creates a pro bono immersion program of sorts for public-interest minded associates.  From AmLaw Daily: “DLA Piper unveiled a program…that creates what many first-year associates might call a dream job–the opportunity to work on pro bono cases while taking home a six-figure salary unheard of at most public service organizations.  Starting in January, two incoming DLA Piper associates each year will be selected to do exclusively pro bono work for a year as part of the firm’s DLA Piper/Krantz Fellowship Program.”

Autumn being my favorite season, I leave you with this pop music gem from one of the most unlikely songwriters to write a cartoon movie soundtrack.

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers!  This week’s Bulletin goes to press as we East Coasters are besieged by Mother Nature, who is showcasing her full arsenal of Weapons to Remind People That They Are Not As in Control of Things as They’d Like to Believe.  Best wishes to the folks who will take the brunt of this weekend’s hurricane.  I have followed the practices of my elderly Aunt Mimi by purchasing 6 gallons of milk, 4 dozen eggs, and enough bread to feed all the birds in Rock Creek Park for a month.  Thus I envision a lot of rain and French Toast in my immediate future.

As for public interest news, this week: the ACLU comes down hard on Utah’s patchwork indigent defense system; slow-but-steady progress toward establishing a public defender’s office in a central Texas county; difficult funding cuts have compelled New Hampshire Legal Assistance to close offices and reduce staff; the NYT’s interesting editorial on closing the civil justice gap; $1.4 million in grants from the South Carolina Bar Foundation; dealing with IOLTA shortfalls in DC; Topeka’s district attorney battling against a county budget cut; checking in on the new Texas Office of Capital Writs, a watchdog tasked with ensuring fairness in capital proceedings.  

• 8.24.11 – as reported by the Salt Lake Tribune, an ACLU report is highly critical of the Beehive State’s indigent defense system (to the extent that it even has one).  “Utah’s public defender system is failing to protect citizens’ constitutional rights as Utah remains one of only two states that do not provide state funds or oversight for public defense services, a new report from the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah claims. The report released Wednesday, titled ‘Failing Gideon: Utah’s Flawed County-by-County Public Defender System,’ addresses the state as a whole, but focuses specifically on nine Utah counties: Box Elder, Daggett, Duchesne, Iron, Kane, San Juan, Sevier, Uintah and Weber.”  Here’s a link to the ACLU report.  (Incidentally, to my great dismay the other state that doesn’t provide funding for indigent defense is the otherwise glorious Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.)

• 8.24.11 – according to the River Cities Daily Tribune, a political squabble has been impeding progress toward establishing a public defender’s office in Burnet County, Texas.  The disputes have come to a resolution, although it is somewhat uneasy.  “A clash of ideologies seems to be simmering down as local trial judges and the Burnet County Commissioners Court reach a compromise on how to create and maintain a proposed public defender’s office.  A four-year state grant will fund the office as a county department, allowing the commissioners to say they’re saving taxpayers’ money while making sure those who can’t afford an attorney are still guaranteed a legal defense…. The catch? The commissioners and other non-lawyers want a say-so in the oversight of the department.”  This doesn’t sit well with the trial judges. 

• 8.24.11 – a compelling Nashua Telegraph article documents the closure of New Hampshire Legal Assistance’s Nashua office on the heels of a state funding cut, as well as larger cuts affecting the whole organization as other funding sources have diminished.  “In 2008, New Hampshire Legal Assistance had a statewide staff of 53, according to its executive director John Tobin. Between the recent state cuts and a loss of charitable funding from the New Hampshire Bar Foundation, NHLA’s staff now numbers 28, he said.”  Tough times for a very strong legal services program. 

• 8.23.11 – this New York Times editorial on narrowing the justice gap is thought-provoking, if a bit scattered.  Right after noting that “[t]here is plenty the government, the legal profession, and others can do to improve this shameful [justice gap],” the piece notes that with so many un- or underemployed law graduates looking for work, there may be ways to situate them to serve the poor.  So it sounds like we’re moving toward a sweeping proposal. But then the piece, after correctly calling for increased LSC funding, proposes a set of admirable-but-not-sweeping solutions: mandatory reporting of attorney pro bono hours in states that don’t already require it; allowing nonlawyers to do more process and form work; more firmly integrating public advocacy into the legal education curriculum; and expanding law school LRAP programs.  All of those proposals are worthwhile.  But even combined, they’ll do only so much (little?) to narrow the gap separating the have’s and have-not’s when it comes to meaningfully accessing the justice system.  (But I do love the NYT’s support for LSC funding!) 

• 8.23.11 – the South Carolina Bar Foundation is raining down money upon grantees, according to Bluffton Today.  (We like that name by the way.  It’s all well and good for a newspaper to be a “Sentinel” or an “Argus-Leader”, but Bluffton Today is just saying, ‘Hey, here’s what’s happening today, in Bluffton.’)  Where were we?  Oh, the total pot of money was $1.4 million, and grantees include South Carolina Legal Services (which took the lion’s share: $1mil.), the South Carolina Center for Fathers and Families, and the SC Access to Justice Commission.

• 8.21.11 – five years ago this would have been a cash-cow for the DC legal services community.  Nowadays, not so much.  The Washington Post looks at a 2010 change in the District of Columbia’s IOLTA system, making it mandatory.  While the number of IOLTA accounts grew by almost 10% in the change’s wake, IOLTA revenues are all but flat, and well down from what they were before the recession’s impact was fully felt.  “2011 [IOLTA] revenue is down dramatically from the $2.4 million in IOLTA funds generated in 2008. That’s largely because participating banks, which until mid-2008 had been paying interest rates of up to 4 percent, are now — with a few exceptions — paying no more than 0.25 percent, in accordance with the federal funds target rate.”  With rates expected to remain flat for a while, the DC Access to Justice Commission has tried to make lemonade, instituting the Raising the Bar program “that asks law firms to set aside a portion of revenue from their [DC] office for legal services providers.  Eighteen law firms have agreed to donate between .075 and .11 percent, and the commission is recruiting more.”

• 8.21.11 – the Topeka Capital-Journal reports that Shawnee County District Attorney Chad Taylor is strongly opposing a proposed 10% cut to his budget by the county.  (Topeka sits in Shawnee County.)  “A weary-looking Taylor said he had lost sleep thinking about how the 10 percent cut…would force him to reduce staffing in his office, where more than 92% of the budget goes to pay salaries and benefits.”

• 8.21.11  the Houston Chronicle checks in with Brad Levenson, who “heads the year-old Texas Office of Capital Writs, an independent state agency tasked with scrutinizing capital murder trials to ensure they were legally proper.  The Texas Legislature created the office two years ago after repeated embarrassing instances of shoddy legal work by appeals attorneys representing capital murder convicts. The agency now handles the state appellate process for nearly all new Texas death penalty cases…. More than a dozen states have similar operations, but Texas was the largest without a public office to address death penalty appeals. None of the other states with capital punishment executes people as frequently as Texas…. Levenson directs a team of attorneys, investigators and staff working out of quarters just a few blocks north of the capital building in Austin. Working with an annual budget of about $850,000, they focus on habeas writs, essentially trying to determine if mistakes were made at the trial.” 

By Lauren Forbes

Happy Friday, everyone! This week: more unfortunate legal services cutbacks in North Carolina;  a profile on Wisconsin’s first woman state public defender; exploring limited-scope representation in Wisconsin;  shortfall woes in Oregon will likely lead to 20 positions being eliminated;  (good news!) a grant in Northern Florida that will help victims of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill access justice; a piece on Washington, DC’s Public Defender Service Director, Avis Buchanan; Indiana’s innovative program defrays the costs of providing defense attorneys. 

• 8.17.11 -Unfortunate cutbacks in North Carolina as per the nationwide trend– Johnston, NC’s The Herald reports that low-income Johnston County residents will soon have to travel to Raleigh or Wilson for legal help in civil-court matters.   “With legislative and Congressional cuts, we had nothing left to trim back,” North Carolina Legal Aid Director George Hausen said, noting that the organization has been in a hiring freeze for years. “We looked around at our 25 offices and felt that we could close some offices because these offices are close enough that the bigger offices could cover the ground.”
• 8.17.11 – Wisconsin Bar Association’s Inside Track features a story on Kelli Thompson, who is the first woman State Public Defender in Wisconsin, and one of only a very few across the country.  Thompson is a 12-year veteran in the State Public Defender’s (SPD) office – starting as an intern while a student at Marquette Law School.  “Kelli is a great communicator and really understands the mission of the public defender’s office,” said Paige Styler, attorney manager at the SPD Milwaukee Trial Office.  Best of luck, Kelli!
• 8.17.11 – Also from the Wisconsin Bar, Wisconsin is exploring “unbundled” legal services or limited-scope representation, which allows clients and lawyers to agree on a lawyer’s more limited role in lieu of full representation.  Expanding limited-scope representation has the potential to provide pro se litigants with affordable access to lawyers and improve court efficiency, according to a recent report by a subcommittee of the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s Planning and Policy Advisory Committee (PPAC).  “It is anticipated that recommendations for rule changes or amendments will be submitted to the Wisconsin Supreme Court in the fall of 2012,” Inside Track reports.
• 8.16.11 –  A story in the Statesman Journal delivers more bad news: low-income families receiving legal aid in Oregon may soon see a cut in services because of layoffs resulting from a 15 percent revenue shortfall.  Sandra Hansberger, executive director of The Lawyers’ Campaign for Equal Justice, estimates that 20 positions, both filled and vacant, would be lost statewide.  “Oregon lawyers have been generous in supporting legal aid by contributing over $1 million each year and by donating their time through legal aid’s pro-bono efforts,” said Steve Piucci, president of the Oregon State Bar, in a statement. “We need these other sources of funding to help meet the tremendous and growing unmet legal needs of the poor.”  Oregon Public Broadcasting also covered the issue, citing Legal Aid Board Chair Michael Mason in saying,  “We closed the Klamath Falls office in 1997 after major federal cuts. And it had a huge impact. People who are unwilling to follow the law by all accounts ran amok.” The union representing Legal Aid attorneys offered a package of wage freezes and furloughs that would have stabilized funding for a year.
• 8.15.11 – A small ray of sunshine, as The Panama City News Herald announces that legal Services of North Florida has received a grant for $200,000 to provide outreach and legal help to low-income residents and small businesses who were affected by the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.  Legal Services of North Florida (LSNF), a private nonprofit corporation dedicated to providing free legal representation to low-income people with civil legal problems, will use the money over the next 18 months to provide outreach and support to those who either have not been able to file claims or are having difficulties with the claims process.
• 8.15.11 – The National Law Journal’s Legal Times features a piece on veteran DC Public Defender, Avis Buchanan.  As a staff attorney with PDS in the 1980s, Buchanan had a gentle style with judges and jurors, but her style did not prevent her from taking on clients who were “rough around the edges.” She left PDS, but returned as director in 2004. Caseload pressures are a nationwide problem for PDs, but the Washington Office is admired for its ability to put its foot down when attorneys are overloaded, said David Caroll, NLADA’s director of research.  Public service in her DNA, Buchanan is looking to implement technological upgrades and recruit top legal talent over the next couple of years.   Acknowledging PDS’ extensive history, Buchanan said, “We will work with what we have.  As long as the right people are in place, we’ll achieve what we need to achieve.”  [Note: premium access subscription required]
• 8.14.11 – Not a Tupelo Honey situation for Mississippi legal aid, as the Associated  Press reports.  A legal aid office for low-income individuals in north Mississippi faces closing down because of the budget cuts Congress is imposing. Ben Cole, the executive director of the North Mississippi Rural Legal Services, said the Tupelo office or another one in north Mississippi may have close.  The agency’s 25-member board is scheduled to meet Aug. 27 and budget cuts are on its agenda.
• 8.14.11 –  An interesting approach to provide criminal defendants with representation in Indiana:  The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette reports that  52 Indiana counties received more than $15.7 million during the last fiscal year to help defray the costs of providing defense attorneys to people who can’t afford them by using court fees and money set aside by the state legislature.  Counties are obligated to provide lawyers for criminal defendants who can’t afford to pay for representation.  “Established in 1989 by the state legislature, the Public Defender Commission recommends standards for, among other areas, determining who may have public defense attorneys, how many cases a public defender may handle, and the qualifications of attorneys seeking to be public defenders.  The commission reimburses participating counties for a portion of the money they spend providing public defense attorneys.  To qualify for reimbursement, counties must adopt an ordinance, establish a public defender board, adopt a comprehensive plan, have the plan approved and meet other standards set by the state commission – largely drawn from the American Bar Association.”

By: Steve Grumm (with a big assist from Jamie Bence)

Happy Friday, dear readers, from an astonishingly not-humid Washington, DC!  We try to keep the mood light around here, but in all candor it’s disheartening to read, week after week, stories from all corners of the country documenting how diminished legal services funding is impacting programs and the clients they serve.  With interest rates holding at record lows, IOLTA funding streams remain weak.  LSC grantees have already felt the small pinch that came with a modest cut in the FY11 appropriation.  Frighteningly, that will become a big squeeze if the proposed 26% cut to LSC’s FY12 appropriation goes through.  This week we learn of funding troubles in Florida, Maine, and Mississippi, as well as another office closure at Legal Aid of North Carolina.  It’s frustrating, at times, to be the aggregator of bad news.  But we hope our modest efforts to provide a nationwide snapshot of the goings-on in the public interest world may be of some use to advocates who over the next several months will be fighting to sustain legal services funding.  So, with that, let’s look at legal services and other public interest news…   

This week: the motivation for pro bono lawyers to fight in defense of civil liberties; legal services funding woes in Broward County (at least it’s not more hanging chads); a cynical attempt to kill the Legal Services Corporation?’; CAP offers some data to highlight the rise in pro se litigation; some more data, this time about funding troubles affecting state court systems; Magnolia State LSC grantees are bracing for more cuts; ditto up in Maine; solid career advice for tomorrow’s public interest lawyers; office closure and staff cut news from Legal Aid of North Carolina; the ABA’s outgoing president on funding the courts and legal services; speaking of pro se, the success of the Civil Law Self Help Center in Vegas; capital punishment is pricey in Indiana; strengthening pro bono collaborations in, appropriately, the Volunteer State; getting pro bono buy-in from law firm leadership. 

• 8.10.11 – if you’re looking for some public interest motivation, the New York Law Journal has run a nice piece by Arnold & Porter partner Peter Zimroth, who is part of a pro bono team fighting a zoning ordinance which was enacted to stop the building of a house of worship – a mosque – in New Jersey.  Reprinted in the article are remarks Zimroth delivered at a thank-you event for the pro bono team.  The remarks highlight common principles of justice and equal treatment running from the efforts of the mosque’s supporters back through older civil right struggles, and ultimately grounded in the framework of the Constitution.

• 8.10.11 – an op-ed in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel looks at the dire funding situation of the Legal Aid Service of Broward County, particularly as the specter (which I always spell “spectre” because I’ve seen too many James Bond films) of additional LSC cuts looms.  The Legal Aid Service, along with Coast to Coast Legal Aid, which is not an LSC grantee, is “facing additional 20 percent to 25 percent budget cuts for the upcoming fiscal year, meaning a new round of layoffs, wage freezes and five-day unpaid furloughs for workers. The agencies have gone from a peak of 50 attorneys to 39.  And because of cutbacks at big local law firms, fewer outside attorneys have been volunteering for pro bono work.” And on the issue of support from the private bar: “Making matters worse: As the agencies’ foreclosure defense caseload grows, banks and big law firms that represent lenders have stopped giving contributions.” 

• 8.10.11 – Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, known for his wry observations of the goings-on on Capitol Hill, takes an aggressive stance in criticizing freshman Congressman Austin Scott, who recently proposed his first bill: a total evisceration of the Legal Services Corporation.  The bill, Milbank writes, “says a great deal about Scott, because it is a transparent attempt by the young lawmaker to defend a company in his district that discriminates against U.S. citizens in favor of Mexican migrant workers. Scott introduced the bill abolishing Legal Services exactly three days after it became public that Legal Services had won a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission determination that Georgia’s Hamilton Growers” engaged in discriminatory practices which adversely affected American farmworkers in favor of H2-A guest workers.  (Georgia Legal Services program, an LSC grantee, had represented workers in the action against Hamilton.)  Milbank goes on to argue that Rep. Scott, a “Tea Party favorite”, “chose to side with a large employer of foreign migrants in his district – against his out-of-work constituents.”  

• 8.9.11 – the Center for American Progress offers a by-the-numbers look of the woeful state of civil legal services funding in the U.S., along with the sharp rise in pro se litigation, as more and more poor people who can’t be helped by legal services due to resource shortages opt to represent themselves.  Some of the data CAP cites on pro se trends is dated, but there are also some noteworthy figures, including:
• “1-to-6415: The ratio of free legal services attorneys available to the number of low-income Americans who need one”;
• “235,000: The estimated number of low-income Americans eligible for civil legal assistance at LSC-funded programs that would be turned away if [a proposed 26% cut to LSC’s appropriation goes forward.]”

• 8.8.11 – the National Law Journal reports that a recent panel at the ABA’s Annual Meeting highlighted the work of the Task Force on Preservation of the Justice System.  Legal luminaries David Boies and Ted Olson lead the task force, which has been documenting the recession’s impact on state courts.  Among the group’s findings: 
• “26 states have delayed filling judicial vacancies, 31 have delayed filling judicial support positions and 34 have delayed filling open positions in clerks’ offices.
• 31 states have frozen or reduced judge or staff pay.
• 14 states have laid off court staff.
• 14 states have curtailed hours or cut operating days.”

• 8.8.11 – the Jackson Clarion-Ledger looks at the impact that an LSC funding cut would have on two of the Magnolia State’s three grantee programs: the Mississippi Center for Legal Services and North Mississippi Legal Services.  These programs rely very heavily on federal funds to support their work; about 80% of their funding comes from LSC.  As is the case in other jurisdictions, IOLTA funding has all but dried up: “North Mississippi Rural Legal Services and Mississippi Center for Legal Services each received $1 million last year from the
  IOLTA funds. This year, each program will receive $120,000.”  So one can see why a significant cut in LSC funds would be devastating.  And in terms of service capacity, the programs are already stretched to the breaking point: “The number of legal services attorneys is
  about one per 20,000 low-income residents.”

• 8.7.11 – the Bangor Daily News looks at how the House’s proposed 26% cut in LSC funding could impact Pine Tree Legal Assistance.  Pine Tree executive director Nan Heald “estimated that if the proposed reduction in funding is approved, her budget would be cut by about 35 percent.  ‘We’ve already lost six staff positions through attrition that we’re not replacing, including two in our Bangor office,’ she said. ‘We’ve also lost staff in Portland and Lewiston we can’t replace, including a full-time foreclosure attorney’.”

• 8.7.11 – the Washington Post carries profiles from three young attorneys who are making it in today’s economy. One of the featured attorneys, Laila Leigh, graduated from Catholic University Law and now works with the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau. She offers this advice to aspiring public interest lawyers (with which I can’t more strongly agree):  “A lot of law students think, ‘I have to be in law review, I have to be in moot court.’ I just stayed focused on what I wanted to do and selected internships and opportunities that would put me in a position to do what I wanted to do when I was done.”  In spite of the bad job market, there are public interest jobs out there, and they’re going to go to those law grads who have immersed themselves in the work and developed the best professional networks in the communities they wish to work in.  

• 8.6.11 – Mountain Express reports that Legal Aid of North Carolina will be closing more offices in the year ahead. “Cuts made this year to state and federal legislative appropriations amounted to annual reductions of more than $2M. With such substantial cuts to its core funding, Legal Aid of NC (LANC) could not avoid the closings and the elimination of about thirty staff positions. The LANC offices located in Smithfield, Boone and Henderson immediately will stop taking new cases and will close entirely by the end of September. LANC offices in Rocky Mount, Winston-Salem and Sylva also are affected.”

• 8.6.11 –in the Miami Herald, outgoing ABA president Stephen Zack expresses concerns that under-funding the nation’s courts and the civil legal services system – the need for fiscal austerity notwithstanding – could do fundamental damage to our system of government.  “In the weeks and months ahead, the American people and those we elected to represent us will have serious conversations about the size, shape and funding of our government. And naturally, there will be differing opinions. But on the issue of protecting our fundamental liberties, freedoms, rights and values by protecting our courts and legal aid, there should — and must — be complete support.”
  8.6.11 – For Nevada residents, access to civil justice has improved for the 55,000 people who have visited the Civil Law Self Help Center since it opened in December 2009. Free services range from assistance for small business owners to individuals facing eviction or foreclosure. The Las Vegas Sun has the story here.

• 8.6.11 – For Nevada residents, access to civil justice has improved for the 55,000 people who have visited the Civil Law Self Help Center since it opened in December 2009. Free services range from assistance for small business owners to individuals facing eviction or foreclosure. The Las Vegas Sun has the story here.

• 8.6.11 – a detailed piece in the Evansville Courier and Press looks at the high cost of administering capital punishment processes in Indiana.  Costs, which are borne partly by the state government and partly by county governments, continue to rise.  However, “[o]nly 16% of Indiana’s death penalty cases – 30 out of 188 – filed from 1990 through 2009 ended in death sentences, according to the Indiana Public Defender Council.  Such statistics have given death penalty foes a solid economic argument, and even supporters of the death penalty are calling for reforms to control skyrocketing defense costs often born by local and state governments.”     

• 8.5.11 – I can’t believe I let my Nashville Business Journal subscription expire!  Now I can only link to the teaser for this password-protected article about the Legal Aid Society for Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands’s efforts to engage the private bar on pro bono collaborations. 

• August, 2011: “If You Them to Lead, You Need to Speak Their Language: Strategies for Encouraging Law Firm Leaders to Support Pro Bono Work” (long title!) is a piece by SNR Denton’s Benjamin Weinberg on how pro bono proponents in large law firms can make both the moral and financial cases for pro bono in order to enlist the support of leaders in all corners of the firm.  Good read.  (Tip o’ the cap to our friend David Lash for passing it along.)  

The Center for American Progress chimes in on the impact of legal services funding shortages..

The number of low- and moderate-income litigants representing themselves in civil legal matters has increased in recent decades. And there remains a significant gap between these individuals’ legal needs and the civil legal assistance system’s ability to fulfill them—the “justice gap.”

Self-representation, or pro se, features prominently in a wide range of civil legal cases, including but not limited to domestic violence, foreclosures, landlord-tenant disputes, bankruptcy, and consumer issues. Pro se litigants face many challenges in their quest to reach fair resolutions to civil disputes.

The following statistics illustrate the increase in self-representation over the last several decades and the need for additional funding for civil legal aid programs to ensure efficient, effective delivery of legal services to those who need them…

Read the full CAP piece: “Civil Legal Aid By The Numbers”

By Jamie Bence

Washington Post runs advice today from three young attorneys who have been successful in today’s difficult job market. Laila Leigh, a 2010 graduate of the Columbus School of Law had advice which will ring true for aspiring public interest lawyers:

“A lot of law students think, ‘I have to be in law review, I have to be in moot court.’ I just stayed focused on what I wanted to do and selected internships and opportunities that would put me in a position to do what I wanted to do when I was done”

“I wasn’t trying to get an experience that looked good on my resume. I asked, ‘Where can I work with immigrant communities? Where can I work that will get me in a courtroom? Write briefs?’ I wanted to do substantial work. That’s what I sought out, those are what gave me an advantage.”

Read the full story here.