By Lauren Forbes

In a new study, a senior judge and law professor examine rising costs of the death penalty in California. As the LA Times reports, without major reforms, they conclude, capital punishment will continue to exist mostly in theory while exacting an untenable cost.  The study reveals that the death penalty costs California $184 million per year.

The examination of state, federal and local expenditures for capital cases, conducted over three years by a senior federal judge and a law professor, estimated that the additional costs of capital trials, enhanced security on death row and legal representation for the condemned adds $184 million to the budget each year.

The study’s authors, U.S. 9th Circuit Judge Arthur L. Alarcon and Loyola Law School professor Paula M. Mitchell, also forecast that the tab for maintaining the death penalty will climb to $9 billion by 2030, when San Quentin’s death row will have swollen to well over 1,000.

In their research for “Executing the Will of the Voters: A Roadmap to Mend or End the California Legislature’s Multi-Billion-Dollar Death Penalty Debacle,” Alarcon and Mitchell obtained California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation records that were unavailable to others who have sought to calculate a cost-benefit analysis of capital punishment.

The bottom line is that unless profound reforms are made by lawmakers who have failed to adopt previous recommendations for rescuing the system, Alarcon and Mitchell find, capital punishment will continue to exist mostly in theory while exacting an untenable cost.

A fact that might surprise some is that a death penalty prosecution costs up to 20 times as much as a life-without-parole case.

Federal judges find fault with about 70% of the California death row prisoners’ convictions and send them back to the trial courts for further proceedings, the report noted. That could make the state vulnerable to charges of denying inmates due process, the authors warned.

The report also says the corrections department and the Legislative Analyst’s Office failed to honestly assess and disclose to the public what 30 years of tough-on-crime legislation and ballot measures actually cost.

“We hope that California voters, informed of what the death penalty actually costs them, will cast their informed votes in favor of a system that makes sense,” the report concludes.

By: Steve Grumm

The Legal Services Corporation, a quasi-governmental entity which channels federal funding to civil legal services providers throughout the U.S. states and territories and which is the single largest source of funding for legal services for the poor, is facing the potential for sizeable cuts that will force staff cuts and result in fewer clients served.  LSC and its 130+ grantee organizations are sitting squarely, and uncomfortably, between the metaphorical rock and hard place.  At precisely the time when some federal legislators are discussing large-scale cuts to numerous federal programs in the name of fiscal austerity, swollen numbers of poor people and families – the unemployed, children, and victims of domestic violence – are seeking free legal aid to help them out of crisis.  So as Congress is gearing up for debate on a Fiscal Year 2012 funding plan, LSC grantees face the grim prospect of having to do more with considerably less – a minefield they’ve already been traversing because other, non-federal funding sources have depleted in the recession’s wake.

Linda Perle at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) has authored a very helpful LSC funding update, offering the particulars about what has happened to LSC funding in recent budget debates and which direction the winds are blowing in as Congressional hearings on LSC’s funding are set to begin in July.  Some noteworthy language from Linda’s piece:

Concern abounds regarding LSC funding for FY 2012, which will begin on Oct. 1, 2011.  FY 2011 funding totals $404.19 million, which represents a $15.81 million cut from LSC’s FY 2010 funding level of $420 million.  The House and Senate adopted this amount after the House passed an FY 2011 Continuing Resolution (CR) that would have  cut $70 million for LSC from its FY 2010 level, and reduced LSC’s funding to FY 2008 levels.  Under the House version of the CR, all of the $70 million cut would have come out of LSC’s basic field grants that support the 136 legal aid programs providing basic legal assistance to low-income people across the country.

LSC has asked Congress to appropriate $516.5 million for FY 2012.  President Obama’s budget request sought $450 million for LSC.  However, during the April 5, 2011, hearing of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies (CJS) on the FY 2012 LSC budget, there was again discussion of returning LSC funding to the FY 2008 level — all in the name of deficit reduction.  The FY 2012 House budget resolution (the Ryan Bill), which proposes $6 trillion in overall budget cuts over 10 years and an overhaul of entitlement programs, did not include any specific cuts for LSC or other agencies, but also suggested that funding of discretionary programs should be cut to FY 2008 levels. 

Subcommittee mark-up on the House 2012 CJS bill is scheduled for July 7, followed by full committee mark-up on July 13.  We anticipate that the House will cut LSC’s overall FY 2012 budget to its FY 2008 level of $340.49 million.  However, it is not clear whether this budget will follow the FY 2008 allocation among LSC’s programs and divisions, providing approximately $332.4 million for basic field grant funding, or will do as was proposed in House version of the 2011 CR and take all of the cuts out of the funds allocated to basic field grants, leaving only $324.4 million for basic field grant funding.

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers!  To begin with shameless self-promotion: if you’re inclined to use the Twitters, please follow us at @PSLawNet.  We tweet all of our blog posts along with pieces of timely public interest career and funding news.  And we don’t tweet immodest photos of ourselves.

Also, I apologize for publishing the Bulletin a few minutes late this morning.  The Philadelphia Phillies kept me up until 12:30am last night, only to fall apart on defense, surrendering to the lowly Cubs of Chicago in extra innings.  And now I’ll have to hear about it from the Chicago Bar Foundation folks, which is even worse.

This week we present a Bulletin rich with funding news, although certainly not all of this news speaks to the riches of public interest funding: good news for Lone Star State legal services and indigent defense advocates; but in the Bay State, elected officials may still need some prodding; Have Justice Will Travel urgently needs money to keep moving; in Jacksonville, FL, the city council may boost legal services funding in the wake of state gov’t. stinginess; Legal Services of New Jersey sure could use a funding boost, too; the DOJ’s AtJ program has a new chief; and speaking of DOJ, some advice on becoming an AUSA.

• 6.9.11 – some terrific news out of Texas.  After a legislative roller coaster ride, the state house and senate are in agreement on funding both civil legal services and indigent defense.   From the Tex Parte blog: “Representatives approved an amendment on a general appropriations bill that would add $17.6 million over the biennium for indigent civil legal aid, as well as $7.6 million for indigent criminal defense.”  There had been some back-and-forth on the senate side, too, but that chamber ultimately came through with funding.  “[Now], the House and Senate versions include the same language about indigent legal aid funding. If the bill moves to conference committee, lawmakers would only focus on smoothing out differences.”

• 6.7.11 – in the Patriot Ledger of Quincy, Massachusetts, corporate counsel heavy-hitter and Greater Boston Legal Services board member Thomas Gunning pens an op-ed highlighting the importance of adequately funding civil legal services.   After noting some of GBLS’s most important, recent work in helping low-income clients, Gunning looks at the precarious state of funding:  “The need for services is way up in our tough economy and funding is way down.  While private lawyers give millions in support each year, a large portion of budgets come from state funding and interest earned on money held in short-term escrow accounts… For fiscal year 2010, the state cut the legal aid budget by $1.5 million from $11 million to $9.5 million.  At the same time, [IOLTA funding is down].  So with need at record levels, legal aid organizations have been forced to lay off lawyers and staff. They must turn away many more eligible clients than they can represent resulting in denied justice and avoidable social service costs…. After the painful 2010 cuts, the governor and Legislature ‘level funded’ legal aid in 2011 at the reduced amount. The governor’s fiscal year 2012 submitted budget also proposes level funding and the Legislature has shown signs of doing the same. We should certainly hope the final 2012 state budget level funds legal aid so that those in need have access to justice, and we can protect our social service spending from avoidable additional costs.”

• 6.7.11 – a piece in Vermont’s Bennington Banner looks at the work, and financial woes, of Have Justice Will Travel, a thinly staffed organization that provides legal services to domestic violence victims.  Times are very tough indeed on the finance front.  A reduction in a DOJ grant forced the closure of an office, and this summer most of HJWT’s staff are being asked to take a (hopefully) temporary layoff.  The organization is presently scrambling to cobble together more grant funding.

• 6.7.11 – the Daily Record reports that some of the funding cuts that Jacksonville Area Legal Aid will suffer as a result of the Florida governor’s civil legal services funding veto may be offset by Jacksonville City Council: “City Council member Kevin Hyde introduced bill 2010-766 to establish a $40 court fee on felonies, misdemeanors and criminal traffic infractions to provide assistance for foreclosure programs for the disadvantaged through JALA.  An amendment to the original ordinance requested the fee be increased to $50 because of recent budget cuts for JALA at the state level.”

• 6.7.11 – a piece on MyCentralJersey.com looks closely at the dire funding situation of Legal Services of New Jersey: “[LSNJ President Melville D. Miller, Jr.] said that during the past three years, Legal Services of New Jersey has lost a third of its staff and a third of its funding — going from $72 million to $46 million in operating revenue as its staff fell from 720 to 490 attorneys with another 75 advocate set to be lost this year.  Meanwhile, Miller said, poverty in New Jersey has spiked by 8.4 percent over the last year.”  The article also looks at the efforts of Assemblyman Peter J. Barnes, III and other to restore some state funding, and to shore it up in both the shorter and longer term.

• 6.2.11 – there’s a new sheriff in town at the DOJ’s access to justice office.  Main Justice reports: “About six months after the departure of Laurence Tribe as Senior Counselor of the Justice Department Access to Justice Initiative, his successor is in place.  Mark Childress on Thursday was sworn in as the leader of the program that focuses on access to legal services for the poor.  He most recently was the acting General Counsel at the Department of Health and Human Services.”  Childress has a fairly varied resume, including a stint as a partner at Foley Hoag, some high-level staff work in the White House and on the Hill, and even some work with an aboriginal business development entity in Australia.

• June, 2011 – a former Assistant U.S. Attorney contributes a piece to this month’s edition of the ABA’s Young Lawyer, explaining how one may land one of these coveted, federal positions: “Assistant U.S. Attorneys…are experienced trial attorneys who come from a variety of backgrounds, including both the public and private sectors, as well as the military. Generally, the attorneys have five to seven years of litigation experience before joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office. While many aspects of a particular applicant are considered, trial experience is the most significant requirement. A strong working knowledge of the Federal Rules of Evidence and Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure is important.”

By: Steve Grumm

The Tex Parte Blog reports the latest:

Supporters of indigent civil legal services say they expect to see a Texas representative file an amendment on a general appropriations bill adding state funding for indigent civil legal aid and indigent defense. The appropriations bill, Senate Bill 2, passed the Senate on June 3, and the House on Thursday is scheduled to hear a House committee version of the bill. Representatives must pre-file all amendments by Wednesday at 5 p.m.

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  After some dreadful midweek humidity – and equally dreadful play by the visiting Philadelphia Phillies, who wasted my time by getting shellacked when I saw them play the Nationals on Tuesday but-I-digress-where-was-I? – oh, it’s a beautiful, late spring morning here in the nation’s capital.  As for public interest news…

This week: does a loosening of pro bono-related practice rules in two jurisdictions portend a trend?; two Texas high court justices implore the Lone Star legislature to appropriate much-needed funding for legal services; Florida gov. vetoes legal services funding; financial woes befall the New Jersey legal services community, and legislative help is needed; a look at hiring trends in the DOJ’s Office of Civil Rights; in Sonoma County, CA, prosecutors and defenders may see substantial budget cuts; a bittersweet birthday (60th) for Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas; Cooley Law School lends a hand to local servicemembers; 3 UNLV law students win a federal appellate victory in an immigration case; and, change in the Massachusetts indigent defense system?

• 6.3.11 – a piece on the Corporate Counsel website notes that attorney practice rules in both Virginia and Arkansas have recently been modified so as to make it easier for in-house counsel, who are often physically located in jurisdictions in which they are not barred, to perform prob bono.  The Corporate Pro Bono (CPBO) initiative, a joint undertaking between the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) and the Pro Bono Institute, had pushed for Virginia rule change and is pushing for similar progress elsewhere.  “Currently, only Virginia, Colorado, Delaware, and Pennsylvania have expressly allowed in-house counsel to perform pro bono work under their limited licenses. Nineteen other states and the District of Columbia have rules allowing practice through approved legal services organizations.”

• 6.2.11 – from the Texas Tribune: “Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson and Justice Nathan Hecht sent lawmakers a letter Wednesday, urging them to find $20 million during the special session to help needy people access civil courts….Without the funds, the justices wrote, 40 legal aid programs that help about 104,000 Texas families each year could be in jeopardy. As many as 75,000 Texans would be denied basic legal services. The legal aid services help domestic violence victims, military veterans wrongly denied benefits and families who are evicted from their homes despite having paid their bills. Nearly 5.7 million Texans qualify for legal aid.”

• 6.1.11 – not-so-great Scott.  The Florida governor vetoed a civil legal services appropriation that amounted to less than 0.015% of the overall budget package.  The Jacksonville Daily Record reports: “Among the $615 million in funding slashed from the state budget through vetoes from Gov. Rick Scott was $1 million for legal aid organizations statewide.  The Florida Access to Civil Legal Assistance Act helps to fund legal aid organizations throughout the state and the budget line item of $1 million was approved by both the State House and Senate.  Scott vetoed the item from the nearly $70 billion budget.”  Is this a fiscally prudent move?  Well, last year a Florida Bar Foundation study found that “for every dollar spent on legal aid by federal, state and local governments, a return of $4.78 is generated.  The funding also assists in the creation of more than 3,300 jobs throughout the state, it said.”

• 5.31.11 – an editorial in The Record laments the terrible state of civil legal services funding in the Garden State: “Funding cuts at Legal Services of New Jersey — which offers legal aid to those who cannot afford to pay — have resulted in fewer lawyers. So now 50 percent fewer cases are accepted for full legal representation. Lawyers turn down two of every three eligible people who need help. It is a civil justice catastrophe.”  While there is some movement in the legislature to generate funding for legal services via a court filing fee increase, it won’t be enough.  “We urge the Legislature and those in state government to find a steady funding source. Living in homeless shelters, triggering child protective services and ending up in the hospital with no health insurance costs more in time and resources than a legal aid lawyer.”

• 5.31.11 – the DOJ’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) is hiring more left-leaning lawyers during the Obama Administration than were hired during the Bush Administration.  Surprise!  Of course, this also tends to mean that more lawyers with civil rights practice experience are coming aboard.  And notwithstanding any cultural shifts, the hiring process for career positions seems to have been notably de-politicized. The New York Times, in advance of some House hearings about OCR, has a piece looking at newly available information about recent OCR attorney hires.  The Times also references a National Law Journal piece (password-protected to keep out the hoi-polloi – boo!) noting that almost half of the resumes of recently hired attorneys showed that they had prior civil rights experience.

• 5.31.11 – the recession even reaches wine country.  The Press Democrat reports that Sonoma County prosecutors and public defenders may be looking at 16% cuts to their respective appropriations as the county tightens its fiscal belt: The [county budget] proposal would reduce spending from the general fund…to $379 million, down 4 percent from the 2010-2011 figure of $395 million. It does so by taking a bigger bite out of law enforcement and justice services, the single largest destination for general fund dollars. Spending at those four departments, including the Sheriff’s, District Attorney’s and Public Defender’s offices and the probation department is set to drop by 16 percent.”  You might say their funding’s been corked.  And with that I’ve exhausted my vino vocabulary.

• 5.30.11 – Happy birthday, kind of.   The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram reports on Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas’s bittersweet 60th birthday.  Good news: the organization celebrates six decades of service to low-income Texans and has moved into a new headquarters building.  Bad news: LANWT has recently lost $350,000 in LSC funding (as a result of the cutback in the FY2011 budget) and another $350,000 in United Way funds.

• 5.29.11 – TV station WZZM’s website includes a story on Cooley Law School’s “Service to Soldiers: Legal Assistance Referral Program.”  “For the past four years, the program has been offering pro bono legal services for deploying and returning troops…. To date, Cooley has been able to help soldiers with 2,200 wills and power of attorney documents.”

• 5.28.11 – the Las Vegas Sun reports on a remarkable federal appellate victory achieved by UNLV law students representing a Honduran native in immigration proceedings.  “The students emerged from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals with an unexpected landmark immigration victory that means tens of thousands of people, maybe more, who are fighting deportation stand a greater chance of proving their U.S. citizenship…. The appeals court heard the case last year and set a precedent by ruling all individuals facing deportation should have access to their “alien files,” or A-files that the Homeland Security Department keeps on them. The ruling means they will be allowed to see documents such as adoption papers, applications for naturalization and correspondence with immigration authorities.  The ruling will stand if the government doesn’t appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court by May 31. Before, the government had only given A-files to those who tried to prove they are lawful permanent residents, also known as green-card holders or permanent resident aliens.”

• 5.27.11 – big things brewing in the Massachusetts indigent defense system.  An AP story reports that the Massachusetts “Senate passed measures designed to overhaul the state’s public defender program…yesterday as it debated its $30.5 billion state spending plan for the next fiscal year.  The public defender amendment approved by the Senate calls for public defenders to handle 30 percent of criminal cases involving indigent defendants.  [At present, about 90% of the Bay State’s indigent defense cases are assigned to private counsel.]  Supporters say shifting more cases to public defenders would save the state money, though opponents say those savings could be offset by the need to hire additional lawyers.”

By: Steve Grumm

Our neighbors at the Pro Bono Institute are putting on a webinar that focuses on a timely question: as law firm business models evolve in the recession’s wake, how will pro bono programs be affected?  This issue greatly interests me because I used to work at a pro bono clearinghouse in the World’s Most Glorious City.  And here at NALP, many of our law-firm members focus on attorney professional development.  The intersection

The Intersection of Pro Bono and Professional Development

between professional development and pro bono will likely be a very busy place in the coming years.  Increasingly, firms wish to provide hands-on, practical training opportunities for junior associates.  One obvious way to do this is through pro bono; by handling pro bono cases, even junior associates can develop case management/strategy skills, gain courtroom experience, and learn how to build trusting relationships with clients – all opportunities that may not be available to them immediately via fee-paying practice.  So I look forward to focusing more on this issue in the coming months.  And I’m looking forward to the PBI webinar next week. Here’s some detail about the webinar:

Coming up on June 7 at 12:30 p.m. EDT is the webinar, “The Evolving Law Firm Business Model and Its Impact on Pro Bono,” which will examine the changes faced by large law firms and the effect they will have on pro bono. 

Large law firms are changing the way they do business, including major shifts in attorney headcount, recruitment, and compensation; new approaches to professional and skill development and advancement; and shifts in billing arrangements and relationships with corporate clients. More profound changes are likely to come. This timely webinar will review these and other developments and reflect on what the changing economic landscape may mean for pro bono supporters at law firms, legal departments, and public interest organizations. This webinar is the first in the Pro Bono Institute’s Best of the 2011 Seminar/Forum Series.

Speakers include our friends Jim Jones, senior vice president and chief legal officer, Hildebrandt Baker Robbins, chairman, The Hildebrandt Institute (whom we’ve spoken with before, here); and Ron Flagg, chair, Pro Bono and Public Interest Law Committee, Sidley Austin LLP*.

By: Steve Grumm 

The good news for Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas is that, this year, it can look back on 60 years of service to low-income Texans.  From the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram:

The group started in 1951 with $500 and an idea that access to justice was not just for those with deep pockets. At that time, 11 attorneys created the Fort Worth Legal Foundation to give free legal advice and aid to people who could not afford legal services.

The Foundation later evolved into Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas, which has become the fifth-largest provider of legal services in the U.S. It covers 114 counties, with 100 lawyers in 16 offices in North and West Texas. About 2,000 private attorneys also donate their time, providing over 40,000 hours of legal assistance.

The bad news: the organization has recently lost $700K in funding, and it’s working to pay off expenses related to the opening of a new headquarters building in Ft. Worth.

…[T]he timing of the fundraiser could not be better. Last week, Legal Aid officials learned they had lost $350,000 in funding from United Way of Dallas. That news came on top of a loss of $350,000 in the recently approved federal appropriations bill.

Errol A. Summerlin, Legal Aid’s CEO, said the nonprofit has received funding from the United Way since 1957, and losing all of it came as a “total shock.”

By Lauren Forbes

Recently, student loan expert Heather Jarvis shared two very timely and helpful blog posts on Income-Based Repayment,or IBR, an acronym with which this blogette and many other recent grads have become intimately familiar.

Check out “3 Best Things About IBR,” a video in which Heather tells students how to get a grip on student loans.   And to ensure that we’re fully educated, Heather also posted a video about an IBR eccentricity, because IBR is unusual in that a borrower’s monthly payment may be even less than the interest that is accruing each month.  Watch the video to find out what happens to that interest…

By: Steve Grumm

Greetings, Dear Readers, and Happy Friday!  Having returned from the Equal Justice Conference, which featured some terrific programming and offered important insights about trends affecting the legal services and pro bono communities, I give you this week’s Bulletin, which is brimming over with news and developments from all corners of the public interest legal world.

Featured: Georgia’s top jurist goes to bat for legal services funding; hard times for Legal Services of New Jersey; a “corps” of newly minted lawyers to help  unclog the immigration system?; a prosecutor/public defender scuffle ends in a lawsuit; New York gets an IOLA funding windfall, but it’s notably “uninteresting”; former AG Gonzales “disappointed” in himself over politicization of hiring practices; the SEC and CFTC hang the “Help Wanted” sign for lawyers; funding for prosecutors and public defenders in one South Carolina county; stagnant prosecutor salaries are causing problems in Tucson; prosecutor funding ain’t great in Vegas, either; a piece on the public defender’s office in Terra Haute, IN; the Texas AtJ Foundation recognizes four banks as IOLTA all-stars; two LSC board members make the case for funding programs in Virginia and nationwide; in Tennessee, a legal services ED explains how even small federal funding cuts disproportionately impact the poor; questions about indigent defense funding in the Tarheel State.

• 5.26.11 – Carol Hunstein, chief justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia, writes in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about the funding crisis plaguing legal services providers in the Peach State, and calls upon state and federal legislators to shore up funding: Since 2006, the Georgia Legal Services Program has had to reduce its staff by nearly 10 percent and currently has the resources to help only a tenth of the people who call for legal aid. Georgia Bar Foundation funding for Georgia Legal Services has fallen from a high of $2.9 million in 2009 to $739,300 in 2011. Funding for 2012 could fall as low as $400,000.  In response to the crisis, the Georgia legal community has expanded its volunteer services and financial contributions… Despite these efforts, however, further budget cuts at both the state and federal level are threatening vital programs that provide equal access to justice for the most vulnerable Georgians.  The importance of the rule of law and access to justice cannot be ignored. I can only hope that our state and federal legislators recognize that these are core values that secure the success of Georgia’s families and communities.”

• 5.26.11 – from the New Jersey Law Journal: “Legal Services of New Jersey, with the support of the state’s judiciary and the State Bar Association, went cap in hand to the Legislature on Monday, asking for an increase in its proposed appropriation for the upcoming fiscal year…. Legal Services’ overall budget has dropped from $71.5 million in 2007 to $47.6 million last year, said the organization’s president and general counsel, Melville Miller. The sharpest drop in its source of funding came from the state. In 2007, the Legislature appropriated $29.6 million in 2007. But last year it appropriated only $19.9 million and Gov. Chris Christie has recommended the same amount for fiscal 2012.”  Miller noted that LSNJ has reduced its staff from 720 to 490, and 75 more position cuts may be necessary if no additional funding is forthcoming.  This constriction has drastically reduced LSNJ’s service capacity.  For more on LSNJ’s fiscal woes, see a similar piece that ran in the Newark Star Ledger on 5.23.11.

• 5.25.11 – writing in the National Law Journal, Stacy Caplow, director of clinical legal education at Brooklyn Law School, offers a solution to the “crisis” in the immigration system: a corps of law grads doing two years of service as immigration attorneys.  In laying out the system’s myriad problems, Prof. Caplow offers a startling statistic: as for immigrants in the NY area, “a nondetained immigrant represented by a lawyer had a 74% chance of avoiding deportation, whereas a detained immigrant without counsel had only a 3% rate of success.”  Wow.  Caplow’s solution: [L]et’s create a structured program for…law graduates to provide legal services to poor, unrepresented immigrants while developing skills and knowledge to improve the level of competency of the immigration bar….  We could call it Immig-Corps. I picture recent law graduates being trained and supervised over a period of two years, going to detention centers, to immigration court, interviewing, counseling and representing individuals facing deportation.”  Read the full piece for discussion of how to fund the program.  I’ve got some thoughts on these proposals – not the least of which is apprehension about the risk of downward pressure on already-low public interest attorney salaries.  But that must wait for a longer blog post.

• 5.25.11 – barristers’ brawl? Suffice to say, it started in a scuffle and ended in a lawsuit.  The Chicago Tribune has run a short piece about a lawsuit coming in the aftermath of a courthouse scuffle between a prosecutor and a public defender in Chi-town: “A fight last year between a Cook County prosecutor and a public defender has turned into a legal battle.  Michael McCormick, who was working as a Cook County assistant state’s attorney at the time, alleges in a lawsuit that Henry Hams, who was working as a public defender, followed him out of a courtroom in June 2010, threatened him and then jumped on his back and neck — twisting his neck and causing him to fall to the ground.”

• 5.25.11 – good news: New York State’s Interest on Lawyers Account (IOLA) fund got hefty cash infusion.  Bad news: very little of it comes from interest proceeds.  From the New York Law Journal: “The state’s Interest on Lawyer Account fund is making the same $21.3 million in grants for civil legal services to the indigent [this year compared to last], thanks to another infusion of funding from the courts.”  Interest proceeds remain down by 75% compared to 2007 levels.  Of the $21.3 million, only $6.5 represents interest proceeds.  The remaining $15 million is an appropriation from the judiciary’s budget.  But to end on another good note: “In addition to the $15 million funneled through IOLA, Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman included another $12.5 million in the state budget to support civil legal services.”  Judge Lippman presently holds the coveted title of “PSLawNet Blog’s Favorite State Jurist.”

• 5.24.1 – according to the Blog of the Legal Times, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales expressed “disappointment” in himself stemming from a scandal around political vetting of attorneys and law students who were competing for (non-political-appointment) positions with DOJ.

• 5.24.11 – also according to the Blog of the Legal Times, the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) are looking for some ESQs are various experience levels.  SEC has even retained a headhunter because it’s trying to quickly fill several openings.

• 5.24.11 – it looks like prosecutors in Berkeley will see some more funding from the county.  Huzzah!  After all, someone has to bring Swift Justice to all those good-for-nothing, commune-living, dope-smoking hippie rapscallions…wait…oh…Berkeley, South Carolina.  Our bad.  In any case, the Berkeley Independent reports: “Berkeley County Council has included funding to help assist the solicitor and public defender’s offices in its fiscal year 2011-2012 budget that will be presented to council next month.  Included in the budget is funding that would help Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson recoup more than $140,000 that was cut from her office’s budget due to the discontinuation of grants from the Department of Justice and the state’s Department of Public Safety.  Also included in the budget is $115,000 earmarked for the public defender’s office.  Without the funding, it is estimated that the county’s public defender’s office would have to close for two months next year or lay off two of its five attorneys.”

• 5.223.11 – stagnant salaries are leading to attorney retention troubles for one Arizona prosecutor.  From to the Arizona Daily Star: Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall has seen so many resignations and retirements over the past three years that 64 percent of her prosecutors have five years’ or less experience in the courtroom.  As with most county employees, LaWall’s staff hasn’t seen a raise in nearly four years, causing many to leave…. Pima County [which is the Tucson area] records indicate the 29 prosecutors hired at $57,000 between 2006 and 2009 are making roughly the same as the nine hired within the last year.”  The $57K starting salary is actually a solid figure, comfortably over the median, national starting prosecutor’s salary of $50K that NALP reported in 2010.  Nevertheless, the attrition of mid-level attorneys is double trouble: not only is the office losing folks who should move into leadership positions, it is also losing on the investment it made in training those attorneys.

• 5.23.11 – Las Vegas-based KLAS has a brief story about apparent underfunding in the local District Attorney’s Office: “While crime is at 2011 levels, the number of Deputy DA’s [is] at 2000 levels…. The DA’s Office handles all the cases coming through the Regional Justice Center, while the Public Defender’s Office handles around 40 percent. The DA’s say they’re concerned budget cuts prevented them from hiring new attorneys over the past three years, while the Public Defender’s Office continues to grow.”  Leaving aside the fact that a straight-up comparison of prosecutor and public defender funding is apples and oranges, we do hope that the District Attorney can address staffing problems.

• 5.22.11 – a Terra Haute Tribune Star article takes a close look at the work of the Vigo County Public Defender’s office, including its funding and service-delivery models, which blend a staff model with assignments to private counsel to represent indigent defendants.  The article also highlights how the recession has made it more difficult for many people to afford criminal defense attorneys, increasing demand for indigent defense services.

• 5.21.11 – a blurb in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal (great name!) notes that the Texas Access to Justice Foundation honored four local banks with Prime Partner awards for their support of civil legal services. BBVA Compass Bank, First Bank & Trust, PlainsCapital Bank, and Security State Bank were honored for participating in the state’s Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts program. They have higher interest rates on those accounts, and that interest supports legal assistance for low-income Texans.”

• 5.20.11 – writing in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, LSC board chair John Levi and board member Father Pius Pietrzyk argue that, now more than ever, adequately funding LSC is vital to ensuring access to justice for vastly increased numbers of low-income Americans, including Virginians.  LSC’s FY2011 appropriation included a cut of $15.8 million.  This cut’s timing was, well, very bad.  “LSC estimates that the number of people who qualify for civil legal assistance has increased by 17 percent since 2008. These Americans live at or below 125 percent of the federal poverty guideline — an income of $27,938 for a family of four. More than one million Virginians are eligible for LSC-funded services — almost 14 percent of the state’s population.”

• 5.20.11 – Yoder to the Associated Press: “Mistaken your views on funding cuts are!”  (World’s worst Star Wars reference?  Very, very likely.)  Dave Yoder is the executive director of Legal Aid of East Tennessee.  In a letter to the editor of the Knoxville News Sentinel, Yoder takes issue with an AP article that seemed to minimize the impact of recent federal budget cuts, particularly as regards programs helping the poor: “The article fails to point out that the cut in LSC funding was more than 5 percent…. The article fails to recognize that current federal funding is less than half of what it was, when adjusted for inflation, in 1981.  The article fails to point out that funding to LAET from Department of Housing and Urban Development for unlawful foreclosure and eviction prevention and from Department of Justice for domestic violence prevention has also been cut either directly or by the elimination of stimulus funding. The personal, social and economic short and long-term impact will be much greater on low income citizens and on our communities than suggested.”

• 5.18.11 – the Shelby County Star reports on potential funding cuts for indigent defense programs in the Tarheel State: “The state House recently approved the 2011-12 budget which reduces funding for court-appointed private counsel by nearly $11.3 million.  That reduction could mean a difference of as much as $30 per hour [in payments to appointed counsel, which one attorney estimated could fall from $75 to $45.]  Some legislators are also talking about establishing and staffing public defenders’ offices in some counties as a means to save money.

Prison overcrowding has come to the fore recently as economically stressed state governments wonder if reducing incarcerated populations, particularly by releasing non-violent and low-risk offenders, may be a way to save money.  Well, in California there’s another reason to thin out the prison roles.  From the Washington Post‘s Robert Barnes:

A bitterly divided Supreme Court on Monday upheld a judicial order that could result in the release of nearly 40,000 prisoners from a California penal system so overcrowded that its conditions are, the court wrote, “incompatible with the concept of human dignity.”

…

The number of prisoners in California continues to fluctuate, but at one time the prison system there held nearly twice as many inmates as the 80,000 it was meant to hold. When a special three-judge panel first ordered the release, it said that about 46,000 inmates would need to be freed in order to reduce the prison population to a manageable 110,000.

Since then, Kennedy said, 9,000 inmates have been released. An attorney for the inmates said after the ruling that 32,000 inmates should be released.

…

“As many as 200 prisoners may live in a gymnasium, monitored by as few as two or three correctional officers,” [Kennedy] wrote. “As many as 54 prisoners may share a single toilet.” Suicides averaged one a week, he said; a report that found one inmate died about every week from ailments that could have been prevented.

Kennedy said the conditions are not safe for the prisoners or correctional officers, and he even included photos of the overcrowding as part of his opinion.

Kennedy said reducing the prison population could be accomplished in a number of ways besides simply releasing inmates. Some could be transferred to local jails or to prisons outside the state, something California already is doing. Expanding the use of “good-time” credits would allow the release of those least likely to reoffend; so would excusing prisoners now incarcerated for technical violations of parole.