In the current economic climate, as a public interest lawyer it is more important than ever to expand and strengthen the skill set you bring to employers.  At our annual NALP/PSLawNet Public Service Mini-Conference,   Alejandro T. Reyes, associate counsel for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, highlighted the need that exists for Spanish-speaking attorneys and recommended law students and lawyers consider a two-week immersion program in Latin America.

After a guest post earlier this month from Leeor Neta, that shared this piece of advice about immersion programs the PSLawNet Blog was asked about how to find credible and affordable programs.  We researched the issue as promised and here are a few recommendations we received for reputable programs:

• Intercultura Language School and Cultural Center (Heredia and Samara Beach, Costa Rica):  This program was recommended to one-half of the PSLawNet Blog by her friend who is a teacher in Seattle and attended a program at the school a couple of years ago.  He really enjoyed the experience and highly recommends the program.

From their website:  The primary goal of Intercultura is to teach you the Spanish language in a warm yet intellectually challenging environment. Classes at our city and beach campuses are conducted entirely in Spanish, providing students from all over the world with a complete and intensive learning experience. Our professors have advanced university degrees and teaching certification, and we are accredited through the US university system, offering undergraduate credit to those interested. In addition, you have the opportunity to come to know Costa Rica, its traditions and its rich cultural heritage by participating in our daily cultural and extracurricular activities.

• ICA Language School (Xela, Guatemala): This recommendation comes from a D.C. attorney who attended the program.  She characterized the program as “very intensive 1:1 training” and “felt [she] learned a lot.”

From their website:  The Instituto Central America (I.C.A.), founded in 1976, is the first Spanish school in Quetzaltenango to be fully accredited by the Guatemalan Ministry of Education (MINEDUC) and the Guatemalan tourist institute (INGUAT). We offer a personalized learning program with one-on-one instruction to students of all levels. Every teacher at I.C.A. offers years of experience and training, a private classroom for each student-teacher pair and we use our very own textbook, researched and written by our teachers.

Our instructors are professionals with extensive knowledge of grammar and experience in methods, techniques, and activities to apply what you learn in the classroom in the real world. In addition, all of our teachers participated in the Diploma for Teachers Specialized to Teach Spanish as a Second Language given and evaluated by the San Carlos University, the Ministry of Education, and the Tourist Institute of Guatemala, to name a few of the institutions involved.

• Convinced that Guatemala is the destination for you?  Check out Guatemala365. This site was recommended to us by another D.C. attorney and lists “about 30 selected Spanish schools in different towns of Guatemala. There are photos and descriptions that charactarize these schools.”  Guatemala365 “selected and ranked [schools] based on reports of over 1000 students.”  The site also provides you with information about how to apply for the various programs and advice for planning your travel.

Through searching “the internets” we also came across the following sites that may be of assistance to you if you are looking for immersion programs.

This week: Professor Tribe leaving DOJ Access-to-Justice initiative to return to Harvard; looking for more pro bono volunteers in Maryland; a report on poverty from Legal Services of New Jersey; public benefits backlog in a California county; federal security clearance process speeding up; pro bono lawyers needed in Maryland, part deux; a tax on Ohio lawyers to pay for public defenders?; DOJ domestic violence prevention funding in Los Angeles; the terrible IOLTA situation in Florida; a need for pro bono attorneys in Eastern Washington State; a beneficiary of cy pres funds in Dallas; and a post-election call to defund the Legal Services Corporation.

• 11.18.10 – an announcement on the Harvard Law School website states that Prof. Laurence Tribe, who has been serving as Senior Counselor for Access to Justice at the DOJ, will leave that post and return to Boston on account of health problems.   He has stayed on at DOJ this fall because he is playing “a key role in a public White House event to be held Nov. 19 with Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis. The event will announce new initiatives to help middle class and low-income families secure their legal rights, Tribe said.”  Of course his health must come first, but the PSLawNet Blog is saddened to learn that the Access-to-Justice community will lose Prof. Tribe – at least in this prominent and unique DOJ position.  There was no word in the announcement about who will fill his DOJ position (or whether it will be filled, although we assume the AtJ initiative will not be abandoned outright because Tribe had slowly been adding staff and building an office in DC).  Here’s the announcement: http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/2010/11/18_tribe.html.

• 11.16.10 – the Maryland Daily Record reports that the Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service is trying to expand its service capacity by recruiting more attorneys who practice in small firms and those practicing in rural areas.  MVLS is touting the support infrastructure it provides to attorneys as a huge benefit for attorneys trying to do pro bono in smaller offices.  One interesting tidbit from the story is that MVLS’s income-eligibility guidelines are fairly permissive.  According to MVLS’s deputy director,  “‘Our criteria is up to 50% of the Maryland median income – a family of four can make up to $50,000 and still qualify…'”  MVLS also administers a “low bono” judicare program – via a grant from the Maryland Legal Services Corporation – that provides modest attorney fees for advocates handling contested family law matters.  (For more on the rising need for pro bono services in Maryland, see the Baltimore Sun article below.)

• 11.16.10 – the Asbury Park Press reports that “Legal Services of New Jersey researchers on Tuesday said they compiled the stories of more than 80 people struggling on a daily basis to afford food, health care, child care, housing and other needs … The 223-page report ‘represents by far the largest-scale social science inquiry into what life is like for New Jerseyans burdened by poverty,’ said Melville D. Miller Jr., president of Legal Services, the nonprofit organization that coordinates the state’s system of legal aid for low-income people in civil matters.”  Here’s a link to the report: “Food, Clothing, Health or a Home?  The Terrible Choices and Deprivations – and Great Courage – of New Jerseyans Who Live in Poverty.”  Oh, heck, since the Asbury Park Press covered the story, Springsteen for everybody!

• 11.16.10 – in a clear sign of how the recession has impacted local governments’ abilities to administer social services programs, “San Mateo County is  racing to process a backlog of applications for food stamps, financial aid, Medi-Cal and other forms of public assistance.”  As reported by the Mercury News, records show that the “Human Services Agency failed to process more than 1,000 applications by state-required deadlines each month between May and September.”  The primary culprits are a huge increase in public benefit applications and the fact that the Human Services Agency, laboring under budget constraints, hasn’t been able to fill open positions.  The Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County “will consider legal options” if there is still an application backlog by 2011.

• 11.16.10 – here’s some good news for those who are interested in federal careers: security clearance processes, which have at times moved with all the speed of a sleepy, apathetic glacier, are quickening.  The Government Executive website reports that a “…Government Accountability Office audit … found [that the Department of] Defense required 325 days on average to complete initial personnel security clearances in 2007, but reduced processing time to 60 days in the first three quarters of fiscal 2010. The Office of Personnel Management, which conducts 90 percent of the government’s background investigations, reduced its average completion time for initial security clearances from 153 days in fiscal 2007 to 47 days in fiscal 2010, according to agency data.” http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=46530&dcn=e_gvet

Keep reading . . .

Need a job or internship? During the past week PSLawNet has posted:   45 new attorney positions,   48 internships, and  20 law related opportunities.  Additionally, there are currently 1,222 active opportunities in our job database. To search the database visit PSLawNet.

Featured New Positions:

The Massachusetts Law Reform Institute (MLRI) has just begun their search for a new Executive Director following the announcement from their Executive Director of 41 years that he will retire at the end of t his year.  MLRI is a statewide legal advocacy and support center whose mission is to promote economic, racial and social justice for low-income people through legal action, education and advocacy.  The organization is seeking a talented new leader to partner with its Board, staff, valued constituents and supporters in championing the rights and opportunities of low-income people at a time of significant economic and social challenge.  Check PSLawNet for application details.

The Polaris Project is current seeking law students to serve as Senior Legal and Policy Fellows  in their Policy and Legal Department.  Fellows will assist with advocacy and policy development for stronger comprehensive state and federal laws on human trafficking. Responsibilities include: conducting legal and statutory research, monitoring pending legislation, preparing legislative outreach materials, including action alerts, advocate and legislator briefs, communicating and providing assistance to legislators and other policy makers, providing technical assistance during the bill drafting process, and helping to build and assist coalitions in support of legislation.  Responsibilities may also include direct lobbying, outreach and the preparation of training materials for law enforcement and others.  Deadline:  December 24, 2010.  Check PSLawNet for application details.

Featured Public Service Career Resource:

Do you have an interest in working for State or Local Government? Just like the federal government, state and local government attorneys handle a broad range of legal issues and are housed in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government.  State/local government attorneys craft policy, draft laws and rules, advise elected and appointed officials, and represent the interests of citizens in court.

Each state and local government organization has unique hiring practices, thus it is best to research each locale to see what types of positions exist and learn about hiring policies, etc.  On our State and Local Government Resources page we have links to state/local government resources by state and additional resources  to guide your job search.  Check it out.

Learn more about getting a PSLawNet job seeker or employer account . . .

This week’s Bulletin begins and ends with stories on overburdened public defenders’ offices in Missouri.  In between: a new project to serve veterans in Georgia; an op-ed on supporting legal services from the ABA’s president-elect; a “broken” legal aid system in British Columbia; a look at Michigan Law’s one-of-a-kind human trafficking clinic; a new, statewide legal services program in Wyoming; a sobering report on the fiscal state of nonprofit human services providers; a new pro bono project to engage senior law-firm lawyers in D.C.; and the Federal Career Intern Program may not be much longer for this world.

• 11.11.10 – the Nodaway News Leader in Missouri reports that the Nodaway County public defender’s office has a caseload “that has increased to 270% of what the state believes a normal caseload should be.”  (See the final item below for more Missouri public defense news.)

• 11.10.10 – a press release from the Georgia Legal Services Program announces a new resource for veterans advocates: “In response to the growing need for legal assistance, Georgia Legal Services and the State Bar of Georgia Pro Bono Project teamed up to create an online resource to encourage and support lawyers in delivering critical legal help to our country’s defenders. The website is also designed to support the work of the Military Legal Assistance Program of the State Bar of Georgia, a new initiative that connects pro bono and reduced-fee lawyers with veterans and service members in Georgia.”  Georgia Military Legal Assistance Program website.

• 11.10.10 – on the heels of the national Celebration of Pro Bono we were happy to read ABA President-elect William T. Robinson III’s piece in the Louisville Courier-Journal emphasizing the importance of both engaging in pro bono and encouraging Congress to “pass legislation to grant full FDIC protection for IOLTAs . . . during the upcoming lame-duck session” in order “to protect this important source of legal aid funding.”  IOLTA accounts currently have FDIC protection, however that protection will expire at the end of 2010.

Keep reading the bulletin . . .

This week: Strong demand for legal services in South Carolina; $350K from DOJ to law school for veterans clinic; 3 deferred law firm associates wrap up their public interest placements; in “brave people taking tough jobs” news, Missouri to get a new public defender; what will a Republican House do to the federal workforce?; loan assistance for U. of Tennessee public interest grads; foreclosure clinics in Kentucky; loan assistance for South Dakota prosecutors and defenders; the Wyoming Access to Justice Commission launches a new legal services program; a new DOJ program brings together law schools, firms, and public interest offices to combat domestic violence.

• 11.3.10 – just FYI South Carolina’s Greenville News is a running a subscription-only article entitled “Legal Services Faces Big Demand in Tough Times.”  We seem to have let our Greenville News subscription lapse, but if you’ve got one…

• 11.2.10 – from a press release we learn that the “Veterans Legal Support Center & Clinic (VLSC) at The John Marshall Law School recently was awarded a $350,000 grant from the United States Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs.”  We covered the announcement more extensively in this Wednesday blog post.  It’s truly heartening to see so many law schools creating and expanding programs to serve veterans.  We’ve covered some past instances of law schools/students working with vets; see the last item in our 10/8/10 News Bulletin for stories about work at the University of San Francisco, Arizona State, and Detroit Mercy.  And for good measure here’s an interview we did with Michael Taub, a staff attorney who runs a successful veterans assistance program at Philadelphia’s Homeless Advocacy Project.  Michael, a friend and former officemate of the PSLawNet Blog, is an outstanding attorney but has so-so taste in music.

Keep reading the bulletin . . .

Perhaps a silver lining to the recession is that it’s given rise to some unique collaborations in delivering legal services to low-income clients and others on society’s margins.  For instance, we have been writing about the development of temporary public -service placements for deferred law firm associates.

Here’s something similar.  According to the National Law Journal, the Department of Justice has launched the Access to Justice for Domestic Violence Victims program:

 The idea behind the Access for Justice for Domestic Violence Victims program is for law firms to hire recent law school graduates who have participated in a domestic violence clinic, then subsidize their full-time work at a legal aid organization for a certain period of time, said Tania Tetlow, the director of the Domestic Violence Clinic at Tulane University Law School in New Orleans.

There are two pilot programs at work now, one in New Orleans and one in Baltimore. Tulane is the participating NOLA law school and the University of Baltimore is active in Charm City.  So, while the details are still being sketched out, it seems as if a student would participate in their school’s DV clinic, then would throw their hat in the ring to be hired by the firm, then take a temporary, full-time placement doing DV-prevention work with a legal services organization.

We at the PSLawNet Blog know that students on public service career tracks greet such programs with mixed feelings because the path toward a “regular” public interest job has become so difficult of late – there’s actually a quote in the NLJ story from the DV clinic director at the U. of Baltimore to the effect that $40,000 nonprofit jobs are harder to get than $140,000 law firm jobs.   Nevertheless we are happy to see resources from the law firm world leveraged in favor of serving clients who are so vulnerable.  And hey, it strikes us that a student who shows an unwavering commitment to working on DV prevention would be a very strong candidate for positions like these, maybe even if they aren’t on law firm career paths.

Boo!!!, people.  Boo! because it’s Halloween and boo! because the Phillies got knocked out of the playoffs.  This week’s News Bulletin is bursting at the seams because we took a break last Friday.  This happened because we are lazy we were hosting and/or attending NALP’s Public Service Mini-Conference and the Equal Justice Works Conference and Career Fair.

We’ll put up a debriefing post about those events later, but without further ado here’s two weeks of public interest news, including: A Colorado district attorney isn’t high on public defenders; there’s nothing corny about access to justice in Iowa; a public law school’s clinic program subject to NJ open records laws; grayhairs…er…senior attorneys…volunteering on the access to justice front; federal hiring reform is happening about as quickly as most federal things happen; some domestic abuse prevention funding in Southeast PA; a foreclosure clinic at Albany Law; Canada’s feeling the legal services funding pain, too; misguided pro bono efforts in San Fran?; public defender and prosecutor almost come to blows?; speaking of, let’s return to prosecutors and defenders in Colorado; you’re welcome, Alaska Legal Services Corporation, for your organization’s new motto; LSC’s inspector general scrutinizing a Louisiana grantee program; law students fighting foreclosures in Beantown; a goofy and fortunate financial boost for a Chicago public interest organization; Microsoft forks over big donation bucks to Kids in Need of Defense (KIND); Kentucky hops on the AtJ commission bandwagon; New York State Bar’s president wants more government funding for legal services; so does the New York Times’ editorial board.

• 10.28.10 – Kerfuffle alert!  On 10/22, the Aspen Daily News in Colorado ran a story about the funding differences between the local public defender’s and prosecutor’s office.  We summarized that story in Item 11 below, and we indicated that the story closed with comments from District Attorney Martin Beeson that were sharply critical of the role of public defenders in the criminal justice system.  Well, those comments – “Public defenders are not defenders of the public. They are not serving the public good. They are taxpayer-funded attorneys for criminals.” – have caused a stir in the Colorado legal community.  In a more recent Aspen Daily News piece, critics characterized Beeson’s comments as “scary,” “spectacularly ignorant,” and showing a “shocking disregard” for constitutional principles.  Beeson is not backing down: ““I stand by my statement. The so-called public defenders do not defend the public. The law enforcement defends the public. The prosecutors defend the public.”

• 10.26.10 – In a letter to the editor published in the Des Moines Register, two legal services advocates highlight the importance – and the recent successes – of the Iowa Supreme Court in expanding access to justice for low-income Iowans.  The court’s justices have “encouraged Iowa lawyers to provide services to low-income Iowans. Last year alone, more than $2 million in donated legal services were provided.  The Iowa Supreme Court has also fostered the development of self-help court forms that allow unrepresented Iowans the tools needed to seek judicial remedies when they can’t afford to hire a lawyer.”

• 10.26.10 – the Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Rutgers law school clinics must prepare for the sunshine: “Defying the wishes of several national associations dealing with legal education, an appeals court in New Jersey has denied the legal clinics of that state’s public law schools immunity from its open-records law, exposing them to new document requests that could greatly complicate their work.”  A Rutgers environmental law clinic is at the center of this decision.  After it represented a citizens’ group in opposing a real estate development plan, the developer tried to subject the clinic to disclosure provisions under the state’s Open Public Records Act.  On the trial court level, the clinic was successful in opposing the disclosure demands; the court found that the clinic’s unique status, not just as a publicly funded institution but as a law office with needs for preserving confidentiality, exempted it from the OPRA.  But the appellate court disagreed.  The clinic’s position was backed by the American Association of University Professors, the Clinical Legal Education Association, and the Society of American Law Teachers.  The Rutgers case and some others around the country involving challenges to law school clinics’ autonomy made waves earlier this year, as we noted in the final item of our 4/16/10 Public Interest News Bulletin.

• 10.26.10 – New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, the state’s top jurist, is making good use of attorneys who are long in the tooth and not short on altruism.  A while back we covered Chief Judge Lippman’s launching of an “attorney emeritus” program that allowed retired attorneys to remain active and provide pro bono services to low-income clients in a variety of civil matters.  This represents one step Lippman has taken in an impressive personal crusade to narrow the justice gap.  (For more see Item 1 and accompanying links).  More recently, according to the New York Law Journal, the emeritus program is expanding to accept more volunteers.  “Last month, the initiative was one of 10 programs in the state to be recognized by Harvard Kennedy School’s ‘Bright Ideas’ program, which was created to share ‘creative government initiatives’ around the country with public sector, nonprofit and academic communities.  Now, eligibility has been expanded to include non-retired lawyers who otherwise meet the program’s age and experience requirements.”

Keep reading . . .

This Week: Memphis Area Legal Services and Liz Lemon share something in common; a new report highlights Access to Justice troubles in the U.S.; Massachusetts D.A.’s are sounding alarms about budget cuts, pointing fingers at public defender; an access-to-justice op-ed continues its tour of Texas newspapers; some Harvard Law students do good work in the Big Easy; funding woes for Seattle public defenders (and it’s probably raining there, to boot); Michigan Law to develop cross-border human trafficking clinic with Mexican advocates; learn about the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center; mandatory pro bono in Mississippi isn’t that big a deal, so calm down; New York State bar chief chimes in on the need to shore up legal services funding; New Mexico Legal Aid’s executive director explains what’s at stake if poor people can’t access the justice system; proposed federal legislation would support public defenders, but probably won’t see a vote.

• 10.15.10 – Guess who’s turning 40?  Happy Birthday, Memphis Area Legal Services!  The Memphis Daily News runs a story recounting MALS’s humble beginnings, its transformation as a recipient of Legal Services Corporation funding, and the opportunities and challenges it faces today.  As with most legal services providers these days, demand for services outstrips service capacity: “MALS was able to serve just 37 percent of those who applied for legal assistance [in 2009].”  Harrison McIver, MALS’s executive director, notes that goals for the future include not only expanding service capacity, but also boosting salaries to improve attorney retention.  Good stuff!

• 10.14.10 – according to the Huffington Post, a new report by the World Justice Project suggests that, “particularly when it comes to access and affordability of legal counsel in civil disputes, the U.S. ranks 20 out of the 35 nations surveyed, below not only developed nations but also such countries as Mexico, Croatia and the Dominican Republic.”  The report paints a picture of “a significant gap between the rich and the poor in terms of their use and satisfaction with the civil courts system.”  A lot of poorer Americans surveyed didn’t feel the justice system treated them fairly, while the wealthier had a more favorable impression of the system.  The HuffPost piece notes that Legal Services Corporation has also been sounding the alarm about the poor not having access to justice, and that the Obama Administration appointed Prof. Laurence Tribe to address AtJ issues. Here’s a link to the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index.

• 10.14.10 – from the Salem News we learn that Massachusetts prosecutors are questioning a disparity between funding for the state’s indigent defense program and for their own offices.  “The Massachusetts District Attorneys Association says taxpayers now spend twice as much to defend accused criminals as they do to prosecute them.”  The MDAA argues that caseloads are much higher in prosecutors’ offices than with the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the public defender.  CPCS retorts, however, that many of the cases it handles are civil matters in which prosecutors are not involved, and that the prosecutors’ budget figures don’t include the budget for police, who do investigative and support work.  This article, while short, does a good job of highlighting the major sticking points in prosecutor/defender budget battles throughout the country.

• 10.12.10 – the Austin American-Statesman runs a terrific – and apparently immortal – op-ed about the struggles of the legal services community in the Lone Star State.  The piece, authored by Texas Supreme Court justice Nathan Hecht, has previously run in the Cherokeean Herald and the Houston Chronicle.  It calls upon the state legislature to appropriate funding in support of civil legal services.

• 10.12.10 – the Harvard Law Record, the school’s independent newspaper, reports on 13 law students who “completed over 500 pro bono hours with Southeast Louisiana Legal Services”  during the school’s “fly-out” week.  The PSLawNet Blog did not participate in OCI, and we certainly did not go to Harvard (we just didn’t apply is all), but we assume this “fly-out week” is the period when students leave Boston to do law firm interviews.  Kudos to the students who went down to Louisiana to lend a hand.

• 10.12.10 – according to Publicola, a Seattle-based news website, King County (that’s Seattle) public defenders are fighting budget cuts, armed with a recent report showing that defenders are in no position to a absorb a loss of resources.  “The Spangenberg report, an independent study on the Office of the Public Defender delivered to the county in June, concludes public defenders are overburdened by King County’s payment system, which pays a flat rate for all cases argued by public defenders, instead of paying a flexible rate based on the complexity of the case.  The Spangenberg [report] also concludes that public defenders in King County work 20 percent over capacity…”  The PSLawNet Blog is familiar with the Spangenberg Group, which has contracted to do indigent  defense and criminal justice system evaluations with governments throughout the U.S.  But we couldn’t find a copy of the King County report online.  Update (10/18):  Courtesy of David Newhouse we are now able to provide you with a link to the full report.

• 10.11.10 – the National Law Journal reports that the University of Michigan Law School ” has received a $300,000 grant from the U.S. Department of State to establish a human trafficking clinic at the Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas, Unidad Académica de Derecho, a law school located in north central Mexico. The Mexican clinic is an offshoot of the human trafficking clinic that Michigan launched in 2009, which was the first of its kind in the United States …  One of the goals of the Mexican clinic, which will represent a partnership between the two law schools and a local nongovernmental organization called Centro de los Derechos del Migrante (Center for Migrant Rights), is to educate people about human trafficking. Although it will officially be part of the Mexican law school, the Michigan law school will help set up the clinic.”  We at the PSLawNet Blog think this is an interesting approach to addressing a problem – human trafficking – that by definition defies international border controls, while at the same time exposing the Michigan and the Mexican law school’s students to transnational practice issues.

• 10.11.10 – the Detroit News catches up with Nick Schroeck, the executive director of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center, an outfit that was created in 2008 “with ties to Wayne State University.”  In the short interview, Schroeck speaks generally about the Center, and about its recent involvement in Anglers of the Au Sable v. Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment and Merit Energy Co.  We’re exhausted after typing out that caption, so you’ll have to click in to learn more about the case.

• 10.10.10 – Luther Munford, a Jackson, Mississippi based lawyers, pens an oped for the Clarion Ledger in which he noted the controversy over a proposed ethical rule that would require the state’s lawyers to provide 20 hours of pro bono work per year or donate $500 to the cause.  Munford observed that what he thought of as a harmless idea “hit a buzz saw” when it met with opposition from the state’s board of bar commissioners and criticism by some of his professional colleauges.  Munford argues, using data on pro bono hours, lawyer salaries, and other evidence, that the proposal’s requirements should not be so controversial and should not be difficult for lawyers to meet.  He also notes that 1/3 of Mississippi’s population is “poor enough to qualify for legal aid.”  The PSLawNet Blog has been keeping up with developments on this controversy.  Stay tuned for more, and join us in appreciating how great a name Luther Munford is for a Southern lawyer.

• 10.10.10 – on LoHud.com, New York State Bar Association president Stephen P. Younger chimes in with an op-ed about the importance of access to justice for the state’s poor.  He joins with New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman in seeking solutions to the under-funding of the state’s legal services infrastructure.  “It runs counter to our basic concept of fairness to deprive someone of shelter, their child, or much needed government benefits without the aid of a lawyer.”  Funding for legal services is “woefully inadequate.  Our state’s core operating funding for these critical legal services amounts to only $3.68 per indigent person, compared to an average of $23.51 funded by our neighboring states.”  Younger moves on to make a fiscal case for boosting government support of legal services.  “Ironically, New York’s funding levels are not just morally unjust, they are also fiscally irresponsible. Last year, for every dollar spent on civil legal services to poor New Yorkers, more than $1.50 came back to our state — for a total of $361 million — through added federal benefits such as disability payments, supplemental social security or federal grants for civil legal services.”  Younger calls on the state’s legislators to create a “permanent and adequately funded Access to Justice fund.”  Good stuff.  The PSLawNet blog is pleased to see legal luminaries in the Empire State addressing an acute crisis.  As we’ve noted before, Chief Judge Lippmann has made access to justice a priority.

• 10.10.10 – on the NMPolitics.com website, New Mexico Legal Aid executive director Bill Strouse writes that access to justice means the ability to understand basic precepts and processes under-girding the justice system, and to navigate through the system.  This is best accomplished with a lawyer’s help, and New Mexico Legal Aid’s 40 attorneys “provide help to the approximate 350,000 people in New Mexico who live below the poverty line.”  However, a critical source of NMLA funding – a state appropriation – was recently cut by almost 25%.  And there “are already proposals to cut or eliminate [more] funding” in the next legislative session … This is not the time to cut or end funding for legal services to poor New Mexicans.  All New Mexicans…deserve access to the courts. Justice exists when people can access it.”

• 10.7.10 – from The Crime Report website, we learn about proposed federal legislation that would serve as a boon to the nation’s struggling indigent defense programs.  “The omnibus Justice for All Reauthorization Act of 2010, introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) contains language earmarking $20 million between fiscal years 2011 through 2015 for the country’s under-funded and over-worked legal aid providers.”  The problem?  According to the story the bill has little chance of passage, having been introduced so late in a busy legislative term.  The story’s worth checking out because it explores the difficulties which indigent defense programs have had – both in the distant and more recent past – in fulfilling Gideon’s promise.

This week: the Glorious Philadelphia Phillies Baseball Franchise is Phightin’ to Return to the World Series.

This Week in Public Interest News: SCOTUS reviews a $14 million jury award for an innocent man who spent 20+ years in jail; Baltimore public defenders may get busier; a $1.8 million cy pres award for some Chicago public interest organizations; Jim McGiffin, legal services lawyer and incoming Delaware Bar Assoc. president, seems like a cool dude; NoCal Innocence Project blasts shortcomings in disciplining California prosecutors; pro se resources for Wisconsinites; federal loan repayment funding for local prosecutors/public defenders coming to a state near you; new prisoner re-entry pro bono project at Rutgers Law;  indigent defendants getting billed by the state for the trouble they’ve caused; the mental health court community grows; law students go mobile to provide pro bono.

• 10.6.10 – the National Law Journal (password may be required) covers Supreme Court arguments in a case stemming from prosecutorial misconduct in New Orleans.  “Supreme Court justices on Wednesday appeared ready to give the green light to efforts by a New Orleans man to win compensation for prosecutorial misconduct that put him behind bars for more than two decades for a murder he did not commit.   The Court heard arguments in the case of Connick v. Thompson, in which former New Orleans district attorney Harry Connick argues that his office should not be held liable for what he contends was a single incident of failing to hand over exculpatory evidence to the defense before trial.”  Thompson, who had been on death row as a result of the wrongful conviction, made a Section 1983 civil rights claim against the DA’s office.  A $14 million jury award was upheld by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.  The main question in front of the Supreme Court is whether the DA’s office’s actions were enough to warrant the successful civil rights action.  (On a much more trivial note, here’s some trivia: Do you know who’s the son of former district attorney Harry Connick?  Hint: he tickled the ivories in an old episode of Cheers, and got shot down by an alien in the sci-fi cinema aberration Independence Day.) 

• 10.5.10 – Blog of the Legal Times (BLT) reports: “In a ruling that could have a major impact on the Maryland Public Defender’s Office, a state judge in Baltimore found that indigent criminal defendants have a right to counsel at their initial bail hearings … The court in Baltimore relied on a 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Rothgery v. Gillespie County, Texas, which (quoting the BLT) “found that a criminal defendant’s initial appearance before a magistrate, where the defendant’s liberty is subject to restriction, marks the initiation of adversarial judicial proceedings and therefore triggers the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.”  An appeal of the Maryland decision is possible, according to the BLT post, which also noted that University of Maryland Law School Access to Justice and Bail Clinic was one of the victorious advocates in this case.  The Maryland Public Defender’s Office is situated as a defendant in the case (they were added as a defendant by an appellate court at a prior point in the litigation), and the PSLawNet Blog suspects that folks in that office are wondering how they would manage to adequately staff bail hearings. 

• 10.5.10 – last week the PSLawNet Blog covered (Item 3) news that organizations in the Chicago legal services community were sharing a $1.8 million cy pres award from a Cook County class-action settlement.  Earlier this week a Chicago Tribune article helped to contextualize how important this funding is for the recipient organizations, particularly the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago.  “The Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago received a $550,000 windfall last week, but it won’t be enough to prevent budget cuts amid a climate of declining resources and increasing demand for free legal services.”  According to the Tribune, the LAF is still going to have to lay off staff and close an office; the cy pres funding will go to replenishing the organization’s badly depleted operating reserves. 

• 10.5.10 – from the Dover Post in Delaware, we learn about Jim McGiffin, a longtime legal services lawyer and apparent time-management master who will be the Delaware Bar Association’s next president.  We’ve included this piece in the Public Interest News Bulletin because 1) it’s not all that typical for a legal services attorney to take the helm of a state bar association, and 2) McGiffin seems like a really cool cat: “In addition to his job as an attorney with the Poverty Law Program at Dover’s Community Legal Aid Society, McGiffin also represents the Third District on Dover’s City Council, is a marriage counselor in his church and, with wife Kathy Doyle, is a regular on the city’s entertainment circuit, contributing regularly to the Celtic Harvest band and other musical venues.”  Rock on, Jim McGiffin!

• 10.5.10 – according to the Los Angeles Times, the Northern California Innocence Project (housed at Santa Clara University School of Law) has issued a report highlighting a large number of instances of prosecutorial misconduct that go unpunished.  “Hundreds of prosecutors in California — including many in Los Angeles County — have committed misconduct with near impunity as authorities failed to either report or discipline them, according to a report released Monday…. The researchers discovered 707 cases in which state and federal courts and appellate courts found prosecutorial misconduct in opinions issued between 1997 and 2009. Of those, 67 prosecutors committed misconduct in more than one case, including three who committed misconduct four times and two who did so five times.  The authors of the report said most prosecutors follow the law and act ethically, but they criticized the State Bar for disciplining only six prosecutors during the period covered by the study.”  The head of the California District Attorneys Association “criticized the report for exaggerating the scale and severity of the prosecutorial misconduct,” and the State Bar argued that not every finding of misconduct – for instance, unintentional errors – requires discipline.  Here’s more information about the report on the NCIP’s Veritas Initiative website.

• 10.4.10 – through a press release run on the Wisconsin-based WisBusiness website, the Milwaukee Justice Center announced the launch of a website offering resources for pro se litigants.  Among other offerings the site contains self-help resources for litigants going through divorce, child support/custody, foreclosure, landlord-tenant,a nd name change proceedings.  “The underlying philosophy of the project is that self-represented litigants have a fundamental right to access the justice system even if they cannot afford an attorney or do not qualify for legal aid.”  As we’ve noted before on the PSLawNet Blog, in the recession’s wake under-resourced legal services providers are expanding pro se resources in hopes of offering at least some assistance to swelling numbers of pro se litigants. 

• 10.4.10 – John R. Justice Act loan repayment funds are being distributed throughout the states, including Arkansas and Washington State.  From Arkansas’s KTHV Television Station website we learn that a group of federal legislators announced that Arkansas-based prosecutors and public defenders will benefit from $100,000 in loan repayment assistance funding through the federal John R. Justice (JRJ) Act.  Here’s more coverage of the announcement from the website of Arkansas’s KATV.  In Washington State, prosecutors and public defenders have until 11/30 to apply for JRJ assistance through the Washington Higher Education Coordinating Board, as reported by the Seattle Post Intelligencer.  The JRJ Act was passed in 2008 but funds were only appropriated a few weeks ago, according to recent article in the Blog of the Legal Times.  To learn more about the JRJ Act and it’s benefits, check out Equal Justice Works’s resource page.

• 10.4.10 – the National Law Journal reports on a new pro bono project at the Rutgers School of Law – Camden: “The Federal Prisoner Re-entry Project at Rutgers-Camden pairs law student volunteers with recently released prisoners. Under the supervision of a managing attorney, the students work with their clients’ federal probation officers to handle issues such as obtaining drug and alcoholic treatment or securing housing…. Other law schools offer students the chance to assist prisoners in re-entry through clinics, but Rutgers’ program is unique in that it relies on student volunteers who don’t receive academic credit for the work…”

• 10.3.10 – USA Today covers two new reports (by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, and the ACLU, respectively) on states requiring indigent defendants and individuals with criminal convictions to pay various fees related to their time in the system.  USA Today’s coverage focuses on fees related to the provision of indigent defense services: “States increasingly are imposing fees on poor criminal defendants who use public defenders even when they can’t pay, causing some to go without attorneys, according to two reviews of the nation’s largest state criminal justice systems. A report out Monday by New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice found that 13 of the 15 states with the largest prison populations imposed some charge, including application fees, for access to counsel…. A separate report of five state justice systems out Monday by the ACLU produced similar findings.”  Here’s a link to the Brennan Center report – Criminal Justice Debt: A Barrier to Reentry – and here’s some additional coverage of its release, by the National Law Journal.  Finally, here’s a link to the ACLU report – “In for a Penny: the Rise of America’s New Debtors’ Prisons.”

• 10.3.10 – the Peoria Journal Star in Illinois reports on the launching of Peoria County’s mental health court, which will offer diversionary programs for defendants with mental illnesses who are charged with nonviolent crimes.  “[P]rosecutors, probation officers, public defenders and someone from the treatment community would meet regularly to discuss the progress or lack thereof of a person in the program. Only nonviolent offenses will be considered for mental health court, such as theft and trespassing.”  Mental health courts have been springing up across the nation.  We noted one beginning in Billings, Montana earlier this year (courtesy of the Billings Gazette).  On a related note, last March we covered the trend of courts taking into account the mental stresses faced by military veterans when they fell into the criminal justice system.

• 10.2.10 – the Justice Bus rides tomorrow!  According to Woodland California’s Daily Democrat, the Justice Bus, a mobile legal clinic sponsored by the University of San Francisco School of Law (whose students staff the clinic), the Public Interest Clearinghouse, and Legal Services of Northern California, is stopping in Woodland on 10/9 to hold a free employment law clinic.  “This clinic will offer free legal advice and referrals for all aspects of employment law from wrongful termination and wage and hour claims to workers compensation and benefits questions. Anyone with employment related questions is able to attend this free legal clinic.”  It’s great to see this project allowing students to engage with clients in under-served areas who need help.  And it’s not the only example of such an undertaking.  Indeed, it’s not the only Justice Bus.  In March, the PSLawNet Blog profiled the Justice Bus run by Arizona State law students.  And in August we covered the work of University of Detroit Mercy law students who run Project Salute, which aids low-income veterans and rolls in a “custom designed 31-foot Mobile Law Office, built and donated by General Motors.”  Our major malpractice concern in all of this is a student driving the bus.  

This week: lots of coverage about hearings on legal services funding in New York; a “Civil Gideon” proposal in Wisconsin; $3.62 million in cy pres funding will benefit legal services providers, mostly in Illinois; changing the beleaguered Michigan public defense infrastructure?; turning a federal internship into a federal job; Attorney General Holder tells the Senate to hurry up on judicial confirmations; a deferred associate looks back on his one-year public service placement; humanizing a defendant in a capital trial is no easy feat; a call for a legal services funding boost in Texas; making the wheels of justice turn more smoothly in Philly courts (and by the way, go Phils!); the Washington Post editorial board laments the state of indigent defense funding; a sobering, and hopefully effective, fundraising effort in Texas to curtail domestic violence; a new volunteer initiative driven by a Florida lawyer; and an Indiana prosecutor stands up for his office’s LRAP program.   

• 9.30.10 – a handful of news outlets from throughout the Empire State are reporting on a statewide series of hearings about access-to-justice issues.  The hearings are the result of efforts by New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman to raise awareness about under-funding of civil legal services and to find solutions.  The New York Times and the New York Law Journal report on the first of the four hearings, which took place in Manhattan.  From the Times, we see half of the dilemma facing legal services providers: “Since 2008, there has been a 40 percent increase at the Legal Aid Society in requests for help on health care issues and an 800 percent increase in requests for help with foreclosures…”  From the Law Journal, we see the other half: “Current funding is provided through what Judge Lippman called a ‘hodgepodge’ of mechanisms…  Due to plunging interest rates because of the poor economy, IOLA revenues have dropped to $7 million this year from $32 million in 2008, and the other sources of aid have not made up the difference.”  After the Manhattan hearing, a second one took place across the state in Rochester.  Here’s coverage from the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.  Chief Judge Lippman’s end goal is to craft a formal report to use in urging the legislative and executive branches for increased financial support of civil legal services.  The hearings are just the latest step in his campaign.  Earlier this year Lippman created a high-level task force to explore how to expand civil legal services for low-income New Yorkers.  He also created an “Attorney Emeritus” program through which retired lawyers can volunteer their time on pro bono matters.  Indeed, Lippman has gone so far as to call for a civil right to counsel in some matters.  Read more about his efforts in Item One of PSLawNet’s 6.11.10 Public Interest News Bulletin.

• 9.29.10 – from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, we learn that Legal Action of Wisconsin will urge the state’s high court to adopt a rule guaranteeing a right to counsel for low-income persons in circumstances “where the assistance of counsel is needed to protect the litigant’s rights to basic human needs, including sustenance, shelter, clothing, heat, medical care, safety and child custody and placement.”  This is an interesting tactic toward establishing a so-called “Civil Gideon” – a right to counsel in some non-criminal cases.  As the Journal Sentinel article notes, though, the “big hurdle” would be paying for a program if the Wisconsin Supreme Court adopted the rule.

• 9.29.10 – the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin (subscription required – boo!) reports on a cy pres award that will benefit Illinois legal services providers as well as other providers throughout the country: “Organizations that help provide legal services to the poor in Illinois and legal aid groups around the country will receive $3.62 million in unclaimed funds from a nationwide class-action settlement involving a rate increase on life insurance policies. This week, five legal aid organizations and foundations serving Illinois are expected to receive a total of more than $1.8 million of the unclaimed funds from the $93 million settlement. Another $1.8 million is to be disbursed to 111 legal aid organizations serving other states throughout the country.”  One of the Chicago-based beneficiaries is the Chicago Bar Foundation, and this makes the PSLawNet Blog happy because we’ve worked with CBF before and have great admiration for them.  UPDATE: here’s freely accessible National Law Journal coverage.

• 9.29.10 – and in our third story in a row from the northern Midwest, the Michigan Campaign for Justice is advocating that the state “create a statewide public defense system” to replace the patchwork, county-by-county systems that exist now and which have been the subject of intense scrutiny.  “A study commissioned by the state legislature on the public defense system gave Michigan failing grades in 2008 for the way defense attorneys provide counsel to indigent defendants…”, according to the Kalamazoo Gazette.

• 9.29.10 – from the Washington Post, here are some tips about leveraging federal internships into postgraduate jobs.

• 9.28.10 – speaking of the Post, in an op-ed  Attorney General Eric Holder urges the Senate to move with more dispatch on federal judicial nominees.  He recounts a few specific cases of relatively uncontroversial nominees waiting for months for confirmation hearings, and further notes that “[l]ast year, 259,000 civil cases and 75,000 criminal cases were filed in the federal courts, enough to tax the abilities of the judiciary even when it is fully staffed. But today there are 103 judicial vacancies — nearly one in eight seats on the bench. Men and women who need their day in court must stand in longer and longer lines.  The problem is about to get worse. Because of projected retirements and other demographic changes, the number of annual new vacancies in the next decade will be 33 percent greater than in the past three decades. If the historic pace of Senate confirmations continues, one third of the federal judiciary will be vacant by 2020. If we stay on the pace that the Senate has set in the past two years — the slowest pace of confirmations in history — fully half the federal judiciary will be vacant by 2020.”

• 9.28.10 – Andrew Ardinger, a deferred law firm associate from the Class of 2009, has spent the past year in a public service placement with the Oakland-based Public Interest Law Project.  He’s been submitting articles periodically about his experience to the American Lawyer.  Here’s his final AmLaw piece before returning the law firm world.  Ardinger reviews his experience with PILP, which seems to have been overwhelmingly positive: “On a professional development level, too, this experience has been outstanding. As I have noted before, there are only six attorneys in the office, and one legal assistant. It was a very warm, genial work environment, and the two attorneys with whom I worked most closely were, from the first day, obviously committed to mentoring me and helping me develop as an attorney.”  Ardinger’s experience was pretty hands-on; he drafted motions/pleadings, made some court appearances, and forged relationships with clients.  The PSLawNet Blog has been following the deferred-associates-in-public-service-placements phenomenon closely.   See our recent post on the issue, which tracks back to some of our past coverage.

• 9.27.10 – courtesy of Connecticut’s Middletown Press, here’s a pretty interesting story about capital-case trial strategy.  While the case is still in the trial phase now, prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty in the event of a guilty verdict.  The story emphasizes the public defender’s apparent goal of highlighting mitigating factors and humanizing a man who’s accused of doing some terrible things during a home invasion.  Seems like an uphill battle given the facts.

• 9.25.10 – the Houston Chronicle is late to the party, picking up an op-ed from Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht that originally ran in the Cherokeean Herald, which not only got the drop on the Chron but has a much cooler name.  In the piece, which we included in last week’s News Bulletin, Hecht laments the decline in legal services funding and, while acknowledging budgetary constraints, argues that the state legislature should appropriate funds to support the legal services community.

• 9.25.10 – the Philadelphia Inquirer reports that “A highly diverse panel of competing players in the Philadelphia criminal-justice system – defense lawyers, prosecutors, police, and others – on Friday began the difficult job of finding a consensus on how to reform the city’s troubled courts.”  Giving itself a nice pat on the back, the Inquirer notes that the panel’s creation stems from “an Inquirer series that documented a court system beset by low conviction rates, widespread witness intimidation, and a massive number of fugitives.  The newspaper reported that Philadelphia had one of the lowest felony conviction rates among big cities and that almost two-thirds of all defendants charged with violent crimes in Philadelphia were escaping conviction on all charges.”  One half of the PSLawNet Blog hails from Philly, and we recall that the longtime-but-now-former district attorney Lynne Abraham leaned toward a policy of prosecuting in very high volume as opposed to focusing on cases with a high probability of conviction.

• 9.25.10 – the Washington Post’s editorial board, using the long-stalled homicide prosecution of Jamie Ryan Weis as a jumping off point (we covered Weis case’s speedy trial woes in last week’s News Bulletin – Item 4), bemoans the “crisis in providing legal counsel” for the indigent: “Public defenders throughout the country are throwing up their hands, in some instances begging judges not to assign them new cases. According to the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, defendants facing lesser criminal charges in some jurisdictions are processed through the system without ever speaking with a lawyer, even though they face jail time and are constitutionally entitled to representation.”

• 9.24.10 – October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.  The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal reports that “[t]he Legal Aid Society of Lubbock is trying to raise awareness about the problem and give the victims a voice by launching the “Signs for Change” campaign during October … The nonprofit organization is selling yard signs. The goal is to sell 136 by Oct. 1 — to represent each woman killed in Texas in 2008, which is the most recent information provided by the Texas Council on Family Violence.”

• 9.24.10 – from the Miami Herald we learn that a South Florida couple, both grads of University of Miami’s law school, has delved into the public service arena by creating “Lawyers to the Rescue,” a nonprofit operation that so far has tackled, well, a broad array of issues, including the Haitian earthquake relief effort, the Gulf Coast oil spill aftermath, as well as work with Habitat for Humanity and with local soup kitchen.

• 9.23.10 – the Indianapolis Star reports that the outgoing Marion County Prosecutor, Carl Brizzi, is pressing, in the face of budget cuts, for the preservation of his office’s loan repayment program for deputy prosecutors.  Brizzi worries that looming salary cuts will make it even more difficult for debt-laden junior attorneys to remain with the office, risking a “brain drain” effect.