Andrew Ardinger was one of many law school Class-of-2009 grads whose career path took an interesting turn when the law firm he was bound for – in his case, Orrick – deferred his start date.  Ardinger made great use of his time, spending the past 12 months with the Public Interest Law Project in Oakland.  Periodically during this past year, Ardinger contributed short update pieces to the American Lawyer, offering  a check-in about his public-service experience.  As he is preparing to return to BigLaw world, Ardinger penned a final piece looking back upon his time with PILP. 

 Now that I’m in the waning days of this fellowship, and I start to reflect on it, I keep coming back to the same thought: It’s been a great experience for me on a number of levels.

…

On a professional development level…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.

The PSLawNet Blog has been closely following the phenomenon of deferred associates taking temporary, public-service placements.  It’s a classic “on one hand, on the other” scenario.  So…on one hand, the public interest lawyer who lives inside of us finds these developments to be very beneficial, for at least a couple of reasons:

1. The main reason is this: the concern ultimately has to be for the clients.  Nonprofit law offices were hit hard by the recession.  This caused tremendous difficulties for the staff, and for law students who were seeking to begin their career in this arena (we’ll get back to this in a moment).  But it’s the low- and middle-income client communities that were hit hardest.  And the reduced service capacity which the recession caused in many public interest shops meant that fewer clients could be served even as their numbers were increasing.  Deferred associates were able to shore up – and in some cases, expand – service capacity.  That’ s huge, and it came at a critical moment.
2. Also, the public interest community benefits by forging strong relationships with the private bar.  Quite aside from pro bono work, money flows from the private bar to the public interest bar.  And in myriad other ways, law firms leverage their resources to support public interest work.  So if dozens, or maybe even hundreds, of today’s deferred associates have positive experiences during their public service placements,  they may become tomorrow’s pro bono advocates, board members, and financial supporters.  That’s a win-win.

But there is “on the other hand,” too.  PSLawNet’s mission is to support public-service minded law students and attorneys in achieving their professionals goals.  And it has been undoubtedly frustrating for many students and grads who want to commit their careers to public interest work to see the desks at public interest offices temporarily occupied by deferred associates who were there until business picked up at the firm.  To boot, many of the associates were living on firm-provided stipends which comfortably outpaced public interest salaries.  It is very difficult to measure how much of a “displacement effect” was caused by the deferred associate phenomenon, because frankly very few public interest organizations were in strong enough financial positions to hire new attorneys anyway (at least back in the throes of the recession).  Nevertheless, it was a daunting obstacle for those students who wanted to earn to a low salary in order to fight for those on society’s margins.

We suspect that as the legal economy emerges from the recession, it’ll make something of a return to the pre-recession “normal.”  Law firms will adjust staffing models to match business needs.  Public interest funding will stabilize gradually.  Now, there is discussion these days about whether a longer-term service model might emerge from the deferral model – something akin to the “loaned associate” programs that presently exist between law firms and public interest organizations.  Nevertheless, the prospects of those on public interest career paths feeling crowded out by their law-firm bound peers are diminishing.

This week: cold, hard cash for debt-laden prosecutors and public defenders; USA Today smacks down US Attorneys; legal services funding needed in the Lonestar State; four years in jail without a trial because the state can’t fund a public defense; LSC’s doing some financial oversight; law students aiding servicemembers who are about to be deployed (well done!); mandatory pro bono for Mississippi lawyers(?); legal services funding found for the Lonestar State (good timing!); national poverty data are out, and opponents of poverty are not going to like the news; the strain on legal services in Tennessee; LSC’s looking for a president; do prosecutors wield too much power at the expense of judges?   

• 9.23.10 – the Blog of the Legal Times reports that long overdue funds from the John R. Justice Act, a loan repayment program for prosecutors and public defenders authorized in 2008, will finally begin flowing to beneficiaries throughout the nation.

• 9.22.10 – USA Today has run an analysis piece – yes, its’ a USA Today story longer than two paragraphs! – on the state of ethics among federal prosecutors nationally, concluding that “prosecutors repeatedly have violated that duty in courtrooms across the nation. The abuses have put innocent people in prison, set guilty people free and cost taxpayers millions of dollars in legal fees and sanctions.”  Although acknowledging that the instances of misconduct or negligence are not broadly representative of the federal prosecution community, the story paints a picture of increasingly faltering work from prosecutors who are either overworked, under-supervised, or willing to break the rules in order to win.  (Also, Main Justice, an independent news organization which covers all things related to the Justice Department, picked up on the USA Today report.) 

• 9.22.10 – in the Cherokeean Herald of Texas, state supreme court justice Nathan L. Hecht reviews the recession’s impact on low-income Texans, highlights the dramatic declines civil legal services funding that limit providers’ ability to serve a swelling client base, and calls on the state legislature to once again appropriate funding in support of legal services.

• 9.21.10 – the Southern Center for Human Rights has run a piece by E. Wycliffe Orr, an attorney and former elected official in Georgia, about the alarmingly protracted murder prosecution of Jamie Ryan Weis in the Peach State.  Weis, who qualifies for indigent defense, has been incarcerated in a county jail for four years, largely on account of funding shortages that have prevented counsel from staying on to handle the complex case in its entirety.  He has attempted suicide three times while in jail.  After a great deal of litigation on the state level, Weis has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to, in Orr’s words, “decide whether poor people accused of crimes have a right to continued representation once their lawyers are thoroughly familiar with their cases and attorney-client relationships of trust and confidence have been established. He also asked the Court to decide whether the State could pursue the death penalty even if it was unwilling to provide legal representation for the person whose life it seeks to extinguish.”  Orr has joined with other practitioners to file an amicus brief in support of Weis’s position.  The PSLawNet blog shed light on the Weis case in a post last May, and we followed up with more coverage in July (see item 4). 

• 9.21.10 – a press release from the Legal Services Corporation announces “members of a Special Task Force on Fiscal Oversight charged by the Board with reviewing LSC’s fiscal oversight responsibilities and how LSC conducts fiscal oversight of its grantees…. The Board approved the Task Force’s formation on July 21 and the above members were announced at the Board’s meeting today. Chairman Levi said he may announce a few additional members in coming weeks.  The Task Force’s report and findings are expected in the Spring of 2011. The Task Force will operate independently of LSC, but is authorized to conduct its work with any necessary support from the LSC staff and to engage consultants with the approval of the Board Chairman.”  LSC had been the target of a critical piece put out by the Center for Public Integrity on July 15, which questioned oversight of LSC funds once disbursed to grantee organizations.

• 9.20.10 – the Jacksonville Daily Record reports on two students at the Florida Coastal School of Law who successfully hatched a project to provide free legal services to military reservists preparing for deployment and trying to get wills, powers of attorney, healthcare and other issues squared away.  The project resulted in collaboration between Florida Coastal, the Jacksonville Bar Association, and Jacksonville Area Legal Aid, as law students and attorneys met with their clients at a free clinic held on the 9th anniversary of September 11th.  This is just one more example of work done by law students who themselves wish to serve current and former servicemembers.  For example, see the PSLawNet Blog’s story from last August about Project Salute, run by the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law.

• 9.19.10 – Mississippi’s Clarion Ledger reports on a proposal being considered by the state’s high court “that would require lawyers to provide at least 20 hours of free service to the poor each year.”  There is debate within both the Mississippi bar and the legal blogosphere (see this Wall Street Journal Law Blog post) about whether or not traditional volunteer service can/should be made compulsory.   This question stems from the release of a report, The Unmet Civil Needs of Low-Income Mississippians, by the Mississippi Access to Justice Commission.  The report outlined “difficulties people encounter in gaining access to civil legal representation….  Between a third and half of those who apply for legal aid are turned away….  About 550,000 poor people are eligible for services, and about 30 legal services attorneys are available in Mississippi.”   The mandatory pro bono requirement doesn’t appear to be a specific recommendation made in the report, but rather one among many options the Supreme Court is considering to narrow the justice gap.   Here’s a Clarion Ledger article on the report’s release. 

• 9.17.10 – a press release from the Texas Access to Justice Foundation trumpets good funding news: TAJF is among five other legal services organizations which will share in a $2.6 million cy pres award intended to benefit advocates for the disabled.  A recent PSLawNet Blog post provides more detail, and here’s coverage from the  San Antonio Business Journal and the Austin Business Journal.

• 9.16.10 – the Washington Post covers the release of census data showing that, in 2009, “the ranks of the American poor soared to their highest level in half a century and millions more are barely avoiding falling below the poverty line.”  One in seven people “lived last year in homes in which the income was below the poverty level, which is about $22,000 for a family of four.”  The article goes on to cover the political back-and-forth about government’s role and effectiveness in fighting poverty during a recession.  (Nothing like think-tank quotes to put things into perspective!).  Also see the PSLawNet Blog’s coverage of the new poverty data, with links to other news outlets.  Finally, the Legal Services Corporation issued a press release to put the data into context regarding civil legal services: “Nearly 57 million Americans now qualify for civil legal assistance from the Legal Services Corporation, an increase of 3 million from 2008, and the highest number of people eligible for legal aid in our country in the Corporation’s 35-year history. Of the 57 million, 19.6 million were children, the Census Bureau said.”  LSC will be lobbying Congress and entreating the private sector to provide funding and pro bono support.

• 9.15.10 – the Chattanooga Times Free Press runs a thorough story illustrating the strains on Tennessee’s civil legal services system as the number of potential clients increases but funding does not.  “It’s a dilemma that led the Tennessee Supreme Court to announce in late 2008 that fixing the state’s legal aid crisis would become its No. 1 strategic priority. The goal is the same in 2010, with the court recently declaring the lack of access to legal help ‘one of the most pressing issues’ facing Tennessee’s court system.”  The problem boils down to simple numbers; because of funding shortages there are not the means to hire the lawyers necessary to serve all potential clients who face dire legal problems.  “There are only 81 legal aid lawyers who work full time in one of Tennessee’s five legal aid centers. Twenty-seven work for Legal Aid of East Tennessee, serving a client base of 300,000 out of the approximately 1 million residents statewide whose low incomes qualify them for free legal help.  It means the state’s full-time legal aid lawyers every year wind up accepting only one in five cases brought by people seeking their services, a Tennessee Supreme Court study found.”

• 9.13.10 – the Blog of the Legal Times reports that the Legal Services Corporation’s search for a new president continues.  According to John Levi, the LSC board chair, “‘We’re looking for a lawyer who has first-rate management skills. But we’re also looking for someone who understands the needs that are out there and isn’t afraid of them,’ Levi said. ‘We view this is a great opportunity for the LSC.’  Levi said that the LSC search committee will likely draw about eight or 12 candidates from the pool of applicants and select the next president from there. He said he and the other board members would like to see a president in place by the beginning of next year.”

• 9.10.10 – in an Anchorage Daily News opinion piece, former Alaska attorney general John Havelock notes that prosecutors, who shoulder enormous responsibilities in the operation of the justice system, also have extraordinary power that can be dangerous to the system if it is unchecked.  Havelock supports political appointments of prosecutors rather than elections because “campaign contributions lay a hand on the scale of justice.”  He also supports “enhancing the discretionary power of the judiciary” so that prosecutors do not wield so much influence in all facets of criminal proceedings, from charging decisions through sentencing.

There was no Public Interest News Bulletin last Friday.  This is because the PSLawNet Blog observed the Labor Day long weekend by doing less labor.  But the Bulletin returns today with a special Interrogatory Edition.

This week: Why is it bad to be mean to opposing counsel?; Volunteer State pro bono – redundant?; legal services – to bundle or not to bundle?; do you know what an MLP is?; how do resource-strapped courts observe speedy-trial guarantees?; law students can’t pretend to be attorneys, but can they collect attorney’s fees?; how cold is stealing money from a legal services provider?; how cool an acronym is LOLLAF?;  where’s the best place to work in Uncle Sam’s bureaucracy?; how much poverty has the recession created?; are those pesky law school professors messing up legal education?; and finally, what’s shakin’ over at the ABA Division for Legal Services?

• 9.10.10 – the New Jersey Law Journal reports that a “New Jersey state appeals court on Wednesday overturned a conviction for attempted murder of a policeman, in part because the prosecutor’s persistent denigration of defense counsel could have swayed jurors. The comments ‘clearly suggested to the jury that defense counsel was inept,’ the Appellate Division said in State v. Bridges, A-0806-07.”  Among other remarks the prosecuting attorney accused the public defender – in front of the jury – of violating court rules, interrupted his summation several times, and repeatedly asked the defendant if he was a liar.  The appeals court noted that defense counsel did not object very often and, ironically, this gave more momentum to the aggressive prosecution and led to an imbalanced picture for the jury to view.  The court also found error in the trial judge’s jury charges.  The county prosecutor’s (Sussex) office has not yet decided whether to appeal the decision. 

• 9.8.10 – a blog on the Knoxville News Sentinel’s website reports on a new access to justice initiative:  “The Tennessee Supreme Court has established a program allowing retired attorneys to provide pro bono legal services as yet another step in the Court’s effort to improve access to justice in the state…. The pro bono emeritus rule gives retired attorneys the authority to perform all legal work, without pay, on behalf of a client. Pro bono emeritus attorneys may represent the client in court with the approval of the judge hearing the case.”  The state’s high court has done some heavy lifting lately on the access-to-justice front; for more check out item 10 in the PSLawNet Blog’s July 9, 2010 Public Interest News Bulletin.  It’s also noteworthy that a similar retired-lawyers-return-to-do-pro-bono-program was launched in New York State earlier this year.

• 9.8.10 – according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Cobb County is expanding attorney practice rules that permit limited scope representation, or “unbundled legal services,” so that more moderate-income individuals can afford the services of a lawyer for discrete undertakings – like a consultation or document preparation – when they could not afford the fees that would be charged for full-scope representation on a legal matter(s).  The article touches upon the fact that the recession has brought the debate about limited scope representation to the front burner because many more people find themselves with legal problems but without sufficient funds to pay for an attorney.  And outside of Georgia, “[t]he practice is popular in California, where there are continuing legal education courses for lawyers on the topic.  In Massachusetts, the state’s highest court last year expanded a trial program for limited scope representation to the entire state court system.”  The PSLawNet Blog has covered news on the limited-scope representation debate in other jurisdictions, like Arizona (item 5) and Michigan (item 7), and here’s a New York Times op-ed from the chief justices of California and New Hampshire arguing that states should consider limited-scope representation as one means to increase access to justice.

• 9.6.10 – the Jacksonville Daily Record reports on a success story emerging from the work of the Northeast Florida Medical Legal Partnership.  The NFMLP has teamed up with medical clinics that serve low-income patients in order to provide legal services for patients when necessary – such as appealing a denial of Social Security or medical benefits.  Cases that run through the NFMLP are taken by pro bono attorneys at firms of all sizes or by staff attorneys at Jacksonville Area Legal Aid.  As the PSLawNet Blog has noted before, medical-legal partnerships are increasingly popular because they afford professionals from these two disciplines an opportunity to holistically address their patients’/clients’ problems.

• 9.5.10 – Congestion in the courts!  The Press-Enterprise reports on a case in front of the California Supreme Court – People v. Engram – stemming from resource shortfalls and case backlogs in Riverside County trial courts – problems that exist in many other California counties as well.  The case could have an impact on “how courts statewide handle criminal cases on the verge of dismissal because of constitutional speedy-trial deadlines.”  After a long, winding adjudicatory path that included a conviction on a felony charge, a reversal, a retrial, a mistrial, and a stream of continuances on a third trial, a court ultimately dismissed the people’s case against Engram because it has reached a time deadline intended to guarantee a defendant’s speedy-trial right.  As it turns out, Riverside County has streamlined its docket system since the troubles at the center of this case took place.  As noted though, the underlying issue in the case could affect courts elsewhere in the state which are grappling with similar problems.

• 9.4.10 – the Palm Beach Post reports that, “In Florida, 12 men have been freed from prison since 2000 after DNA evidence proved their innocence, some after serving time on Death Row.  Now the Florida Supreme Court has ruled a legal system that allows such miscarriages of justice needs to be fixed. It has created the Florida Innocence Commission to learn what goes wrong and to propose reforms.  Florida becomes the 10th state to study the causes of wrongful convictions.”  The commission is being funded with an appropriation from the state legislature and a grant from the Florida Bar Foundation.  The commission “will not hear individual please from those who say they have been wrongly imprisoned,” but rather will explore the systemic causes of wrongful convictions.  That work is already underway, and according to the story, “Mistaken eyewitness identification is far and away the leading cause…” of wrongful convictions.

• 9.2.10 – from the National Law Journal, we learn that Washington D.C.’s highest (local) court delivered a favorable ruling regarding attorney’s fee awards for law school clinical programs last week.  Regarding an administrative matter in which two law students represented an individual whose disability benefits were terminated, the “…D.C. Court of Appeals ruled…that the Public Justice Advocacy Clinic [at George Washington University’s law school] was entitled to legal fees under a District of Columbia law pertaining to government worker disability cases. The court…found that the students’ work, supervised by George Washington clinical professor Jeffrey Gutman, did not amount to lay representation, which would have precluded recovery. The clinic sought about $6,400 in fees.”  The question in the case turned on whether a particular statute governing attorneys fees could apply to the work done by law students, who are by definition not attorneys.  “Because the students had worked closely with Gutman, a licensed attorney, the court found that awarding the fees was warranted.”  This decision is narrow because it deals with a particular statute, but this story makes the PSLawNet Blog wonder about case law in other jurisdictions on the question of law school clinic programs receiving attorney’s fees for cases handled by students.  If you have any insight on this topic, please offer it in the Comments section below.

• 9.2.10 – the Washington Post’s “The Crime Scene” blog reports that a former Maryland Legal Aid Bureau employee “admitted in court that he stole more than $1 million from the nonprofit organization.”  Over a 10-year period, MLAB’s former finance chief inflated “invoices for office supplies, then stole the excess money.”

• 9.1.10 – the Suburban Journals (St. Louis Metro Region) website offers a nice profile of Lois Wood, a longtime legal services attorney, and the organization for which she  currently serves as executive director, the Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation (LOLLAF) in southern Illinois.

• 9.1.10 – the Washington Post reports on the release of the “Best Places to Work” rankings of federal government offices, a report produced by the Partnership for Public Service and the American University School of Public Affairs.  Over a quarter of a million federal employees at 290 federal organizations participated in the survey process.   Here’s a link to a recent PSLawNet Blog post about “Best Places to Work”, and here’s a link to the report website itself.

• 8.30.10 – in a short, data-heavy piece, USA Today reports that, “Government anti-poverty programs that have grown to meet the needs of recession victims now serve a record one in six Americans and are continuing to expand.” Medicaid enrollment is up 17% since late 2007, when the recession began.  The number of food stamp recipients has grown by almost 50%.  Unemployment insurance benefits are going to four times as many individuals now compared to 2007.  And the Temporary Assistance for Needy Family (TANF) “welfare” rolls have increased by 18% in the recession.  Costs, of course, have risen as caseloads have expanded, and folks in Washington are debating how much strain anti-poverty programs can/should bear in light of federal fiscal woes.

• 8.30.10 –  the National Law Journal reports on a forthcoming law review article which argues that reforms in legal education may be hampered by the fact that the legal academy is still highly focused on scholarly research and not on teaching practice skills.  The PSLawNet Blog nicely summarized the article (if we do say so ourselves) in a post last week, and here’s a link directly the NLJ article.

• Summer 2010 Edition of ABA Dialogue – the Summer 2010 edition of Dialogue, the quarterly magazine of the ABA Division for Legal Services, is now available online.  it features several articles on IOLTA funding, pro bono news from around the nation, and pieces on medical-legal partnership and a project to aid military servicemembers. 

Please participate in NALP’s brief, anonymous survey about recent trends in the public interest hiring market.  NALP is a national member association of career services and human resources professionals from law schools and legal employers throughout the U.S.  (NALP also administers the PSLawNet website and the PSLawNet Blog.)  We are conducting a survey of nonprofit and government law offices about 1) recent law student and law graduate hiring and 2) hiring expectations in the immediate future.  In late October we will produce a report based on survey responses.  The report will be made freely available on our PSLawNet website: www.pslawnet.org.  We will NOT identify any participating organizations by name. We hope the report, which will provide a snapshot about the current employment market, will benefit the public interest legal community as well as law students and attorneys who are on public service career paths.

Who Should Participate: nonprofit and government (local/state/federal) legal organizations in the U.S.  There is a place in the survey to indicate whether it is being submitted on behalf of an entire organization, a branch office of a larger organization, or a practice unit within a larger organization.  We encourage respondents to coordinate with others in your organizations in order to avoid duplicating responses. 

Survey Completion Deadline: Wednesday, September 22, 2010.

Link to Survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DJW9WNL  

Questions/Concerns: Please contact Steve Grumm, NALP’s Director of Public Service Initiatives, at sgrumm@nalp.org or directly at 202.296.0057.

We have been following the recent controversy in the UK over potential cuts to the legal aid budget.  On Friday, August 27, The Law Society formally launched judicial proceedings against the Legal Services Commission (LSC).

The Law Society is

“seeking a declaration that the LSC acted unlawfully in relation to the [cuts] and, before considering other relief, [intends] to invite the court to adjourn for a short period in order that the LSC and the Society may work together to find a satisfactory solution.”  Read the full press release.

Want more context?  Check out our earlier posts:   Legal Aid Cuts Stir Controversy Across the Pond and Potential Litigation Over Legal Aid Cuts in the UK.

This week:  Pro bono, Mick Dundee-style; exploring solutions to expand legal services in Mississippi; comparing public defenders and private defense counsel; Comcast shows a little  love ($$$) to a medical-legal partnership; a legal services hotline for California seniors loses funding; more on Missouri’s ailing public defense system; the wheels of justice turning in New Mexico; terrific legal work on behalf of veterans in Michigan; and two former Minnesota legal services lawyers form a for-profit firm, but work primarily with low-income clients. 

• 8.27.10 – Fallen behind on the pro bono scene Down Under?  Well, The Australian has a piece about new data from the country’s National Pro Bono Resource Centre. The data show that, just as in the U.S., large firms are making large pro bono contributions: “24 firms with more than 50 lawyers did 322,343 hours of pro bono work last financial year.  The resource centre did not provide costings, but a conservative hourly rate of $250 shows the firms gave away legal work worth at least $80m.”  Read the Australian’s article on the National Pro Bono Resource Centre’s new data.  The two reports which present the data are presently available on the Resource Centre’s homepage.  As an aside, the PSLawNet Blog met the Centre’s director, John Corker, a couple of years ago at a public interest conference in Minneapolis.  We sat next to him as he took in his first baseball game.  The PSLawNet blog explained the basics, and apologized for both the Metrodome and for the diabolical Red Sox Nation, which had overrun the place to see the visiting Sox.

• 8.25.10 – a short piece in Southern Mississippi’s Sun Herald notes that “A Mississippi Supreme Court committee has asked for public comment on proposals to improve poor people’s access to legal services.  Proposals under review call for making 20 hours of annual pro bono…service mandatory for Mississippi attorneys, raising to $500 the payments lawyers may make in lieu of doing pro bono work and increasing fees paid by out of state lawyers to $500 per case” in order to fund civil legal services.  The comment deadline is October 1.

• 8.24.10 – Miller-McCune reports on new research in the Journal of Criminal Justice: “A newly published look at Chicago-area courts finds that, when you consider the actual outcomes of judicial hearings, these underpaid and underappreciated attorneys do just as well as their private-sector counterparts.”  The study looked at a random sample of 2850 convicted felony defendants and compared outcomes – between those defendants who had public defenders and those who had private counsel – at four stages in their trials: whether bail was granted; plea-bargaining decisions; whether defendants ultimately served a jail sentence; and length of sentence imposed on those jailed.  There are “[t]wo important caveats” regarding the study: “The researchers did not look at convictions vs. acquittals. And they found that retaining a private attorney is apparently beneficial ‘for certain offenders and at certain stages’ of the process.”  [Tip of cap to the ABA Journal.]

• 8.24.10 – the Florida Times-Union reports that “Comcast has donated $15,000 to Jacksonville Area Legal Aid for its Northeast Florida Medical-Legal Partnership.”  The eight year-old Partnership has recently expanded to serve additional medical centers.

• 8.24.10 – according to the Senior Spectrum (a publication covering seniors’ issues in California): “After providing free legal advice to more than 100,000 callers over the past two decades, the California Senior Legal Hotline has been forced to suspend most service following the loss of all state and federal funds for its general statewide program.”  Seniors in Sacramento County will still be able to access the hotline for help on a broad array of issues, but those outside the county will have only limited access to hotline services.  The hotline program is seeking new funding sources.

• 8.23.10 0 – the Lincoln County Journal reports on Missouri’s indigent defense caseload crisis.  “Public defender offices statewide are seeing increasingly heavy case loads putting attorneys well over their monthly limits.”  District Defender Thomas Gabel, who oversees programs in Lincoln and Pike Counties, observed that “Missouri is ranked 49th out of 50 states for public defense funding and in the past decade the state has taken in 12 thousand additional cases a year with no additional funds.”  Also, on 8.21.10, KSPR in Springfield reported that “Missouri Auditor Susan Montee plans to review the state Public Defender Commission.”  The PSLawNet Blog has been covering this series of events; to track back to past coverage, begin with our 8/20/10 Public Interest News Bulletin.

• 8.21.10 – the Las Cruces Sun-News in New Mexico reports that, in spite of budgetary pressures on the prosecutor’s and public defender’s offices, and in spite of the public’s misperception – driven by television crime dramas – about how fast the wheels of justice should turn, the Do-a Ana County courthouse is moving with all deliberate speed in handling criminal matters.

• 8.22.10 – an Associated Press story on the Michigan Live website tells of the successes of Project SALUTE , a pro bono program housed at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law that serves veterans with legal needs.  “Combined with the law school’s Veterans Law Clinic, the two UDM-run programs are designed to address the compelling needs of veterans around the state.  The programs focus on veterans’ federal disability and pension benefits through education, law student representation, and pro bono attorney referral.”  For more, see the PSLawNet Blog’s post yesterday which explores Project SALUTE and other efforts to help low-income vets throughout the country. 

• 8.21.10 – according to the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, two former legal aid lawyers formed their own law firm, specializing in “destitute and low-income clients.”  While some clients can afford to pay a little bit of money, the firm will also rely on a Minnesota program that “pays advocates to help low-income adults with the complicated paperwork to go through the [federal Supplemental Security Income application] process.”  It can be a win-win-win when a client is approved to receive SSI benefits: the client has increased income, the attorneys are compensated by the state, and the state will actually save money because the client’s move to a federally-funded support program will often take them off of the rolls of state programs. 

Last week we wrote about the United Kingdom’s Legal Services Commission’s (LSC) plans to implement significant cuts to its current budget for legal aid.  The budget cuts are expected to cause the number of family law firms offering legal aid to fall from 2,400 to 1,300.

In response, The Law Society sent a pre-action protocol letter to the LSC, challenging the lawfulness of the LSC’s decision to proceed with the reduction in legal aid contracts.  The Law Society’s president, Linda Lee, expressed that despite the “difficulty taking action may cause” for firms that were successful in obtaining legal aid contracts who may have been “planning to expand their businesses either by volume, new work type, or a new geographic location” the decision to challenge the cuts was necessary and rooted in the profession’s duty to public interest.

“As a profession we accept and are proud of an ethical code that is higher than pure commercial considerations. We have a duty to protect the public interest. A reduction in access to justice cannot be in the public interest particularly when it affects the most vulnerable people in society, those who are seeking to establish their basic rights.”

The LSC expressed its disappointment regarding The Law Society’s actions.  The Commission believes that “further uncertainty will have a far greater destabilising effect on the availability of family legal aid than allowing the tender to take its course. ”

President Lee emphasized that,

“The Law Society remains ready and willing to talk with the Legal Services Commission and the Ministry of Justice to avoid litigation and urgently resolve these issues,” but “if an agreement cannot be reached, then [The Law Society] will bring the proceedings before the High Court.”

To read more on The Law Society’s position.

 This Week: deferred law firm associates bitten by the public interest bug, indigent defense resource shortages in Missouri and Minnesota, congressional support for doctors and lawyers working together, $$$ in judicial elections, New Jersey libraries are prepping to help pro se litigants because legal services funding cuts are looming, Connecticut brings pro se resources to the Interwebs, and big cuts in Washington State’s welfare program.

• 8.19.10 – New York Times – some law firm associates who took temporary public interest placements when their law firm start dates were deferred have found public interest work so rewarding that they have opted to remain with their host organizations rather than going back to the law firm life, salary cut notwithstanding. 

• 8.19.10 – St. Louis Post-Dispatch – the Missouri State Public Defender program is fighting back against accusations by some prosecutors that the defenders are exaggerating a resource shortage.  An MSPD spokesperson notes that although some prosecutors are complaining that the defenders’ caseloads are not actually that high, it’s an apples-and-organges comparison because the public defenders count cases differently.  [Ed. note: this article is one of the few written about this unfolding story that goes past the verbal battles and offers an update about how the criminal justice system has been affected by some public defenders’ refusals to take new cases: “The impact on defendants has been minimal so far, with only the three circuits affected and their deferred July cases accepted with the arrival of August. But some of the system’s doors are expected to close again each month, possibly a little earlier each time.  While the effect is not very noticeable now, waits for help could increase in the longer term, and judges could face pressure to appoint private counsel to fill the gaps.”  It also provides hard data about the MSPD’s funding.  For more coverage of the back-and-forth between prosecutors and defenders, see item 7 below (Springfield News-Leader coverage).]

• 8.17.10 – Saint Paul Pioneer Press  (Minnesota) – in southeastern Minnesota, the chief public defender is asking “a Steele County judge to remove public defenders from 45 open cases” because the office doesn’t have the staff to handle current caseloads.”  This circumstance is emblematic of problems facing under-resourced defenders’ offices throughout the state.  “Stiffer legal penalties, an annual battery of new laws and increasingly complex cases have thrust indigent defendants before the courts for longer periods, heaping work on the state public defense system just as it is experiencing back-to-back budget cuts.”  The ACLU of Minnesota is keeping an eye on the problems in Southeastern Minnesota, concerned largely about the fact that overworked defenders may not be prepared for their cases.  In fact, “14 defenders filed a work grievance through the Teamsters union, calling their workloads illegal.”  [Ed. Note: the article references a February, 2010 report from the state’s legislative auditor highlighting systemic problems in the indigent defense network throughout the state.] 

• 8.16.10 – American Medical News – federal lawmakers in both houses of Congress have proposed bills that would support and expand Medical-Legal Partnership programs throughout the country.  [Ed. note: for more detail on this story and on MLPs generally, see our 8/17 blog post.]

• 8.16.10 – Brennan Center for Justice – Report – a new report from the Brennan Center, the Justice at Stake Campaign, and the National Institute on Money in State Politics looks at the remarkable increase in the amount of campaign funding in state judicial elections.  The New Politics of Judicial Elections, 2000-2009: Decade of Change finds that campaign spending has more than doubled in the past decade compared to the decade prior.  Learn more from our recent blog post on the report’s release.  Also, the Philadelphia Inquirer picked up on the report because, lamentably, the Keystone State (home to the 2008 World Champion Philadelphia Phillies) “consistently rank[s] at or near the top for special-interest spending [in state supreme court election campaigns].” 

• 8.15.10 – Springfield News-Leader (Missouri) – [Ed note: the News-Leader’s editorial board weighs in on the statewide indigent defense controversy, worrying that the current back and forth between prosecutors and defenders about whether the latter are truly overworked is “rehash and backtracking” that gets nowhere toward a solution.  There has been an acknowledged resource crisis in the state’s indigent defense program for some time, and all interested parties must sit down together to develop practical solutions.  Speaking of back and forth, the News-Leader also ran dueling opinion pieces.  Taney County’s two top prosecutors propose doing away with, or heavily downgrading the role of, the Missouri State Public Defender.  They allege that the MSPD has become a bloated bureaucracy.  Not so fast, says Springfield County’s chief defender: “The idea of disbanding the entire public defender system is likely the most ridiculous attack on our efforts. The suggestions that have been made as to how we could be replaced only bolster the position that the prosecutor’s true objective is to maintain an advantage and how sad is it that the ones they seek to keep down are those who already have little to nothing.”  The National Legal Aid & Defender Association also counters the prosecutors’ ideas.  For those who are following events as they unfold, the PSLawNet Blog has been tracking news coverage over the past few weeks.  For what it’s worth, while we at the PSLawNet Blog find the News-Leader’s editorial to be a bit glib, we agree with the core point that all interested parties – and that includes neutral parties like the state judiciary and bar association officials – should get down to brass tacks to identify the scale and scope of the problem and craft solutions.  The attacks on the MSPD and its counterattacks could just go on forever.]     

• 8.14.10 – Philadelphia Inquirer – Legal Services of New Jersey is facing dramatic funding cuts that will result in large-scale layoffs of lawyers and staff.  “So where can residents turn for assistance?  Try the library.  A New Jersey Courts program is training librarians to help patrons find legal forms and instructions so they can represent themselves.”  LSNJ’s president observes that “[t]his is in no way the answer…But a small percentage of people can benefit.”  Librarians are willing to help connect people to information and resources but are wary of “cross[ing] the line” and providing legal advice.  [Ed. note: the PSLawNet blog covered the LSNJ funding cuts in some depth.  See item 5 in our 8/6/10 Public Interest News Bulletin for more.

• 8.14.10 – Connecticut Post – legal services advocates in Connecticut have launched a new website to provide resources for pro se litigants.  “Trying to represent oneself in court is a daunting task, and the number of people doing so in civil lawsuits has steadily risen in the past five years, according to state Judicial Branch data.  Thankfully for pro se parties across the state, a new website created by legal aid advocates is billing itself as a valuable resource for low-income people involved in civil actions.  The Connecticut Network for Legal Aid site — www.ctnla.org — is the result of a statewide initiative to provide online guidance and information to low-income residents. The site features self-help guides to immigration and family law, links to a legalese dictionary, and a directory of phone numbers for various nonprofits and social services.”  [Ed. note, for additional coverage see Item 4 in our 8/6/10 Public Interest News Bulletin.

• 8.13.10 – Bloomberg Businessweek (running an AP story) – “[a]t least $51 million is being cut from WorkFirst, [Washington State’s] welfare-to-work program, because while enrollment continues to rise, matching funds from the federal government have remained flat since the 1990s….  Advocacy groups decried the cuts, and said that removing poor families from the program will cause them to seek out social services through different state programs.  ‘This seems like a really tough time to put families on the street,’ said Robin Zukoski, a staff attorney for Columbia Legal Services, which provide civil legal aid to low-income people. ‘These families are not going to just disappear. They’re going to go into the homeless shelters’.”

In an effort to cut costs and streamline a bulky system, the Legal Services Commission in the United Kingdom is cutting its legal aid budget substantially. In the UK, subsidized legal aid is provided for those who cannot afford private representation through firms which contract with the LSC. Starting in 2008, the LSC developed a new set of criteria for contracting firms (called tendering), and firms had to submit new bids showing how they met these criteria in order to continue as providers. After the latest round of tenders, it looks like the number of providers across the UK will fall from around 2400 to 1300, according to this article from Channel 4 News (which has some good background on the reform process as well).

Though the LSC argues that the reduction in providers will not result in a reduction in the number of cases Legal Aid can handle, many lawyers are concerned that this will not be true, particularly in more rural parts of the country. The Channel 4 News article explains:

In addition, the decline in service providers will mean the loss of a legal aid lawyer in many communities. Although the LSC says there will always be a provider within 45 minutes from a persons’ home, for those with childcare, abuse or custody issues, or indeed those on low incomes, the very geography will pose a significant barrier to seeking the help they need.

Solicitors in Wales have been particularly concerned and outspoken over the cuts. WalesOnline reported last week that two family court judges in Wales have written in protest over the changes to the LSC. Additionally, the Law Society (the professional association for solicitors in England and Wales, somewhat akin to the ABA in the United States) has come out against the changes. A representative of the Society explained that the changes are creating “advice deserts,” saying

“We are worried about places like Wales where it seems the number of solicitors is being reduced by a half, we are worried about Cornwall where 50 firms are being reduced to less than 10, and places like Poole and Dorset where there is only one firm of solicitors with a contract for over 140,000 people.”

Many lawyers are demanding a review of the changes before the new tenders are finalized in October, which may lead to a delay in implementation. Seeing how different systems respond to budget restrictions may have international lessons, so we’ll keep you updated here as news develops.

Much, Much More Missouri: the battle regarding Missouri’s strained indigent defense system continues in counties and courtrooms throughout the state.  Last week the PSLawNet blog provided a summary of news coverage.  In the past week:

• The  St. Joseph News-Press covered some prosecutors’ criticisms of what they see as cynical attempt by public defenders to exaggerate the scale of the current situation to secure more funding – “just nonsense” is how one county prosecutor referred to the idea of a systemic crisis.  The Missouri Bar Association president suggested, though, that there is “no doubt” that a crisis is looming. 
• KTVI, the FOX affiliate in St. Louis, featured a piece about the statewide sparring between defenders and prosecutors and noted that defenders in six Missouri counties are refusing to take new cases (and St. Louis County could soon join them).
• On August 10th, a Christian County judge reaffirmed an earlier decision he had made appointing a public defender to represent an indigent defendant in a burglary case, in spite of the public defender’s earlier notification that it could not accept any more cases.  The judge noted that he was “not ruling on whether the public defender system is overworked or not but whether he could allow a defendant who qualifies for a public defender to go without.” (Columbia Daily Tribune – 8/12/10).  This decision was derided by the Missouri State Public Defender’s office. (KRCG  Website – 8.11.10).  Additional coverage of the decision is available from KSPR. 

And in other news:

• 8.11.10 – The Columbian (Washington State) – in Clark County, the chief prosecutor and members of the criminal defense bar are sparring over the prosecutor’s request for additional government funding, which he says is necessary because lawyers representing indigent clients are increasingly calling expert witnesses.  The prosecutor referred to the county’s assigned counsel system (there is no public defender’s office) as a “big sucking machine.”  Defense counsel responded that amidst advances in forensic science, they owe it to their indigent and fee-paying clients to provide the best defense possible, and that it is not the province of a prosecutor to determine how defense constructs its case.

• 8.11.10 – Portland Press Herald [Editorial and Reply Concerning Maine’s New Indigent Defense System] – [Ed. note: on 8/3, the Press Herald’s editorial board authored a piece arguing that, while Maine’s newly implemented system for assigning counsel to indigent defendants has received “mixed reviews,” it has only been operational for a month and should be given more time for kinks to be worked out.  The older system relied on judges to assign counsel on a case by case basis.  The new system relies on the newly created, and independent, Maine Commission on Indigent Legal Services to coordinate counsel assignments.  In response to that editorial, a defense attorney who represents indigent clients volleyed back, noting that while the new assigned-counsel system went into effect recently, the law creating the Commission is more than a year old.  By now, he argues, the concededly “underfunded and understaffed” Commission should have had more infrastructure in place to make the system work smoothly.

• 8.9.10 – Fort Worth Business Press – “Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas, an LSC grantee and the nation’s 5th largest legal aid organization, “is enhancing its presence with newly renovated headquarters in downtown Fort Worth, a just-launced capital campaign, new outreach programs, a revamped website and technology, and a rebranding that emphasizes its mission of ‘equal justice under law’.”  One of LANWT’s goals is to raise its profile as a provider of free services to low-income clients who most need them.  LANWT has 15 branch offices and serves 114 counties in Texas.

• 8.9.10 – National Law Journal [Opinion Piece authored by Esther Lardent of the Pro Bono Institute] – the recent news coverage of the immigration debate has also shed light on flaws in the current operation of the immigration system.  “Fortunately, we are seeing law firms undertaking immigration pro bono work in record numbers.”  These contributions are necessary because the system is laden down under the weight of swollen dockets, and at the same time resources to preserve and defend immigrants’ rights have become more scarce, with too few advocates to represent immigrants.  “Not only are there too few advocates; our immigration system is broken.  A recent report done on a pro bono basis by Arnold & Porter for the American Bar Association, Reforming the Immigration System: Proposals to Promote Independence, Fairness, Efficiency, and Professionalism in the Adjudication of Removal Cases (excutive summary here), presents 60 comprehensive recommendations for reform to the system.”  But until policy-level reform arrives, pro bono advocates must continue working to preserve immigrants’ rights and promote systemic change.  Link to piece.

• 8.8.10 – Issaquah Press (Washington State) – a King County (which includes Seattle) board is contributing $12,000 to fund an Americorps Fellowship at the Northwest Justice Project.  “The fellow will be a full-time attorney assigned to work with Northwest Justice Project staffers and coordinate with other organizations to provide services to at-risk and homeless veterans.”  The impetus for King County’s action was a vote in 2005 that created a levy “…to help local veterans military personnel, and their families.”

• 8.6.10 – American Bar Association – a program at the ABA’s annual meeting in early August, “Law Firm Legal Aid: Where Are We One Year Later,” examined the phenomenon of deferred law firm associates taking temporary volunteer placements with public interest organizations.  Presenters explained that this unexpected turn of events has benefited the associates, who have gained hands-on practice experience, and their public interest host organizations which have used associates to bolster client service capacity.