According to a “Legal Aid News” alert from the National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA):

As part of his detailed Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 budget plan, the President is seeking $435 million for the Legal Services Corporation (LSC).  This is the same level of funding recommended in FY 2010 and only $15 million more than the amount [actually] appropriated [by Congress] for FY 2010.  The President’s request also includes, unchanged from the President’s request in FY 2010, language regarding removal of the current restrictions on non-LSC funds, as well as the restrictions on attorneys’ fees and participation in class action suits.  The restriction on attorneys’ fees was lifted in the FY 2010 appropriation enacted into law last December, while the restrictions on non-LSC funds and class actions remain.

LSC had requested an appropriation of $516.5 million for FY 2011.  Undoubtedly, the Obama Administration’s announced intention to curb discretionary spending has rendered any significant LSC funding increases unlikely, at least in the near term.

A well-researched piece in today’s Wall Street Journal – “Once-Robust Charity Sector Hit With Mergers, Closings” – examines the hardships confronted by nonprofits large and small in the wake of the recession.

 The once-booming nonprofit sector is in the midst of a shakeout, leaving many Americans without services and culling weak groups from the strong. Hit by a drop in donations and government funding in the wake of a deep recession, nonprofits—from arts councils to food banks—are undergoing a painful restructuring, including mergers, acquisitions, collaborations, cutbacks and closings. 

Some key revelations:

• Charitable donations in the U.S., which had been on a 20-year uptick until 2007, fell by 6% in 2008 and are expected to have further declined last year.  At the same time, government grant funding available to nonprofits has depleted.
• Well respected nonprofits have been forced to cut their programming or in some cases forced out of existence altogether.
• The clients served by human services organizations need more and more help, but funding for this segment of the larger nonprofit sector has taken a profound hit.
• The recession’s impact on the sector has “reawaken[ed] a touchy debate among some leaders in the nonprofit world over whether the economic prosperity of the past few decades has spawned an excess of nonprofits.”  Some in the industry argue that now is the time for nonprofits to explore mergers and other ways to ensure more efficient delivery of services.

• 1.27.10 – Dallas Morning News – the new Dallas Bar Association president, Ike Vanden Eykel, is making a priority of raising funds to benefit legal services through the Campaign for Equal Justice.  Vanden Eykel, who himself is one of the city’s elite, highly-paid, attorneys, “intends to strong-arm those at the top of the legal system so that those at the bottom of society can have access to it.”  Link to article.

• 1.26.10 – San Jose Mercury News – Santa Clara County District Attorney Dolores Carr has instructed prosecutors in her office to stop bringing criminal cases before Superior Court Judge Andrea Bryan.  Bryan “recently angered prosecutors by finding that a trial prosecutor committed numerous acts of misconduct.”  Carr is defending the decision as being based not just on this action by the judge, but on a pattern of actions.  And she notes that other prosecutors and public defenders have taken similar steps in other California courts.  Nonetheless, “experts in criminal law and ethics said the blanket boycott [of a particular judge]…is an abusive tactic that can damage the court system.”  Carr is running for re-election to her post.  Link to article.

• 1.27.10 – MinnPost Website (Minnesota) – Minnesota’s Department of Human Services decided on Wednesday to extend its General Assistance Medical Care coverage for low-income adults by one month.  The program had been scheduled to terminate on March 1 because funding for it was “unalloted” through cost-saving measures by Governor Tim Pawlenty.  The DHS decision came two days after the Legal Aid Society of Minneapolis threatened a lawsuit to stop the government from cutting the program off.  The legal aid program noted that “they would use the same arguments [in this effort] that were posed in a separate lawsuit that led a Ramsey County judge to rule that [the governor] overstepped his authority when he unalloted money for a state nutrition program.”  Link to article. 

• 1.27.10 – North County Times (Southern California) – a high-stakes courtroom battle played out in Vista, California, as a “senior member of the…public defender’s office argued to Superior Court Judge Harry Elias that there has been ‘a continuing pattern of failure’ by prosecutors to supply evidence that could be important to the defense.”  While this argument took place in the context of minor theft case, the “heavyweight allegations drew a heavyweight audience in the courtroom,” including high-level members of the Vista branch of the D.A’s office and a chief administrator from the D.A.’s headquarters.  The D.A. released a statement attesting to her office’s high ethical standards.  Noteworthy also is that prosecutors have accused Judge Elias of bias.  Link to article.

• 1.26.10 – KGNS TV Website (NBC Affiliate in Laredo, TX) [Video story and transcript] –  Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid has sued the state in “an attempt to force them to help starving families, many of which are here in Laredo.”  The lawsuit, filed in December against the Texas Health and Human Services Office, is “attempting to force [the office] to make quick decisions on the piles of pending Food Stamp Applications and bring in the manpower needed to complete the task.”  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: you may view past coverage of the suit from the Houston Chronicle (12/23/09) and Austin American-Statesman (12/18/09).]

• 1.25.10 – Los Angeles Times Money & Company Blog – President Obama is proposing changes to the College Cost Reduction & Access Act’s Income Based Repayment program that would lower the required monthly payment amount, and is also proposing an expansion of the CCRAA’s debt forgiveness program that would lower the pay-in period for qualified borrowers from 25 to 20 years.  Those in public service would still be eligible for forgiveness in 10 years.  Link to blog post.

• Government Executive Newsletter – the federal Office of Personnel Management unveiled a new version of its USAJobs website on Monday.  The new, cleaner looking version of the website “simplifies the site’s searching capability” and “also includes updates on the status of positions as well as a candidate’s application.”  Link to article.

• 1.25.10 – Blog of the Legal Times – the National Veterans Legal Services Program filed a class action lawsuit against the federal government in 2008, alleging that some veterans “were illegally denied disability benefits despite being diagnosed with severe cases of post-traumatic stress disorder that should have qualified them for free care.”  This week, NVLSP announced that through an agreement with the government, an “estimated 4,300 class members will be eligible for a faster review of their disability ratings, as well as a correction of their past and future benefits.”   Link to article.

• 1.25.10 – New York Law Journal [Article contributed by Jonathan Lippman, Chief Judge, State of New York] – the New York legal community, which “is at the vanguard of a nationwide increase in lawyer pro bono,” must remain proactive in the public interest arena because IOLA funding for legal services program has declined markedly.  One new tool to aid in providing legal services to New York’s most needy is the Attorney Emeritus Program, which allows retired lawyers in good standing who are at least 55 years old to take on “Attorney Emeritus” status, allowing them to provide pro bono services “under the auspices of qualified organizations, including legal services programs, bar associations and…volunteer lawyer programs.”  Attorneys Emeritus will be exempted from CLE requirements and will receive malpractice insurance coverage through the organization with which they volunteer.  Link to full piece.   [Ed. Note: the New York Times had covered the Attorney Emeritus program in an article on 1.6.10.] 

• 1.23.10 – “Delaware Online” Website – Delaware’s Community Legal Aid Society, Inc., is sharing $364,621 in grant money from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development with another nonprofit.  The Legal Aid Society will use the grant funding “to help finance investigations into alleged housing discrimination and to enforce the state Fair Housing Act…”  Link to article.

• 1.22.10 – New Orleans Times-Picayune – the Orleans Parish district attorney’s and public defender’s offices have agreed upon a plan to ramp up efficiency in the assignment and  management of criminal cases in the courthouse, but judges have not gotten on board yet.  In effect, the change in process would allow one prosecutor to remain with a criminal case beginning to end, avoiding the occurence of cases bouncing from one prosecutor to another.  The district attorney has cited a letter from judges, raising “unspecified concerns about due process for defendants if the…process was changed.”  An official with the Vera Institute for Justice, which has worked in support of the proposed plan, does not believe that it would “violate any state or federal standards.”  Link to article.

• 1.21.10 – Cloud Computing Journal (running a Business Wire piece) – $2 million in cy pres funds resulting from an $11.5 million class-action settlement in California will go to legal services and other public interest organizations.  Beneficiaries of the funding windfall include Public Counsel, Bet Tzedek Legal Services, East Bay Community Law Center, and the Legal Aid Society of San Diego.  Link to press release.

• 1.19.10 – Government Executive newsletter – by 2013, 78% of federal, administrative law judges will be eligible for retirement.  (Over 50% are eligible now.)  Feeling the pressure to beef up their ranks, agencies that “rely most heavily on [ALJs]…would like to be able to hire them for specialized knowledge” and “find ways to have conversations about [their] job performance without infringing on judicial independence.”  Link to article.

• 1.18.10 – Kitsap Sun (Washington State) – in the wake of a statewide initiative to bolster the indigent defense network, Kitsap County, in Washington State, “began dramatically reshaping how the indigent are represented in criminal court” by creating an Office of Public Defense.  Having “in-house” public defenders has proven highly cost-effective; it costs the government about one-half the amount to have a staff public defender handling felonies than it would to contract with outside counsel.  The OPD’s supervising attorney “anticipates that the county will hire even more public defenders.”  Link to article.

• 1.18.10 – New York Times “City Room” Blog  – in a  follow-up to a blog post last week describing the public interest placement experience of deferred Ropes & Gray associate Chris Reid, Mr. Reid offers thoughtful answers to questions raised by readers of the original blog post.  Mr. Reid’s responses address his adjustment to a chaotic practice setting (housing court), the rewards of his immersion into public-interest culture, and how this experience may change his approach to practice when he returns to the private bar.  Link to article.

• 1.18.10 – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – the Wisconsin Department of Corrections has sent letters to some former inmates who have completed their sentences, demanding that they submit DNA samples or face possible prosecution.  However, the state’s DNA submission law does not “expressly say that offenders are still obligated to submit DNA if they are no longer in prison, on probation or on parole.”  Some critics charge that the Department of Corrections may be exceeding its statutory authority, giving the former inmates an easy ground for suppression should their DNA be used against them in a future criminal proceeding.  Link to article.

• 1.17.10 – “Ozarks First” Website – (including video report) – the amount of low-income applicants seeking help from Legal Services of Southern Missouri has risen by 20% in just one year.  And “[b]ecause of our funding we can’t help everyone,” according to the group’s executive director, who further notes that, “[w]e’re turning away a lot of people who are income eligible.”  This leads some low-income Missourians to take a do-it-yourself approach to resolving their legal problems.  Link to article.

• 1.16.10 – Chicago Public Radio – the business of Cook County’s Central Bond Court takes place at a frenzied pace, as judges, prosecutors, and defense counsel race through bond/bail hearings for newly charged defendants.  This very rapid spinning of the wheels of justice – an average hearing lasts 47 seconds – concerns some critics, who question how justice can be done with so little time devoted to many cases, and who also note that defendants’ fates vary considerably from judge to judge.  Link to story.

We blogged earlier about the New York Times blog post last Monday about a deferred Ropes & Gray associate who was spending a year at the Legal Aid Society in their housing practice. The young lawyer agreed to answer questions posted in the comment section, and his thoughtful answers appeared in the Times today.

Equal Justice Works just posted about a new Q&A resource from the U.S. Department of Education explaining how income-based repayment (IBR) works to help alleviate student loan debt. IBR is a critical part of the 2007 College Cost Reduction and Access Act, which also includes provisions for student loan forgiveness for people engaged in public service careers. You can learn more about IBR, CCRAA, and student loan management through Equal Justice Works’ resources (linked to in their post) and the resources on the PSLawNet Financing a Public Interest Career page.

The National Law Journal reported today that applications for federal clerkships went up over 60% in 2009. Another important trend noted was that over 50% of the applicants were law school graduates rather than students in their final year (up from just 18% in 2005). This is reflecting significant changes in how graduating students can pursue immediate post-grad opportunities, as well as shifts in what jobs currently employed (or recently laid-off) attorneys are seeking out. The article highlights the importance of networking and internships as ways to get your foot in the door – as judges are overwhelmed by the number of online applicants they are relying more and more on these traditional methods to hire their clerks.

The New York Times had a blog post yesterday about a deferred Ropes & Gray associate who has been working with the Legal Aid Society through a NYC Bar Association program. This post sparked an interesting comment thread, and the associate himself will be back to the blog to answer posted questions on Friday. We thought this was a good opportunity to share other coverage of deferred associates working with public interest organizations from this past year.

For more coverage of deferred associates and public interest placements, keep reading.

There has been a flurry of recent announcements about charitable foundation and government grants awarded to legal services providers:

1. According to a press release, the “…New York Bar Foundation today awarded four New York City-based legal aid organizations more than $528,000 in grant money to fund tenant screening training and outreach programs in neighborhoods across New York City. The funds were distributed as part of a $1.2 million cy pres class action settlement fund…”
2. A Legal Aid of North Carolina press release announced that the “Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation will continue its vital support for LANC by renewing a major grant of $450,000 for its Home Defense Project.
   The Home Defense Project (HDP) fights to save homes and reduce foreclosures in North Carolina. In North Carolina, home foreclosures are expected to exceed 50,000 in 2010.”
3. In Indiana, the Evansville Courier & Press has reported that “[t]he Indiana Supreme Court is providing $1.5 million to Legal Aid agencies in the state.  The first installment, $750,000, already has been given to 11 agencies…  The Indiana General Assembly appropriates funding for the Civil Legal Aid Fund, and the Indiana Supreme Court awards the grant money to qualified agencies across the state.  In its news release announcing the funds, the Supreme Court said it’s ‘committed to ensuring that individuals involved in civil matters also have access to attorneys’.”

You may or may not have heard about the Legal Aid boycott going on in Ontario for the last 6+ months. Criminal defense lawyers have refused to take case certificates (more on this later) for guns, gangs, and homicide cases to protest the low government-set billing rates. The boycott highlights the current economic struggles of legal aid and public defense programs in Canada, which are similar in many ways to those in the United States.

Learn more about the Canadian Legal Aid system and the ongoing boycott.