National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) is a non-profit, civil rights, media advocacy organization, whose mission is to improve the image of American Latinos as portrayed by the media, enhance employment equity in the media industry, and advocate for media and telecommunications policies that benefit Latinos and other people of color.

NHMC is seeking a legal intern for the Spring 2012 semester. Interns will have the opportunity to build their legal research and writing skills, and draft administrative filings under the supervision of a former Georgetown Law clinical fellow who is now NHMC’s Vice President of Policy & Legal Affairs.

Interested? See the listing at PSLawNet!

by Kristen Pavón

With law firms cutting back on the size of their incoming associate classes and a new article from the National Law Journal that, with brutal numbers, details drastic reductions in federal entry-level attorney hiring, we are scratching our heads and wondering — where will all the new attorneys go?

Federal honors programs are a great way for new law grads to really sink their teeth into substantive legal work and even gain some expertise in an area. The federal government offers flexibility, mentoring and a variety of opportunities.

For honors lawyers who decide to jump into private practice, opportunities abound, said legal recruiter Cynthia Sitcov of Washington’s Sitcov Director. ‘Coming from an honors program, especially DOJ, is an excellent credential to have,’ she said. Firms appreciate ‘the insider perspective, the training and the fact that you have to be really good to get an honors program job in the first place.’

Here are the Department of Justice honors program stats. Let me warn you, the numbers are not pretty.

Dep’t of Justice (the largest employer of lawyers in the nation)

• 2010: Hired 211 honors attorneys
• 2011: Hired 165 honors attorneys (Almost a 22% decrease)
• 2012: Will hire between 70-80 honors attorneys (Almost a 58% decrease from 2011, and a 67% decrease from 2010!)

Many federal agencies are following suit, including the Internal Revenue Service, Office of Chief Counsel (will only hire from those who worked for the agency over the summer) and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (their program is  on hold completely).

There is a glimmer of hope however. A few agencies are hosting new or reinstated honors programs — the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Department of Energy, and the Federal Communications Commission.

In addition to hiring cuts, fiercer competition is  to blame for making the path to a federal job tougher.

Statistics from the [University of Arizona] Honor handbook gives a sense of just how competitive the hiring process has become. In 2010, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, for example, hired six new lawyers our of 2,000 applicant; the Department of Urban Development and Housing selected 25 out of 1,100; and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission picked five out of 1,400.

So where do soon-to-be law grads go from here?

In addition to thinking outside the box in terms of legal careers, it’s more important than ever that law students know what employers are looking for — especially when applying for a government job because their hiring practices are less predictable than those of law firms.

Here are a few landing-the-job tips from the head of the Bureau of Competition at the Federal Trade Commission and the director of DOJ’s Office of Attorney Recruitment and Management.

• A demonstrated interest in the agency’s area of law
• A commitment to public service
• Enthusiasm
• A foreign language is a plus
• Internships or other experience in the agency’s area of law

Interestingly, law school rankings are not so important — at least to the DOJ.

So, really — Where will all the new attorneys go?

by Kristen Pavón

I’ve been a bit quiet on the Internets today, and here’s why!

Fortune’s Most Powerful WomenVirtual Summit 2011 (you can still register) is going on today and tomorrow, and there are lots of great interviews and sessions with incredible women leaders.

I listened in on a session called “Your Network for Social Good” with Gerri Elliott, Executive Vice President and Chief Sales Officer of Juniper; Cheryl Fields Tyler, board member for Not for Sale; and Alyse Nelson, co-founder, president and CEO of Vital Voices Global Partnership.

The panelists focused on how technology can further non-profits’ missions and take their efforts to another level.

Here are a few of my notes from the program:

1. The online social network has become important for businesses in general but the person-to-person network is still important and should not be neglected.

2. Technology has allowed non-profits to give the community tools for education (the example that was given was Not for Sale’s online SlaveryMap that shows users where in the world reports of trafficking have occurred).

3. Technology and social media have created a global network that enables users to learn best practices from other users across the world.

4. Non-profits are just beginning to scratch the surface in terms integrating technology into their goals and missions.

How are legal-related non-profits using technology? I want to know!

by Kristen Pavón

Huffington Post’s Matthew Fraidin suggests that part of the D.C. Council’s $89 million surplus go to funding more legal aid.

With Alecia Wheeler’s story as a tragic reminder, Fraidin recognized the tremendous “bang legal services lawyers provide for every buck” and how public interest lawyers could help save lives.

In domestic violence cases, the litigants’ testimony often is the primary source of information for the judge. Without a lawyer asking questions sequentially and with the goal of eliciting answers which amount to a legally-cognizable complaint, a story may emerge incompletely and disjointedly. Facts which may be of great importance to the complainant may be of limited significance under the law, or the judge may misperceive their true meaning. . . .

And many litigants are not aware of the importance of marshaling additional corroborating evidence, such as witness testimony, telephone records, police reports, hospital records, and 911 telephone recordings. For a woman fleeing or hiding from a batterer, especially if she is trying to care for children at the same time, building an air-tight case on her own is simply unrealistic.

That is where a lawyer comes in. The District of Columbia is fortunate to have a strong community of committed anti-domestic violence advocates and legal services lawyers. We get that stellar service on the cheap: salaries for legal services lawyers start at about $40,000. And those resources are complemented by top-flight student law clinics, as well as pro bono lawyers affiliated with the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program.

But nearly 4,500 people, mostly women, seek stay-away orders each year in the District of Columbia. Using the Access to Justice Commission’s estimate that 98% of litigants are unrepresented, that is too many chances for even the most careful judges to get it wrong.

As Council members weigh the many funding priorities competing for a piece of the $89 million pie, they should recognize the bang legal services lawyers provide for every buck. Studies show that legal aid more than pays for itself. Even more to the point, domestic violence lawyers make women safer by using legal avenues, such as child support actions, that reduce a victim’s financial dependence on a batterer and eliminate one obstacle to ending a dangerous relationship.

Read the rest of the article here.

by Kristen Pavón

With serious fourth amendment concerns surrounding Florida’s law requiring drug testing for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) applicants, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida, on behalf of a Navy veteran, challenged the law earlier this month.

Yesterday, a federal judge held off on ruling whether to grant an injunction against the Department of Children and Families, the agency charged with performing the drug testing. For now, the law still stands.

The 35-year-old Navy veteran and father of a 4-year-old son, applied to Florida’s TANF this year. “He met all of the program’s eligibility requirements but was denied assistance after he refused to take the drug test as required by a law that took effect in July. He then sued the department, DCF.”

The Florida American Civil Liberties Union contends Lebron (the plaintiff) and other welfare applicants are being forced to forfeit their constitutional right against unreasonable search and seizure by submitting to the drug testing. They argued that the program has been in existence since 1996 and never required the test before.

A similar state law in Michigan requiring drug testing for welfare applicants was struck down in 2003. The federal appellate court that issued that ruling said it violated citizens’ constitutional rights against unreasonable search and seizure.

ACLU attorney Maria Kayanan – Lebron’s lead counsel – told the judge in the Orlando courtroom Monday that the Florida law creates a “Fourth-Amendment-free zone.”

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. Read the rest of the story at the Miami Herald.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/kristenpavon

By: Steve Grumm

I came across a good Washington Post piece about how email can exert unwarranted control over our workday (and our mindset) by distracting us and sidetracking our planned work tasks.  The author, Chris Anderson, writes about beginning his day by reading three emails, the subjects of which, while hardly spam, were also hardly on his radar screen when he logged in:

These e-mails have nothing in common — except for the fact that none of their issues had been on my agenda that morning. I don’t even know one of the senders. But although it took only a few minutes to read these notes, I suddenly feel pressure to develop coherent thoughts on complex questions regarding someone else’s business enterprise, office politics and world peace.

It’s barely 8 a.m., and I’m already drowning in e-mail. In the blink of an eye, my day’s priorities have been commandeered. And more missives keep pouring in, including tweets, Google Plus notifications, Facebook status updates and instant messages. It’s essentially a fire hose of information all day long….

This rings true to me.  And I have just enough of a pleaser living inside me that I can too easily drop a time-sensitive, involved project to think ten minutes about a completely random email inquiry from someone I haven’t spoken with in months.

Anderson’s solution: we should consider the principles of the Email Charter – 10 Rules to Reverse the Email Spiral.  Give it  a read…

by Kristen Pavón

In June, the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano created a task force to address how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) could improve the Secure Communities Program, its joint immigration initiative with federal immigration authorities and state and local law enforcement agencies.

Last week, DHS approved the task force’s findings and recommendations report. Many of the findings do not come as a surprise. Regardless, here are a few of the major findings:

1. There is a lot of confusion about the Secure Communities Program, including its goals, how it works and each agency’s role in the program, among those who are charged with enforcing it.

2. Minor offenders and non-criminals have been arrested and deported as a result of the Secure Communities Program, which reveals a disconnect between the articulated focus of the program (dangerous offenders and individuals who pose a national security threat) and the on-the-ground enforcement of it.

3. Current civil rights violations/abuse complaint procedure are inadequate.

The task force made various recommendations, some are specific but most are general. Here are a few of the highlights:

1. Reaffirm the enforcement hierarchy, which at the top includes individuals who post a national security threat or a threat to public safety.

2. Streamline policies and training for consistency in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion, the understanding of the program and the enforcement of the program.

3. Monitor participating agencies more closely.

4. Ensure crime and  domestic violence victims are protected from unwarranted “immigration enforcement actions.”

5. Complaint processes should be meaningful, accessible and confidential.

Check out all the findings and recommendations here.

Thoughts?

Business and Professional People for the Public Interest (BPI), a Chicago-based public interest law and policy center that addresses compelling issues of social justice and quality of life in the Chicago region, is hiring interns for the summer of 2012.

BPI’s staff of lawyers and policy specialists works to increase the availability of affordable housing for working families, transform segregated public housing, improve Chicago’s public schools, and help restore open, honest, responsible, and accountable government in our state using a wide variety of approaches, including legal and policy research, advocacy, organizing, litigation and collaboration with non-profit, business, community and governmental organizations.
Interns work closely with our staff on important public interest projects in BPI’s program groups: affordable housing, public housing, public education, and political reform.

Interns receive excellent supervision and mentorship, the opportunity to contribute directly to solving pressing policy issues, and the chance to learn more about Chicago’s ever growing public interest community.

1Ls, 2Ls, and 3Ls are encouraged to apply. BPI is frequently able to offer summer funding assistance to legal interns through the Public Interest Law Initiative (PILI) program. PILI provides funding for law students to work at various public interest legal organizations in Chicago.

To apply or learn more about the position, see the listing at PSLawNet!

by Kristen Pavón

Today, the NY Times featured an article detailing how tougher sentencing laws have provided prosecutors with greater discretion to “extract guilty pleas from defendants” through plea bargaining, the practice of which, in many states, has become coercive and led to a significant drop in felony trials nationwide.

Some experts say the process has become coercive in many state and federal jurisdictions, forcing defendants to weigh their options based on the relative risks of facing a judge and jury rather than simple matters of guilt or innocence. In effect, prosecutors are giving defendants more reasons to avoid having their day in court.

A Florida case is highlighted as a stark example of the harsh consequences of plea bargaining.

After Mr. Guthrie, 24, was arrested here last year, accused of beating his girlfriend and threatening her with a knife, the prosecutor offered him a deal for two years in prison plus probation.

Mr. Guthrie rejected that, and a later offer of five years, because he believed that he was not guilty, his lawyer said. But the prosecutor’s response was severe: he filed a more serious charge that would mean life imprisonment if Mr. Guthrie is convicted later this year.

Because of a state law that increased punishments for people who had recently been in prison, like Mr. Guthrie, the sentence would be mandatory. So what he could have resolved for a two-year term could keep him locked up for 50 years or more. . . .

Before new sentencing laws, the gap was narrower, and trials less risky, veteran lawyers here say. The first thing Denis deVlaming, a prominent Florida criminal defense lawyer, does with a new client is pull out a calculator to tally all the additional punishments the prosecutor can add to figure the likely sentence if the client is convicted at trial.

“They think I’m ready to charge them a fee, but I’m not,” he said. “I tell them in Florida, it’s justice by mathematics.”

No matter how strongly defendants believe they are innocent, he said, they could be taking dangerous risks by, for example, turning down a one-year plea bargain when the prosecutor threatens additional charges that carry a mandatory sentence 10 times as long.

This piece was a great reminder of how broad access to justice issues really are. Lately, our focus has been on access to courts and effective representation in civil legal matters. However, this article highlights that similar issues are present in the criminal arena as well.

Read the entire article here.

Any thoughts?

by Kristen Pavón

Here’s a healthy dose of weird news to end your workweek.

Restaurants in Wisconsin are prohibited from selling margarine as a replacement to butter, and other strange laws.

Southern Alabama offering offenders two choices: jail and pay or go to church ever Sunday for a year.

Woman sued Nutella for false advertising — she was led to believe the chocolatey goodness was nutritious.

Second-degree misdemeanors for your fantasy football league?

Have a fun and safe weekend!