Fiscal health is a subject that is, for obvious reasons, of great importance to all law students. It bears even more importance for public interest law students, who must balance their passion for legal advocacy with a need to pay for an expensive legal education.

Today, the U.S News & World Report’s Student Loan Ranger blog, written by Equal Justice Works, tackled the feasibility of pursuing a public interest law career in the midst of low salaries, expensive loans and “Big Law” temptations:

…the Student Loan Ranger disagrees that a career in public interest law is not viable; particularly for lawyers who graduated over the last five years, a combination of Grad PLUS loans, income-driven repayment plans, and Public Service Loan Forgiveness has made a long-term public interest career more financially feasible than ever before.

Law students (and other graduate and professional students) interested in public interest careers should use Grad PLUS loans to cover what remains of their expenses after their grant aid and federal direct Stafford loans have been used up. This means they’ll only be using federal loans, which have important borrower protections and access to the full panoply of federal relief options.

Those options include income-driven repayment plans, including Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR), Income-Based Repayment (IBR), and Pay As You Earn. (The latter will be available December 21, thanks to early implementation by the Department of Education.)

IBR— the best option most law school graduates are eligible for—limits the amount borrowers pay monthly to 15 percent of their discretionary income.

Even better, ICR, IBR, and Pay As You Earn are qualifying repayment plans for Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), which provides forgiveness after 120 monthly payments (10 years’ worth) made while working full time at any of a broad range of qualifying jobs, including 501(c)(3) nonprofits and for federal, state, local, and tribal governments. The upshot is that attorneys dedicated to public interest careers can make 10 years’ worth of low monthly payments and then apply for forgiveness.

Click here to read the full article, and check out PSJD’s “Funding & Debt” section of the Resource Center to learn more about financing a public interest career.

Legal Services of the Hudson Valley (LSHV) is a Legal Services Corp.-chartered organization that serves the seven counties north of New York City. LSHV clients are typically at or below 200% of the poverty level, and they handle civil litigation primarily in the areas of homelessness prevention, disability rights, domestic violence, discrimination, education and public benefits.

LSHV is currently looking for a Disability Rights Staff Attorney in its White Plains office:

Legal Services of the Hudson Valley (LSHV) has an immediate opening in Westchester County for a full time, Disability staff attorney.  The attorney will serve low-income individuals and families living in Westchester County in matters ranging from discrimination under the ADA, Social Security and SSI Disability Claims, Medicaid, Eviction Prevention, and Protection and Advocacy for the Developmentally Disabled.

Duties of the Position:  individual case work, litigation in state and federal courts, and education and outreach efforts directed at community members, advocates and services providers.  The person hired will also be expected to adhere to program and case handling standards, funder requirements, the highest professional standards, and be available as a resource to all LSHV staff and access to justice communities.

LSHV would prefer applicants fluent in both English and Spanish. For more information, view the full job listing at PSJD.org (log-in required).

Northwest Immigrant Rights Project promotes justice for low-income immigrants by pursuing and defending their legal status. They focus on providing direct legal services, supported by education and public policy work. Founded in 1984, NWIRP’s roots were in addressing the legal needs of Central American refugees and others who were able to legalize their status under Amnesty programs, and they are currently looking for an Immigrant Youth Attorney for its office in Seattle, Washington.

From the PSJD job posting:

The Northwest Immigrant Rights Project (NWIRP) seeks a Spanish-speaking bilingual attorney to provide community outreach, education and direct representation to individuals eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and to provide other services to immigrant youth and their families.

RESPONSIBILITIES
• Coordinate community education events and workshops throughout Washington State with NWIRP staff;
• Conduct presentations, workshops, legal clinics and individual consultations in Spanish and English;
• Provide direct representation to persons applying for deferred action or other immigration benefits before US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS);
• Provide direct representation to persons in removal proceedings;
• Provide support to NWIRP staff on cases dealing with the impact of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
• Provide direct representation and other forms of legal assistance to individuals in other types of immigration matters;
• Perform administrative tasks related to grant reporting and other requirements;
• Participate in NWIRP’s outreach, community education and development efforts.

Successful applicants will be admitted to practice in any state, but NWIRP will also consider recent law graduates awaiting admission who have a demonstrated commitment to immigrant rights. The starting salary is $43,160 or DOE, plus health, dental and other benefits. For more information, view the full job listing at PSJD.org (log-in required)!

Did you miss last month’s educational debt webinars? If so, no worries – EJW is hosting one more webinar on managing student loan debt before the start of the new year! Check out more information below and register here.

Educational debt has become a crippling burden for far too many, and especially for those who want to pursue careers in public service. Equal Justice Works provides in depth information on loan repayment assistance programs and relief programs like Income-Based Repayment and Public Service Loan Forgiveness to help everyone pursue the career of their dreams.

Our new student debt eBook Take Control of Your Future received its first review in the Kindle Store and it got five stars! Please help us spread the word about this comprehensive guide to borrowing student loans, repayment and eligibility for relief programs like Public Service Loan Forgiveness. We go into the details borrowers need to understand and the exact steps they need to take to manage their educational debt and take control of their future.

We were also busy last month writing our U.S. News blog the Student Loan Ranger. We examined the effect of the fiscal cliff on student debt, looked at some new initiatives colleges are using to help students avoid debt  and, of course, examined President Obama’s new Pay As You Earn plan.

Eligible student loans borrowers will be able to enroll in Pay As You Earn starting December 21. The plan caps borrowers’ monthly student loan payments at 10 percent of their discretionary income and provides forgiveness for borrowers still repaying their loans after 20 years. Only borrowers who took out their first federal loan after Sept. 30, 2007 and received a loan after Sept. 30, 2011 are eligible. The Department expects the program to initially help 1.6 million borrowers when it takes effect.

Every month, our free, live webinars also provide a comprehensive overview of the debt relief options available for students and graduates – including Public Service Loan Forgiveness and Income-Based Repayment – and provide viewers with the opportunity to ask questions. Click here to view a schedule of our webinars and to register for an upcoming session.

Our current sessions include:

Drowning in Debt? Learn How Government and Nonprofit Workers Can Earn Public Service Loan Forgiveness

Tuesday, December 18, 3-4 p.m. EST

A must attend for anyone with educational debt planning to work or currently working for the government or a nonprofit, this webinar explains how you can benefit from the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, the most significant law affecting public service in a generation.

This webinar will teach you how to:

    – Understand your federal loans

    – Manage your monthly payments using income-driven repayment plans like Income-Based Repayment plan

    – How to qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness

The Family Defense Center’s mission is to advocate justice for families in the child welfare system. It advocates for families threatened with losing their children to foster care, which many child protection systems frequently do as a first resort instead of a final resort. Many families lose custody because of financial issues or because they are victims of abuse themselves, and the FDC is the first legal advocacy organization of its kind to provide high-level systemic advocacy and grassroots activities for families treated unfairly by state child protection agencies.

The FDC is currently looking for a staff attorney to join its office in Chicago. From the PSJD job listing:

A staff attorney at the FDC has primary responsibility for handling a caseload of 15-25 individual client cases at various stages of child protection proceedings (pending investigations, negotiations, expungement appeals, and juvenile court cases); co-counseling with and supervising attorneys in major law firms who handle referred cases pro-bono; co-counseling affirmative civil rights cases in addition to handling a regular caseload; supervising and managing the work of law clerks and paralegals on the FDC’s staff, assisting the Executive Director in researching, writing, and drafting briefs and memoranda as assigned in major cases (in addition to performing such tasks in the attorney’s own caseload) and assisting other staff on an as-needed basis to cover cases accepted in the office; assisting in development of training materials and self help materials for FDC programs; developing legislative proposals and materials as the FDC expands its legislative policy work; and representing the FDC in relevant bar association activities.

Starting salary for 2012 graduates will be $45,000. The deadline to apply is January 2, 2013. For more information on qualifications and application instructions, view the full job listing at PSJD.org (log-in required).

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, folks.  This week’s bulletin comes to you from Chicago, where I’m attending the National Legal Aid & Defender Association’s annual conference.  Before the public interest and access to justice news, here are two interesting legal-education developments:

• 12.4.12 – another law school creates a hang-your-shingle incubator – Shincubator? Well, perhaps not – for recent grads: “The Cleveland-Marshall College of Law is the latest to announce plans for a solo incubator. The school will spend approximately $1.2 million to create a suite of offices in its library for rental at low prices to recent graduates launching their own practices.  Solo incubators are widely seen as a way for schools to help graduates establish practices at a time when law firm hiring has slowed. Around 10 such programs have been created at schools including the City University of New York School of Law; Thomas Jefferson School of Law; Chicago-Kent College of Law; the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law; the University of Maryland School of Law; and Pace Law School.”  (Full story from the National Law Journal.)
• 12.3.12 – news of a “proposal backed by all three Arizona law schools to allow 3Ls to sit for the bar during the February before they graduate, rather than making them wait until after graduation. The Arizona Supreme Court is slated to consider the proposal on December 5. If the court approves, Arizona would be the only state that allows students to take the bar exam midway through their final school year.”  (Full story from the National Law Journal.)

The week in public interest and access-to-justice – short version:

• pushing for higher prosecutor and defender salaries in FL;
• pro bono can pay;
• Legal Services of Eastern Missouri wrestles with high caseloads;
• King County (Seattle) public defense controversy;
• the long-running Missouri public defense controversy continues;
• a report from NY’s access-to-justice task force;
• the importance of legal aid for tenants facing eviction;
• how do Presidential Management Fellows feel about the PMF program?;
• a labor-law win for a law school clinic;
• NLADA launches new legal aid research site;
• Chicago Music Bonus!

The summaries:

• 12.7.12 – “Representatives of state attorneys and public defenders began making a renewed case Thursday for increasing salaries, saying low pay causes many attorneys to leave for private law firms after only a few years. Bill Eddins, state attorney for the 1st Judicial Circuit of Florida (which includes Escambia and Santa Rosa counties) and  president of the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association, told a Senate panel that high turnover is reducing the number of experienced prosecutors.”  (Story from NorthEscambia.com.  And here’s more from the Florida Times-Union.)

• 12.6.12 – a Purpose Prize for the retired lawyer who did pro bono foreclosure defense work and sniffed out the “robo-signing” practice (which led to tens of millions of funding dollars for the legal services community): “[In] April 2008, Cox joined Pine Tree Legal Assistance and began representing consumers fighting foreclosures. In 2009, while representing Nicolle Bradbury, Cox discovered that a GMAC Mortgage official was signing thousands of foreclosure affidavits in 23 states, though he had not verified their accuracy. Cox won the case but the impact was more widespread. His findings helped spur 49 of 50 state attorneys general to sue the five biggest mortgage servicers for fraudulent foreclosure practices, leading to a $25 billion settlement.”  (Story from the ABA Journal.)

• 12.5.12 – from the Missourian: “Legal Services of Eastern Missouri (LSEM) has experienced budget cuts, followed by the loss of grant funding, yet continues to assist an increasing number of clients.”

• 12.5.12 – “The leaders of King County’s four public defense agencies today sent a letter to Metropolitan King County Council President Larry Gossett and Councilmember Kathy Lambert, who heads the council’s Law, Justice, Health and Human Services Committee, to voice opposition to a county plan that would dissolve the independent agencies and make public defenders county employees.  Last week, David Chapman, who heads the King County Office of Public Defense, announced that nearly 400 employees of the four agencies — The Defender Association, Society of Counsel Representing Accused Persons, Associated Counsel for the Accused and Northwest Defenders Association — could potentially become King County employees by July 1. Chapman’s office assigns cases to the four firms, dividing the nearly $40 million per year the county spends on public defense.  The proposal for the county to hire the public defenders stems from a lawsuit filed in 2006 against the county by Kevin Dolan, a public defender at the Associated Council for the Accused. Dolan said he filed the lawsuit on behalf of employees of the four defender groups who sought enrollment in the county’s retirement system. Since the 1960s, King County has contracted public defense services from the non-profit firms.”  (Full blog post from the Seattle Times.)

• 12.4.12 – from the News-Tribune: “The Missouri public defender system says it is easing off its caseload limits that have led to disagreements over whether they have the time and resources to represent some criminal defendants.  Public defender director Cat Kelly said Tuesday she has instructed local public defender offices to treat the caseload limits with more flexibility. The move has the approval of the Public Defender Commission.”   The Fulton Sun reports that “Missouri public defenders have decided to resume taking indigent cases after Missouri prosecutors last Wednesday threatened to sue the Missouri Public Defender System…. Cathy R. Kelly, director of the Office of State Public Defender, said the decision to resume taking indigent cases came before the lawsuit was threatened by prosecutors last Wednesday.”

• 12.3.12 – “Calling the unmet need for civil legal services among indigent New Yorkers a “continuing crisis,” a new report says increased state funding and greater collaboration is needed between law schools, legal aid providers and law firms.  At best, 20 percent of the demand for civil legal services is being met, leaving more than 2.3 million New Yorkers without representation each year, according to the report, released Friday by the Task Force to Expand Access to Civil Legal Services.”  (Full article from Thomson Reuters.  And here’s the task force’s report.)

• 11.30.12 – an op-ed on the importance of  tenants in eviction court having access to legal services: “Millions of Americans face eviction every year. But legal aid to the poor, steadily starved since the Reagan years, has been decimated during the recession. The result? In many housing courts around the country, 90 percent of landlords are represented by attorneys and 90 percent of tenants are not. This imbalance of power is as unfair as the solution is clear.”  (Full piece in the New York Times.)

• 11.30.12 – Presidential Management Fellows are happy with their first days on the job but believe agency supervisors and program coordinators could provide better guidance and mentoring, according to a new study.  Overall job satisfaction among the class of 2011 fellows who participated in a study conducted by the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service scored 72.7 points out of 100 points. The study, which included the views of 274 new fellows gathered from November 2011 to December 2011, found that PMFs like and respect their bosses, have realistic expectations of the program and are committed to public service. In particular, fellows who thought their first job assignment matched their skill level and took into account their developmental needs tended to rate the overall program more positively. The class of 2011 includes 420 fellows who work on various assignments in different agencies for two years.”  (Full article on the Government Executive website.)

• 11.27.12 – a labor law win for a law-school clinic. “Eighteen current and former employees of a Long Beach hotel have reached a $130,000 settlement over the denial of meal and rest breaks required by California law, attorneys for the workers announced Tuesday.  The settlement with HEI Hotels and Resorts arose from claims filed with the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement by employees of the Hilton Long Beach and Executive Meeting Center, which has been owned and managed by HEI since 2005…. The 18 current and former employees were represented by the UC Irvine School of Law-Immigrant Rights Clinic and Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center.” (Story from the San Jose Mercury-News.)

• NLADA has launched the Civil Legal Aid Research site to “make existing research easily accessible and understandable to busy administrators and lawyers within civil legal aid programs. Therefore, NLADA has created this blog-database that captures the information about successful evidence-based practices and the results of research and posts those findings in an easily accessible web-based format.  In order to support state justice systems and civil legal aid programs in increasing their efficiency and effectiveness, NLADA will share existing and newly determined evidence-based practices with other programs to match their service delivery to those evidence-based practices that have shown most promise to maximize fair and justice results for clients. State justice systems and programs will then be able to focus their resources more effectively and support qualitative, in addition to the already widely done quantitative, assessment of outcomes to further test and tweak these practices.

• Music!  Chicago has me thinking about the electric blues and that has me thinking about Muddy Waters.

Inner City Law Center (ICLC) is the only provider of legal services on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles, California. The nonprofit law firm combats slum housing while developing strategies to end homelessness. ICLC’s main projects include housing litigation, homelessness prevention, housing policy and the Homeless Veterans Project.

From the PSJD job listing:

ICLC is currently searching for a full-time Staff Attorney in our Homelessness Prevention Project focusing on eviction defense litigation.  This position is part of a pilot program where ICLC represents low-income parties in eviction defense cases under the Sargent Shriver Civil Counsel Act (California Government Code Section 68650 et seq.).  The pilot program is designed to ensure unrepresented parties in certain civil cases affecting housing, a basic human need, have meaningful access to justice and to address substantial inequities that can result when parties cannot afford the cost of retaining a lawyer.  The Staff Attorney will provide legal counsel, advice, and representation to low-income individuals facing eviction, and will work with an eviction defense team including attorneys and paralegals handling caseloads related to unlawful detainer (eviction) matters.  In addition to carrying their own case load, the Staff Attorney will also work closely with volunteer attorneys from private law firms who are providing pro bono representation to clients facing eviction.  This includes case assessment, litigation and advocacy on behalf of our clients seeking to avoid eviction and homelessness.

Essential duties and responsibilities include:  Interviewing clients, negotiations with opposing counsel, discovery, motions, unlawful detainer trials and possible appellate work.  Reviewing documents to identify and assess various legal issues, negotiating and advocating on behalf of clients, drafting, reviewing, editing and preparing pleadings, briefs, correspondence, and discovery requests and responses, representing clients at mediations and settlement conferences.  Other duties may be assigned.

Successful applicants will be members of the California bar. Experience in litigation or housing law including eviction defense is preferred but not required. For more information, view the full job listing at PSJD.org (log-in required)!

Spread the word!  The final deadline on our 2012 Public Interest Employment Market Snapshot Survey is tomorrow, on December 7, 2012. U.S.-based nonprofit and government law offices should participate in this unique survey effort to assess the status of the current public interest legal employment market. Here’s more info and a link to the online survey:

The National Association for Law Placement (NALP) is conducting a brief, anonymous survey of U.S.-based nonprofit and government public-interest law offices about 1) recent law student and attorney hiring and 2) hiring expectations for the immediate future. We will use the data to produce a report about what the public interest employment market looks like now and how it may change in the near future.

NALP will release the report in January 2013. The report will be made freely available online. The report will NOT identify any responding organizations by name. We hope the report will benefit the public interest legal community as well as law students and attorneys who are on public interest career paths.  Please participate in the short survey by clicking here.  The (new) survey deadline is Friday, 12/7/12.  If you have questions please contact Steve Grumm, NALP’s director of public service initiatives, at sgrumm@nalp.org or 202.296.0057.

North Carolina Central University School of Law’s Success and Careers blog recently featured a guest post from Tara Rethore on leveraging social media to manage your law career. If her name sounds familiar, it’s may be because Rethore did a well-received presentation at this year’s Equal Justice Works Conference called “Social Media Tools for Public Interest Law Professionals“. If you missed it, no worries – check out a sampling of her tips on how to use social media as an effective job searching tool:

Everyone looks for a job – at least once – and it can be frustrating! Lately, new tools and technology have changed the look and feel of job search. Nevertheless, whether you have searched in this century or the last one, the fundamentals of job search remain the same:

• Tell a compelling story – résumé and positioning statements are just the start
• Fit with the organization’s culture – if it isn’t right, it isn’t right!
• Interact with and engage with others – real people take decisions, not technology

That said, social media offers new – and potentially, very powerful – tools for managing your law career. It’s also an opportunity for employers to learn more about you, perhaps in ways you never intended. For some, that means rethinking how you use social media. For others, it means rethinking how you manage your career.

How? Be strategic. Be smart.

Be Strategic:

There are many online tools to support your job search. Some are akin to job boards – essentially, online classified ads that let you search for specific opportunities (e.g. Monster, Indeed.com, CareerBuilder). Other tools emphasize interactive or social connections (e.g. YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google+); these can also be incredibly useful for job search – but only if you use them strategically:

• Choose what you use – Which site is best for your preferred career?
• Know why you are using it – What’s your objective? How will you leverage this tool?
• Stay on message – What do your profile and interactions say about your qualifications?

…

Be Smart:

In any job search, be proactive rather than waiting for jobs to come to you. That requires connecting with real people. During a job search, how and why you connect also matters. With social media, your choices become far more visible to prospective employers. It also creates opportunities to show your interest and highlight your expertise. Five steps to connect with others effectively, particularly on LinkedIn:

Be mindful of the image you present above the fold (Click ‘Profile’ to edit or view)

• Ensure your tag line, the information in the grey box, and summary reflect your positioning statement
• Update your status at least weekly – be professional and target your audience
• Worry less about chronology – be truthful, but your LinkedIn profile must be more than an online resume
• Adjust sections to highlight your most important attributes – for your next job

To read the full article, visit NCCU Law’s Success and Careers blog.

Do you have an interest in both non-profit organizations and technology? These two don’t overlap often, but – luckily for techie-turned-law-students – they have. The Wikimedia Foundation’s Office of General Counsel is looking for summer interns to help encourage the growth, development and distribution of free digital content, and to continue providing the full content of these wiki-projects to the public free of charge.

From the PSJD job posting:

The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization that runs Wikipedia and other free knowledge projects, is looking for legal interns for Summer 2013! The Office of the General Counsel runs a legal internship program to educate and train promising law students or recent graduates in the areas of Internet law and free knowledge organizations. The interns would work 40 hours per week at the Wikimedia Foundation’s downtown San Francisco office.

The Wikimedia Foundation faces a multitude of legal issues ranging from complex copyright questions to international freedom of speech issues to mobile development to internal corporate compliance. Because of the wide array of legal issues, the interns will be assigned challenging projects based on their particular interests and strengths. These projects could range from researching a particular legal question to drafting licensing agreements to developing internal and external policies. Each intern will receive individualized projects that they will be expected to spearhead under the supervision and guidance of an attorney from the Office of the General Counsel. Interns will work closely with their supervising attorney — attending and participating in internal and external meetings, collaborating on projects, receiving feedback and support, and generally learning about the practical dimensions of practicing law in-house at a web-based company.

Wikimedia is seeking applicants with an interest in free culture issues, open source software and Creative Commons licensing. Successful applicants will also demonstrate experience working with large online user communities and coursework in internet law, freedom of speech and contracts, among others. For more information on application instructions, qualifications and salary, view the full listing at PSJD.org (log-in required)!