By: Steve Grumm

Catholic Law just hired Kirland & Ellis’s DC-office managing partner as its new dean.  Brooklyn Law did something similar recently.  It’s only two hires, but it’s interesting to wonder whether pressures on the law-school business model will lead to more schools bringing in deans who’ve got law practice management skills.  Here’s the latest from the National Law Journal:

For the second time in the past year, a law school has tapped a new dean directly out of private practice. 

The Catholic University of America on November 27 named Daniel Attridge as the future dean of its Columbus School of Law. Attridge has been the managing partner of Kirkland & Ellis’ Washington office since 1998.

In March, Brooklyn Law School chose Nicholas Allard, then chairman of Patton Boggs’ lobbying, political and election law practice, as its new dean. Leaders at Saint Louis University also named local trial lawyer Tom Keefe Jr. as dean in August, but only on an interim basis.

Attridge’s appointment could signal an increased willingness among university and law school leaders to look beyond the scope of academia, politics and the bench for dean candidates, particularly at a time when the traditional law school business model is under enormous pressure. Catholic University President John Garvey, who previously headed Boston College Law School, said that Attridge will bring something different to the table.

There are just over 200 ABA-accredited schools.  And, again, these are just two hires.  But it’s still worth considering whether schools will look to lawyers with law-practice management skills as they choose current deans’ successors.

We’ve just posted several attorney listings from the Illinois attorney general’s office – in both her Chicago and Springfield branch offices.  Go to PSJD to check them all out (login required), but here’s one teaser:

Assistant Attorney General – Environmental Crime

The Environmental Crimes Bureau is seeking candidates for the position of Assistant Attorney General. Responsibilities include the investigation and prosecution of environmental crimes in state court. Interested candidates must be able to work closely with local, state, and federal environmental agencies, as well as local and state police. Specific duties include: conducting all aspects of criminal prosecution, including case management, legal research, drafting and arguing motions, preparing witnesses for testimony before the grand jury and all phases of the criminal trial process to include jury selection, opening statements, witness preparation, witness examination, cross-examination, and closing arguments.

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View the full listing on PSJD.

Please spread the word.  We’ve extended the deadline on our 2012 Public Interest Employment Market Snapshot Survey.  The new response deadline is Friday, 12/7.  U.S.-based nonprofit and government law offices should participate in this unique survey effort.  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.

Interested in Con Law? Interested in helping high-school students to learn about Con Law and civics principles?  Here’s a great summer 2013 opportunity.

Street Law, Inc. is an international leader in programs that teach non-lawyers about law, democracy and human rights.  Founded in 1972 at Georgetown University Law Center, Street Law has helped more than 100 law schools (70 in the U.S. and 30 more around the world) develop and implement programs in which law students teach practical law in schools, communities and correctional settings.  Street Law has also worked with democratizing countries throughout the world.  Information about the organization’s programs and materials are available online at www.streetlaw.org.

There are several components to the Summer Law Student in Residence Program for 2013.  There will be sufficient work for one law student in the summer of 2013.

US Supreme Court Summer Institute

Street Law, in cooperation with the Supreme Court Historical Society, conducts two six day institutes in late June about the Court and its cases for high school government, civics and law teachers.  Sessions are held at Georgetown Law Center and at the Supreme Court of the United States.  Our law student assists in the development of the materials for the institute, participates in all sessions, helps teach one session, and assists with the institute follow-up.  A justice participates in each of the two institutes. Street Law staff and participants are also in Court for the announcement of the final cases of the term. (www.streetlaw.org/scipage.html)

Legal Updates to Street Law Web Sites

Street Law has produced a high school curriculum (Street Law: A Course in Practical Law) which is the most popular practical law book used in high schools today. We will be providing a legal update to the web materials that complement the 8^th edition of the text (2010 edition).

In addition, Street Law has developed a popular web site for high school teachers and students who want to learn about Supreme Court decisions mandated in state history and social studies standards.  Our summer law student in residence will assist in expanding and updating this web resource, www.landmarkcases.org.

Our law student will assist with research, writing and editing tasks.

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View the full job listing on PSJD (login required).

Interested in climbing the government career ladder?  From the FCW website, here are insights from a group of distinguished management and public policy professionals who interact with government workforces.  Empasis is placed on career mobility (but not serial job-jumping so that it looks like you can’t stay anywhere too long), developing leadership skills, and viewing a career as a lifelong learning opportunity.

This is geared toward folks in government but the advice is great for anybody looking to develop leadership skills.

With information on everything from postgraduate fellowships to student loans, PSJD’s Resource Center is full of helpful materials to guide your path to a public interest law career. If you’re just beginning the internship or job hunt, the Career Central page is a great place to start!

Figure out the basics of why you want to practice public interest law with Harvard Law’s Career Search Self-Assessment. Get tips on cover letters, resumes, and networking. Check out the Public Interest Career Fair Calendar for upcoming dates. If you’re interested in criminal law, browse PSJD’s Careers in Public Defense and/or Careers in Criminal Prosecution guides. We’ve also recently added a variety of specialty guides, also produced by Harvard Law, on practice areas ranging from conservative public interest law to LGBT Rights law, just to name a few.

All of these guides and more are available on the Career Central page in PSJD’s Resource Center!

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, ladies and gents.  I hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving, and that you’re able to spend the next few days eating leftover turkey and/or vegetarian/vegan turkey-like food products.  And stuffing.  Man, I love stuffing.  (Or “dressing”, if you’re a weirdo and are inclined to call it that.)  Earlier this week, I began taking inventory of all for which I am thankful.  Early in this process, the same thought again and again returned to me.  I wrote it down: “I count the many things I’m thankful for and realize that to be thankful is, in itself, a great privilege.”  Which is to say that, in light of all the people, ideas, and things that enrich me every day, it is truly my pleasure to stop, appreciate them, and feel a sense of humbled gratitude.  I am so, so fortunate.  Many of us are.  We should appreciate this fact more than once a year.  But once a year is a good start.

Yesterday’s Washington Post featured a terrific piece on my favorite Philadelphian, Benjamin Franklin.  Historian Walter Isaacson notes that Franklin exhibited both “strands” that make up our national character: the lover of individual liberty, and the community-builder.  (Isaacson didn’t quite get to this metaphor, but I began to see them as the two strands in the double helix of American DNA.)  Franklin’s work ethic, entrepreneurship, and boundless curiosity propelled him to individual success in commerce.  But his civic-mindedness was equally unbounded.   He launched innumerable civic and commercial programs, and was generous in his charitable giving.  Franklin believed in the power of community.

This piece helped me to understand how fortunate I am to be a part of the larger access-to-justice community, which counts among its members those from public interest organizations, law schools, law firms, and other groups.  For most of my professional life I have been able to learn and grow because of the access-to-justice community’s generosity and spirit of fellowship.  So I’d like to thank all of you, professional colleagues and collaborators, advocates, students, and clients, from whom I have taken so much.  It is truly a pleasure to try to repay those debts in the meager ways I do.

Before the bulletin, an important bit of NALP news, and a request for a (simple) favor from me:

• NALP has just release research findings on law-school “bridge-to-practice” programs, which fund recent graduates to gain work experience in short-term placements while the grads search for long-term employment.  These programs have of course grown in number and size in the recession’s wake.  Notably, within our response pool 48% of the bridge-to-practice placements were with public interest organizations, and another 30% were in government.  One wonders what impact the growth in these school-funded programs has had on hiring for full-time positions within the nonprofit and government legal community.  Here’s a report on some of the research’s key findings.
• If you have not yet circulated our 2012 public interest job market snapshot survey to your contacts, please do.  The survey response deadline is Friday, 11/30.  We need your support to make this unique and important survey effort a success.  Here are details and survey link.  Thanks!

This week’s public interest news in very, very short:

• JALA says, “We have a new ED!”
• NYSBA says, “More legal help for vets!”
• ACC says, “More flexibility for in-house counsel to do pro bono!”
• ABA law school accreditation committee says, “No mandatory pro bono!”
• Harvard’s public interest dean says, “The public interest job search is unlike the law-firm job search!”
• Music!

The summaries:

• 11.21.12 – “Jacksonville Area Legal Aid has named attorney James Kowalski Jr. as executive director, replacing Michael Figgins, who resigned in January to become the executive director of Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma.”  While this is the case for most legal services executive directors today, Kowalski is walking into a tough gig.  JALA has experienced a big funding decline and has laid off attorneys, as the Jacksonville Daily Record piece documents.

• 11.20.12 – in a press release, “The New York State Bar Association Tuesday called for providing veterans of the U.S. military with better access to quality legal services. It also recommended the creation of more specialized veterans courts, such as the successful Veterans Treatment Court in Buffalo, the first of its kind in the nation.”

• 11.19.12 – an update from the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) about their work to promote more flexibility in state practice rules (thus allowing in-house lawyers to do more local pro bono), and some insight on how in-house counsel can craft such proposals when advocating for changes in individual jurisdictions.

• 11.19.12 – It appears that a New York-style pro bono requirement for law students won’t be going national anytime soon.
  Several organizations and legal leaders have asked the committee that is updating the American Bar Association’s law school accreditation standards to add a 50-hour pro bono requirement, but that idea got a chilly reception from the committee at its most recent meeting on November 16 and 17. None of the nine committee members in attendance endorsed the idea, which generated only a few minutes of discussion. Those who took a position said that requiring a certain amount of pro bono work is outside the scope of the ABA’s accreditor role.”  Here’s the National Law Journal article, and here’s a link to many of the proposals, which are housed on the National Center for Access to Justice’s website.  Finally, here’s a look at the committee’s actions on other law school accreditation change proposals, from the ABA Journal.

• 11.14.12 – Alexa Shabecoff, assistant dean for public service at Harvard Law School, sets the record straight by responding to a Harvard Crimson article that had pushed for more promotion of public service within the law school.  Shabecoff writes: “Those of us who work in the community of public interest lawyers welcome media interest in the nationwide shortage of legal services for the underserved. We also understand the temptation to write stories that say that part of the problem is that on-campus recruiting by big private firms is so much more robust than on-campus recruiting by public interest employers, but to suggest—as the Crimson has done—that the way for Harvard Law School to address that imbalance is to “set up [on-campus] interview programs for public sector organizations akin to its efforts to facilitate student interviews for private companies” is to miss the mark. The vast majority of such organizations cannot spare the funds to send recruiters to law school campuses around the country. Nor do their hiring cycles lend themselves to the kind of unified recruiting ‘season’ adopted by large law firms.  The task for law schools is to maximize the support available for students who will not be deterred by the fact that it is indeed likely to be somewhat harder—and to take somewhat longer—to land a public service position than to obtain an offer from a private law firm….”

• Music!  Thanksgiving is for many of us tinged with nostalgia.  The return home, the football games (granted, played at a much slower pace) with family and old friends, etc.  So here’s some nostalgia from me – one of my favorite 1990s bands, the Connells, playing “Fifth Fret”.

The ACLU of Pennsylvania, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting individual rights and demanding equal protection of the law, is continuing their legacy as a leader in public school student rights with the Juvenile Summary Representation program. In recent years, the ACLU-PA has seen a marked increase in the issuance of summary criminal citations for “disorderly conduct” or “harassment” to students whose “crimes” are usually non-violent misconduct such as using profanity or yelling at a teacher. In many public schools, a call to the local police is a routine addition to school discipline – though the criminal prosecution, unlike school discipline, can result in a criminal record that will follow the student for the rest of his/her life.

From the PSJD job listing:

The ACLU of Pennsylvania is seeking a young lawyer or third year law student to partner with us in seeking funding for a one-year fellowship to design and implement a project to provide representation to public school students charged with summary offenses for misconduct in school. Full details are on the attached summary and at the Stoneleigh Foundation website: http://stoneleighfoundation.org/sites/default/files/ACLU-PA%20Final%20Abstract.pdf.

The Fellowship is limited to those who have earned their J.D. between May 2010 and May 2013. Candidates must be admitted to or sitting for the Pennsylvania Bar in July 2013. Preference will be given to those with clinical or other experience representing clients in court.

The deadline to apply is next week on 11/29/2012. For more information, view the full job listing on PSJD.org (log-in required).

Are you committed to using your law degree to help ensure that all children have access to a high-quality education? Education Pioneers recruits and develops talented business, law, policy, and education graduate students and recent graduates with diverse professional backgrounds and helps them launch high-level education leadership careers through the Graduate School Fellowship.

From the PSJD job posting:

Building on the success of the 10-week Education Pioneers Graduate School Fellowship, the Graduate School Fellowship Yearlong Placement is a 12-month leadership development program that places top professionals in roles outside the classroom with top education organizations.

The Fellowship provides hands-on, real-world experience as well as training in leadership skills and issues in K-12 education. Fellows also gain the unique support and networking opportunities offered by Education Pioneers and our robust and rapidly growing nationwide network of over 1,600 Fellows and Alumni.

Locations:

Austin, TX	Bridgeport, CT	Chicago, IL	Dallas/Fort Worth, TX
DC Metro Area	Denver, CO	Detroit, MI	Greater Boston Area
Houston, TX	Los Angeles, CA	Memphis, TN	Nashville, TN
New Orleans, LA	New York Metro Area	Sacramento, CA	San Francisco Bay Area
Seattle, WA

Total Number of Fellowship Positions (10-Week & yearlong placements):  425

Dates: June 2013 – May 2014

About Education Pioneers

Education Pioneers has been building a nationwide network of change agents since 2004. To date, we’ve connected more than 1,600 talented professionals with top school districts, charter school organizations and nonprofits.

Education Pioneers mobilizes and prepares a national network of talented leaders and managers to accelerate excellence in education and transform our education system into one that equips all students with the skills they need to thrive in college, career, and life.

Through the Graduate School Fellowships (10-week and Yearlong Placements), the Analyst Fellowship and Alumni programs, Education Pioneers increases the talent supply of top leaders in education to improve the leadership capacity in key education organizations—such as school districts, charter school organizations, and nonprofits—and to advance our goal to make education the best led and managed sector in the U.S. economy.

For more information on application instructions, qualifications and deadlines, view the full listing at PSJD.org (log-in required)!

credit: KP Tripathi

Here’s a Washington Post article which looks at the value of degree and certificate programs for aspiring lobbyists.  But degree programs aside, this is worth a read for anybody who’s considering a lobbying career, particularly one in DC.  Lobbying is a strange mix of art and science.  A lot of lobbyists quoted in the piece emphasize the art side, i.e. good instincts, a friendly demeanor, and tact.

In short, you can go to school to learn about lobbying, but you don’t become a lobbyist by going to school. “I always start off the first night by saying, ‘If you thought when you finished this course you could be a lobbyist, you’re wrong,’ ” explains Julius W. Hobson Jr., a senior adviser at Polsinelli Shughart and former top lobbyist at the American Medical Association who graduated from the George Washington program in 1980 and has been teaching a course there twice a year ever since 1994. “Not everybody has the instincts to be a good lobbyist.”

…

[I]t’s not so much the culture you learn when you study lobbying as the nuts and bolts of the process and its various components, something its supporters call “applied politics,” compared with traditional political science, which is far more theoretical. “Let’s be candid,” says James Thurber, a political scientist who runs American’s lobby program. “It’s an area that pure academics look down on.” This semester, for example, George Washington’s 36 credit hour, two-year degree program in “political management” includes courses on fundraising, international lobbying, communications strategy and principled political leadership.

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“One misconception about lobbying is that it’s simply hiring somebody who goes into Congress and talks to people to influence legislation. That’s a very narrow view,” says Thurber, adding that “what we think lobbying is, and what we teach, is that it’s important to develop a clear strategy.” These include everything from TV and print ads, social media, using survey research to evaluate how effective your lobbying campaign is to the public, developing grass roots and grass tops, coalition building, and knowing the law.”

Yet there is widespread agreement that perhaps the only sine qua non to becoming a successful lobbyist is a prior job on the Hill. “It’s not just understanding the mechanics,” says House, “it’s having a feel for how Congress operates and the mood of Congress, and the only way to get that is to have been part of the process.”

 And for a career-related resource, check out Yale Law School’s 2012 edition of “Working on Capitol Hill.”