By: Maria Hibbard (with snaps to Kristen Pavon!)

So—you’ve finished finals, you’ve got a summer job, and you haven’t read a casebook in weeks. Maybe you even listened in to our Summer Success: Getting the Most from Your Summer Public Interest Experience webinar. Are you set to go? You may be finding that transitioning from the competitive atmosphere of law school and the ultra-focused mode of finals to an office may be harder than you realize. Here’s five tips on communicating in a professional environment to keep in mind:

• Maintain composure. Last month the Wall Street Journal wrote about not crying in the office—regardless of whether something goes your way or not, maintaining composure is as essential to developing a professional identity as a clean resume.
• Don’t get too personal. Avoid gossip, inappropriate conversations about personal matters, and generalizations about polarizing topics. You don’t want an individual who may later serve as a reference to know too much about your weekend antics.
• Talk it through. Resolving a personal conflict with an individual may be best approached by an individual conversation instead of avoiding the issue. The conflict may be just a misunderstanding, or it may be a larger matter that needs to be resolved through a series of conversations.
• Avoid negativity. Although your job might seem wonderful at first, every position has its high points and low points. Avoiding vocal expression of negativity and staying focused on the positive aspects of your job can make the work environment better for both you and your co-workers.
• Respect! Finally, a pearl of wisdom from a 1991 New York Times article on office etiquette (not much has changed!): “Respect someone else’s physical space and property; live by the old golden rule in life to regard others the way you want to be regarded.”– Dr. Abraham Zaleznik, Matsushita professor emeritus of leadership at the Harvard Business School.

by Kristen Pavón

Well, friends, my time has come. Today’s my last day as the PSLawNet fellow at NALP. I’m leaving the great District of Columbia to join the 2012 Teach For America Corps in my hometown — Miami, Florida!

It has been fun bringing you all public interest news, career advice, and other tidbits from around the public interest sphere, and getting to know many of you through NALP/PSLawNet events and via the Internets.

Here are a few of my favorite posts that I hope you’ve enjoyed:

• Staying the Game: Overcoming Job Search Fatigue
• Landing the Job: Keeping Track of Your Job Search
• Be Bold in Your Job Search & For Your Professional Development
• The Race to Incarcerate: A Country of Inmates
• Resume Rework: Tips to Impress in 15 Seconds or Less
• Landing the Job: Rock That Phone Interview!
• Check out PSLawNet’s Summer 2012 Reading List!

Good luck in law school and the job market. Make sure to connect with me via Linkedin! Finally, I leave you with this:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSmKuVSocN8]

Bye now! 🙂

-Kristen

Urban Alliance, founded in Washington, DC in 1996, is seeking its first Chicago Program Director to implement a proven program model during an exciting expansion into Chicago, IL.

The mission of Urban Alliance is to empower under-resourced youth to aspire, work and succeed through paid-internships, formal training, and mentoring. Urban Alliance provides high school students with long-term, paid internships in professional settings where each student’s supervisor also serves as his/her mentor. Additionally, we provide job readiness, life-skills, and financial literacy workshops, as well as assistance with college and vocational planning. Over the last decade, Urban Alliance has served over 10,000 youth, maintained a 99% high school graduation rate, and facilitated 88% of program alumni enrolling in college.

As the focus of the non-profit and foundation community has shifted to evidence-based practices, Urban Alliance has been consistently recognized for measuring and delivering outcomes that make a difference in the lives of youth, and the results have led to increased funding and rapid growth. Urban Alliance opened its first Program Office outside of Washington, DC in 2008 in Baltimore, Maryland. Building on that successful expansion, Urban Alliance is currently opening a Chicago Office and will serve Chicago Public School students in the fall of 2012.

Urban Alliance is looking for a youth development professional to implement its proven program model and establish Urban Alliance as the standard for excellence in youth employment in Chicago. The position will report to the Chicago Executive Director as well as to the Chief Program Officer. The Program Director is charged with ensuring that program fidelity is maintained while the Urban Alliance core values are followed in the new office. Urban Alliance is seeking a youth expert, who is as comfortable speaking with youth as speaking with business and community leaders in all sectors. The individual must be committed to Urban Alliance’s mission and values and willing to put youth first while working to realize the larger organization’s goals.

Find out how to apply at PSLawNet!

By: Steve Grumm

Happy Friday, dear readers.  And happy June.  June is the sunniest month, at least for those of us living on the Earth’s northern half.  Speaking of where we are, I am in motion – aboard an Amtrak train and destined for my hometown of Philly.  I’m in Maryland now.  This state’s beauty is sadly unheralded.  To cross the bridges spanning the Chesapeake Bay tributaries just after sunrise is to observe a wonderful bit of scenery.  And the City of Baltimore is like Philly’s cool little brother, except with crabs.  There has to be a better way to phrase that.

Shortly I’ll be at the Philadelphia Bar Association, where I’ll have the pleasure of speaking with a group of law students about maximizing their summer public interest experiences.  Later I’ll join my childhood friends Billy and Sean – neighborhood riff-raff like myself – to watch the Glorious Philadelphia Phillies Baseball Franchise reel in the Marlins of Miami.  (If you think it’s bad that we call a grown man by his yesteryear nickname of Billy, imagine how bad it is for our friend Stinky.  He’s a medical doctor these days.  He really wishes we’d call him Duane.)

As you know I focus mainly on access-to-justice developments in this newsletter.  I feel strongly, though, that the AtJ community must itself monitor happenings in the law-firm world, especially those affecting the “business of law.”  So I commend to you this incisive AmLaw article by Professor Bill Henderson.  He uses this week’s demise of the storied law firm Dewey & Leboeuf to explore how large law firms must quickly rework their business models lest they risk running themselves into the ground.  (You may be required to register to read the piece; a trial registration should be free.)  Also, every Friday NALP’s executive director Jim Leipold produces a terrific legal industry digest that you may access here.

On to our news:         

This week:

• Upside: the U.S. has a strong civil justice system. Downside: poor people don’t get to use it
• The New York State Bar’s incoming president is a legal aid leader
• Student loan debt is a real big problem
• Maine’s got some King-size indigent defense funding problems
• More debate around the 50-hour pro bono requirement for admission to practice in New York
• A veteran PA children’s rights advocate moves into retirement
• Merck’s in-house team has launched a pro bono project to serve vets in need
• The Northern District of Alabama is finally going to host some federal defenders
• A great new report out of Illinois about the economic benefits generated by civil legal aid

The summaries:

• 6.1.12 – an ABA Journal piece covers one of the central access-to-justice dilemmas in the U.S.: “Two recent studies provide news good and bad for the U.S. legal system. The good: The United States’ civil legal system is one of the best in the world, according to the results of the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index 2011.  And the bad? According to this same study, millions of Americans can’t use this fine system because they can’t afford it. They have legal rights—to child support, Medicare benefits or protection against an improper home foreclosure—but they find these rights meaningless because they can’t enforce them….  A plethora of government and volunteer programs provide free legal aid, but they are overstretched…. To make matters worse, the system for providing free legal services is a mess. There is “an enormous diversity of programs and provision models with very little coordination at either the state or the national level,” according to Access Across America, a 2011 report (PDF) authored by Rebecca L. Sandefur and Aaron C. Smyth and funded in large part by the American Bar Foundation.”

• 5.31.12 – a legal aid leader takes the helm of the New York State Bar.  “Seymour W. James, Jr. of Brooklyn, a 38-year veteran of The Legal Aid Society of New York, assumes office on June 1 as the 115th president of the New York State Bar Association….  James is the attorney-in-charge of the criminal practice for The Legal Aid Society, which provides criminal and civil legal services for low-income individuals in New York City.  The theme for his presidency is “making a difference” with an emphasis on access to justice.”  (Story from realMedia.)

• 5.30-31.12 – the PBS Newshour aired a two-part report on the increasing crisis of skyrocketing educational debt-loads being carried by higher-ed grads, including law students.  Indeed, part two contained a lot of content about the plight of law grads.
  • Here’s part one: “The State of Student Loans: More Debts, More Defaults, More Problems”
  • Here’s part two: “Student Loan Debt: To Pay or Not to Pay”

• 5.30.12 – “Maine’s Commission on Indigent Legal Services, which provides lawyers for criminal defendants who can’t afford their own, gets inadequate funding every year. Its budget for this fiscal year recently bottomed out, and it will not be sufficient to pay lawyers for the month of June. They will be paid at the start of the new fiscal year in July, but dwindling funds are an ongoing problem.”  Thanks for the (bad) news, Maine Public Broadcasting Network.

• 5.30.11 – debate continues around the new 50-hour pro bono requirement for admission to practice law in New York.  In the New York Times, David Udell of the National Center for Access to Justice at Cardozo Law defends the initiative as one that is not overly burdensome on law students and that could have great outcomes for students and clients.  (I believe that the devil remains in the details – e.g. will work satisfying the definition of “pro bono” for a law school’s internal program count toward the requirement if that work does not meet New York’s definition? – but I generally agree with David.  More importantly: what do you think? The Times writes: “We invite readers to respond to this letter for the Sunday Dialogue. We plan to publish responses and Mr. Udell’s rejoinder in the Sunday Review. E-mail: letters@nytimes.com.”
  • And here, from Bloomberg, is a nice summary of the key considerations driving the debate.

• 5.29.12 – we bid “Happy Trails” to a veteran, Pennsylvania-based children’s advocate.  From the Philadelphia Inquirer:  “Shelly Yanoff, a longtime champion of children’s causes, will step down this fall from her role as head of the nonprofit Public Citizens for Children and Youth, the organization’s board of directors announced yesterday.”  The Inquirer did a Q&A with Yanoff which captured her thoughts on what her job had taught her: “That people can respond to the needs of kids. That there are many different ways to get to a good result and that nothing ever stays done. You have to keep at it.”

• 5.29.11 – when pharmaceutical giant Merck began supporting veterans support group Community of Hope, Merck’s in-house lawyers “…realized that they could provide services through their substantial pro bono program that would be as helpful if not moreso than the checks their company was writing to support Community of Hope. Thus was born the Hope for Veterans Program.”  Read about it in the Huffington Post.

• 5.28.12 – some federal court news: the Northern District of Alabama finally has some full-time federal defenders.  From Al.com: “North Alabama’s first crew of federal public defenders, working out of Birmingham and Huntsville, in August will begin defending indigent clients charged with crimes…. The district is one of only four federal court districts out of 94 nationwide that don’t [presently] have some form of federal public defender’s office.”

• 5.24.12 – this may even cause my friend Bob Glaves to forget about the misery of the Chicago Cubs for a bit.  The Chicago Bar Foundation was one of a few stakeholders involved in producing “Legal Aid in Illinois: Selected Social and Economic Benefits.”  This report does a wonderful job of exposing the concrete, financial benefits that inure to Illinois’s population at large because of the work that legal aid organizations do to keep families in their homes, stop domestic abuse, secure government benefits, and obtain child support for clients.  This is the so-called “business case” for legal aid, and this report makes a strong one.  Here’s the report and an accompanying press release.

Finally, this being graduation season, I leave you with the transcript of this commencement speech by Professor Lawrence Lessig.  In it, he emphasizes that if lawyers are stewards for the rule of law and for meaningful access to justice, then we must not make it a priority to serve moneyed interests at the expense of society at large – particularly our society’s most vulnerable members.  I think 90% of commencement speeches are hot air – bromides strung together lazily so as to offend no one and congratulate everyone.  This one resonates with me, though.  Happy June.  Enjoy the sun

Human Rights Initiative is currently seeking a participant for our Asylum Program Paid Internship for fall 2012. The Asylum Program represents immigrants who have fled their home countries due to persecution and torture based on their religion, political opinion, race, nationality or membership in a particular social group. This program will provide practical, hands-on litigation experience in the area of immigration law and removal proceedings while serving some of the agency’s neediest clients.

As an Asylum Intern you will shadow attorneys who prepare applications for various forms of immigration relief.  You will also assist in conducting client interviews, draft supporting affidavits and outline direct and redirect examinations. You will observe the witness preparation that is crucial in Asylum cases and perform legal research, brief writing, and country conditions research. Finally, at the end of the semester you are expected to provide a final report to the Litigation Section of the State Bar of Texas summarizing the internship experience with HRI.

To learn how to apply, see the listing at PSLawNet!

By: Steve Grumm

The Chicago Bar Foundation and a group of other stakeholders have released a report they commissioned to look at the economic benefits that the work of the Illinois civil legal aid community brings to the larger society.  The study, performed by the Social IMPACT Research Center of the Heartland Alliance, looks like it was a pretty rigorous affair.  And it concludes that, considering work done in preventing homelessness and domestic violence, as well as securing federal benefits and monetary awards to which low-income clients are entitled, the benefits of civil legal aid to larger society are tangible indeed.

Here’s a link to press release, and here’s one to the full report, Legal Aid in Illinois: Selected Social and Economic Benefits.

Here’s are some key points from the report’s executive summary:

The Chicago Bar Foundation, the Illinois Equal Justice Foundation, the Illinois Bar Foundation, the Lawyers Trust Fund of Illinois, and the Polk Bros. Foundation commissioned this study to inform policymakers and other stakeholders about the tangible economic benefits of legal aid. This study quantifies some of the benefits to clients and other Illinoisans from cases closed by seven legal aid providers that are part of the larger network of 38 legal aid providers funded by The Chicago Bar Foundation and the Lawyers Trust Fund. It uses data from civil law cases in which clients resided in Illinois. These include cases in which a provider communicated with a third party, prepared legal documents, or helped a client represent himself or herself; negotiated a settlement with a third party; represented a client in an administrative agency process or court proceeding; and provided other services beyond legal advice. Data from 8,134 cases were used in the study. The average client helped by one of these cases belonged to a household of three people and reported annual household income of $14,075, meaning that his or her household was well below the federal poverty level.

The study quantifies four economic benefits from cases closed in 2010 by the seven legal aid providers:

• Legal aid providers won $49.4 million in monetary awards for clients. Examples of monetary awards are child support and alimony, public benefits like Social Security and unemployment insurance, and relief from illegal charges by a landlord or payment to a predatory lender;
• Legal aid providers won $11.9 million in benefits wholly or partially paid for by the federal government. It is estimated that these awards were associated with $9.3 million in demand for goods and services, $5.4 million in household income, and 172 non‐legal‐aid jobs across Illinois.
• By preventing or obtaining more time in foreclosures or evictions, obtaining, protecting, or increasing rental subsidies, and assisting clients with other housing issues, legal aid providers avoided $1.9 million in costs to homeless shelters.
• By obtaining protective orders, divorces, child custody, and legal recognition for noncitizens experiencing abuse, legal aid providers avoided $9.4 million in costs of domestic violence to individuals.

The economic benefits of legal aid in Illinois are likely to be greater than those estimated in this study. The study uses data from only seven of 38 legal aid providers funded by The Chicago Bar Foundation and the Lawyers Trust Fund. Additionally, civil law cases other than those involving monetary awards and federal benefits, homelessness, and domestic violence may have outcomes with economic benefits for legal aid clients and other Illinoisans: by overcoming expulsion of a student from school, legal aid may enable the student to obtain a high school diploma, increasing his or her lifetime earnings; by restoring a client’s drivers license or recovering a repossessed vehicle, legal aid may enable the client to access employment far from home, meeting an employer’s need for labor and contributing to the local economy. Because this study estimates economic benefits of legal aid in only four easy‐to‐monetize areas, it represents an incomplete estimate of the economic benefits of legal aid in Illinois. While a complete inventory of the economic benefits from legal aid is beyond the scope of this study, the estimates it presents can help inform policymakers and other stakeholders as they make decisions about the future of legal aid. 

The Center for Collaborative Change is seeking an energetic, dedicated graduate student or recent graduate with inter-disciplinary skills and a passion for collaboration to join our team as a Summer 2012 Community Law and Policy Intern.  Current projects that interns could be involved with include a community wide needs assessment for Newark, community input portions of the Newark Master Plan, and a non-profit community organization incubation summit.

The Center for Collaborative Change is a community-based nonprofit that brokers collaborative solutions to make Newark thrive. Our mission is to engage community and civic leadership in policy and program development in order to accelerate Newark’s revitalization while ensuring that the process includes and responds to the priorities of its community members. The Center is committed to restoring trust between Newark’s decision-makers and residents, realigning them to be on the same team, and using the knowledge and resources of that alliance to establish a critical mass of reforms that will bring Newark to a tipping point where a positive cycle of health, abundance and opportunity can achieve momentum. For more information about the Center, please visit our website: www.newarkchange.org.

See the full listing at PSLawNet!

By: Maria Hibbard

Before I came to law school, I thought the right to be protected from double jeopardy, or being tried for the same crime twice, was one of the guaranteed rights of the American judicial system. If I’ve learned anything throughout my first year of law school, however, it’s that the answer to the question of whether anything is guaranteed is “possibly” or “maybe.”

Although the right to be protected from double jeopardy is preserved in the Fifth Amendment, as Andrew Cohen noted this weekend in The Atlantic, this right has frequently been eroded by precedent and the very nature of our judicial system. When the Supreme Court decided Blueford v. Arkansas last week, the right against double jeopardy became even more subject to parsing. In the original trial, Blueford was charged with capital murder, first-degree murder, manslaughter, and negligent homicide for the death of a one-year old child. When the jury returned from deliberation, the foreperson stated that although they had voted unanimously to acquit the murder charges, they were deadlocked on manslaughter and did not vote on negligent homicide.  Although the judge sent the jury back to deliberate more on the lesser charges, a mistrial was declared.

The Supreme Court had to decide whether the foreperson’s announcement of the jury’s votes to acquit were sufficient to invoke double jeopardy protection on the murder charges. The Court agreed with the state, however, saying that protection was not valid because the jury could have re-evaluated their acquittal when they were sent back to deliberate further on the lesser charges. Chief Justice Roberts writes, “It was therefore possible for Blueford’s jury to revisit the offenses of capital and first-degree murder, notwithstand­ing its earlier votes. And because of that possibility, the foreperson’s report prior to the end of deliberations lacked the finality necessary to amount to an acquittal on those offenses…” In his analysis, Cohen criticizes the majority’s use of a hypothetical (not unlike the “what if” Socratic questions of my law school professors), noting the irony in the fact that although Blueford had heard the jury acquit him of the murder charges in open court, in his new trial (still yet to come) another jury could possibly still find him guilty.

What does this case mean for public defenders and appellate advocates? There’s no double jeopardy protection in a mistrial, even if the jury’s vote to acquit is stated in court. Although the Fifth Amendment seems to guarantee double jeopardy protection for every defendant, the only thing that seems to be sure is that it “depends on the circumstances.”

From the New York Times’ Opinion Pages:

In “Rethinking Pro Bono” (Op-Ed, May 14), Ben Trachtenberg casts Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman’s new legal public service requirement as bad policy, saying students and graduates can’t afford it, can’t do it and shouldn’t be asked to do it since better ideas abound. Starting in 2013, candidates for admission to the New York State Bar must complete 50 hours of public service.

Contrary to Mr. Trachtenberg’s argument, 50 hours of pro bono work will not mire law students and graduates in poverty. Moreover, volunteers can make a difference while gaining skills, confidence and links to jobs. . . .

The pro bono requirement may have hidden virtues. Over time, schools, firms and the courts may guide more resources toward public service, helping to improve its quality. The first opportunity to do pro bono can also make the second easier, instilling in many a commitment for life.

Alternative approaches may also have merit, but credit the chief judge for acting in urgent times to make this good idea a reality.

Read the rest here and respond to this letter for NYT’s Sunday Dialogue.

Alliance for Justice is a national association of over 100 organizations, representing a broad array of groups committed to progressive values and the creation of an equitable, just, and free society. AFJ works to ensure that the federal judiciary advances core constitutional values, preserves human rights and unfettered access to the courts, and adheres to the even-handed administration of justice for all Americans. It is the leading expert on the legal framework for nonprofit advocacy efforts, providing definitive information, resources, and technical assistance that encourages organizations and their funding partners to fully exercise their right to be active participants in the democratic process.

AFJ is seeking a Director of Justice Programs.  The Director of Justice Programs is a senior staff member who will be responsible for managing research and developing and implementing strategy around AFJ’s justice policy initiatives.   The Director of Justice Programs reports to the executive vice president.

The Director of Justice Programs is expected to be a national authority on the broad range of legal policy issues handled by AFJ.