The Organization

The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) is a regional nonprofit organization working to protect the South’s natural resources as well as the health and well-being of Southern people. Their work may center on the Southern region, but the impact of their advocacy and litigation efforts is nationwide. SELC’s programs focus on six areas: clean energy and air; water; forests; the coast and wetlands; transportation; land-use and communities; and wildlife and special places. SELC attorneys and staff work in all branches and all levels of government to ensure that environmental laws are strengthened and enforced, to hold government agencies accountable, and to prevent environmental abuses.

The Position

SELC seeks an associate attorney to begin this fall in their Charleston, SC office. This is a two-year term position with the option for a third year and is perfect for recent law graduates looking to jump-start their careers. The associate will gain invaluable experience litigating and advocating in state and federal courts and before regulatory agencies.

The ideal candidate will have litigation experience and a background in environmental law.

More info on PSJD: https://www.psjd.org/job?OppID=99610

At the October Mini-Conference, we announced the finalists for this year’s PSJD Pro Bono Publico Award. To commend each finalist on their hard work and to demonstrate how difficult it will be to select the winner, we will feature a different finalist on the blog every Monday for the next five weeks.

This week we feature Ashley De La Garza from St. Mary’s University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas.

Ashley De La Garza

We selected Ashley as a finalist because she has shown unending dedication to pro bono work and criminal justice reform since she began law school. Ashley saw a need in Texas for devoted public defense and jumped in wholeheartedly to provide her support and skills. Ashley has worked in two public defender offices and has participated in her school’s Criminal Justice Clinic and Wrongful Conviction Review Project as well as the ABA’s Death Penalty Representation Project. Moreover, Ashley’s passion for service has extended to frequent participation in St. Mary’s Pro Bono Program, an alternative spring break in Washington, D.C., and public interest student organizations. As a former supervisor describes, Ashley’s compassion and advocacy for indigent clients has led her to achieve “one of the most critical student successes [the supervisor] has witnessed.” Her service has been invaluable in practice but also in the promotion of social justice reform through the selection of her legal journal article for publication in The Scholar. Ashley’s commitment, professionalism, and positive attitude has led her to be described as a leader in pro bono work among her classmates and colleagues.

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public!

In another down-to-the-wire week, stories on Immigration and Civil Access to Justice dominated. As always, these stories and more are in the links below.

See you around,

Sam

Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Issues

• In Washington DC, “[t]he Trump administration is pushing ahead with a project that could lead to the government collecting DNA from hundreds of thousands of detained immigrants, some as young as 14 years old, alarming civil rights advocates. Once fully underway, the DNA program could become the largest U.S. law enforcement effort to systemically collect genetic material from people not accused of a crime.”
• In Washington DC, “[t]he U.S. Supreme Court ruled [] hat the Trump Administration can go ahead with its new public charge rule aimed at preventing low-income, legal immigrants from obtaining green cards.”
  • Meanwhile, in New York, “[i]mmigrants’ rights advocates [] urged noncitizen families to seek legal advice Tuesday, following a setback in the fight to block the federal government’s so-called ‘public charge rule.’”
• The Wall Street Journal reported that “[p]eople seeking asylum in the U.S. are less likely to have legal representation under a Trump administration policy that sends them to await court hearings in Mexican border cities, recently released research shows.”
• In Houston TX, Houston Public Media reported that “[s]ince President [] Trump[‘s] administration has repeatedly tightened the rules[] and narrowed who qualifies for asylum[, i]mmigration attorneys are turning away from the ‘gold standard’–asylum–and putting more effort into the two major legal alternatives: withholding of removal and the U.N.’s Convention Against Torture.”
• In Derby CT, “[a] judicial marshal accused of assisting a Connecticut resident in avoiding apprehensive [sic] by immigration officials was fired.”
• In Boston MA, “Judge Richard Stearns dismissed the case of an Iranian student who…US Customs and Border Protection deported [] despite an emergency stay issued by US District Court Judge Allison Burroughs[.] …Stearns said in court that he didn’t think the government would “listen” to him, and that he did not jurisdiction over the issue because Abadi had been deported, calling the case ‘moot.’”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In Madison WI, “Governor Tony Evers [] signed an executive order to create a task force on student debt.”
• In Washington DC, “Sen. Elizabeth Warren, in a letter to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, urged the federal government to collect $22.3 million that it’s owed by one of the biggest student loan servicers in the country.”
• Also in Washington DC, the Department of Education “revealed [] that it will simplify the process for borrowers to apply for an expansion of the troubled Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program.”

Legal Technology

• In Mountain View CA, “Google has announced it will charge law enforcement and other government agencies for access to user data to “offset the costs” of compiling responses to information requests.”
• In Iowa, “[t]he state court system is offering a new lawyer-free service for couples seeking a divorce. Judicial Branch Public Information Associate Marissa Gaal said the interactive service is only for people looking for a divorce who don’t have children.”
• The ABA Journal published a piece on legal hackathons.
• In Utah, “Utah Supreme Court Chief Justice Matthew Durrant called on lawmakers to spend more than a million dollars to upgrade the judiciary’s tech.”

Non-Profit & Government Management & Hiring

• In Washington DC, “[t]he Trump administration is attempting to decertify the National Association of Immigrant Judges (NAIJ), the union that since 1971 has represented federal immigration judges. The attack on the union appears to be in response to its vocal opposition to administration efforts to limit judges’ authority, force them to speed up hearings, silence critics of immigration policy, and cut resources for support staff.”
• In DC, “[t]he D.C. bar is joining the ranks of jurisdictions considering rule changes that would allow nonlawyers to own firms[.]”

Access to Justice – Civil

• In Canada, Former Canadian Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin began “a periodic [column] series showcasing access to justice in action across Canada” for The Lawyer’s Daily.
• In Manitoba, “[c]lients of Manitoba’s Public Interest Law Centre are questioning a proposal to stop the advocacy centre from operating within Legal Aid Manitoba [after] a government-commissioned review of legal aid was released recommending the Public Interest Law Centre no longer be part of legal aid services offered by the province.”
• In Ontario, Legal Aid Ontario “clarified its policy for imprisoned clients seeking help with family law issues[:] Incarcerated persons may apply for all the family law services offered by Legal Aid Ontario, subject to fulfilling the requirements for legal and financial eligibility.”
• In New York NY, the city council considered “two bills–Intros 1529 and 1104– [that] look to expand Right to Counsel [in eviction] not only geographically but also economically.”
• In New Mexico, “[m]ore [] residents would have access to civil legal aid services under proposals approved by the state Supreme Court [which] include efforts to attract more out-of-state law school graduates to practice in New Mexico and possible financial incentives for attorneys who practice in rural or underserved communities.”
• In Utah, “Chief Justice Matthew Durrant told state legislators during the annual State of the Judiciary Address Monday that Utah faces a “crisis” in legal services[.]”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• The Indiana Lawyer reported that “[r]ural communities’ access to justice, bail reform and ensuring voting rights for individuals with criminal convictions will be chief among several criminal justice topics set for discussion during next month’s 2020 American Bar Association Midyear Meeting.”
• In Missouri, “[a] federal judge [] has refused to approve a consent decree that would have limited state public defenders to no more than 173.3 hours worth of cases each month, a standard that is based on a 40-hour workweek.”
• In Allen County OH, “County Commissioners will continue deliberating how best to improve the state of indigent defense in 2020, with the possibility of establishing a full-time public defender’s office still under consideration.”
• In Butler County OH, “attorneys who are appointed by judges to represent indigent defendants have received their first hourly rate hike in about 16 years.”

Criminal Justice Reform

• In Albany NY, “[a] law that would have convened a special panel to evaluate complaints of misconduct levied against the state’s prosecutors was struck down [] by a state judge[], who said the measure was unconstitutional as written by the Legislature.”
• In New York NY, “[t]he NYPD’s largest police union has sued the Civilian Complaint Review Board over a ballot measure that expanded the watchdog agency — claiming the voter-approved legislation was ‘an illegal power-grab.’”

The Organization

The Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence (Institute) is an Oakland-based national non-profit organization that provides resources on domestic violence, sexual violence, trafficking, and other forms of gender-based violence in the Asian and Pacific Islander communities. Not only does the Institute act as a clearinghouse of information, but its staff also provides training, technical assistance, and policy analysis. All of the Institute’s work is done to promote a vision of gender democracy.

The Position

The Institute seeks a law graduate to act as a Program Coordinator of the Improving Language Access in the Courts project. The Coordinator will be asked to collaborate with senior staff and national partners to develop trainings, translation guidance tools, and an iconography resource guide that will address the needs of individuals with limited English proficiency in the legal process.

The ideal candidate will have experience with the development and management of complex projects and programs, knowledge of gender-based violence, and experience with legal professionals and judicial processes. Additionally, it is preferred that the candidate be bilingual or bi-literate in an Asian or Pacific islander language.

See the full post on PSJD: https://www.psjd.org/job?OppID=98854

At the October Mini-Conference, we announced the finalists for this year’s PSJD Pro Bono Publico Award. To commend each finalist on their hard work and to demonstrate how difficult it will be to select the winner, we will feature a different finalist on the blog every Monday for the next five weeks.

Starting at the beginning of the alphabet, our first finalist is Leslie Alvarez from St. Mary’s University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas.

Leslie Alvarez

We selected Leslie as a finalist because her achievements in pro bono demonstrate a clear commitment to serving her community. Using her experiences as a first-generation U.S. citizen and with navigating the special education system, Leslie is a passionate advocate for disability rights. At work, she represented detained immigrant children with disabilities. Her supervisor describes Leslie as having “an unmatched work ethic” and “dedication to protecting the autonomy of people with disabilities.” At school, she coordinated two pro-bono legal clinics: one clinic to improve access to guardianship for individuals with disabilities, and another to “prepare psychiatric advance directives and other documents for individuals with mental health challenges.” Her tireless and compassionate efforts have made her an invaluable addition to the South Texas pro bono community. As Leslie herself asserts, “My current focus is on the disability rights fight, but my passion will always be service.”

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public!

Digest is squeaking out just under the wire this week, so I’ll be brief. Major stories include a proposal to fund the Right to Counsel for Eviction at the federal level, the new San Francisco DA’s decision to end pretrial cash bail, and the Trump Administration’s decision to relocate hundreds of immigration detainees’ hearings from northern to southern California. Thematically, work conditions for public defenders dominated the news, with Philadelphia public defenders preparing for a unionization ballot while state-wide policy proposals moved forward in Wisconsin, where public defenders are set to receive pay parity with state prosecutors, and in Georgia, where the governor is proposing to cut public defender funding by $3 million–and to increase prosecutors’ funds by about the same.

As always, these stories and more are in the links below.

See you around,

Sam

Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Issues

• In San Francisco CA, “Northern California immigration attorneys are reeling after learning of a controversial Trump administration decision to move hundreds of immigrant detainees’ court hearings out of San Francisco and to a new courthouse in Van Nuys, a neighborhood in north Los Angeles.”
• In Texas, “Gov. Greg Abbott [explained] in a TV interview [] why Texas will be the only state in the nation to reject refugees seeking resettlement, saying that aid groups working with refugees should instead prioritize other Texans in need, including the state’s homeless population.”
• Also in Texas, “[w]ith a substantial increase in filing fees for immigration benefits looming, advocates are urging migrants to get their applications in as soon as possible. Once the fees go up, attorneys and nonprofits who assist migrants fear the benefits of U.S. citizenship, legal residency for relatives, work permit renewals and a host of other services will be out of reach for many of their clients.”
• In a motion before the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles CA, “[l]awyers representing undocumented immigrants detained by ICE allege that courts and government authorities under the Trump administration are not complying with a federal court order that protects mentally disabled immigrants in California, Arizona and Washington.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In New York NY, “Educational Credit Management Corporation (ECMC) — a nonprofit that guarantees and services student loans on behalf of the Department of Education (ED) — is challenging the January 7 decision made by Chief U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Cecelia G. Morris, who discharged $221,385.49 in student loan debt for Navy veteran and lawyer Kevin Rosenberg under chapter 7 bankruptcy.”
• In California, “[i]n an opposition motion [to a federal court’s $100,000 sanction against Education Secretary DeVos for violating a court order and billing thousands of students with loans tied to now-defunct Corinthian Colleges], the Education Department said it’s been doing its best to comply with a preliminary injunction that prevents it from demanding repayment for Corinthian-related student debt.”
• In Washington DC, “Sen. Elizabeth Warren [] praised the IRS and Treasury Department’s decision to provide tax relief to more people with discharged student loans.”
• The Chronicle of Higher Education, surveying the legislative agendas of the Democratic presidential candidates featured in the last debate, determined that “Free College, Student-Debt Forgiveness, and Pell Grant Expansion Dominate Higher-Ed Policy for Top Democratic Candidates.”
• Moody’s Investors Service released a report indicating that “student loan debt still stands at $1.7 trillion [with] borrowers taking longer to pay it back, which means they’re paying more interest in the end.”

Disaster Law & The Environment

• In San Francisco CA, “the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals threw out…Juliana vs. the United States[,]” in which “21 young people sued the US government, alleging that by contributing to climate [change] despite knowledge of its dangerous consequences, it was violating their constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property.” The opinion found that “the plaintiffs’ case must be made to the political branches or to the electorate at large.”
  • Time Magazine has more on this story and “what it might mean for the future of climate litigation.”

Legal Technology

• In New York State, “Elizabeth A. Garry, Presiding Justice of the Appellate Division, Third Department, provide[d] an update on access to justice in rural communities, writing that court simplification will ameliorate some of the challenges rural attorneys currently encounter.”
• In Washington DC, Above the Law, citing reporting from the Wall St. Journal, reported that “[w]hile Barr is trying to turn the public against Apple by suggesting it protects terrorists and murderers, FBI employees are worried his words and actions will harm them more than help them.”
  • In related news, Reuters reported that “Apple [] dropped plans to let iPhone users fully encrypt backups of their devices in the company’s iCloud service after the FBI complained that the move would harm investigations, [according to] six sources familiar with the matter[.]”
• Also in Washington DC, “[a] year after passage of a law requiring federal agencies to improve the quality and accessibility of digital services, the General Services Administration on Wednesday released a set of website design standards agencies across government can use to meet that mandate.”
• In Canada, “[t]he RCMP [] would neither confirm nor deny that it’s using Clearview AI’s technology, which allows police forces to check photos against a database of three billion images scraped from the web.”

Non-Profit & Government Management & Hiring

• In Washington DC, “Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) says she wants to expand the use of direct hire authorities to fill critical vacancies throughout the federal workforce. She wants to find ways to reinstate qualified former federal employees back to the workforce. Warren is also recommending a government mentorship program specifically for employees of color. As well as expanding the cooling off period to six years for lobbyists before they can take a government job.”
• In Hawaii, “Hawaii Attorney General Clare Connors subpoenaed [] KAHEA, or the Hawaiian Environmental Alliances [because t]he AG believes the group involved in protests against the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on Mauna Kea is illegally using donations to fund civil disobedience.”
• In Alberta, “Legal Aid Alberta (LAA) is asking its roster lawyers to update their online profiles in order to reflect changes it is implementing on choice of counsel for clients and travel compensation for those who take on legal aid certificates.”
• On the internet, “[a] private equity fund backed by three prominent Republican billionaire families is expected to buy the dot-org domain, throwing into question whether the online safe haven for rights organizations and nonprofits could now face censorship or spiralling costs[; ] a small and vociferous group of nonprofits, charities, and human rights organizations have banded together to make a last-ditch attempt to block the sale.” (See previous editions of the digest for additional coverage of this story.)

Access to Justice – Civil

• In Washington DC, “Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Connecticut)…re-introduc[ed] what’s known as the Eviction Prevention Act[:] ‘It would allow the U.S. Attorney General to authorize $125 million in grants to states, counties and cities to provide people with representation by an attorney [in] any eviction cases[.]”
• In California, “State Bar leaders took another step…toward opening up the regulation of legal services in the state, launching the assembly of a task force to explore a licensing scheme under which paraprofessionals would provide certain legal services and advice to consumers.”
• In New York NY, the New York Daily News argued that “with the housing and homelessness crises unabated, it is more imperative than ever to expand the right [to counsel for eviction] to include the many low-income New Yorkers who are currently ineligible.”
• In Manitoba, “Legal Aid Manitoba has a short-term “contingency” plan ready should the province’s private criminal lawyers stop taking new cases to protest the current rates of compensation, says an official with the service provider.”
• LegalShield, “the world’s leading provider of affordable legal and identity theft protection plans, released the results of The 2019 LegalShield Workplace Study[.]” Among the study’s findings were that “77% of employers believe access to affordable legal services can help improve employees’ financial well-being [and] 61% of employers would consider offering identity theft and / or legal protection plans.”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Philadelphia PA, “public defenders will vote to decide whether to unionize their workplace after informal negotiations with management stalled.”
• In Mercer County OH, “Justice Judith French [] talk[ed] to local judges about the issues they are facing and what resources the Ohio Supreme Court can provide to them. [On the shortage of public defenders,] French says even though the state has tried to address the problem with more funding, the solution is simple, Ohio needs more lawyers on both the criminal and civil side.”
  • In related news, the Ohio state legislature deliberated on “House Bill 5[, which] would give lawyers who become public defenders tuition loan assistance up to $85,000 for five years of service.”
• In Macomb County MI, local news reported the county “will create an office to represent indigent criminal defendants as part of statewide and national efforts to improve their legal representation.”
• In Atlanta GA, “Governor Brian Kemp has unveiled his proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which will begin on July 1, 2020. In it, he asks lawmakers to slash the funds available to state public defenders by more than $3 million—and to increase the funds available to prosecutors by about the same amount.”
• In Madison WI, “[t]he state Senate [] passed an amended version of Senate Bill 468 to provide a pay-progression plan for assistant state public defenders.”
• In Jefferson City MO, “[d]uring the annual State of the Judiciary address, given to a joint session of the Missouri Legislature, Chief Justice George Draper III [stated that] ‘Speaking from the perspective of both a former prosecutor and a former trial judge, I can tell you the system simply does not work without a sufficiently funded and staffed public defender system’[.]”
• In Prince William County VA, “[a] proposal to create a public defender office for Prince William County has won two favorable votes already at the General Assembly.”

Criminal Justice Reform

• In San Francisco CA, “San Francisco’s new top prosecutor says his office will no longer ask for cash bail as a condition for defendants’ pretrial release, fulfilling one of his key campaign promises.”
• In Los Angeles CA, LA Magazine profiled “Rachel Rossi, the Progressive Ex-Public Defender Running for DA”
• In Honolulu, Hawaii News Now reported that “[p]rosecutors [have] recently started looking for warrants of witnesses and victims who are set to testify in upcoming trials.”
• In Washington DC, “Attorney General [] Barr [] swore in 16 members of a new national commission to study crucial issues in law enforcement, which aims to follow in the footsteps of a similar commission formed in 1965 that launched such concepts as improved training for police, increased data collection in policing and the 911 emergency dispatch system.”
• In Milwaukee WI, “Milwaukee’s District Attorney and the head of the Wisconsin Public Defender’s office have crossed turf lines to develop a system of ‘community-oriented’ justice whose end goal is to put fewer people in prison.”
• In Harris County TX, the Houston Chronicle reported that while “[t]he Harris County District Attorney’s office contends it needs more staff to ensure due process and increased diversion options [ c]ritics and primary challengers to District Attorney Kim Ogg contend that doing so would reverse justice reform efforts, believing more prosecutors equate to more convictions.”

The Organization

The Migrant and Immigrant Community Action (MICA) Project is a Missouri-based nonprofit organization that provides low-cost immigration legal services. Their goal is to combine outreach with legal services to promote the voice and dignity of immigrant communities and to provide information and resources before legal issues arise.

The MICA Project’s legal services include family immigration matters, naturalization, removal defense, and asylum and refugee issues. Additionally, the MICA Project team provides legal services and resources to survivors of domestic violence.

The Position

The MICA Project seeks a Bilingual Staff Attorney to represent clients in benefits proceedings before USCIS and in removal proceedings in Immigration Court. Additionally, the staff attorney will participate in the MICA’s Projects community outreach and Know Your Rights efforts. The staff attorney will also be responsible for preparing all documents required for cases and applications, supervising volunteers and interns, participating in trainings on changes in immigration law, building relationships in the profession and the community, and tackling any other assigned tasks.

The ideal candidate will have experience in immigration law, whether that experience come from professional practice or clinic and externship work completed during law school. The ideal candidate will also have excellent verbal and written communication skills, the ability to work with a team, and enthusiasm for working in an evolving legal atmosphere where crisis situations are common.

See the full post on PSJD: https://www.psjd.org/opportunitydetails?OppID=97984

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public!

Hope 2020 is treating everyone well so far. I’m reeling a bit from the onslaught of news, so this is our first Digest of the year. We’re off to a roaring start. The right to counsel in immigration and asylum cases saw major developments, with a federal judge in California affirming asylum seekers’ right to counsel while New York State legislators debated creating a statutory right to publicly-funded counsel in deportation cases. Student loans also continue to make headlines, with the House of Representatives repudiating Secretary DeVos’ new regulations concerning student loan forgiveness in situations of fraud and a bankruptcy judge in New York discharging a lawyer’s student loan debt. Criminal justice reform has also been a major topic, from Minnesota, where Attorney General Ellison called for an investigation into the summary firing of Hennepin County’s Chief Public Defender, to Missouri, where the St. Louis District Attorney filed a federal suit against the city and its police union under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. Oh! And former PSJD Fellow and Georgetown OPICS alum Katie Dilks was named the Executive Director of the Oklahoma Access to Justice Foundation. Congratulations Katie!

As always, these stories and more are in the links below.

See you around,

Sam

Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Issues

• In Ciudad Juarez MX, “Mexican authorities [] removed almost 100 Mexican migrants seeking asylum in the United States from a camp in downtown Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, according to a Reuters witness, after state police threatened to separate parents from their children.”
• In San Francisco CA, “the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office filed a Motion for Temporary Restraining Order against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Yuba County Sheriff’s Office with the U.S. Federal District Court, Northern District of California, requesting an immediate hearing on behalf of a female transgender immigrant who was illegally transferred on Christmas night to a remote detention facility in Texas.”
• In Los Angeles CA, the Council on American-Islamic Relations Los Angeles (CAIR-LA) is “working to educate the Iranian community about their legal rights in light of reports of increased profiling and discrimination against Iranians across the nation.”
• In San Diego CA, “[f]inding asylum seekers have a right to counsel when undergoing interviews to determine whether they can be returned to Mexico under the “Remain in Mexico” program, a federal judge [] confirmed immigration law guarantees attorney access for migrants.”
• In Albany NY, “[l]egislation is being introduced [] that would create a statutory right to a lawyer for any New Yorker facing deportation who cannot afford an attorney on their own.​”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In Los Angeles CA, “the UCLA School of Law is enhancing its Loan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP), starting in January. …Under new LRAP guidelines, alumni with incomes up to $75,000 will have their eligible loan payments fully covered, an increase from the previous threshold of $60,000.”
• In Washington DC, “[Senator Elizabeth] Warren said that as president, she would not wait for Congress to approve her plans to cancel or modify federal student debt. Instead, she would directly authorize the Department of Education to provide as much as $50,000 in relief to about 95% of student loan borrowers.”
• Also in Washington DC, “[t]he House voted 231-180 to overturn new regulations introduced by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos that critics argue limit student loan forgiveness when a college closes due to fraud.”
• In California, “[t]he CFPB filed a complaint last week in a California federal district court against several companies and individuals involved in offering student loan debt relief services for allegedly obtaining consumer reports unlawfully, charging unlawful advance fees, and engaging in deceptive conduct.”
• In New York NY, “[a] bankruptcy judge excused a U.S. Navy veteran with a law degree from repaying more than $220,000 in student loan debt, the latest court ruling to lower the barriers to discharging educational debt.”

Disaster Law & The Environment

• In Washington DC, “US President Donald Trump's administration announced Thursday sweeping changes to an environmental law that would speed up the construction of highways, airports and pipelines [by] rais[ing] the threshold for what types of projects require an environmental impact assessment.”
• In Portland OR, Willamette Week described how “[i]n just a few months, the city of Portland will begin investing the proceeds from a groundbreaking new tax on large companies [in a] local version of the Green New Deal proposed in 2019 by U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).”
• In Cambridge MA, “[d]ozens of Harvard Law School students disrupted a first-year student recruitment event held by corporate law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP[], calling on the firm to stop representing the oil and gas company ExxonMobil in ongoing climate change litigation.”

Legal Technology

• In Las Vegas NV, Amazon’s top hardware executive “said he’s proud of the [Ring law enforcement] program, believes the partnerships with police departments are good for neighborhoods, and hinted at a future in which Ring cameras could use Amazon’s facial recognition technology—a scenario that some of Ring’s critics have already expressed concerns about.”
• In Montreal QC, the Cyberjustice Laboratory launched “Autonomy through Cyberjustice Technologies (ACT)[:] the largest international mutlidisciplinary research initiative that seeks to leverage AI to increase access to justice while providing justice stakeholders with a roadmap to help them develop technology that is better adapted to justice.”
• In Canada, the Canadian Bar Association published a statement on “Modernizing the Federal Court”.
• The ABA Journal interviewed Richard Susskind about his thoughts on “[o]nline courts, the future of justice and being bold in 2020.”

Non-Profit & Government Management & Hiring

• In Chicago IL, “Executive search firm Isaacson, Miller has been enlisted to find the next president and chief executive officer for the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law[.]”
• In New Jersey, “[t]he New Jersey Supreme Court [] questioned why public defenders should not receive the state Tort Claims Act protections afforded to other state employees as the justices challenged a wrongfully convicted man’s bid to revive his legal malpractice suit[.]”
• Also in New Jersey, “state lawmakers approved a bill that will compel employers to give more notice and pay severance to laid-off workers, after a public backlash against the treatment of workers who lost their jobs in the retail apocalypse…Maxine Neuhauser, an attorney with Epstein Becker Green in Newark, said nonprofit employers could be in a bind if they suddenly lose out on government grants or funding.”
• In Above the Law, an op-ed argued that “Public Interest Organizations Must Use Their Surge In Donations To Pay Their Lawyers A Living Wage.”

Access to Justice – Civil

• In Connecticut, the State Bar Association created a “State of the Legal Profession Task Force[; a move] driven by the access-to-justice gap, as well as the challenges lawyers face in the current system.”
• In New York NY, “[e]victions [] have plummeted nearly 20% in the six months since Albany lawmakers enacted sweeping new tenant protection laws.The drop. revealed in city data compiled over the past two years, shows evictions in the last half of 2019 stood at 8,951, down from 10,958 over the same period in 2018.”
• Law360 published a list of “4 Access To Justice Cases to Watch in 2020”.
• In Indiana, “Chief Justice Loretta Rush issued a call to arms for everyone involved in the state’s justice system in her annual State of the Judiciary Address[:] one glaring area of need is legal aid. Too many people, she says, go unrepresented in court.”

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Minneapolis MN, “Attorney General Keith Ellison [] called for the Minnesota Board of Public Defense to examine the process that led to the suspension of Hennepin County's chief public defender, saying he believes Mary Moriarty was targeted for speaking out against racial bias in the criminal justice system.”
• In Alaska, the state’s Public Defender Agency responded to a recent gubernatorial report which claimed “defender caseloads are reasonable when compared to established professional measures.” The Public Defender Agency asserted that “Alaska shouldn’t join other states in failing to represent low-income defendants.” (As characterized in third-party reporting.)
• In Jefferson County OH, “County commissioners [] agreed to create a commission to study whether the county should create to a public defender’s office.”
• In Berrien County MI, “[f]or the second time since the Berrien County Public Defender’s Office opened three years ago, Berrien County is losing its chief public defender to a larger county.”
• In Fresco County CA, “[t]he [] County Public Defenders Office will be adding much-needed lawyers to its ranks as part of a legal settlement between the county and the American Civil Liberties Union.”

Criminal Justice Reform

• In New York, “[a] group of 64 activist groups called on Cuomo to “immediately prioritize the full statewide repeal” of a law known by its statute number, 50-a, which guards the confidentiality of personnel records of police, firefighters, correction officers and other uniformed officers.”
• In Virginia, “Gov. Ralph Northam [] announced his criminal justice reform agenda for 2020.”
• In San Francisco CA, “[n]ewly elected San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin fired multiple prosecutors on Friday afternoon as he reshapes the office and begins implementing his progressive vision two days after being sworn in.”
• In St. Louis MO, “[a] top prosecutor has filed a federal lawsuit against the city of St Louis and its police union citing a nearly 150-year-old law used to combat the Ku Klux Klan white supremacist group.”
• In related news, “[o]ne day after St. Louis’ top prosecutor filed a federal lawsuit alleging a concerted and racist conspiracy to push her out of office, other black female prosecutors from across the U.S. defended Kim Gardner, saying they’ve faced the same resistance in their own communities.”

The Organization

Third Way is a national center-left think tank that believes in mainstream American values of opportunity, freedom, and security. Their work focuses on high-impact advocacy campaigns that combine policy research with an inclusive understanding of the American middle. The issues Third Way currently advocate for span topics of climate and energy, economics, education, health care, national security, politics, and social policy.

The Positions

Third Way seeks policy fellows to work in four areas: National Security, Economics, Social Policy and Politics, and Climate and Energy. These fellows will join dedicated and dynamic teams seeking to make real change in their advocacy focus-areas.

The ideal candidates will be able to work both independently and collaboratively, take initiative on projects, know how to explain complicated concepts in a clear and understandable way, and have strong research, analysis, and writing skills.

For more information about each opportunity, see Third Way’s profile on PSJD: https://www.psjd.org/organizationdetails?OrgID=58309

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Hello there, interested public! Hope the final days of this decade are treating you all well. Among the many retrospectives this week, you may find the one by Slate interesting, which describes the 2010’s as “The Decade Class Actions Were Gutted.” In the here-and-now, immigration and student loans stories continue to dominate, with a new federal lawsuit accusing the Trump administration of “weaponizing” the immigration court system and the Trump administration announcing its intention to take up student loan debt reform. 

In sunnier news, the right to counsel in eviction just received bipartisan federal attention in the Senate! As usual, these stories and more are in the links below.

See you around,
  Sam

Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Issues

• In Portland OR, “[l]egal service providers filed a federal lawsuit…challenging the ‘weaponization’ of the U.S. immigration court system. The filing is asking a federal judge in Portland to declare that the court system is illegal.”
  • Relatedly the Wall Street Journal ran an article under the headline “Immigration Tent Courts at Border Raise Due-Process Concerns”.
• In Washington DC, Human Rights First released a report on “escalating human rights abuses against asylum seekers returned to Mexico by the Trump administration” alleging that “Trump administration officials continue to knowingly send people who have asked for refugee protection to be kidnapped, exploited, beaten, raped and even killed in Mexico[.]”
• In Milford CT, “[m]embers of Unidad Latina en Accion renewed its call for the ban Thursday after ICE agents attempted to arrest a woman at Superior Court in Milford and demanded identification from a second woman who is in the United States legally.”
  • Relatedly, “[t]he Trump administration is defending U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement’s authority to arrest suspected unauthorized immigrants at Massachusetts state courthouses, telling a Boston federal court…that the agency can make its arrests anywhere.”

Student Loans & Student Debt

• In Washington DC, “[a] new report prepared by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) for Vermont senator and 2020 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders [finds that] millennials are financial worse off than their parents and may not have the opportunity to do better.” Specifically, “student loan debt is what really differentiates millennial finances from other generations, with millenials more likely to have student debt that exceeds their annual income.” (Full report available here.)
• Also in Washington DC, “[t]he Trump administration is considering ways to help Americans with their student-loan debt, according to senior administration officials, including by refinancing loans at lower interest rates and eliminating debt in bankruptcy.”
• Also also in Washington DC, “Education Secretary Betsy DeVos [] vigorously defended her decision to grant partial or no loan relief to tens of thousands of students who were misled by for-profit colleges, blaming the Obama administration for overpromising debt relief.”
• Again also in Washington DC, “[l]awmakers continue to berate Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Kathy Kraninger over failures related to the oversight of student loan servicers, blaming her for allowing the massive problems in the student loan system to ‘fester.’”
• The Motley Fool reported that “only 44% of millennials with student loans say they completely understood their repayment terms before officially taking them on. And more than 33% of younger borrowers admitted that they didn’t even understand some of the basics associated with student loans — concepts like monthly payments, interest rates, and refinancing.”
• The Urban Institute updated its Debt in America Interactive Map, which allows users to filter specifically for student debt.
• In San Francisco, MeasureOne released its “Private Student Loan Report, an industry leading research report leveraging MeasureOne’s custom analytics services. This 13th edition of the report again affirms that students and families continue to responsibly use private student loans to cover college costs.”
• In New York, Pillar, a personal finance app, “launched a new feature for the holidays called Boost. Boost is the first gifting platform for consumers exclusively dedicated to paying off student loan debt. With Boost by Pillar, a person’s friends and family can make payments towards their loved one’s student loans. Pillar automatically applies these crowdfunded payments directly towards the user’s student loan debt[.]”
• Forbes published a discussion about “the unexpected dangers of paying off student loans with your 401(k) savings”.
• The New York Times published a discussion of “‘income-share agreements,’ [] new financial instrument[s] being promoted by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.”

Legal Technology

• In Florida, an unauthorized practice of law case filed by “traffic-ticket goliath The Ticket Clinic” against the technology service TIKD, which “invite[s motorists] to ‘spend two minutes or less’ taking a photo of [their] ticket, uploading it and paying a fee based on the fine amount[,]” is heading to the Florida Supreme Court: “Justices set arguments for March 4 to help them decide whether the app should be allowed or shut down.”
• In California, “Verogen, a California-based forensic genomics company, acquired GEDmatch, a user-sourced DNA genealogy site. The acquisition suggests that GEDmatch’s transformation from a popular genealogy site to a crime-fighting tool is almost complete. The privacy implications will be enormous, even for those who have never considered taking a consumer genetic test.”
• In St. Louis MO, after studying “the state bars of Arizona and Florida[, which] employ programs that match attorneys with pro bono work via software[,]” the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis has begun developing its “Pro Bono Software Project”.
• OpenGlobalRights argued that “the wild west of online political campaigning threatens to damage our democracies irreparably[; and w]e should be turning to international human rights law to set [] boundaries.”
• In South Dakota, “[a] new online tool that links lower-income South Dakotans and lawyers seems to be much faster than the old way, where legal-aid staff directly took people’s initial information.”

Non-Profit & Government Management & Hiring

• In Washington DC, “under a bill that could become law this week [t]he United States government would be prohibited from asking job applicants about their criminal history at the start of the hiring process.”
• In Seattle WA, “the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington ordered the Department of Defense to turn over documents that it has withheld regarding the Trump-Pence administration’s ban on open military service by transgender people, including its purported justifications for the policy.”
• In Montgomery AL, “employees at Southern Poverty Law Center took the next step in their drive for unionization, successfully voting to join the Washington-Baltimore News Guild in a vote of 142-45. The vote comes after SPLC management declined to voluntarily recognize the union and hired legal counsel that raised fears about pushback against union efforts[.]”
• Phys.org published a study in which “sociology researchers [] analyze[d] 41 predominantly white organizations and their leaders [where t]hese organizations seek to address local, state, and national issues by organizing community members to help influence public policy.” Researchers found that “all else being equal, organizations with a leader of color were more likely to address racial issues internally and when shaping public policy.”

Access to Justice – Civil

• Slate.com published a retrospective on the 2010’s as “The Decade Class Actions Were Gutted.”
• In Washington DC, “[a] bipartisan group of legislators introduced a bill yesterday that would provide aid for renters facing eviction[.] ..In addition to providing funds to avoid eviction, the bill would also improve legal representation for tenants by supporting the expansion of landlord-tenant community courts, increasing the presence of social service representatives for at-risk tenants, and funding the Legal Services Corporation, a public-private partnership that provides legal services to low-income Americans”
• In Toronto ON, Toronto Life published an interview with three local attorneys in which they weighed in on the effect of Premier Ford’s cuts to legal aid.
• In New York NY, “the Mayor’s Office announced an expansion of the Right to Counsel program that provides free legal assistance to New Yorkers fighting eviction. The Right to Counsel program, implemented by a ZIP code by ZIP code approach, will be expanded to five more ZIP codes across the City.”
• In Puerto Rico, “[a] Puerto Rican bar association is challenging the commonwealth’s new pro bono requirements, arguing they violate attorneys’ constitutional rights including due process and equal protection.”
• The Center for American Progress published “5 Principles for Civil Justice Reform”.

Access to Justice – Criminal

• In Wyoming, “[t]he Wyoming Legislature’s Joint Judiciary Committee advanced legislation…that would create a new state agency committed to representing children in juvenile court.”
• In Oregon, the Blue Mountain Eagle profiled “the Forensic Justice Project[, a] small Portland-based nonprofit…dedicated to helping defense lawyers understand, find and challenge scientific evidence introduced during trials.”
• In Buffalo NY, “[a]s part of a five-year program, the Legal Aid Bureau of Buffalo will receive enough state aid to increase its staff of defense attorneys from 24 to 50.”
• In Columbiana County OH, “[t]he non-profit organization of attorneys created to provide public defender representation in Columbiana County is getting more funding in 2020, which in the end will reduce the amount of money county commissioners have to spend on the program.”
• In Richland County OH, “[r]epresentatives of the Richland County Bar Association have indicated that the association could act this week to accept a compromise fee schedule for attorneys who represent indigent defendants and end their boycott of those cases, following a promise that the new fees will be reviewed again in mid-2020.”

Criminal Justice Reform

• In Los Angeles CA, “[t]wo candidates on the left are challenging [] the current D.A. One of the challengers [is] a former public defender for both LA County and the federal government.”
  • In a related news story, “[t]wo candidates running to become the district attorney of Los Angeles County are voicing support for decriminalizing possession of all drugs.”
• In Prince Edward Island, “Charlottetown and Summerside [are] asking the province to give police new power to seize property[.]”
• In New York, “[u]nder new bail restrictions [taking effect Jan. 1], judges will no longer be able to weigh the risk to public safety and order defendants jailed with bail unless they are charged with certain violent or sex felony charges. Instead, defendants will be issued appearance tickets in nearly all cases. The legislation also compresses the prosecution’s timeline for sharing information with defendants and their legal counsel.”
• In Philadelphia PA, “the state Superior Court has ruled [that the] Pennsylvania Supreme Court is the only appellate court with the authority to review a Philadelphia trial judge’s controversial decision to replace the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office with a special prosecutor in a probation violation matter.”