Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), New England’s lgbt and HIV public interest legal organization, is looking for a full-time Attorney for its work in the six New England states.

GLAD is particularly interested in expanding its ability to address the needs of lgbtq youth in a variety of settings. Therefore, along with litigation, this attorney will be also be responsible for community, coalition, policy, education and legislative work devoted to lgbtq youth.

If you have litigation and legal research and writing experience along with a commitment to working with and on behalf of lgbtq youth, and knowledge of issues that particularly affect lgbtq youth of color, APPLY!

To read more about this position or to apply, see the listing at PSLawNet!

by Kristen Pavón

The Washington Post reports that TMZ founder Harvey Levin has advised TV and print media channels that their models are broken and they had better adapt or die.

While Levin’s journalistic credibility is …. questionable, at best, his comments got me thinking about how communication has changed and wondering whether we’re doing ourselves a disservice by relying so heavily on online communication, particularly for relationship management and when on the job hunt.

I’ve heard a lot about this issue lately, especially as it relates to Millennial law students —  they are losing touch with traditional forms of communication. They’re hesitant to pick up the phone to speak to someone at a courthouse or law firm and they’d prefer to exchange text messages rather than have a face-to-face conversation with a mentor.

Social media has changed how we discover new information and how we can connect with people with similar interests. However, social media makes it too easy to connect with other people and can cheapen the value of online interactions and in turn, weaken your relationships.

And with job hunters doing the majority of their job search online — searching career sites like PSLawNet, linking employers to their Linkedin profiles, using Twitter to find job opportunities, and even adding prospective employers as friends on Facebook or Google+. — it’s important to step away from the computer.

For real results, bring your online networking into the real world!

Meeting up with someone in person and chatting over coffee about your job search, cannot and will not be replaced with a tweet (Got that, Levin?). The real (and critical) value of social media is the offline relationship you can create and maintain by utilizing online networks.

Let’s bring traditional back — leave some of your traditional networking/communication success stories below!

The Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC) has an immediate opening at its headquarters in Washington, DC for an immigration attorney to provide legal services to Roman Catholic Dioceses and religious institutes bringing foreign-born religious workers to the United States. 

Applicants must be admitted to the bar and licensed to practice law and will be responsible for carrying a substantial caseload. The attorney must have immigration law experience and a strong commitment to public interest law. Experience in religious immigration work and fluency in a foreign language are helpful.

If you’re interested in this opportunity, check out the listing at PSLawNet!

by Kristen Pavón

The White House’s Champions of Change program honoring legal leaders in closing the justice gap was inspiring and I got some wonderful advice about public service and pro bono work, and learned a great deal about issues I was unfamiliar with.

Here are a few of my notes/thoughts/questions/tips from the program:

1. Get some perspective. Evaluate the difference in value between what you’ll give and receive from participating in pro bono opportunities and forgoing these opps to get an A instead of a B+ in Torts.

2. Reaching unreachable clients. Is video conferencing an option for your organization to reach clients who live in rural areas and would otherwise not have legal representation?

3. Experience. During your first year in law school — visit a court! This is critical. You need to see firsthand what goes on in the courts.

4. Changing our structure. Legal services professionals need to think about ways we can change the legal services delivery structure to be more efficient and effective.

5. Recognize, reward and support. This is how law schools can best encourage pro bono work among students.

Were you at the Champions of Change program at the White House? Did you catch the webcast? What did you take away from the Champions?

By: Steve Grumm

It makes perfect sense.  The civil legal services community can not keep up with swelling demand for services.  Meanwhile, the Baby Boomer exodus from the practice of law has begun, as the oldest Boomers are at retirement age.  This being the case, what about providing opportunities to represent the poor for those lawyers who wish to leave fee-generating practice but also want to remain in practice?

The National Law Journal looks at D.C.’s Senior Attorneys Initiative for Legal Services (SAILS), a program which matches attorneys in or near retirement with pro bono cases (password-protected).

Last October, the District of Columbia Access to Justice Commission and the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program created a program to better engage firms with pro bono work called SAILS — Senior Attorneys Initiative for Legal Services. The program included 11 founding D.C.-based law offices.

“The point of SAILS was to institutionalize pro bono work among partner and senior lawyers,” said Marc Fleischaker, Arent Fox partner and chair of the SAILS working group.

Maureen Syracuse, outgoing executive director of the D.C. Bar’s Pro Bono Program, also is working to have senior attorneys spend their last several years as devoted to pro bono work as possible. “We are trying to tap all the resources of the firms,” Syracuse said. Funding for legal service providers has always been scant, and the prolonged harsh economic times have compounded the issue. It has also made some lawyers more leery of hanging up their hat, even as more approach retirement age.

But she argues that, in their last years at their firms, some senior attorneys have an increasing desire to give back. “These are the people that went to law school to change the world,” Syracuse said. “When they hit the last stage of their career, there will be a sizable number that want to do something more. We think we will find a number of lawyers with that mindset.”

SAILS isn’t the only program harnessing the experience and expertise of the gray-hairs profession’s elder statespeople.  In New York State, the Attorney Emeritus Program does something similar.  On the national level, the Pro Bono Institute’s Second Acts project facilitates the movement of retiring attorneys into volunteer work.

The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in DC is looking for two bright and creative attorneys with organizing skills to serve as an Associate Counsels for the Voting Rights Project.

The attorneys will work with the Voting Rights and Legal Mobilization Projects in implementing the Election Protection Program – the nation’s largest, non-partisan voter protection program which works year round to address barriers to the ballot box for traditionally disenfranchised voters. The ideal candidates must be able to balance traditional legal with some organizing responsibilities.
Ideal candidates will be licensed attorneys in their first 4 years of practice. The positions requires candidates who can work well under the pressure of a campaign-type environment, handle significant responsibility and make thoughtful decisions in short time periods. Candidates will become proficient in identifying and addressing obstacles to the ballot box and work with pro bono legal networks in to identify legal issues and develop and implement solutions. Additionally the positions will assist in legislative advocacy efforts on the state and federal level.

Fluency in Spanish is a plus and extensive travel will be required. The positions are temporary and will last from January 2012 to December 2012 with a possibility of continued employment based on performance and available funding.

by Kristen Pavón

Now that our  annual Public Service Mini-Conference is over, we will now resume our regularly scheduled program here at the PSLawNet Blog!

The conference was a great success! On Wednesday, we hosted the Public Interest Advising 101 program for new or newish law school career advisors.

During our 101 program, panelists talked about student debt (by the wonderful Heather Jarvis), how to use PSLawNet to find PS jobs and career resources, and common challenges a public interest advisor faces in their first years on the job. In addition to the useful tips and information, the program was a fab opportunity for advisors to meet colleagues from across the country.

After PIA101, some attendees braved the nasty weather and kept the party going at the Round Robin Networking Dinners — at Zengo, Old Ebbitt Grill and Matchbox — to nosh with colleagues. Zengo got particularly high marks for tastiness and ambiance! (We’ll see, I have a reservation for tonight!)

Yesterday, at Arnold & Porter, LLC, more than 150 law school professionals and attorneys gathered for public service-focused programming.

The day started with introductions, NALP’s Public Service Section Workgroup updates, and NALP & PSLawNet updates.

Then, after presenting Felicia Cantrell, ASU Law 3L, with the 17th Annual Pro Bono Publico Award and Deb Ellis with NALP’s Award of  Distinction, groups broke out for sessions on labor & workers’ rights careers, teaching professionalism and advocating public service programs within law school administrations.

After the breakout programming, everyone reconvened for a “whirlwind tour” of hot topics affecting public interest career professionals. Panelists let attendees in on some techie secrets (topsy.com, google news alerts for your name and Klout.com), talked about student debt, Uncle Sam’s attempt to streamline the federal attorney application process, best practices for employer outreach, and ABA accreditation standards.

Finally, at the end of the day, federal legal recruiters joined us for a networking reception to mix and mingle with law school career services professionals.

Were you at the mini-conference? What did you think about the programming?

I WANT YOU...to look at the sleek new website I put on the Internets.

By: Steve Grumm

FYI, the newest version of the USAJobs website is now up and running.  We haven’t poked around on it yet.  In concept the redesign seemed promising.  The Government Executive news site reports as follows:

According to the Office of Personnel Management, the new USAJobs was designed to make the employment search process easier for potential hires and federal recruiters alike. One official even compared the revised system to Amazon and other major retail sites that allow users to “window shop” and find the products they are seeking with ease.

But as with any overhaul, glitches and confusion are bound to occur. We’ve had a hard time connecting to the site, and the USAJobs Facebook page has been flooded with complaints that the system isn’t functional or user-friendly.

It’s not surprising that there might be a glitch or two, but let’s hope all of that gets taken care of soon.  Good luck, federal job seekers!  (And don’t forget to take advantage of our free 2011-12 Federal Legal Employment Opportunities Guide.)

By: Steve Grumm

Every summer we update the postgraduate fellowship listings in PSLawNet.  There are hundreds in there now, many of them for fellowships beginning in 2012.  We encourage you to log in to PSLawNet and search.

Also, though, we pull as many application deadlines from those listings as we can.  We put them together in this application deadline calendar, which is a handy tool for law students/grads who are applying for many fellowships.

Good luck!

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

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

Interested? See the listing at PSLawNet!