By: Steve Grumm

Greetings, readers!  The big news this week is a House proposal to take a big chunk out of LSC funding in FY12.  Other news items will carry us from Vermont to Pennsylvania (home of the Glorious Philadelphia Phillies Baseball Franchise, presently the best team in the majors – FYI) to Mississippi to California to Hawaii, with stops at various points between. 

This week: Have Justice Will Travel up against the ropes financially; House proposes 25% cut in Legal Services Corporation funding (yikes!); IOLTA funds distributed in Mississippi; in PA, state funding for legal services cut; a new CO pro bono program for appellate-level cases; from multiple-time drug offender to assistant district attorney – that’s taking a new career path; is this man the “face of bad court-appointed lawyers”?; Aloha State legal services programs to benefit from filing fee bump-up; AmLaw’s pro bono report is out, numbers are down; foreclosure defense funding in the Bay Area.   

• 7.7.11 –Have Justice Will Travel, an organization that represents domestic violence victims in Vermont, is hurting for cash.  Vermont Public Radio has the story: “Wynona Ward of Vershire founded Have Justice Will Travel in 1998. Raised in a violent household herself, Ward eventually became a lawyer dedicated to helping others in that plight.  Her organization is the only one in Vermont that specializes in legal representation in divorce, child custody and similar cases. But now Ward has had to lay off five of her six employees. Ward hopes the situation is just temporary.”  What’s really hurt the group is the loss of DOJ grant funding.  (VAWA funding, probably.)  Props to John Lamson, an attorney who was laid off by HJWT, but who has taken the time to continue representing DV victims at no charge, hopeful that a new funding stream will put him back on salary.  (Faithful Bulletin readers – all six of you – will recall that HJWT got some similar press attention in early June.)

• 7.6.11 – a House of Representatives proposal would slash Legal Services Corporation funding by over 25% in FY2012.  From an LSC press release: “The [House Appropriations] Committee bill proposes a $300 million budget for LSC [which now stands at just over $400 million] —rolling back LSC funding to a level not seen since 1999.  LSC’s preliminary estimates show that about 235,000 low-income Americans eligible for civil legal assistance at LSC-funded programs would be turned away if the Committee proposal were enacted.”  The House proposal is frightening, but is hardly the last word.  The Obama Administration had proposed a $450 million LSC budget, while LSC itself is shooting for $515 million.  And the Senate hasn’t weighed in with a figure yet, but it will undoubtedly not be as low as the House’s. 

• 7.5.11 – the Mississippi Center for Legal Services received 96,000 in IOLTA funds, according to the Sun Herald.  According to its website, MCLS receives 90% of its funding from LSC.  Given the potential for a considerable drop in LSC field grants whenever a federal budget gets passed for FY12, other funding streams, such as IOLTA, are going to become increasingly important.  With respect to IOLTA funding in the Magnolia State, you can view a list of 2011-12 funding recipients here.

• 7.5.11 – the Legal Intelligencer reports on state funding for Pennsylvania legal services programs.  The bad news: Due to some last-minute budget reshuffling, state funding will drop by 10%, down from $3.04 million to $2.7 million.  ” ‘Right now ranks up right there with one of the most challenging years we’ve experienced in the nearly 40 years of the statewide legal aid system,’ [Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network exec. director Samuel] Milkes said. ‘It’s not only the cuts that we’re experiencing here but cuts in federal funding for programs, too. It’s just occurring everywhere’.”  The silver lining: “Another source of funding for both legal services and for the judiciary was passed by both houses of the General Assembly: a bill that will continue temporary filing fee surcharges until Dec. 31, 2014. One dollar of the $11.25 surcharge goes to civil legal aid and $10.25 goes to the judiciary. Milkes said that the legal services community is hoping that Harrisburg lawmakers will also extend a $2 filing fee that goes toward civil legal aid and which is slated to sunset Nov. 1, 2012.”

• 7.5.11 -the Denver Post reports on a Colorado pro bono program focused on providing assistance to low-income litigants at the appellate level.  “The program started as the brainchild of appellate court Judges Daniel Taubman and David Richman, who saw litigants representing themselves struggle with complex legal issues….  Until last year, there was no assistance for low-income people trying complex cases before the state’s appellate and Supreme courts, said Christina Gomez, who is chairwoman of the committee that screens applications.   So far, 27 people have asked for help and volunteer attorneys have taken on 10 cases, Gomez said…. The program accepts applications from people who make 125 percent of the federal poverty level or less, and handles cases involving property rights, contract disputes, family law, employment and others topics. Cases involving prison discipline, election appeals, unemployment compensation and post-criminal-conviction relief are excluded.
   
• 7.4.11 – arrested on drug charges, shot five times, and now a prosecutor in the Philly D.A.’s office.  The Philadelphia Inquirer reports on the remarkable story of A.D.A. Kevin Harden, Jr.  Harden grew up in very difficult circumstances, made some critical course-corrections after serious run-ins with the law, and now supports himself and two younger brothers since both of his parents have died.  As also noted in the story, Harden’s been the subject of some criticism regarding his hiring. Harden has the strong support of District Attorney Seth Williams, however, and also gets high marks from Dean JoAnne Epps at his alma mater (and mine!), Temple Law.

• 7.4.11 – the Detroit Free Press checks up on court-appointed defense counsel Robert Slameka, who was profiled in 2009 NPR story focused on how poorly resourced many indigent defense systems are, leading to attorneys acting with little client interaction, little funding, and little oversight.   The Free Press, characterizing Slameka as having been “the face bad court-appointed lawyers” in the NPR story, hones in on his long disciplinary record.  However, the story also quotes some defenders of the defender, who note that anyone who has spent decades doing indigent defense work will be subject to some criticism.

• 7.3.11 -Aloha State legal services advocates have reason to be mahalo-ful.  From the Honolulu Star Advertiser: “Starting Jan. 1, the cost of filing a state lawsuit will increase under a measure approved by lawmakers this year to help fund nonprofit groups providing assistance to Hawaii residents who can’t afford to pay for legal services.   The legislation could generate an additional $1 million or more a year and was one of the key initiatives by the Access to Justice Commission, created by the Hawaii Supreme Court in 2007 after a study found that four of five low-income residents don’t get the legal help they need.”

• 7.1.11 – AmLaw issued its annual pro bono report this week, showing a drop-off in pro bono by the 200 highest grossing law firms between 2009 and 2010.  From the report overview: “Average pro bono hours for lawyers at Am Law 200 firms plummeted 8 percent in 2010 to their lowest level in three years, reversing a decade of steady growth. The overall average percentage of lawyers who did more than 20 hours of pro bono work dipped 5.2 percent.”  Context is important here.  In 2009, law firms were still “right-sizing” their attorney workforces, meaning that there were still many associates doing a lot of pro bono because of a shortage of fee-paying work.  In 2010, there were fewer attorneys and fee-paying work began picking up, which meant less time for pro bono.  This doesn’t explain the pro bono drop-off entirely, but in my view it’s a significant factor.

• 7.1.11 – foreclosure defense funding in the Bay Area.  From the San Jose Mercury News: “South Bay and Peninsula residents at risk of losing their homes got a boost Friday when the Silicon Valley Community Foundation awarded $511,000 to organizations who work to prevent foreclosure.  The foundation says the award will allow seven nonprofits in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties to retain employees who were hired with previous grants from the foundation. That should allow the groups to provide housing counseling or legal services to more than 1,000 people.  [Among the benefiting organizations,] Bay Area Legal Aid, Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County and Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto each received $75,000 to provide legal assistance to those facing foreclosure.” 

By Jamie Bence and Lauren Forbes

Howdy, folks! Every Thursday, the PSLawNet Blog posts a compilation of some of our favorite posts from the public interest blogosphere. Here’s what looks good this week:

• Access to Justice breaks down updates to DOJ’s Grant Information page. Updates via email are now available!
• Equal Justice Works discusses the a new proposal in Congress to help relieve student debt.
• The ACLU Blog of Rights reports that yesterday, organizations combating HIV/AIDS received support to continue and strengthen their work with one of the populations most vulnerable to infection. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the “anti-prostitution pledge,” a part of the U.S. Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act.

By Lauren Forbes

Legal Services of Southern Piedmont seeks a Family Support and Health Care Attorney.  The purpose of the Family Support and Health Care Program is to ensure that low-income children, the elderly, disabled persons, immigrants and their families have access to health care and public services. The program is designed both to obtain specific relief for the individuals and families who contact the program for assistance, and also to utilize systemic advocacy strategies to change the rules, procedures and practices of federal and state agencies to ensure access to health care and public services for all affected persons.

The program focuses its advocacy efforts on the following issues:

• Access to quality health care for children and parents in low and moderate-income families.
• Assisting families on, formerly on or in danger of needing welfare in becoming self-sufficient by improving access to child support enforcement, child care, education, training, transportation, substance abuse treatment, Food Stamps, EITC, Medicaid, affordable housing, and other supportive services.
• Improving health care and income support for the disabled and elderly poor, with a focus on issues involving Social Security, SSI, Medicaid, Medicare, and on improving mental health services, care in nursing and rest homes, access to community-based care, services to the HIV-positive population, and managed care.
• Working closely with the LSSP Immigrant Justice Program to address these issues as they impact immigrants.

FSHCP combines representation of individuals in administrative appeals with class action litigation and other impact advocacy to try to change government agency policies and practices to benefit low income and medically needy persons in Mecklenburg county and throughout North Carolina.

To see the complete listing, go to PSLawNet (login required).

By Jamie Bence

From our friends at Equal Justice Works, a Friday webinar on public interest students who find themselves faced with hefty loans.

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

July 8, 2011 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

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

From this interactive webinar, you will learn and be able to ask questions about:

• Understanding your Federal loans
• How the Income-Based Repayment plan works
• How to qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness

Register for this webinar here.

By Lauren Forbes

A piece in The Queens Courier announces an official location change for The City University of New York’s School of Law (CUNY Law) that has been long-awaited.  CUNY Law,  a school with a public interest mission,  is now positioning itself to train even more public servants with an upcoming change of scenery.  In an effort to better serve Queens, CUNY  Law is gearing up to leave its current Flushing location in favor of the more transportation-friendly Long Island City.

CUNY Law reports that L.I.C.’s central location will allow for an easier commute from all five boroughs and from around the region. Further, the move will enable the School to realize its long-held ambition to establish a part-time program, an innovation that would help make the Law School accessible to a more diverse range of students. With its greater centrality, its mission will be enhanced by its closer proximity to the public interest community and to its clients.

Assemblymember Grace Meng and Councilmember Peter Koo toured the under-construction facility on Thursday, June 30. During the tour, Koo noted that the school will provide more of the kinds of lawyers society needs.

“There are too many lawyers, but not enough working in public interest,” he said. “This school is one of the best public interest law schools in the country and with this move it will serve even more people.”

Meng said that while she was sad to see the school leave Flushing, she knows that it will have an even greater presence in L.I.C.

“As a law school dedicated to public interest, CUNY Law is a great asset to our community, offering pro bono legal assistance through its clinic and supporting new lawyers who are eager to devote themselves to practice law for social justice,” she said. “The school’s move to Long Island City will allow even more people to access these critical services.”

Dean Michelle Anderson said that while Flushing was a great home for a number of years, moving to L.I.C. will help the school to better serve the community. According to Anderson, the Flushing location sometimes hindered the school – but in L.I.C. more people will have access to CUNY’s wealth of resources.

…
The new building, located at 2 Court Square, is LEED Gold certified and boasts 225,000 square feet of space for larger classrooms, an auditorium and a moot courtroom. The school will also be accessible by more than a dozen subway and bus lines, as well as the Long Island Railroad.

Both aspiring public interest lawyers and community members with legal needs will likely benefit from CUNY Law, “Law in the service of human needs,” being made more accessible to public transit. Thank you for your many years of service, Flushing’s 65-21 Main Street! Congratulations, CUNY Law!

By: Steve Grumm

On the heels of our brief post yesterday about a proposal in the House to slash LSC funding by over 25% in FY12, LSC put out a press release.  We’ve reprinted it is in its entirety below.  In some ways this funding proposal is just an opening salvo.  LSC’s board favors an FY12 appropriation of about $515 million, and the Obama Administration supports $450 million in LSC funding.  The Senate subcommittee charged with LSC funding hasn’t produced a figure yet.

Nevertheless,  the House proposal is alarming.  It is being marked up today by the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies appropriations subcommittee, with a full committee markup scheduled for next week.  According to the National Legal Aid & Defender Association, the House wants to bring a funding bill to the floor before an August 5 recess.  The Senate is moving more slowly on this front, however.

Here’s LSC’s press release:    

July 6, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

House Proposal Would Cut Civil Legal Aid by $104 Million

Washington, DC— Funding for the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) would be cut by 26 percent in Fiscal Year 2012 under a proposal announced by the House Appropriations Committee today. The Committee bill proposes a $300 million budget for LSC—rolling back LSC funding to a level not seen since 1999.

Basic field grants, which are currently provided to 136 nonprofit civil legal aid programs across the nation, would be cut to $274.4 million, a 27.5 percent reduction from current funding of $378.6 million.

LSC’s preliminary estimates show that about 235,000 low-income Americans eligible for civil legal assistance at LSC-funded programs would be turned away if the Committee proposal were enacted.

“The proposed cut would prove to be especially damaging to low-income persons whose health and safety are at risk—the elderly, the victims of domestic violence, the disabled, children, veterans and others—by denying them access to justice,” LSC President James J. Sandman said.

“At LSC programs, requests for assistance are increasing. The poverty population eligible for civil legal assistance has grown by 17 percent since 2008, to an all-time high of 63 million Americans. And funding from non-federal sources is decreasing. This is not the time to undercut the fundamental American commitment to equal justice for all,” Mr. Sandman said.

In April, Congress cut LSC funding by 4 percent for Fiscal Year 2011, to $404.2 million from $420 million. The impact of that cutback, combined with reductions in state funds, Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts and other funding sources, has put many LSC-funded programs under great financial stress.

LSC-funded programs by the end of 2011 project net staff reductions of 445 employees, including more than 200 attorneys, because of layoffs and attrition, according to survey responses provided by 121 of the 136 LSC-funded programs.  In the responses, 57 percent of the programs project budget deficits for 2011 totaling more than $19 million. Forty-two percent of the respondents said they had imposed a salary freeze, and 31 percent anticipate reducing employee benefits this year.

Some LSC-funded programs have dipped into reserve funds to postpone downsizing and reduced client services, but almost all report that continued cuts to their funding in 2012 will lead to layoffs, office closures and reduced services to clients. Many rural areas, where there are not enough private lawyers to volunteer pro bono services, will be especially vulnerable to office closures because they are already minimally staffed.

Last year, the 136 nonprofit programs funded by LSC closed nearly 1 million cases, which affected 2.3 million people. The legal aid programs also assisted an additional 1.4 million Americans, through referrals to private lawyers, self-help workshops and other services.

From 2009 to 2010, foreclosure cases were up 20 percent at LSC-funded programs; unemployment compensation cases increased 10.5 percent; landlord-tenant disputes rose by 7.7 percent; bankruptcy, debt relief and consumer finance cases were up by nearly 5 percent, and domestic violence cases increased by 5 percent.

“Never in American history has the need for federal support for access to justice been clearer. We look forward to working with the Congress in the coming weeks on continuing and expanding civil legal assistance to low-income Americans,” Mr. Sandman said.

Established by Congress in 1974, LSC is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation that promotes equal access to justice and funds high-quality civil legal assistance to low-income individuals and families.  LSC-funded programs provide legal services to persons at or below 125 percent of the federal poverty guideline.

By: Steve Grumm
Just got an email update from the National Legal Aid & Defender Association.  Bad, bad news:

House Appropriations Subcommittee Slashes LSC Funding

 The House Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies (CJS) appropriations subcommittee has posted its draft FY 2012 bill, which recommends a $104 million reduction for Legal Services Corporation funding. Markup is scheduled for tomorrow, July 7, and full committee markup is Wednesday, July 13.

 The subcommittee’s recommendation is $300 million, a $104 million reduction from the FY 2011 funding level of $404.2 million. The entire cut comes from the basic field line, which is reduced by 27.5 percent – from $378 million to $274 million.

….

The message does close with some slightly reassuring news:

The Senate subcommittee has not drafted its bill yet. We expect the White House to strongly defend its request of $450 million, and we are hopeful that LSC will get an increase over FY 2011 funding. The Senate is unlikely to act before the August recess. If last year is any barometer of the FY 2012 process, we may well see a number of continuing resolutions throughout the fall.

By Jamie Bence

Slip the surly bonds of Hump Day Malaise and check out today’s post, which comes from NASA in Huntsville, AL.

NASA is looking for exceptional leaders for the 21st century! If you are interested in leading dynamic organizations responsible for fulfilling or supporting exciting scientific and aeronautic missions, there may be a place for you on the team. Seize this opportunity to use your current skills, build new ones, and make significant contributions to our nation’s future. As an added benefit, you would be joining an agency ranked as one of the best places in the Federal government to work.

Serves as Chief Counsel and top advisor to the Marshall Space Flight Center Director and entire staff on matters of law and legal policy in connection with Center activities. Develops local policies consistent with and in coordination with the Agency General Counsel.

To see the complete listing, go to PSLawNet (login required).

By Jamie Bence

Equal Justice Works is now accepting proposals for the 2012-2014 fellowship cycle! Please be advised that you will need to create a log in to see complete proposal information.

The deadline this year is set for September 14 at 5pm.

While we’re on the subject of fellowships, PSLawNet is currently in the process of updating our 2012 Fellowship Guide. If you’re searching for a potential fellowship sponsor, our Application Deadline Calendar has over 250 fellowship deadlines for this cycle. To search our complete listings, visit PSLawNet (login required).

EDIT: and, we have a terrific resource for those interested in project-based fellowships like Equal Justice Works and Skadden: Project-based Fellowship Applications – Take Cues from Those Who Know

By: Steve Grumm

From Richard Zorza’s Access to Justice Blog, we learn of a resources page listing federal grants available to legal services providers:

Special thanks to the DOJ Access Initative for its Grants Information Page, bringing together informtion about a wide range of Federal grants, including many that would not normally get the attention of access advocates.

For example as of his date, the civil area includes information about a Neighborhood Revialization grant program.

The page allows you to subscribe for e-mail alerts when there is an update.