Do you  know a law student who has demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to public service?  Nominate him or her for the 16th Annual PSLawNet Pro Bono Publico Award! This Award honors students at PSLawNet Subscriber Schools who have made exceptional contributions to under-served populations, the public interest community, and legal education by performing pro bono or public service work.  Nomination Deadline:  Wednesday, September 15.

The award winner will be invited to Washington, DC to be honored during an Award Luncheon at NALP’s Public Service Mini-Conference on Thursday, October 21, 2010.

Anyone can nominate a student.  Nomination forms are available here.

Please participate in NALP’s brief, anonymous survey about recent trends in the public interest hiring market.  NALP is a national member association of career services and human resources professionals from law schools and legal employers throughout the U.S.  (NALP also administers the PSLawNet website and the PSLawNet Blog.)  We are conducting a survey of nonprofit and government law offices about 1) recent law student and law graduate hiring and 2) hiring expectations in the immediate future.  In late October we will produce a report based on survey responses.  The report will be made freely available on our PSLawNet website: www.pslawnet.org.  We will NOT identify any participating organizations by name. We hope the report, which will provide a snapshot about the current employment market, will benefit the public interest legal community as well as law students and attorneys who are on public service career paths.

Who Should Participate: nonprofit and government (local/state/federal) legal organizations in the U.S.  There is a place in the survey to indicate whether it is being submitted on behalf of an entire organization, a branch office of a larger organization, or a practice unit within a larger organization.  We encourage respondents to coordinate with others in your organizations in order to avoid duplicating responses. 

Survey Completion Deadline: Wednesday, September 22, 2010.

Link to Survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DJW9WNL  

Questions/Concerns: Please contact Steve Grumm, NALP’s Director of Public Service Initiatives, at sgrumm@nalp.org or directly at 202.296.0057.

Searching for the ideal summer or postgraduate public-interest job?  The annual Equal Justice Works Conference & Career Fair is taking place just outside DC on October 22-23.  Job-seeker registration has just opened.  Learn more details and register on the Equal Justice Works website.  The career fair is a terrific and unique event, and we encourage law students and grads to look into attending.

Thinking about pursuing a career in federal government?  If so, the Partnership for Public Service’s Best Places to Work rankings are an excellent resource to learn about employees’ perceptions of overall employee satisfaction, agency leadership, opportunities for performance based rewards and advancement, diversity, work/life balance, and more throughout the federal government.

The Partnership for Public Service’s  2010 Best Places to Work were just released.  The rankings are “based on the responses of more than 263,000 employees” at “290 federal organizations (32 large agencies, 34 small agencies and 224 subcomponents).”  The rankings also provide a demographic breakdown of responses from each agency or subcomponent.

Of the large agencies, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Government Accountability Office, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Smithsonian Institution, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration were ranked as the top five “best places to work.”  At the other end of the spectrum, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, National Archives and Records Administration, Department of Education, Small Business Administration, and Department of Homeland Security received the lowest rankings.

Access the complete rankings:  http://www.bestplacestowork.org/BPTW/rankings

Check out The Wastington Post’s article for responses to the rankings from the SEC, OMB, and the Smithsonian.

Your summer job experience is complete and you are back in the classroom . . .  What steps can you take now to help you land your next summer position or post-graduate employment?

Today’s Expert Opinion column comes to us from Sharon Booth, Director of Public Interest Programs at Nova Southeastern University’s Shepard Broad Law Center in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.  Sharon is a former Legal Aid attorney who has been with NSU for approximately 10 years.  Her column addresses the key steps you should be taking now to ensure you are maximizing the potential of this summer’s experience to further explore your career path and find your next job.

1.) Continue to cultivate your relationship with your summer employer(s).

• Keep in touch with your summer employer(s) by periodically emailing or calling them after you return to school.  If your employer has an email distribution list for announcements ask to be added to the listserv.
• Be assertive in expressing your interest in a future position with their organization (if applicable).  If not, keep them apprised of your future plans and career goals.
• Participate in networking opportunities with your summer employer(s) by attending office events, community service activities or local bar association meetings during the academic year.
• Maintaining this relationship could lead to anything from a great recommendation to a full time job after graduation!

2.) Utilize your summer contacts to set up informational interviews.

• Create a list of the contacts you made over the summer, including geographic and practice areas.
• As you begin to plan for your second summer or post-graduate employment, set up informational interviews with several of these individuals.  Although you are not seeking employment directly from them, always take an updated copy of your resume in case they offer to pass it along.
• This type of research and preparation is an invaluable tool for learning more about the opportunities, personalities and legal culture in a particular city, practice area or organization.
• For more information on informational interviews, including sample letters and questions, you can check out this publication from Harvard Law School:  http://www.law.harvard.edu/current/careers/opia/landing-your-job/networking/index.html

Keep reading . . .

Do you  know a law student who has demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to public service?  Nominate him or her for the 16th Annual PSLawNet Pro Bono Publico Award! This Award honors students at PSLawNet Subscriber Schools who have made exceptional contributions to under-served populations, the public interest community, and legal education by performing pro bono or public service work.  Nomination Deadline:  Thursday, September 9.

The award winner will be invited to Washington, DC to be honored during an Award Luncheon at NALP’s Public Service Mini-Conference on Thursday, October 21, 2010.

Anyone can nominate a student.  Nomination forms are available here.

The National Law Journal is covering a little bit of ruckus in the legal academy, raised by a forthcoming law review article entitled “”Preaching What They Don’t Practice: Why Law Faculties’ Preoccupation with Impractical Scholarship and Devaluation of Practical Competencies Obstruct Reform in the Legal Academy.” Georgetown Law adjunct professor Brent Evan Newton, the article’s author, argues that, “The academy — both in terms of its preparation of law students to enter the profession and the type of scholarship being produced by the professoriate — has lost its practical moorings.”  (The article will run in the South Carolina Law Review.)

The NLJ piece goes on to summarize Newton’s criticisms and calls for change:

The value that law schools place on publication of law review articles means that faculty members often focus more on scholarship than teaching, Newton wrote. Most law review articles are grounded in legal theory as opposed to practical legal issues….Many law schools have attempted to make their curricula more relevant by adding adjunct professors and clinical faculty, but Newton concluded that those efforts are not nearly enough.

…

[Newton] suggested that law faculties be divided into two tracks — research professors and teaching professors, both of whom would be tenure-track. Research professors would account for one-third of a faculty and would concentrate on “theoretical, interdisciplinary research and scholarship” and teach fewer classes. The remaining two-thirds would teach doctrinal, clinical and legal reading and writing courses. Teaching professors would have extensive practice experience and would be expected to publish articles less frequently than research professors.

Newton’s piece apparently refers to conclusions in the much-discussed Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching’s 2007 report on the pros and cons of the current legal education model.  That report, Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law, in essence says that law schools do really well at teaching critical thinking skills, but don’t teach practical applications (i.e. legal practice skills) particularly well.  To boot, the larger moral implications of lawyers’ actions are sometimes downplayed in favor of students being taught to think dispassionately.  The report doesn’t read easily like a Harry Potter…er….Twilight…well, the PSLawNet blog has no idea which of these serials is popular nowadays, but it’s worthy reading for those who wish to plug into the increasingly robust conversation about how we should teach law students to be lawyers.

For what it’s worth, the PSLawNet Blog believes strongly in some reformation of legal education that would incorporate more experiential learning components.  Public interest experiential programs – clinicals, externships, pro bono programs and the like – could point the academy in the right direction.  It’s not often that public interest advocates on law school campuses get to say they’re ahead of the curve, but in this case we think it’s true.   Going to court and doing real work on behalf of real clients is what public interest students have always been doing to make themselves more marketable immediately after graduation.

Speaking of robust conversations, the super-exciting legal blogosphere is abuzz:

Are Law School Faculties Part of the Problem with Legal Education? (WSJ Law Blog)

A Skunk In The Ivory Tower (Simple Justice)

Law School and Lawyering: A Post by Kristen Holmquist (PrawfsBlawg)

Two-Track Legal Education Coming to a Law School Near You? (Legal Blog Watch)

We are curious about your thoughts . . .  Please share in our comments section.

We have been following the recent controversy in the UK over potential cuts to the legal aid budget.  On Friday, August 27, The Law Society formally launched judicial proceedings against the Legal Services Commission (LSC).

The Law Society is

“seeking a declaration that the LSC acted unlawfully in relation to the [cuts] and, before considering other relief, [intends] to invite the court to adjourn for a short period in order that the LSC and the Society may work together to find a satisfactory solution.”  Read the full press release.

Want more context?  Check out our earlier posts:   Legal Aid Cuts Stir Controversy Across the Pond and Potential Litigation Over Legal Aid Cuts in the UK.

Do you have interest in pursuing a career in the federal government?  The Office of General Counsel at DHS has extended the deadline to apply for their 2011 Summer Intern Program and Honors Program to October 15.

To learn more about both programs check out our earlier post on these opportunities at DHS.

Also of interest, Craig Raynsford, who serves in the Office of the General Counsel at DHS, spoke to us earlier this year about the advantages of a career in federal government and the application process.

This week:  Pro bono, Mick Dundee-style; exploring solutions to expand legal services in Mississippi; comparing public defenders and private defense counsel; Comcast shows a little  love ($$$) to a medical-legal partnership; a legal services hotline for California seniors loses funding; more on Missouri’s ailing public defense system; the wheels of justice turning in New Mexico; terrific legal work on behalf of veterans in Michigan; and two former Minnesota legal services lawyers form a for-profit firm, but work primarily with low-income clients. 

• 8.27.10 – Fallen behind on the pro bono scene Down Under?  Well, The Australian has a piece about new data from the country’s National Pro Bono Resource Centre. The data show that, just as in the U.S., large firms are making large pro bono contributions: “24 firms with more than 50 lawyers did 322,343 hours of pro bono work last financial year.  The resource centre did not provide costings, but a conservative hourly rate of $250 shows the firms gave away legal work worth at least $80m.”  Read the Australian’s article on the National Pro Bono Resource Centre’s new data.  The two reports which present the data are presently available on the Resource Centre’s homepage.  As an aside, the PSLawNet Blog met the Centre’s director, John Corker, a couple of years ago at a public interest conference in Minneapolis.  We sat next to him as he took in his first baseball game.  The PSLawNet blog explained the basics, and apologized for both the Metrodome and for the diabolical Red Sox Nation, which had overrun the place to see the visiting Sox.

• 8.25.10 – a short piece in Southern Mississippi’s Sun Herald notes that “A Mississippi Supreme Court committee has asked for public comment on proposals to improve poor people’s access to legal services.  Proposals under review call for making 20 hours of annual pro bono…service mandatory for Mississippi attorneys, raising to $500 the payments lawyers may make in lieu of doing pro bono work and increasing fees paid by out of state lawyers to $500 per case” in order to fund civil legal services.  The comment deadline is October 1.

• 8.24.10 – Miller-McCune reports on new research in the Journal of Criminal Justice: “A newly published look at Chicago-area courts finds that, when you consider the actual outcomes of judicial hearings, these underpaid and underappreciated attorneys do just as well as their private-sector counterparts.”  The study looked at a random sample of 2850 convicted felony defendants and compared outcomes – between those defendants who had public defenders and those who had private counsel – at four stages in their trials: whether bail was granted; plea-bargaining decisions; whether defendants ultimately served a jail sentence; and length of sentence imposed on those jailed.  There are “[t]wo important caveats” regarding the study: “The researchers did not look at convictions vs. acquittals. And they found that retaining a private attorney is apparently beneficial ‘for certain offenders and at certain stages’ of the process.”  [Tip of cap to the ABA Journal.]

• 8.24.10 – the Florida Times-Union reports that “Comcast has donated $15,000 to Jacksonville Area Legal Aid for its Northeast Florida Medical-Legal Partnership.”  The eight year-old Partnership has recently expanded to serve additional medical centers.

• 8.24.10 – according to the Senior Spectrum (a publication covering seniors’ issues in California): “After providing free legal advice to more than 100,000 callers over the past two decades, the California Senior Legal Hotline has been forced to suspend most service following the loss of all state and federal funds for its general statewide program.”  Seniors in Sacramento County will still be able to access the hotline for help on a broad array of issues, but those outside the county will have only limited access to hotline services.  The hotline program is seeking new funding sources.

• 8.23.10 0 – the Lincoln County Journal reports on Missouri’s indigent defense caseload crisis.  “Public defender offices statewide are seeing increasingly heavy case loads putting attorneys well over their monthly limits.”  District Defender Thomas Gabel, who oversees programs in Lincoln and Pike Counties, observed that “Missouri is ranked 49th out of 50 states for public defense funding and in the past decade the state has taken in 12 thousand additional cases a year with no additional funds.”  Also, on 8.21.10, KSPR in Springfield reported that “Missouri Auditor Susan Montee plans to review the state Public Defender Commission.”  The PSLawNet Blog has been covering this series of events; to track back to past coverage, begin with our 8/20/10 Public Interest News Bulletin.

• 8.21.10 – the Las Cruces Sun-News in New Mexico reports that, in spite of budgetary pressures on the prosecutor’s and public defender’s offices, and in spite of the public’s misperception – driven by television crime dramas – about how fast the wheels of justice should turn, the Do-a Ana County courthouse is moving with all deliberate speed in handling criminal matters.

• 8.22.10 – an Associated Press story on the Michigan Live website tells of the successes of Project SALUTE , a pro bono program housed at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law that serves veterans with legal needs.  “Combined with the law school’s Veterans Law Clinic, the two UDM-run programs are designed to address the compelling needs of veterans around the state.  The programs focus on veterans’ federal disability and pension benefits through education, law student representation, and pro bono attorney referral.”  For more, see the PSLawNet Blog’s post yesterday which explores Project SALUTE and other efforts to help low-income vets throughout the country. 

• 8.21.10 – according to the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, two former legal aid lawyers formed their own law firm, specializing in “destitute and low-income clients.”  While some clients can afford to pay a little bit of money, the firm will also rely on a Minnesota program that “pays advocates to help low-income adults with the complicated paperwork to go through the [federal Supplemental Security Income application] process.”  It can be a win-win-win when a client is approved to receive SSI benefits: the client has increased income, the attorneys are compensated by the state, and the state will actually save money because the client’s move to a federally-funded support program will often take them off of the rolls of state programs.