The PSLawNet Blog recently participated in a conference program exploring innovative pro bono models that involve collaboration between civil legal services providers and law students.  We were joined on the panel by Randi Burnett, the Southern Arizona Legal Aid (SALA) staff attorney who coordinates law student pro bono work via SALA’s Volunteer Lawyers Program (VLP).  Randi and her colleagues have had extraordinary success in partnering with the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law to provide a variety of pro bono opportunities to law students on clinic projects ranging from bankruptcy to guardianship to domestic relations.  We asked Randi if she would provide some background on how the collaboration works, and she has kindly offered us a lot of detail which we’re happy to share with our readers.  Maybe this model – which provides experiential learning for law students and serves the increasing numbers of low-income clients in need – could take root elsewhere.  Here is our exchange with Randi:

Randi, tell us generally about how you engage law students with pro bono opportunities, and what specific options are available to them?

The VLP’s Student Advocate Program was designed to involve local law students in our community.  The use of law student volunteers allows the VLP to provide legal assistance to a greater number of residents in need of legal assistance.  In addition, one of the primary goals of the student program is to instill a deep commitment to pro bono work in the next generation of lawyers.  With this goal in mind, the VLP provides several unique volunteer opportunities to students through the Minor Guardianship Clinic, Bankruptcy Reaffirmation Clinic, Domestic Relations Clinic, and Service Center Clinic.  Each of these clinics offers face-to-face contact with clients, the chance to work closely with different attorneys, and provide a great deal of practical experience.  In addition, two of the clinics provide law student volunteers with the opportunity to obtain courtroom experience as described below.

• Minor Guardianship Clinic: under the supervision of an attorney, law students meet with unrepresented clients prior to the client’s guardianship appointment hearing.  The law student explains the proceedings and checks to ensure that the client has complied with legal notice requirements to the parents.  The law student then appears as a “friend of the Court” during the client’s appointment hearing.  This Clinic is the only collaborative court project of its kind in Arizona that provides actual courtroom experience to first year law students.
• Bankruptcy Reaffirmation Clinic: Volunteer attorneys and law students meet with unrepresented clients who are in the process of obtaining a Chapter 7 bankruptcy.  Our volunteers meet with the client before the client’s reaffirmation hearing and review the reaffirmation agreement presented to the client by their creditor.  The purpose is to make sure that the client understands the pros and cons of reaffirming any debt during the bankruptcy process.  Again, the law student has an opportunity to appear in court as a “friend of the Court.”
• Domestic Relations Clinic: This clinic provides law students with an opportunity to meet with self-represented litigants involved in a family law matter while supervised by an attorney.  Volunteers assist clients in completing basic divorce and paternity forms, help clients prepare to represent themselves at trial, explain disclosure and discovery rule compliance, and draft motions for clients.  Approximately 45% of the clients seen in this clinic are victims of domestic violence.
• Service Center Clinic:  This clinic takes place within the law library about the Pima County Superior Court and is very similar to our Domestic Relations Clinic.  Law students are supervised by attorneys and assist unrepresented litigants with their family law issues.  In addition to all the issues seen in the Domestic Relations Clinic, volunteers also assist with custody and parenting time modifications, relocation issues, child support issues, and grandparent visitation issues.  This program provides a wonderful, hands-on experience for law students and an opportunity to apply concepts learned in the classroom to a real world setting.

Click through to learn about how the program is administered, and about the benefits that law students receive from working directly with clients in need

A new loan repayment assistance program was just announced from the U.S. Department of Education for attorneys working in civil legal services. Equal Justice Works has all the info you need, but here’s a summary quote from them to get you started:

A new loan repayment assistance program for civil legal aid attorneys is going to become available soon. The Civil Legal Assistance Attorney Student Loan Repayment Program (CLAAP) will repay a portion of eligible federal student loan debt for civil legal assistance attorneys who are employed full-time. The attorneys will need to remain employed for three years or pay the assistance back. An attorney may be awarded up to $6,000 in repayment assistance in 2010 (actually received in 2011), and may be prioritized to receive assistance in future years if Congress continues to fund the program. An attorney may receive a lifetime maximum of $40,000 in assistance.

• 5.26.10 – New York Law Journal – the “Attorney Emeritus Program,” a project spearheaded by New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman to engage retired lawyers in pro bono service, “has enlisted more than 120 retired lawyers since January to offer free legal advice and representation to poor New Yorkers in foreclosure, debt collection, housing, family and other civil cases.”  The program, now guided by a 30-attorney advisory council representing all corners of the profession, hopes to tap into a projected, large-scale increase in retirees as the first Baby Boomers turn 65 next year.  Lippman anticipates the volunteer numbers to swell and hopes that the project may be “permanent piece of the puzzle” in delivering legal services to low-income clients.  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: in January, the New York Times covered Chief Judge Lippman’s announcement of the program’s beginning.]

• 5.26.10 – Louisville Courier-Journal (covering Kentucky and Indiana) – in Clark County, Indiana, officials announced the launch of the Clark Legal Self Help Center, a resource for low-income people in need of free legal assistance on civil matters.  The Center will be staffed by volunteer attorneys and law students, and will offer help with reviewing court documents, determining the nature of legal problems, and directions on how to find an attorney if needed.  Law students will handle most of the initial meetings with individuals seeking help; volunteer attorneys will also participate in the program, but will not necessarily establish attorney-client relationships.  Those who are eligible may be referred to Indiana Legal Services for additional help.  Link to article.  

• 5.25.10 – New York Law Journal – this week the Pro Bono Institute released a report, Law Firm Deferred Associates and Public Interest Placements: Survey Report and Preliminary Assessment, documenting findings from surveys done over the winter to analyze how well deferred associates’ public-service placements were progressing.  The report’s findings paint the phenomenon in a largely positive light.  Public interest organizations that are hosting deferred associates are generally very satisfied with the contributions made by the associates, and demand to host associates in the future remains high.  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: here is a link to the full Pro Bono Institute report, as well as a link to a PSLawNet Blog post reviewing the report.]

• 5.25.10 – Triangle Business Journal (North Carolina) – the Duke University School of Law is expanding its Loan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP) for students on public service careers.  The LRAP now “will cover 100 percent of loan payments for graduates making $60,000 a year or less, up from $35,000. The program also provides some assistance, on a sliding scale, for graduates making between $60,000 and $75,000. Additionally, Duke has eliminated the cap on lifetime loan repayments, which previously stood at $80,000.”  Only federal loans are eligible for the LRAP program.  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: Duke joins at least four other law schools – Northwestern, UVA, Cal-Berkeley, and Georgetown – in tailoring its LRAP program around the College Cost Reduction & Access Act’s Income Based Repayment provision.]

• 5.24.10 – WHYY Radio Station Website (Serving Philadelphia/New Jersey) –  “State budget cuts may mean less legal assistance for New Jersey’s poor.  The budget plan reduces funding for Legal Services of New Jersey by 33 percent.  Legal Services President Melville Miller says the funding reduction means they’ll have to cut their staff and turn away about 11,000 people seeking assistance, many of them trying to avoid foreclosures and evictions.”  Link to brief blurb.  [Ed. Note: last week, Legal Services of New Jersey released An Open Report to New Jersey Concerning Funding for Civil Legal Services and Its Human Consequences, highlighting the severe funding cuts that are plaguing legal services programs throughout the Garden State, and making the case for the importance of adequately funding programs.] 

• 5.24.10 – National Law Journal – a case arising out of Georgia in which an indigent, capital criminal defendant sat in jail for four years because of problems with funding his defense and is now asking for the U.S. Supreme Court to review right to counsel claims “comes at a time when an increasing number of legal challenges are being made to underfunded and overburdened state indigent defense systems” across the country.  The Georgia indigent defense system has long been plagued by problems.  And while legislation in 2003 to shore up the system offered promise, adequate funding remains elusive.  Link to article.

• 5.23.10 – The Citizen (New Hampshire) – a bill to make free legal services available to New Hampshire’s veterans is winding through the state legislature.  While the bill’s passage is expected the funding mechanism for the program is uncertain.  The funding, if obtained, would allow the New Hampshire State Veterans Council to hire staff attorneys to represent veterans on a variety of matters, including home foreclosure and consumer debt issues, as well as family law and veterans benefit cases.  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: for additional coverage of a national trend toward expanding legal services/resources for veterans, see two items below (El Paso Times).]

• 5.23.10 – Dallas Morning News – the conviction integrity unit that operates out of the Dallas County District Attorney’s office has for several years been working with DNA evidence to ensure the propriety of past convictions and exonerate the wrongly convicted.  Now, the unit is expanding the scope of its activities to the more time-consuming review of convictions where there may be some question of guilt but no DNA evidence is available for review.  The unit’s work has captured national attention because it is unusual for a prosecutor’s office to have devoted so many resources to post-conviction reviews.  Link to article.

• 5.21.10 – El Paso Times [Special Feature Article] – “Texas Lawyers for Texas Veterans is a new State Bar of Texas Committee established…to develop and assist pro bono legal clinics throughout the state for military veterans and their families who cannot afford or do not have access to legal services they need.”  El Paso Lawyers for Patriots is the local extension of the statewide initiative.  The local program “is developing a coordinated network of El Paso lawyers to assist veterans and active-duty military and their families who cannot afford or have no access to legal services through the El Paso Bar Association and veterans service providers.”  A local judge also recently established a Veterans Mental Health Treatment Court to “address cases involving combat veterans and active military personnel involved in the criminal justice system due to conduct related to post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injuries or other mental diseases and disorders as a result of military service.”  Link to article.  [Ed. Note: there is a national trend involving the legal community establishing diversionary judicial programs and other resources for veterans with legal problems.  See the PSLawNet Blog’s March 16 post, linking to news coverage of the trend.]

• 5.21.10 – Blog of the Legal Times – “The Justice Department is studying Monday’s Supreme Court ruling barring life sentences for juveniles convicted of non-homicide crimes, possibly with an eye toward improving rehabilitation programs for juveniles in prison.”  Link to blog post.  [Ed. Note: the PSLawNet blog posted about the Supreme Court decision – Graham v. Florida – and linked to news coverage here.]

Today’s post on possible career routes into Inter-Governmental Organizations like the United Nations comes from Sara Rakita, Associate Director of the Public Interest Law Center at New York University School of Law.  Sara has worked extensively on human rights and the rule of law, primarily in Africa. Before joining PILC in 2006, she served as a long-term consultant to the Ford Foundation, where she was responsible for piloting and setting up TrustAfrica, a new African grant-making foundation that is now based in Senegal. Sara spent five years as an Africa Researcher at Human Rights Watch, including two years as the organization’s representative in Rwanda. Sara has also consulted for Amnesty International, Global Rights, USAID, and the Austrian development agency.  Sara holds a J.D. from NYU, an M.I.A. from Columbia University, and a B.A. in international studies from The American University. She is fluent in French and has a working knowledge of Spanish and Russian.

Lots of people would love to work for the United Nations or other Inter-Governmental Organizations (IGOs), but it’s not always apparent how to get there. Indeed, there is no single path.  In an effort to demystify a process that is not always transparent, this post will explain some of the main channels into IGOs. Get the scoop on IGOs after the break!

Duke Law School just announced an expansion and change to their loan repayment assistance program (LRAP), raising the salary cap for 100% forgivement from $35,000 to $60,000, and requiring students to participate in the income-based repayment plan established by the federal government as part of the CCRAA in 2008. In doing so, Duke joins 4 other schools by our count (University of Virginia, Georgetown, Northwestern, and University of California – Berkeley) in dovetailing their LRAP program with the federal system.

 The National Law Journal this week wrote about a case arising out of Georgia in which an indigent, capital criminal defendant sat in jail for four years because of problems with funding his defense and is now asking for the U.S. Supreme Court to review right-to-counsel claims.  The appeal “comes at a time when an increasing number of legal challenges are being made to underfunded and overburdened state indigent defense systems” across the country.  The Georgia indigent defense system has long been plagued by problems.  And while legislation in 2003 to shore up the system offered promise, adequate funding remains elusive.

The defendant is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court after an unfavorable ruling from the state’s hight court.  Here is an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article on the case from this past March, noting that “[t]he Georgia Supreme Court on Thursday narrowly rejected a bid to bar prosecutors from seeking the death penalty against a defendant who has sat in jail for more than three years awaiting trial because there has been no money for his defense.  The 4-3 ruling said the state did not violate Jamie Ryan Weis’ right to a speedy trial and placed some of the blame on the defendant and his attorneys.” 

Georgia’s underfunded public defense system has received a good deal of coverage recently.  The Georgia Supreme Court heard arguments in a case very similar to this one earlier this month, according to another Atlanta Journal-Constitution article.  And, the Associated Press recently covered the sad financial state of the system.

This week the Pro Bono Institute has issued Law Firm Deferred Associates and Public Interest Placements: Survey Report and Preliminary Analysis.  The report is based on two surveys performed by PBI in February: one of law firms who had deferred associates working in public interest placements, and the other of public interest organizations.  As for the methodology, about 170 public interest organizations responded to part/all of the survey, and about 45 law firms responded. The findings generally comport with much of the other evidence, anecdotal and otherwise, gathered thus far about this unique phenonmenon.  It is still too early for law firms to assess in any depth how things will play out for their associates, because many associates are still in their deferral periods or have only just recently returned to the firms.  The public interest orgnizations that are hosting deferred associates have broadly favorable reviews of the associates’ work.  Just about 75% of respondents to a question about associate contributions in the public interest organization rated those contributions as either 4s or 5s on a 0-5 scale (5 being the best).  Here are some quotes from the public interest organizations:

[The deferred associates] are a wonderful resource to our clients. Although they cost us time and our logistical resources, we recoup that through their work. It also builds on our relationship with their firms and hopefully makes them into well-rounded lawyers when they return to private practice.

The deferred associate served an essential role as co-counsel for a complex Medical Assistance case that culminated in an 8 hour administrative hearing in her final week.

One deferred associate saved our youth program which would have otherwise been lost.

Although most reports are quite positive, and the phenomenon generally has been received in the pro bono community as a large success,  it has not been all smooth sailing.  The report notes that:

Complaints reported by respondents included administrative difficulty with firms’ “rigid” procedures, as well as minimal firm involvement in placing associates. Lack of coordination with firms regarding benefits and oversight, as well as poor communication with the firm overall, and brief associate stays were also cited as problems, as was the desire for greater associate availability in rural areas.

We encourage you to read the full report, and here’s some New York Law Journal covearage of its release.  Speaking of deferred associates and New York, here is a separate report that the New York City Bar and City Bar Justice Center produced about how deferred associate placements are working out in NYC.  And here is a link to a piece that we contributed to the ABA Division of Legal Services’ Dialogue magazine about how this phenomenon has been playing out nationwide.

Public interest attorneys are often faced with situations that are complex, with many causes and intersecting problems. It can be difficult to disentangle things, but many organizations are trying to move towards a model of comprehensive services (that’s the whole idea behind medical-legal partnerships, which we’ve blogged about before). Child advocacy can be particularly complex, as attorneys work with children whose families face enormously diverse challenges. Rutledge Q. Hudson of the Center for Law and Social Policy wrote an excellent blog post today on the intersection of poverty and child abuse. In it Hudson states, “Families should be able to get the range of supports they need whether they turn to their pediatrician, child care provider, school, community center, or social services office.” It will be up to child advocacy attorneys to determine how and where they can fit into the web of comprehensive services as well. This post does a great job of giving an overview of how all these pieces fit together.

Lawyers who work with low-income clients well know how consumer debt problems can plague the communities they serve.  Individuals and families who fall on hard times and need bridge money to cover the rent or pay utilities often end up using the services of “payday” and other high-interest lenders, and many of the borrowers end up digging themselves deeper into debt rather than avoiding it. 

The Washington Post profiles an FDIC staffer, Joan Lok, who is shepherding an… 

innovative pilot program [in Baltimore] that provides small dollar, low interest loans to those in need through a coalition of financial institutions, local community-based organization and other partners.Lok said the goal of the Borrow and Save Loan Program is to help low and moderate-income borrowers break the perpetual payday borrowing cycle, establish healthy banking relationships, gain personal money management skills, and learn the benefits of saving and asset building.

“We are trying to fill a void,” Lok said. “Our program not only helps solve emergency loan needs of individuals, but can cause people to look at their personal finances and change their behavior.”

The Baltimore-based pilot program provides loans between $300 and $1,000 with a repayment term of up to one year at an interest rate of 7.99 percent, compared to cash advance brokers that charge interest rates of 30 percent or more for two week loans.

If you’ve thought about working for the State of New Jersey (at any level, including the Public Defender and State’s Attorney offices), make sure you’re willing to live in-state! The State Senate just passed a measure that would require all public employees to live in the state as a condition of employment. The Newark Star-Ledger covered the story, which explains that the measure is not final – it must still be approved by the Assembly (though it was passed handily by the Senate, 26-9). Many jurisdictions require emergency personnel to live in-state or in-town, but this is one of the broadest measures out there.