The Texas Civil Rights Project is boldly serving the movement for equality and justice in and out of the courts. We use our tools of litigation and legal advocacy to protect and advance the civil rights of everyone in Texas and we partner with communities across the state to serve the rising movement for social justice. We undertake our work with a vision of a Texas in which all communities can thrive with dignity, justice and without fear.
The Position
The Texas Civil Rights Project (“TCRP”) seeks a senior or experienced attorney (five years post-J.D. experience) for its Racial & Economic Justice Program. This position will focus on impact litigation and other advocacy related to civil and human rights, and will be based in our Alamo, Texas office in the Rio Grande Valley, with an option to transfer to one of TCRP’s other offices after one year.
Our senior Racial & Economic Justice attorney will work closely with Program Director Efrén C. Olivares to develop and implement TCRP’s litigation strategy, including challenging discriminatory policies and practices based on arbitrary criteria, with a focus on defending the rights of individuals and communities in South Texas in the face of new and rising threats. TCRP’s Racial and Economic Justice Program uses creative legal advocacy and litigation to represent historically or socioeconomically marginalized individuals and communities. By fighting discrimination based on immutable characteristics, immigration status, poverty, and other arbitrary criteria, we work to promote a fair, equitable, and just Texas for everyone.
Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives
Photo: Harris and Ewing Collection, Library of Congress
Hello there, interested public! This week’s news is defined by a dizzying array of responses to the issue of growing student debt from all levels of government as well as from private institutional actors. There are also a number of stories concerning the positive effects of legal technology and landlord-tenant-court right-to-counsel policies on Access to Justice. Also, Toronto has a fixed-fee legal cafe now!
See you around, Sam
Professional Development
According to NYNmedia.com, “[a] new report examines the barriers faced by women of color in the nonprofit sector. About 4,000 nonprofit professionals took part in the 40-page study, which was conducted by Ofronama Biu, senior research associate at Building Movement Project. She found that women of color are paid less than their male and white counterparts [and t]he social environments of nonprofits help explain why.”
MarketWatch called attention to a “Voices of Despair,” a 2018 report from the National Consumer Law Center arguing that “[t]he government’s policy of seizing federal student loan borrowers’ EITC runs counter to almost every goal Congress set for the EITC and its student loan programs.”
Dean Rodriguez of Northwestern Pritzker School of Law discussed his thoughts on “how law schools should collectively work to lessen the cost [of law school] and how students should be educated on debt management” in a Legal Talk Network podcast.
In an open letter on Medium.com, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the ACLU, and 26 other technology & human rights organizations criticized the House of Representatives’ Democratic Caucus proposal for border security and its reliance on “various invasive surveillance technologies that would intrude on the liberties of travelers, immigrants, and people who live near the border.”
“Amazon unveiled new proposed guidelines…for any national legislation regulating facial recognition technology following months of scrutiny over Rekognition, the tech giant’s facial recognition software,” as reported in The Hill.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization. The principal objectives of the NAACP are to ensure the political, educational, social and economic equality of all persons. As part of its mission, the NAACP seeks to enforce federal, state, and local laws securing civil rights and to educate persons about their constitutional rights.
Throughout its history, the NAACP has provided attorneys the opportunity to make significant, historic contributions to the field of civil rights law. Past NAACP attorneys include Charles Hamilton Houston, Thurgood Marshall, Constance Baker-Motley, Robert Carter and Nathaniel Jones. The NAACP hopes to inspire attorneys to enter the field of civil rights law and to provide broad exposure to various strategies utilized by grass roots civil rights organizations.
The Position
The NAACP Law Fellow Program is designed to give individuals who have completed at least one year of law school the opportunity to work for the summer at NAACP Headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland. The NAACP Law Fellow Program is made possible through the generous support of the Kellogg’s Corporate Citizenship Fund, which has funded the program since its inception in 2003. This year, the NAACP Law Fellow Program celebrates its 17th Anniversary. The Law Fellow Program is contingent upon continued funding.
The Law Fellow Program continues to provide law students with first-hand exposure to civil rights advocacy and many other facets of the legal profession. Through working with the Legal Department and networking with lawyers in many different legal arenas, our summer Law Fellows see the multiple roles lawyers play in shaping American society. One recent Law Fellow participant emphasized the program’s importance to her: “I met lawyers and judges and participated in discussions with practitioners about law and policy. I’ve gained a new and different perspective that has made a tremendous contribution to my personal and professional growth.” In our 17th year, we look forward to continuing and building upon our work growing the next generation of civil rights advocates.
Pro Bono Net is a national, non-profit organization that works in close partnership with non-profit legal organizations across the country to increase access to justice for poor and moderate-income people and other vulnerable populations. It seeks to do so through: (i) supporting the innovative and effective use of technology by the nonprofit legal sector, (ii) increasing participation by volunteers, and (iii) facilitating collaborations among nonprofit legal organizations and advocates working on similar issues or in the same region.
Position
Pro Bono Net seeks a highly qualified candidate to join our team as Legal Empowerment and Technology Fellow. The Fellow will play a key role in designing and implementing an innovative project focusing on the use of technology to advance legal empowerment strategies, with an emphasis on approaches to building legal capacity and agency within local communities to tackle civil justice problems. This is a full-time, paid position based in New York City with a generous benefit package, including 4 weeks of paid vacation. This Fellowship is funded through December 2020 under an Open Society Foundation grant to Pro Bono Net.
Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives
Photo: Harris and Ewing Collection, Library of Congress
Hello there, interested public! Lots of news this week, most of which is focused on the ongoing federal government shutdown. The Administrative Office of the Courts is running out of funding at the end of this month; once it does some Federal Public Defenders are worried that arguing cases while furloughed will have an asymetric effect burdening defense attorneys more than prosecutors (read about it below).
The Capital Appeals Project (CAP) is a non-profit law office based in New Orleans, Louisiana that provides capital appellate and post-conviction representation to indigent people on Louisiana’s death row. CAP provides high-quality representation in the state and federal courts throughout Louisiana, and acts as a resource to public defenders and criminal defense lawyers across the state. CAP attorneys have successfully represented clients in state district courts, the Louisiana Supreme Court, and the U.S. Supreme Court, which in turn has improved the quality and standards of representation for indigent capital defendants in Louisiana. We also represent a number of non-capital juvenile clients in proceedings implementing the recent Supreme Court decisions which limit life without parole sentences for juvenile offenders.
Position
CAP is seeking applicants for a one-year fellowship. The fellow will help represent defendants from the time they are sentenced to death through their direct appeal to the Louisiana Supreme Court and petition for certiorari to the United States Supreme Court, as well as in state post-conviction and federal habeas.
The fellow will be supervised by senior attorneys, and will have a substantial role in informing the litigation strategies, reviewing records, meeting with clients, conducting legal research, drafting appellate briefs, mooting oral arguments, and conducting investigation. The fellowship is potentially renewable for a second year.
Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. The application deadline is February 15, 2019.
Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives
Photo: Harris and Ewing Collection, Library of Congress
Hello there, interested public! What a couple of weeks it has been. You can read all about them below, but in particular there is a lot of news about the ongoing government shutdown and student debt. In particular, you will find information below about how the shutdown may complicate student loan payments, the Department of Education’s advice for furloughed student debtholders, and an opportunity for free legal assistance to furloughed workers from the Indianapolis Bar. (If anyone knows of similar offers of similar opportunities elsewhere, please contact psjd@nalp.org and help us get the word out.)
One more thing: according to the ABA, today is the last day the U.S. Administrative Office of the Courts will be able to sustain paid operations.
The US Federal Reserve released a report entitled Can Student Loan Debt Explain Low Homeownership Rates for Young Adults? in which the authors “estimate that roughly 20 percent of the decline in homeownership among young adults can be attributed to their increased student loan debts since 2005.” (The report was covered in publications such as The Hill and CNBC.)
The same US Federal Reserve publication included an article on “Rural Brain Drain” concluding that “[i]ndividuals with student loan debt are less likely to remain in rural araes than those without it,” and therefore “[w]ith students borrowing at higher rates and in larger amounts to pursue postsecondary education, student loan debt may play an increased role in the dynamics of urban-rural migration.”
Meanwhile, in Maine, the Bangor Daily News observed that “[t]oo often, the choice between staying in Maine and leaving for a job that will pay enough to cover student loan bills finds Maine on the losing side,” in an opinion piece arguing that “Maine lawmakers must again consider student debt relief.”
Meanwhile, a poll by Politico and Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that “[r]oughly 87% of Democrats and 61% of Republicans said it would be ‘extremely important’ for Congress to find ways to decrease student debt.”
In related news, Judge Randolph of the D.C. Circuit dissented from a decision denying a motion from government attorneys in Air Transport Ass’n of America v. FAA, arguing that “[t]he majority’s order in effect directs a government attorney to perform work unrelated to any ’emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property’ and not otherwise ‘authorized by law’ in violation of the Anti-Deficiency Act. 31 U.S.C. s.1342.” Judge Randolph reviewed a recent decision to grant the government an extended briefing schedule in another case and concluded that “our circuit has not settled upon any principled way of deciding these stay motions.”
Disability Rights Washington is a private nonprofit organization that advocates for the rights of people with disabilities across Washington. We are designated by the governor as the independent federally-mandated protection and advocacy system for Washington State. As such, Disability Rights Washington promotes, expands, and protects the human and civil rights of people with disabilities.
The Position
DRW’s Amplifying Voices of Inmates with Disabilities (AVID) Program seeks a full-time prisoners’ rights litigator with a demonstrated interest in conducting impact litigation to enforce the legal rights of incarcerated individuals enduring abuse, neglect, or other human and civil rights violations. This position will require a licensed attorney with the ability to conduct systemic investigations, develop complex advocacy strategies, and represent both classes and individuals. The AVID Program enjoys DRW’s unique access authority, which will allow the attorney the ability to see firsthand the conditions in Washington prisons and jails, even in the most secluded and segregated parts of those facilities.
The ideal candidate would have lived and/or professional experience relating to the AVID Program’s practice areas, which include, but are not limited to: addressing discrimination, improving conditions of confinement for people experiencing incarceration, supporting community reentry from institutionalization or incarceration, and ending abuse and neglect. The attorney for this position must have a commitment and capacity to produce high quality legal analysis and to provide effective advocacy through complex civil litigation as well as informal and alternative dispute resolution. All DRW attorneys must demonstrate dedication to DRW’s values of inclusion, diversity, and equity as well as the values of individual autonomy, community integration, universal accessibility, freedom from restraint, and respectful language. DRW seeks applicants who have the ability to work independently in a team of supportive colleagues and are seeking to join in our mission to “advance the dignity, equality, and self-determination of people with disabilities.”
In an opinion column, the Washington Examiner reported on research suggesting that “58 percent of independents and 47 percent of Republicans ‘strongly agree’ that student loan debt levels are at ‘crisis’ magnitudes,” urging Republican lawmakers to allow “[a]n employee signing up for a new 401(k) plan at work [to direct] his employer match…to his student loan until it’s paid off.” This idea is similar to–yet differences in crucial ways from–legislation recently proposed by Senator Wyden (mentioned in a prior edition of this digest), which would allow employers to make matching contributions to employee retirement accounts as employees paid off their student debt.
To prepare for the 2019 program, Equal Justice Works and Legal Services Corporation are actively recruiting students to fill 30 exciting positions nationwide.
The Position
Selected participants will begin the summer with intensive training from poverty law experts on housing, domestic violence, public benefits, migrant farmworkers, Native American, and family law. After the training, the law students will return directly to their host site to continue their 8-10 week placement.
Selected student fellows will work with esteemed LSC-funded civil legal aid organizations to build their legal skills in various areas, such as:
Direct legal services: Intake, client and witness interviews, advocating for clients, attending hearings, assisting attorneys in legal representation, legal research, and writing.
Outreach and education: Developing and distributing fact sheets, developing and delivering training on legal topics or on how to access legal services.
Capacity building: Organizational assessments, compiling best practices, organizing focus groups, leading planning committees.
Salary: Law Students receive a $5,000 for 8-10 weeks of service.
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