Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives
Hello there, interested public! The digest is a bit abbreviated this week, as I write to you from NALP’s Newer Professionals Forum. I look forward to putting what I’m learning here to work for all of you in the weeks and months ahead. (And if you’re at the conference, feel free to come find me!)
The big news this week involves a student loan tidbit you won’t want to miss! (Read below.)
The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland’s attorneys represent individual clients in a variety of legal issues that impact shelter, health/safety, and economic security. Areas of practice include housing, consumer, public benefits, education, family/domestic violence, employment/barriers to employment, and tax.
The Position
In addition to providing legal assistance to individual clients, Legal Aid attorneys engage in broad-based advocacy to impact client groups and communities. Legal Aid attorneys work in partnership with other service providers to address community issues and engage in community legal education. For example, Legal Aid is currently building partnerships with schools and other providers to serve the needs of families with small children, with a goal of stabilizing families so that children are able to succeed in school. Legal Aid attorneys also collaborate with local, state and national colleagues.
One attorney hired during this process will represent clients in a variety of immigration matters, but especially focused on serving those immigrants whose physical safety is at risk – victims of domestic violence, crime, and human trafficking. The other attorney’s assignment will be determined.
Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives
Hello there, interested public! The big news this week includes big decisions from the Attorney General of California and the Philadelphia DA’s office, as well as a report publishing the results of a worldwide survey on access to justice.
The World Justice Project published “Global Insights on Access to Justice,” research which “presents data on how ordinary people around the world navigate their everyday legal problems.” The data for the United States is summarized on page 53: 48% of survey respondents experienced a legal problem within the last two years, and only 23% of those turned to an authority or third party to help resolve the problem.
The American Friends Service Committee promotes a longstanding Quaker concern for the causes and impact of human migration. Since 1988, the Immigrant Rights Program based in New Jersey has worked to increase the protection of the rights of immigrants and refugees through legal representation, community education, community organizing, monitoring of rights, advocacy, and training.
Since 1996, the AFSC has provided legal counseling and representation to thousands of immigrants, including people in detention, youth, and survivors of domestic violence and other crimes. AFSC has also conducted training sessions and education to immigrant communities, social service providers and attorneys in New Jersey.
The Position
In collaboration with the Immigration Justice Campaign, a joint initiative between the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and the American Immigration Council (AIC), AFSC will expand pro bono referral efforts and the reach of AFSC’s work. This position will develop and pilot strategies for further engaging and retaining pro bono attorneys to ensure greater access to representation for immigrants detained in New Jersey and facing deportation. The fellowship is funded for one year.
Is this your dream opportunity? See the full-post on PSJD.
Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives
Hello there, interested public! If you read one thing this week, I’d check out the pull quote from Missouri’s top public defender–it speaks directly to issues of public service salaries & hiring.
And speaking of public service salaries…
NALP is still collecting responses for the 2018 Public Service Attorney Salary Survey. For the first time since 2014, we are studying salaries and benefits for attorneys at public service organizations across the county. To ensure the eventual reports is as useful as possible, it would be so helpful if everyone could share the survey link (www.psjd.org/salarysurvey) with their networks and encourage organizations to contribute to this study.In particular, we could use more responses from public defenders in the Northeast and Midwest and from issue-specific organizations in the Northeast. (If you’re curious, here are some more details about this study, from the last time we published this report.)
In Missouri, the state’s public defender director said that his office has hundreds fewer attorneys than it needs–and that his departments’ starting salaries make it impossible to employ attorneys:
Equality Ohio Education Fundand Equality Ohio were founded in 2005 by a group of 65 dedicated lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) activists and allies from all corners of Ohio after voters passed a constitutional amendment prohibiting same sex marriage and civil unions. EOEF continues to advance its vision and mission by working to change the hearts and minds of Ohioans about the LGBTQ community and our civil rights.
The Position
Assist the Managing Legal Director and/or Executive Director with the:
Creation and implementation of a legal survey to analyze current legal need of the LGBTQ community in Ohio;
Outreach to LGBTQ & Allied attorneys, legal-serving organizations, and LGBTQ-serving organizations;
Assist in the creation of LGBTQ Know Your Rights pamphlets and brochures;
Analysis of legal servicing intake tools and technologies; and
Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives
Hello there, interested public! There are a few major stories this week, spread out across topics. Look for big changes to federal hiring on the horizon and important new research affecting the Immigration debate and the Student Loan debate. Before we get to that, though, I have another appeal to make:
NALP has launched the 2018 Public Service Attorney Salary Survey. For the first time since 2014, we are studying salaries and benefits for attorneys at public service organizations across the county. To ensure that our eventual report (to be released later this year) is as useful as possible, I hope that everyone will help me by sharing the survey link (www.psjd.org/salarysurvey) with their networks and encouraging as many organizations as possible to contribute to this study. We are already hearing back from participating organizations eager to learn the results, so hopefully you would be doing your contacts a favor to pass this along. (Here are some more details about this study, from the last time we published this report.)
Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County is one of Los Angeles County’s leading public interest law offices and has been the primary legal aid program serving the San Fernando and Antelope Valleys for 48 years and the San Gabriel and Pomona Valleys since 2001. NLSLA’s staff of 100+, including 40 lawyers, provides legal assistance to low-income individuals, families and groups in the areas of family law, domestic violence, housing, health care, education, public benefits, economic and job development, immigrant rights, consumer rights, and environmental justice. NLSLA’s program offices are located in Pacoima and the cities of Glendale and El Monte.
The Position
NLSLA is seeking a Director of Litigation & Policy, the position will be based at its El Monte office. The Director is expected to provide overall leadership and direction to the legal staff, with the support of the NLSLA senior team to ensure high quality advocacy, community engagement, strategically strong decision-making, grant compliance, leadership, and professional development both substantively and procedurally. The Director should lead overall program advocacy focused on the unique diversity of the San Gabriel Valley. It is also expected that the Director will develop and lead advocacy to address some specific area(s) of poverty law in which NLSLA is not now focused.
Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives
Hello there, interested public! The biggest story below is at the top of the civil A2J section, but there’s a different piece of news I want to call your particular attention to this week:
NALP has launched the 2018 Public Service Attorney Salary Survey. For the first time since 2014, we are studying salaries and benefits for attorneys at public service organizations across the county. To ensure that our eventual report (to be released later this year) is as useful as possible, I hope that everyone will help me by sharing the survey link (www.psjd.org/salarysurvey) with their networks and encouraging as many organizations as possible to contribute to this study. We are already hearing back from participating organizations eager to learn the results, so hopefully you would be doing your contacts a favor to pass this along. (Here are some more details about this study, from the last time we published this report.)
Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives
Hello there, interested public! Read on for two weeks worth of news, as I missed delivering the digest last week due to an illness. The most consequential story this week is out of Canada, where the Canadian Intern Association questioned the legality of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s internship program. Additional highlights include class action status for the ACLU’s indigent defense funding lawsuit in Idaho and a new report from Brookings with even more dire predictions about potential student loan default rates.
The Brookings Institute, using newly-available data, issued a report predicting that in the near future the default rate on student loans may rise more sharply than previously anticipated, predicting “nearly 40 percent may default on their student loans by 2023.“
The Legal Services Corporation held its “Innovations in Technology Conference” in New Orleans, LA. Interested readers can catch up on many of the conference presentations on the LSC’s Facebook feed.
Get a weekly summary of news items that affect the public service legal community, with an emphasis on funding, job market, law school initiatives, and access-to-justice developments.