Western Environmental Law Center is a 501(c)(3) non-profit public interest environmental law firm. We use the power of the law to safeguard the public lands, wildlife, and communities of the American West in the face of a changing climate. To learn more about the Western Environmental Law Center, please visit our website at www.westernlaw.org..
The Position
The Western Environmental Law Center (WELC) is accepting applications from law students currently in their second or third year of law school (2L or 3L) for summer 2018 legal internship positions to work with our attorneys in these locations: Helena, Montana; and Taos, New Mexico. We are looking for bright and motivated individuals committed to public interest environmental law.
Under the supervision of a staff attorney in the office location in which they are hired, the selected interns will assist our attorneys with case development and strategy, conduct legal research, and draft pleadings, briefs, and other legal documents. The internships are unfunded positions. We will provide assistance to the selected applicants in seeking outside funding or law school credit, and in finding free or inexpensive housing. We offer a flexible summer work schedule to allow for outdoor recreation and travel.
Ready to be an environmental crusader? Check out the full-post on PSJD.
October 18, 2017 at 2:30 pm
· Filed under Uncategorized
Every October a national celebration known as Pro Bono Week takes place. Pro Bono Week provides attorneys and law students with a chance to get give back in their communities by volunteering pro bono. Here atPSJD, we are passionate about Pro Bono Week and want to highlight some of the active pro bono opportunities on our site:
In addition to PSJD opportunities, we have included other coordinated events in major cities. If you want to participate, but don’t see an event in your local area look at the American Bar Association’s comprehensive list of pro bono events organized by state by clicking here. There are thousands of events happening across the nation. A few of these events are:
Northeast:
Boston Bar Association (Boston, MA): Boston Bar Association has highlighted several events going on in greater Boston area. For a full list, please click here.
NYCourts.Gov (New York): NYCourts.gov has several ways to get involved in the New York area. For a full list, please click here.
Mass Pro Bono (Massachusetts): Mass Pro Bono has several pro bono events taking place throughout the month of October. To view their full calendar, please click here.
Maine Volunteer Lawyers Project (Portland, Maine): This organization will be hosting a “Free Legal Answers May Kick-Off Event”. For the full details, please click here.
Mid-Atlantic:
Washington Council for Lawyers (Washington, D.C.): Washington Council of Lawyers plans extensive Pro Bono Week events in the Washington, D.C. area. To see their full schedule of events, please click here. To see affiliated events up on their site, please click here.
D.C. Law Students in Court Program (Washington, D.C.): This organization will be hosting a training titled “Sealing DC Criminal Records.” For full event details, please click here.
Southeast:
Jacksonville Area Legal Aid, Inc. (Jacksonville, FL.): This organization will host an event titled “Hurricane Recovery Pro Bono Opportunities!”, which will provide more information on how local attorneys can get involved in hurricane relief efforts. For more information, please click here.
Houston Bar Association Legal Line (Houston, TX.): This organization is hosting an event called “Special Hurricane Relief Legal Line” where Texans impacted by Hurricane Harvey can call in with legal questions. To learn more about the event, please click here.
Lone Star Legal Aid (Jacksonville, TX.): This organization will be hosting an event titled “Pro Bono Awards Ceremony and Cherokee County Bar Association Meeting-Recruiting Event” which will honor the Cherokee County Pro Bono Attorney of the Year. For more information, please click here.
Midwest:
Public Interest Law Initiative, Chicago Law School Consortium (Chicago, IL.): These organizations have joined efforts to host an event titled, “Explore the Possibilities: Public Interest Law Opportunities for Law Students”, which will provide law students in the area with more insight into public interest opportunities within the community. For more details, please click here.
Wayne County Friend of the Court (Detroit, MI.): This organization will be hosting an event titled “PPO Affidavit Assistance Project”, which will provide aid to victims of domestic violence and stalking by helping to fill out PPO applications. For more information, please click here.
Legal Action of Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin Law School (Madison, WI.): These two organizations have teamed up to host an event called “Housing Advice Clinic” which will assist individuals with security deposit and small claims damages against landlords. For more information, please click here.
West Coast/Rocky Mountain:
Practicing Law Institute (San Francisco, CA.):This organization will host an event titled “California Special Education Law 2017”, is a conference which will highlight the changes in California Special Education law that have occurred over the past year. For more information, please click here.
Denver Bar Association -Metro Volunteer Lawyers, Denver Access to Justice (Denver, CO.): These two organizations have teamed up to host an event titled, “Get Introduced to Volunteering with Metro Volunteer Lawyers.” This event will include speakers and a training on pro bono volunteering. For more information, please click here.
If you have any questions about Pro Bono Week, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at PSJD@nalp.org. Over the next several days our social media accounts will be highlighting additional ways for attorneys and law students to get involved.
Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives
Hello there, interested public! It’s Friday again, and our world has been pretty busy this week–particularly in relation to student loans and structural issues related to public defender services. To see what I mean, read on!
Until next week,
Sam
Student Loans & Consumer Law
Student loan servicer Navient responded in a public statement to the recent lawsuit commenced by the Pennsylvania Attorney General alleging it violated federal and state consumer protection laws, saying “the allegations are completely unfounded and the case was filed without any review of Pennsylvania residents’ customer accounts.”
The Nisqually Indian Tribe is known for its innovative programs to restore and protect the Nisqually River and Puget Sound as well as its efforts to build a vibrant economy and create jobs for its community. Messages can be sent to Leighanna Scott.
The Position
Assist and advise the Nisqually Tribal Council, Legal Department Director, and tribal departments in the legal matters related to the management, affairs, and interests of the Tribe.
Duties and Responsibilities
Provide legal advice and services to Tribal Council.
Coordinate with Director to provide legal advice and assistance to tribal law enforcement; tribal court; the Indian child welfare department; the tribal health clinic; and other administrative departments (social services, education, personnel, accounting, planning, etc.)
Coordinate with Director in the negotiation of agreements with other state and local governments.
Advise Tribal Council regarding compliance with applicable federal, state, and tribal laws, grant and contractual obligations, internal policies.
Review, advise and coordinate execution of contracts entered into by Nisqually Tribe.
Collaborate with Tribal Council to create, modify, and facilitate enforcement of tribal laws, codes, and policy.
Provide legal advice to Tribal Council related to employment classification and dispute resolution.
Review contracts and draft ordinances, legal briefs, memorandums, policies, codes, resolutions, and other legal documents.
Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives
Happy Friday, everyone! I and many other NALP staffers will be out of the office today for the NALP Summit on Emerging Careers for Law Grads. In keeping with today’s theme, therefore, some choice words from legal futurist Richard Susskind:
“[I]f you’re interested in access to justice, there’s never been a better time because you can greatly change the way in which we deliver access to justice.”
The Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center (MJC) is accepting applications for an appellate staff attorney position in its Washington, D.C. office. MJC is a public interest law firm that litigates high-impact civil rights and systemic reform cases in courts around the country. Working in collaboration with four other MJC offices, the Washington D.C. office is part of the firm’s Appellate Project, which seeks to advance criminal and racial justice through litigation before federal and state courts of appeal and the Supreme Court of the United States. For more information about MJC and its past work, click here.
The Position:
MJC is looking for an attorney with one to three years of experience, who is passionate about both criminal justice issues and appellate work. The successful candidate will work on appeals that concern a broad array of issues, including prisoner and detainee rights, police misconduct, constitutional rights of accused persons, and religious discrimination at the border. Specific responsibilities include:
Know you would be a stellar fit for the position? See the full post on PSJD.
Okay folks. If you only read one article in the digest this week, make it this one. It’s packed with both personal and professional perspectives from those students, faculty, and administrators most publicly and painfully tested by the civic challenges confronting our campuses.
A Yolo County, CA Board of Supervisors meeting yielded an admirably fruitful, detailed discussion of different ways to understand the needs and workloads of Public Defenders Offices, how to gauge whether PD offices are adequately staffed, and how local governments must adapt staffing for both PD and DA offices in response to changes in the law.
The Singer Connecticut Public Service Fellowship Program was established for the purpose of offering opportunities to recent law school graduates to gain practical experience working for Connecticut civil legal aid providers.
The Position
Candidates are sought from a broad spectrum of backgrounds who reflect the diversity of residents of Connecticut’s cities, towns and rural communities served by the state’s legal aid providers. The work of the legal aid providers encompass a wide range of legal issues, including but not limited to family, domestic violence, landlord-tenant, housing, education, employment, immigration, government benefits, healthcare, and elder law.
The aspirational goal of the Singer Connecticut Public Service Fellowship Program is to retain Fellows to practice public interest law in Connecticut upon completion of the Fellowship.
Singer Connecticut Public Service Fellowship Program Applicants Must:
be a recent graduate or a law student in his or her graduating year from an accredited law school prior to commencement of the Fellowship;
have submitted a completed Fellowship Application;
have satisfactorily completed an interview with the Selection Committee;
be admitted to the Bar of the State of Connecticut prior to or during the term of the Fellowship
Is this your dream opportunity? See the full-post on PSJD.
This past week the PSJD Pro Bono Publico Award Committee made some tough decisions regarding which of the many exemplary nominees would advance as finalists. These choices were difficult to say the least, as the pool of applicants was particularly talented this year. The committee is proud to announce that the following finalists:
Congratulations to every law student who was nominated by their school. The applicant pool was full of talented nominees doing meaningful public interest work within their communities. The committee greatly enjoys being tasked with the opportunity to learn about the exciting Pro Bono work these exceptional students are doing all across North America. We look forward to announcing the Pro Bono Publico Award winner and the merit distinctions at the 2017 NALP PSJD Public Service Mini-Conference.
by Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives
Happy Friday, everyone! Let’s begin by addressing the elephant: I am not Christina Jackson. As her successor and NALP’s new Director of Public Service Initiatives I’ll be taking over the PSJD Public Interest Digest. I hope I’m able to continue providing useful and timely summaries of news related to our community and our work.
To paraphrase Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes, folks), these days the days are just packed. I’d like to experiment with a slightly denser, more synoptic approach to the Digest. Please let me know what you think. I want to make sure this document remains useful. Feel free to reach out to me by phone or email on this issue or anything else related to my transition here.
Disaster Legal Aid
As Christina noted last week, the need for pro bono legal services in areas hit by storms and fires continues. (For additional opportunities to help, stay tuned to the PSJD Blog, follow PSJD on Twitter (@PSJDTweets) and Facebook, or contact your local legal service providers.)
A number of organizations have stepped up to coordinate efforts–especially in response to the storms battering the Caribbean and the Southeastern US:
The Trump Administration’s recent announcement that it will be ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program has provoked responses from a wide variety of groups:
Transgender Military Service Ban — Evolving Response from Law Schools
As military recruiters interview law students for potential JAG careers, more law school administrators and student groups are taking positions concerning the Trump Administration’s transgender military service ban:
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.
