Photo: Brenda Gottsabend – CC License

If you’re a criminal defender with significant experience with capital cases and you’re looking for a chance to have a systemic impact on your profession, the NACDL has a challenge for you. They’re currently accepting proposals from individuals with ideas about how to provide technical assistance to capital defense teams and state grantees and also coordinate at least two bring-your-own-case national training programs. The successful proposal will land its author an independent contractor position, based in Washington DC.

If you’re intrigued, the full post on PSJD has much more detail about what the organization is looking for. You’ll need to work fast, though–the deadline is 5pm E.S.T. on December 8th.

Photo: Brenda Gottsabend – CC License

If you’re interested in labor or employment law, you probably already know that the AFL-CIO’s fellowship applications were due last month and the SEIU deadline passed this Monday. If you didn’t, you’ve missed out on two opportunities, but here comes one more: also on Monday, the National Educational Association posted notice that they are looking for three (3!) fellows to join their organization next year.

Check out the full post on PSJD.

Sam Halpert, 2014 – 2015 PSJD Fellow

So last week I confessed to you all that in my own job search, I’m figuratively far from a master. However I work a mere foot away from one. Christina Jackson, NALP’s Director of Public Service Initiatives and Fellowships, will be putting me through my paces for your benefit from now until next semester so you can see how PSJD’s 10-Step Program for keeping your job search warm over the holidays works in practice.

This week, I tackled the second half of Tip 1 (writing a cover letter). Specifically, I tried to express my interest in the Pro Bono Coordinator position I noticed last week on PSJD. I hate writing cover letters, but I felt a little more confident this time than I have in the past–mostly because I tried to keep in mind Christina’s advice from the resume makeover. I’ve repeated her first point from the first makeover post below; I tried to meet the goal she set out for us last week. In fact, all of last week’s advice carries over well; read the resume makeover post before continuing with this one.

* * *

Ready? Okay. I showed her the resulting cover letter, and it turns out I did alright. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have to rework significant portions of it, though. (Feel free to compare the letter before and after she critiqued it.) As with the resume makeover, I’ve summarized her strategy for each portion of the letter below, illustrating it where necessary with examples from my own efforts:

1. YOUR GOAL (Redux): Speak the employer’s language. Your resume and cover letter are a one-two combination aimed to land you an interview. (To see the resume that would accompany this letter, check out the resume makeover post.) Between them, you need to fit as many of the position’s advertised responsibilities, duties, and qualifications as you can. Reorganize, rephrase, and rewrite your experiences so the employer sees you describe yourself in the terms they would use. Each cover letter will be different, but you may be able to recycle within categories of positions, based on the method of work you’d like to employ, the clients you’re seeking to serve, and the area of law you’d like to apply.In my first attempt,  I failed to fit in as much as I could:

2. THE SALUTATION: Always be personal, even if you have to dig for a name. The job post I was working from asked me to send a letter to a catch-all institutional email. I wrote “To Whom it May Concern”–a HUGE mistake. You may have to do some research, but you should always be able to put a name at the top of your cover letter. For me, it was pretty simple. The post included the title of the person the Coordinator reports to; I just had to go to the employer’s website and find out who holds that title. If you’re stumped identifying your supervisor, try to find the most senior person in the department you’d work for. If the organization is smaller, you can write to the Executive Director. If you have no other option, you can use a person’s title for the salutation. But whatever you do, don’t use “To Whom it May Concern.”
3. PARAGRAPH ONE: (1) Who you are and (2) why you’re writing them. I did okay with the first part, where I tried to describe myself using key nouns and verbs from the job post (see item #1). I was too implicit with the second part, though. Employers want you to tell them what they do, even though they already know. They don’t need to learn their mission from you, but they do need to see that you understand what it is:

4. PARAGRAPH TWO+:

(a) DO tie your specific skillset(s) to the employer’s job description. As with the resume makeover (see item #3), Provide concrete examples of the kinds of work you’ve done in your various experiences–but be careful of clients’ confidentiality. Try to make sure your cover letter augments the information in your resume. For instance, for one position my resume describes what I did; my cover letter describes why I did it:

(b)  DON’T include extraneous information. (If you’re curious what that looks like, check out the entire third paragraph of my original attempt.)

5. LAST PARAGRAPH: Close simply and directly.
6. A FEW NOTES ON GENERAL STYLE:
   • Research the employer to hit the right tone. Don’t treat my example as a general rule for what kind of language is acceptable. I played pretty close to the line for informal language in this cover letter, but I think I can get away with it based on the tone of the employer’s website. (For instance: “Passionate about public interest law? Love using the web? Consider joining our team!”) If the organization you want to work for (or you) are more straight-laced, find more professional ways to say the same thing:

• Avoid overstating your enthusiasm for entry-level work. I’m an effusive guy. I got away with “love,” but Christina drew the line at “thrilled.” (Avoid superlatives as well.)
• Never run over a single page. (Oops.)

I’m not quite ready to hit send yet. When you think you’re done, wait until the next day whenever you can and look at the letter with fresh eyes. I’ll let you know how this resume-cover letter combo turns out. In the meantime, I’ll be working on a list of contacts for informational meetings (the next montage post).

Wax on, wax off.
-Sam

Sam Halpert, 2014 – 2015 PSJD Fellow

So yesterday I confessed to you all that in my own job search, I’m far from I’m figuratively far from a master. However I work a mere foot away from one. Christina Jackson, NALP’s Director of Public Service Initiatives and Fellowships, will be putting me through my paces for your benefit from now until next semester so you can see how PSJD’s 10-Step Program for keeping your job search warm over the holidays works in practice.

Since then, I’ve been hard at work on Tip 1 (reviewing my resume and cover letter). I shared the most recent version of my resume with Christina, along with a couple of job posts that came up on PJSD that caught my eye (a Pro Bono Coordinator and a Housing Advocate, PDF’d here for posterity).

Christina had solid advice for restructuring and refining my resume. I’ve summarized her strategy below, illustrating it with examples from my two new resumes (you can see all the changes I made in the full versions — “Coordinator” and “Advocate“):

1. YOUR GOAL: Speak the employer’s language. Your resume and cover letter are a one-two combination aimed to land you an interview. Between them, you need to fit as many of the position’s advertised responsibilities, duties, and qualifications as you can. Reorganize, rephrase, and rewrite your experiences so the employer sees you describe yourself in the terms they would use.
   This means each resume will be different, depending on what kind of employer you’re speaking to. Make categories based on the method of work you’d like to employ, the clients you’re seeking to serve, and the area of law you’d like to apply. Within these categories employers are likely to use similar language and have similar expectations. Write resumes for each one, and you won’t have to do a custom job for each application you send off.

   Pro Bono Coordinator Example	Housing Advocate Example
   Responsibilities: “Coordinate and support the development of…the probono.net platform.”	Responsibilities: “Engaging community coalitions, advocates, and public officials.”
   New Resume: “Coordinating with PSJD Advisory Group to develop new resources & features…”	New Resume: “[Executed human rights fact-finding mission] by engaging community groups to convince individuals to participate.”

2. WHAT TO CUT: Look for sections that don’t say something meaningful or new. For example, research has been a component of several of my jobs so Christina downgraded my Research Assistant position to an “activity.” When she didn’t see how my summer program spoke to the “Coordinator” position, she cut it entirely. (I added it back for the “Advocate” resume; my activities that summer demonstrate experience with community advocacy.)
3. WHAT TO INCLUDE: Be specific — or as specific as you can. Provide concrete examples of the kinds of work you’ve done in your various experiences. For one position on my old resume, I’d “co-authored pre-mission documents” and “conducted interviews.” Christina wanted to know more: What kind of information did the documents include? How many interviews did your team conduct?
   This gets tricky when your work is confidential: Focus on processes, not issues, and remember you may need help. If you’re a student or a recent grad struggling to describe your experience without giving anything away, consider showing your proposed language to your supervisor. They can help you find words that will let employers picture your work without learning confidential details of your clients’ affairs.
4. WHAT TO EXPECT: Be prepared to be uncomfortable. You’re editing your life for someone else. According to Christina, as a law graduate it’s time for me to retire my GPA from my resume. With the exception of positions that specifically mention “strong academic credentials” or request a transcript, in most graduates’ applications a GPA just takes up space. This was difficult for me to accept. I worked hard for that number. Apparently, though, it means a lot to me but not to most employers. And without it I have more space to say other things and present a package with fewer extraneous details distracting employers from my message. So I took a deep breath, and held down backspace.
   
5. TWO NOTES ON LARGE-SCALE ORGANIZATION:
   • For students and recent grads, “education” comes first. But generally, two years after graduation “experience” officially trumps. If you’re closer to your fifth reunion than your 1L year, consider moving your “education” section below “experience” unless you’re applying to a job where your education ties you to the institution you’d work for or the location you’d move to.
   • “Experience” typically matters more than “publications” — unless you’re going for a particularly writing-intensive job (e.g., judicial clerk) or your publications speak to your relationship with a particular client group, method of work, or area of law. For example, I moved my “publications” section forward on my “Advocate” resume because one of the reports I co-authored specifically involved housing issues.

I have more work to do on both of these documents. These versions have gone a little overboard, which can happen when you find a position where a lot of your experience is on point. I need to cut each one back a bit, but hopefully these five tips and examples are enough to get you started on your own resume makeovers this weekend. I’ll be chugging along ahead, working on matching cover letters to share with Christina (and you) next week.

Wax on, wax off.
-Sam

Sam Halpert, PSJD Fellow 2014 – 2015
Anna Black, VP, Public Interest Law Society – Nova Southeastern University

NSU Law students Geoffrey Langbart, Sophia Mitchell, and Anna Black (left to right) with more than 10,000 cans collected at this year’s “Canned Immunity” drive.
Photo: NSU Publications & Special Events

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope all our readers are able to take a break tomorrow, relax with family or friends, and get to the heart of whatever this particular holiday might mean for each of you. Before the PSJD staff go off to our own celebrations, we wanted to recognize the efforts of some of our member schools, who have been working hard in recent weeks to serve their communities and help make this holiday possible for low-income families. Last week, we asked our member schools and firms what pro bono and community service work they were doing in relation to Thanksgiving. Many law campuses organize community service efforts around the holiday, but here are the ones you told us about:

Western Michigan University Cooley Law School’s Ann Arbor campus has packed and distributed 100 full Thanksgiving dinners for needy families in the Ann Arbor community as part of its annual Thanksgiving outreach program. Wayne State University Law School, also in Michigan, collected 300 pounds of canned goods and non-perishables to help feed Detroit area families. Their partner in the drive was Gleaners food bank, but Barbri also pitched in, offering $25 off its student content to 1Ls who participated. However, it’s Nova Southeastern University’s Shepard Broad Law Center, in Fort Lauderdale Florida, that’s truly suffused donation incentives into the law school experience. Anna Black, an NSU Law 2L and Vice President of their Public Interest Law Society, wrote us to explain how:

Every year in preparation for Thanksgiving, NSU Shepard Broad Law Center’s Public Interest Law Society (“PILS”) in collaboration with the Phi Alpha Delta legal fraternity, organizes a highly successful weeklong event called “Canned Immunity.” Canned Immunity is a collaborative effort that aims to ensure those who are currently fighting hunger in our community are well fed this Thanksgiving holiday. The entire week before Thanksgiving, PILS conducts a school-wide drive for canned and other non-perishable food items.

The annual drive always receives a high volume of donations thanks to both the generosity of the law student body and the method by which the weeklong event operates. PILS convinces professors to offer their students certain incentives for bringing in donations, including “immunity” from being called on in class that day or the option of selecting another student to act as “co-counsel” to help discuss a case or topic. These incentives encourage students to donate more and more often throughout the week. PILS also competitively tracks the donations, keeping students and faculty apprised of which sections and professors have donated the most. Last year, PILS collected over 12,000 cans during Canned Immunity Week. This year, we hope to collect even more. [Editor’s note: This year, the event collected over 10,000 cans. According to the Atlanta Community Food Bank, the average can of food weighs almost a pound. That’s over 9,376 pounds of food!] Everything collected during the week is donated to Feeding South Florida, a local food bank.

So thank you, Cooley, Wayne State, and NSU for doing such good work. Thank you Charles Toy, Diane Fears, and Jennifer Gordon & Jennifer Jarema, for taking the time to let us know what each of your respective schools have been up to. (Cooley, Wayne State, and NSU all just made the PSJD Honor Roll for November.) And to all the law students and lawyers who took time this week or this month to make your communities a better place, we at PSJD are most thankful for you.

Enjoy your holiday!

Sam Halpert, PSJD Fellow 2014 – 2015

Photo: Nicolò Bonazzi – CC License

As regular readers already know, between now and the end of the semester we will be blogging about how to make the most of the winter holidays to upgrade your job search tools and hone your job search skills. It’ll be a collaborative effort, but each of us will be in a separate role. When it comes to career development, Christina’s the coach, the drill sergeant, the Mr. Miyagi—choose your favorite metaphor. I won’t be providing knowledge, but raw material. In my own job search efforts, I’m the struggling player, the fresh-faced recruit, the Karate Kid—again, take your pick. (Just so long as you picture Ralph Macchio and not Jayden Smith.) And Christina’s winter goal is to get me—and you—into fighting form.

But wait! (You may very well say.) Sam, what are you doing at PSJD.org if you aren’t a job search guru? Truth is, I bring a fair amount to the PSJD Fellowship: my past experiences have made me an adept web developer, a proficient public speaker, and a comfortable manager. But I’m not adept, proficient, or even comfortable when it comes to looking for work myself. In the last thirty words, I think I’ve already eclipsed the cover letter I wrote last Spring to get this job. I’m comfortable speaking and writing, but not about my own accomplishments. I can advocate for causes I believe in, but I feel awkward asking people I respect to take time away from their important work to help me out with an informational meeting or a job recommendation. I worry so much about whether my materials are perfect that I often run the risk that they won’t be timely-submitted.

In short, if you’re reading PSJDblog to figure out how to improve your job search results, you and I are probably more alike than you think. I believe I’m fairly qualified for my chosen career, but many qualified people are struggling to find work in public interest law right now. If you’re looking for a job next year, so am I—and if you’ve had as much trouble meeting your job search goals this Fall as I have, you have my sympathy.

This is where Christina comes in. Between now and the end of finals, I’ll be putting myself where PSJD’s mouth is. Starting with a resume makeover later this week, I’m going to be trying out each of the ten tips we suggested for our readers; Christina will be critiquing my efforts. We’ll share the results with you here on PSJDblog. I’ll talk about which changes feel most significant, which feel non-intuitive, and how easy or difficult each tip is to put into practice.

Until next time: wax on, wax off.

Christina Jackson, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives & Fellowships

Thank you to American University Washington College of Law Office of Career and Professional Development for contributing these tips.

Whether you’re looking forward to finishing your first semester of law school or looking forward to starting your last one, the best holiday spirit is the one that puts you in the mood for career planning. We here at PSJD hope you’re able to take a well-deserved rest from classes, but you can’t afford to let your job search efforts freeze over. To help your job search stay warm through winter without burning you out, we’ve come up with ten concrete activities you can take on between now and New Year’s to be ready to impress your future employers in 2015.

The gist of our ten-step program is below, but stay tuned: We’ll be covering each of these tips in greater detail in upcoming installments of PSJDblog over the weeks between now and the end of the semester.

by Christina Jackson, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives & Fellowships

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  The Digest will take a holiday next week to celebrate Thanksgiving with the family.  We will return in December with news to prepare you for the winter break.

Here are the week’s headlines:

• New certificate program at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law prepares students to work in the public interest;
• Former MS Volunteer Lawyers official pleads guilty to stealing federal funds;
• National Center for Access to Justice revises Justice Index;
• ABA launches site to aid unaccompanied minors;
• USAJobs is getting another makeover;
• Kings County (WA) Council delays PD layoffs;
• TN CLE Commission supports access to justice;
• Spotlight on Public Service Servants: Maureen Alger;
• Super Music Bonus!

The summaries:

November 12, 2014 -“The Loyola University New Orleans College of Law now offers a new Social Justice Certificate Program, which assists students who want to effectively advocate for the poor and the marginalized.  Through hands-on experience and focused academic study in this certificate program, students will not only be able to advance public interest causes for the needy and disadvantaged, but also provide a strong signal of their commitment to social justice to fellowship programs and future employers.  Students must maintain a GPA of 3.0 or higher in the certificate courses and an overall GPA of 2.5 or higher to receive the certificate, while completing four to eight hours of doctrinal coursework, seven to 10 hours of experiential hours, as well as 50 hours of public service work.  (Loyola University New Orleans)

November 13, 2014 – “The former executive director of the Mississippi Volunteer Lawyers Project faces up to one year in prison and a $100,000 fine for stealing less than $1,000 in federal Legal Services funds. Shirley Mae Williams, 47, of Jackson pleaded guilty Wednesday to theft of less than $1,000 in federal funds, which is misdemeanor. Federal prosecutors say from January 2009 through December 2012, Williams, while employed as MVLP executive director, converted the federal funds to pay for a portion of her family’s cellular phone expenses and health club membership. MVLP received Legal Services Corp. grant funds as a sub-grantee of both North Mississippi Rural Legal Services and Mississippi Center for Legal Services.”  (The Clarion-Ledger)

November 13, 2014 – “The National Center for Access to Justice revised The Justice Index on November 13, 2014 to reflect comments and corrections received from 21 states following publication of The Justice Index on February 25, 2014.”  A notice will be published on the Index when the updates are finalized.  (National Center for Access to Justice)

November 14, 2014 – “Child advocates have for months voiced concerns about unaccompanied minors not having an attorney by their side in immigration court, and now the American Bar Association is stepping in to help. The group launched a website this week as a resource for attorneys who want to volunteer their time to help unaccompanied minors navigate through the immigration system. The goal is to get more attorneys to provided unaccompanied minors with legal representation on a pro bono basis. The website is dubbed the Immigrant Child Advocacy Network. It was put together by the American Bar Association’s working group on unaccompanied minors in collaboration with partner organizations, like Kids in Need of Defense and the American Immigration Lawyers Association.” (VOXXI)

November 17, 2014 – “The Office of Personnel Management once again is revamping USAJobs, the website most people use to apply for jobs in the federal government. The agency wants to streamline and clarify its job descriptions and make sure job postings don’t ask applicants redundant questions, said OPM Director Katherine Archuleta on Friday during a virtual town hall where she took questions on topics including recruitment, diversity and the role of veterans’ preference in the hiring process. She did not say when a new site might debut.”  (Government Executive)

November 17, 2014 – “The King County department that helps defendants who can’t afford an attorney will lose 40 employees, including about 20 attorneys, under the two-year county budget adopted Monday by the Metropolitan King County Council. But the controversial staff reduction won’t happen immediately and could potentially be reversed next spring, because of a last-minute amendment by the council. County Executive Dow Constantine had proposed the reduction, saying the Department of Public Defense, at nearly 400 employees, had more staff than required. But the council tweaked the proposal after hearing one attorney after another testify Monday that the reduction would harm poor people and fail to save money.”  “Lisa Daugaard, deputy director of the Department of Public Defense, said the council’s amendment was in line with the board’s recommendations. ‘This is an important and welcome shift,’ said Daugaard. ‘It gives everyone involved a chance to get on the same page about what the real staffing requirements of the department are and then to make budget decisions in light of that information.'”  (Seattle Times)

November 19, 2014 – “The Tennessee Commission on Continuing Legal Education and Specialization has awarded more than $100,000 in grants to support Access to Justice initiatives in the state. The grants will extend by one year each the pro bono coordinator position and the aLEGALz project. ‘Encouraging lawyers to give back to their communities is a priority for the Court,’ said Tennessee Supreme Court Chief Justice Sharon Lee. ‘These programs play a significant role in identifying opportunities and aligning the appropriate resources and we are grateful that the funding to continue them was possible.'”  (The Chattanoogan.com)

Spotlight on Outstanding Public Servants: On November 14, 2014, at its annual conference of the National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA), Cooley pro bono partner, Maureen Alger, was awarded the 2014 Arthur von Briesen Award for her work on behalf of equal justice. The von Briesen Award honors outstanding service in advancing the cause of equal access to justice, and recognizes the contributions of individuals and programs from a cross-section of the legal aid, public defense, and corporate law communities.  Congratulations!  (Market Wired)

Super Music Bonus!  Happy Thanksgiving!

http://youtu.be/t_VIq0iKZDA

Photo: Brenda Gottsabend – CC License

If you’re a law student or a recent grad looking for your first policy experience, you may want to act fast. FlyersRights, a consumer advocacy organization, is looking to fill two internships and a one-year staff attorney position specifically for a recent law graduate. The organization has been around since 2006, working on behalf of airline travelers. Among their legislative successes is a federal statute requiring airlines to allow stranded passengers to disembark from planes after 3 hours on the ground.

FlyersRights’ post on PSJD is eye-catching for the care it takes to describe how working with the organization would allow legal newcomers to grow their legislative advocacy skillset:

The person we are looking to hire for one year would be a staff attorney (or as a legal analyst if the person has yet been admitted to the bar) under my primary supervision. The person would receive substantial training in public interest advocacy and law, including research and drafting of administrative rulemaking petitions, legislation, Congressional testimony and legislative memos and policy papers, amicus brief writing, as well as non-legal writing and advocacy.

If you know you want to do policy work, you should consider letting FlyersRights show you how it’s done. Check out the full post on PSJD.

If you’re interested, it’ll cost you a weekend: the Application Deadline is Sunday, November 23rd.

Photo: Brenda Gottsabend – CC License

Those of you with a few years of experience under your belts and an interest in community economic development may want to consider going private. Winston & Strawn–one of US News’ Law Firms of the Year for Bankruptcy, Creditor/Debtor Rights, and Insolvency and Reorganization Law–recently advertised on PJSD. The firm is looking for an attorney to work out of New York City, managing its pro bono practice. The majority of your time would be pro bono; the firm expects its Pro Bono Practice Attorney to log a minimum of 1750 pro bono hours. You would be working with employees at all levels (from paralegals to partners) throughout the firm, supporting and facilitating attorney involvement in nonprofit corporate and community development efforts.

So, if you have several years of experience in nonprofit corporate law and an interest in moving to large law firm pro bono, check out the full posting at PSJD. (Application Deadline: Jan 1, 2015)