International Rights Advocates (IRAdvocates) is looking for a full-time associate to work on its international human rights cases, which employ legal strategies to hold multinational corporations accountable for human rights abuses. All cases are administered through the Washington, DC office of Conrad & Scherer, LLP.

International Rights Advocates (IRAdvocates) is a new organization that is the successor to the litigation department of the International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF).

IRAdvocates is dedicated to the expansion of ILRF’s successful efforts to use innovative legal mechanisms to hold corporations and governments accountable for human rights violations worldwide.

If this interests you, check out the listing at PSLawNet!

The Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia is looking for an attorney for its Domestic Violence / Family Law Unit.

The Legal Aid Society was established in 1932 to “provide legal aid and counsel to indigent persons in civil law matters and to encourage measures by which the law may better protect and serve their needs.” Legal Aid is the oldest general civil legal services program in the District of Columbia.

The Staff Attorney will handle a caseload of family law cases, including custody, child support, protection orders, and divorce matters; interview prospective clients; participate in community outreach; and engage in systemic reform efforts.

To find out more and to learn how to apply, check out the listing at PSLawNet!

by Kristen Pavón

Here’s some warm & fuzzy public interest news to kick off your weekend!

The Columbia Spectator reported today that Ahmed A., a 37-year-old gay man from the West African country Mauritania, was granted asylum  last month with the help of Columbia Law’s Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic.

“When I saw the headline, ‘Immigration approval’ and the small red stamp ‘Approval guaranteed’ on the bottom, I couldn’t believe myself,” says Ahmed, who identifies as gay and applied for asylum with the help of Columbia Law School’s Sexuality & Gender Law Clinic. “I was crying.” . . .

Columbia’s Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic, which is the only of its kind, adopts one or two asylum candidates every year. The clients, who are referred by the non-profit Immigration Equality, all seek to flee their countries for fear of persecution due to sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or HIV status. Mauritania is one of seven countries in the world where same-sex sexual activity is punishable by death. . . .

Ahmed said that because of his sexual orientation, his tribe banished him, his father signed away his legal relation to him, and his sister’s husband, who now works for the Mauritanian government, asked her for a divorce.

After calling Columbia clinical law professor Suzanne Goldberg [about his approval], Ahmed celebrated by sleeping, something he had barely been able to do for the six months that he waited for his application to be processed.

Ahmed’s case is a great reminder of why we, the public interest enthusiasts, do what we do.

by Kristen Pavón

So, you may know that PSLawNet lists articling opportunities for Canadian law students. Articling is akin to an apprenticeship for law graduates, and it’s a prerequisite for practicing law in Canada.

In Ontario, an articling task force was created in response to a shortage of articling positions, especially those more oriented to social justice.

. . . 12.1 per cent of those [law graduates] seeking articles in the 2010-11 licensing year went unplaced, a big jump from a rate of 5.8 per cent three years ago.

The access-to-justice issue in Canada is twofold: First, sole practitioners, small firms and legal clinics do most of the legal work for low- and middle-income people and they do not have the resources to provide articling opportunities. Second, most articling opportunities are with medium and large firms that do not address social justice issues.

The task force’s final report should be out in June 2012. Read more here.

How would having an apprenticeship system in the U.S. affect our access-to-justice gap? Let me know your thoughts!

New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI) is seeking applications for a staff attorney position in its Disability Justice (DJ) Program. NYLPI is a not-for-profit civil rights law firm that focuses on issues of racial equality and disability rights. NYLPI pioneered the practice of community lawyering in the five boroughs of New York City.

NYLPI breaks important new ground by drawing on a range of strengths: community trust; proficient organizing; media savvy; established lobbying channels, effective individual representation; and bold, creative approaches to litigation. The work of the DJ Program is founded on principles of equality of opportunity, self-determination, and independence for people with disabilities.

In partnership with individuals and community organizations, NYLPI uses organizing, legislative advocacy and litigation to assert the rights of New Yorkers with disabilities to equal access to a range of programs and services, including education, health care, housing, and police protection.

The DJ staff attorney position will include both systemic advocacy and individual representation, and will focus on the areas of housing, social security benefits, and vocational rehabilitation, among others.

If you’re interested, check out the listing at PSLawNet!

by Kristen Pavón

So, there’s a debate brewing about whether the legal profession should be as heavily regulated as it is. In case you haven’t read the NY Times op-ed and the Atlantic piece, I’ll get you up to speed.

The crux of the argument in the New York Times op-ed is that

the barriers to entry [to law practice] exist simply to protect lawyers from competition with non-lawyers and firms that are not lawyer-owned — competition that could reduce legal costs and give the public greater access to legal assistance.

In the Atlantic’s piece, Jordan Weissmann disagrees with most of Clifford Winston’s arguments for deregulating the legal profession — except that he agrees that non-JDs should be able to own law firms for the sake of technological advances. He argues that

[l]etting more people become lawyers won’t drive down costs in high-flying corporate law. And although it could help control legal fees for the rest of us, we could wind up allowing under-educated people to represent important cases for families who can’t afford the high-flying treatment.

I haven’t formulated a complete opinion on this issue, but I have some questions — how would deregulation affect the access to justice gap? Would there really be a positive change, like Winston envisions, for effectively representing clients who would otherwise a) go pro se to settle their legal issues or b) not do anything to settle their legal issues? How low would legal costs go? Low enough for the poor? Would the public interest law arena remain unchanged?

Thoughts?

by Kristen Pavón

The AmLawDaily posted an article last week about the watchful attorneys protecting individual rights at the Occupy Wall Street protest.

About 200 National Lawyers’ Guild members volunteered their time to monitor interactions between the police and protestors, collect information when anyone was arrested, and provide protestors with general advice.

The guild’s mission, says Gideon Oliver, a solo practitioner and member of the executive committee of the group’s New York City chapter, is to ensure that demonstrators are able to exercise their First Amendment rights.

Guild observers attempt to identify everyone who is arrested, record the arresting officer’s badge number, and obtain contact information for potential witnesses. Following those steps makes it easier to coordinate jail support services and legal representation, says Jane Moison, a guild member and associate at criminal defense and civil rights firm Rankin & Taylor.

The observers’ presence is especially important, Oliver says, when police make arrests in bunches.

“When arrests happen on a large scale, you need to get the names of people arrested to make sure they get through the system and out of police custody,” he says. And when tensions flare between police and protesters, the presence of guild observers provides a cooling effect, adds Martin Stolar, a New York City solo practitioner and former guild president: “Once protesters and police see the green hats, they know someone’s watching.”

I wonder if there are Guild members watching the Occupy protests in other locations too. Anyone know?

by Kristen Pavón

The Guardian published a thought-provoking article asking what people really mean by “access to justice” in light of the proposed 60% budget cut for the U.K.’s publicly funded law.

The author, Job Robins, asks whether “access to justice” is a noble aspiration or a load of meaningless tosh. He went straight to leading lawyers, thinkers and campaigners for answers.

Ultimately, he found that the definition of access to justice has changed since the 1970s.

In the 1970s, [Italian jurist Mauro] Cappelletti directed a research project funded by the Ford Foundation on “access to justice in modern societies” and which led to a four-volume series (called, you guessed it, Access to Justice). Cappelletti once said: “The right of effective ‘access to justice’ has emerged with the new social rights. Indeed, it is of paramount importance … Effective access to justice can be seen as the most basic requirement, the most basic human right, of a system which purports to guarantee legal rights.”

However, James Sandbach, the social policy officer for Citizens Advice Bureau, told Robins that the “prevailing philosophy is one of self-help and personal responsibility” rather than representing low-income individuals through legal aid. This philosophy would help explain the types of legal aid reforms currently being proposed in the U.K.

The main theme Robins seems to have found among the responses he received is that although legal redress is of paramount importance, legal advice is never at the top of the public’s priorities. It’s only important when you’re already in trouble and your rights are in jeopardy.

Read the whole article here.

Interesting. Do we, in the U.S., have a more unified understanding of what we mean by “access to justice”? Thoughts?

by Kristen Pavón

At a rules hearing in Wisconsin, more than two dozen legal professionals told the Supreme Court that they support a rule change requiring circuit court judges to appoint lawyers in some civil cases in which basic human needs were at stake.

This suggestion comes after the realization that pro se programs and legal aid organizations are just not enough.

Opposition to the idea is rooted in its unknown costs.

“The costs are unknown and could be huge,” said David Callender of the Wisconsin Counties Association. “The argument is always that it saves money on the back end. But we just don’t know.”

People have dubbed the idea — Civil Gideon — after the landmark case Gideon v. Wainwright, which established a poor defendant’s right to a free lawyer in a criminal cases.

There is still a lot of skepticism about how the program would work and if it would be worthwhile.

Get more details here.

My guess is that it would work the same way the public defender program does. Some states have tried similar programs. Do you know more about these programs?

What do you think about Civil Gideon? A workable solution?

by Kristen Pavón

If you are a staff attorney/law clerk/intern for a legal services organization or public interest law firm, you know that interviewing clients is an important part of what you do. It’s a critical skill that can always use honing.

I came across a great interviewing tip sheet focused on interviewing low-income clients in my inbox and thought it could be helpful for you!

Here are a few of the highlights:

1. Be Prepared

Have copies of all forms your client may need to fill out or take home with them. Find out ahead of time whether they anticipate coming to the office with anyone and make adjustments (ex. kids, relatives). If there are special parking arrangements, make sure you let the client know.

2. Introductions

Start with small talk. This may be the first time your client is in a law office and a) may be nervous and b) may not know what’s going to happen next. Also, depending on your practice area, the client’s issues may be emotionally trying for them — so ease them into it.

3. Lay out the Agenda

First, explain your role in his or her case (direct representation, no relationship just yet, intern, etc.). Next, give the client a roadmap of how the meeting will go so they know what to expect — you’ll ask them to tell you why he or she came in, explain that you’ll occasionally jot down notes, you’ll interrupt him or her with more specific questions, etc. Also, talk about confidentiality.

4. Start with open-ended questions.

This allows you to get a lot of information right at the beginning and you can choose what issues to focus on next.

5. Listen!

Actively listen. Give the clients nonverbal and verbal cues that you’re listening and you understand what they’re saying.

6. Follow-up.

Make sure you clarify any lingering issues. You want a full picture of what’s going on.

7. Summarize.

Before you let the client go, summarize the information they’ve given you to make sure you’ve gotten the whole story.

8. Is there anything else?

Ask this question. Always. You never know.

9. Future Communication

Talk to the client about how you will communicate with them — email, phone, work phone, etc. Also, set up your next date, time and place for next contact.

For more helpful tips about interviewing, check out this great slideshow from the Legal Aid Association of California.

What are your tried-and-true interviewing tips?