Public Interest

UMass Law School is Open: Law Dean Robert Ward and I Talk About It

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UMass School of Law (fka Southern New England School of Law) is open for business. Orientation happened last week, and students started classes yesterday, at Massachusetts’s first public law school.

As has been well-documented in these pages, I’m unimpressed. Put simply: there isn’t enough of a demand for new lawyers right now to justify a revamped public law school — no matter how many times you emphasize the word “public” in your press releases.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to voice my concerns to the dean of UMass Law, Robert Ward, on NPR’s Radio Boston program. Click here to listen (I start running my mouth at the 8:30 mark).

I was asked on the program to provide an alternative perspective to the dean, and that’s what I did. But the mentality of the callers was particularly interesting. They really illustrated why there is so much support for more law schools…

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Should Biglaw Deferral Programs Become Permanent?

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Sow your wild oats for a year -- and come to the firm when you're ready to work.

With apologies to Langston Hughes, we have to ask:

What happens to an associate deferred?
Does he dry up, like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore — and then run?

Run, run — away from Biglaw. That seems to be what at least some deferred associates are doing, as reported last week by the New York Times in an article about how they spent their deferral years — and how some of them aren’t returning to the well-feathered nests of private law firms when called back.

The Times interviewed two deferred associates who aren’t going back to their firms. Nathan Richardson, a 2009 graduate of the University of Chicago Law School who was deferred by Latham & Watkins, spent his year doing environmental law research at Resources for the Future — and plans to remain in public interest. Avi Singh, a 2009 graduate of Harvard Law School who was deferred by Quinn Emanuel, went off to the Santa Clara County public defender’s office in San Jose — and is staying there.

Due to deferrals, Latham and Quinn just lost the services of two bright young attorneys. And maybe, just maybe, this isn’t a bad thing — not just for these lawyers, but for their law firms….

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Why Public and Private Defense Lawyers Shouldn’t Date Each Other

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Usually, we find conversations with lawyers to be very engaging. But in this video short, Ron Livingston does not:

The Responsibility Project

The video was produced as part of a corporate undertaking — The Responsibility Project — devoted to “exploring what it means to do the right thing.” So, what is it trying to say exactly?

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‘The Job Market Is Even Worse Than Many of Us Thought’

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Desperate times call for measures to take advantage of the desperate. Why pay California lawyers $10 an hour when they’re willing to work for free? And not just willing, but eager to provide their services on a volunteer basis.

We wrote before about the public sector utilizing the unpaid legal workforce when the Marin County DA advertised for attorneys for “unpaid, temporary positions that offer a valuable opportunity to gain courtroom experience including trying misdemeanor jury trials.” Last week, a tipster sent along another Craigslist ad from the other side of the Bay, with the subject line, “Seriously?” An excerpt:

Superior Court of San Mateo County Seeks Volunteers

The Legal Research Department of the Superior Court of California, County of San Mateo, is seeking attorneys willing to volunteer their time as a legal research attorney with a minimum 6 month commitment to the court.

We write often about these depressing job ads and the fact that a degree that entails six figures of debt can only help you nail down a six-month unpaid position. We wondered what kind of response such ads were actually getting, so we reached out to the San Mateo Court.

The response makes the ads even more depressing. The hiring attorney tells us that his phone won’t stop ringing…

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Nationwide Layoff Watch: A Dozen Down at the Bronx DA’s Office

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Working as a lawyer for the government is regarded by many as the life raft for riding out the recession. But thanks to shrinking budgets, attorneys in the public sector are also losing their jobs.

Yesterday the Bronx District Attorney, Robert T. Johnson, issued a letter announcing a layoff of 12 assistant district attorneys in his office, scheduled to take effect by the end of this month. The prosecutors who are losing their jobs have already been notified. Johnson blamed the New York City financial plan, which significantly reduces the office’s funding for the fiscal years of 2011, which started yesterday, and 2012.

The cuts were not unexpected, since Johnson had laid the groundwork for layoffs in a letter back in May. In that letter, first reported by the New York Daily News, Johnson predicted that he might have to lay off as many as 45 ADAs. So the cut of 12 ADAs could be seen as “good news,” since it’s smaller than some expected. (In his letter yesterday, Johnson said that he was able to avoid larger cuts thanks in part to some cost-saving measures in the office.)

But Robert Johnson announced another piece of news at the same time, which a number of veteran prosecutors found strange and upsetting….

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Congratulations to Sutherland, Winner of the Battle of the Law Firm Bands!

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Congratulations to Sutherland. The firm’s band, “Sutherland Comfort,” won the 2010 Battle of the Law Firm Bands in D.C. on Thursday night. Sutherland Comfort defeated a host of worthy challengers — including “Dangerous Communication Device,” the Williams & Connolly band that won the contest in the past two years.

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District Attorney Looking for Lawyers — Free Lawyers, of Course

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We’ve gotten used to private firms trying to take advantage of the terrible economy by convincing lawyers to sell their services for $0, but when it comes from a district attorney — a public servant with a law degree — it really stings.

A tipster reports that the DA’s office in Marin County (CA) is looking for new lawyers. The salary? Insulting:

Note: they’re not looking for a coffee-running intern; they want a full-on deputy DA. Yet they’re willing to pay him or her absolutely nothing…

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Update: Is Brooklyn ADA Ama Dwimoh Getting a Bum Rap?

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Last Friday, we named Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney Ama Dwimoh our Lawyer of the Day. As a prosecutor, Dwimoh goes after child abusers. And yet, according to the New York Daily News — irony alert! — she herself abuses the kiddies, i.e., legal interns in her office.

One reader with firsthand knowledge protested this portrayal of the Brooklyn DA’s office and its treatment of interns:

I’m [a law student] intern at the KCDAO [Kings County District Attorney's Office], and from everything I’ve heard from all of my intern colleagues, the senior ADA’s have been nothing less than amazing — they find us work to do, always treat us with respect, always make us feel appreciated, and the office is gloriously drama-free.

This tipster has a theory about what’s going on here….

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Career Center: Who Prioritizes Pro Bono?

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Career Center AboveTheLaw Lateral Link ATL.jpgWelcome to the next post in our series on the results of the 2010 ATL/Career Center Associate Satisfaction survey. We’ve used the survey results to revamp the Career Center, powered by Lateral Link, with completely updated profiles, and we are highlighting insider information that Members shared about their firms in the eight key areas of associate satisfaction covered by the Career Center.

Today, it’s about doing good for everyone: PRO BONO.

  • This firm’s significant commitment to pro bono includes its “rotation” or “loaned associate” program, which allows associates to spend six months working full time for a poverty law or public interest organization.   
  • An impressively high 97% of associates at this Chicago-based firm perform an average of 111 pro bono hours each annually. 
  • Pro bono work has grown along with headcount at this ever-expanding firm – headcount has increased from 225 lawyers in 1995 to approximately 1,100 attorneys today, and the firm’s pro bono hours per attorney have nearly doubled since 2003 to 74 hours annually per associate.
  • An "unlimited" number of pro bono hours are counted towards billable hours at this firm, and some Members reported billing as much as 400-500 pro bono hours in 2009.

Additional pro bono highlights, after the jump.

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Lawyer of the Day: Deferred Associates Claim Brooklyn ADA is a Meanie

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Ama Dwimoh looks composed here, but is it an act?

Deferred associates spending a year in the Brooklyn district attorney’s office claim that Brooklyn ADA Ama Dwimoh is an abusive boss.

At first blush, one assumes that kids who have been coddled at the best schools and top firms simply weren’t prepared for the rough and tumble world of actual lawyering.

But the Brooklyn D.A., Charles Hynes, is seriously looking into the allegations and has suspended Dwimoh. Can she really be that bad?

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