The e-Advocate Legal Missions International Proverbs 31:8-9
Public Interest Law
“Helping Individuals, Organizations & Communities Achieve Their Full Potential” Vol. VII, Issue XXIII – Q-3 July| August| September 2021
Quarterly Review
The Advocacy Foundation, Inc. Helping Individuals, Organizations & Communities Achieve Their Full Potential
Public Interest Law
“Helping Individuals, Organizations & Communities Achieve Their Full Potential
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Biblical Authority ______
Proverbs 31:8-9 (KJV) 8 "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. 9 Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy."
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Table of Contents Public Interest Law
Biblical Authority I.
Introduction
II.
In The United States
III.
Pro Bono Legal Work
IV.
Legal Aid
V.
Legal Awareness & Literacy
VI.
Elder Law
VII. Civil Rights VIII. The American Civil Liberties Union IX.
The NAACP Legal and Educational Defense Fund, Inc. ______
Attachments A: Careers In Public Interest Law B: International Public Interest Law
Copyright Š 2015 The Advocacy Foundation, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Introduction Public Interest Law is defined as anything affecting the well-being, the rights, health, or finances of the public at large, most commonly advocating for those living in poverty or marginalized populations. It refers to legal practices undertaken to help poor or marginalized people, or to effect change in social policies in the public interest, on 'not for profit' terms (pro bono publico). It Is Not a body of law or a legal field, matters lawyers work on rather, it denotes clientele they represent. Instead of serving powerful economic interests, it stands for the advocacy of otherwise under-represented or vulnerable individuals, especially those living in poverty. It has grown to encompass a broader range of activities, typically the field of non-lawyers like civil rights, civil liberties, women’s rights, consumer rights, environmental protection, and so on. Nevertheless, a common ethic for public-interest lawyers in a growing number of countries remains ―fighting for the little guy‖. "Every lawyer, regardless of professional prominence or professional workload, has a responsibility to provide legal services to those unable to pay, and personal involvement in the problems of the disadvantaged can be one of the most rewarding experiences in the life of a lawyer." Moreover, "Public Interest Law is the use of law by nonprofit organizations, law firms, and government agencies to provide legal representation to people, groups, or interests that are historically underrepresented in the legal system."2
Practice Areas in Public Interest Law There are many different areas of public interest law. While public interest law includes any practice area that fits the definition above, some practice areas traditionally fall under the public interest law umbrella. A number of those areas are listed here as examples. Animal Welfare Children/Youth Advocacy Civil Rights/Liberties Constitutional Issues Consumer Rights Criminal Defense/Prosecution Death Penalty Disability Rights/Advocacy Domestic Violence Drug Policy Reform Page 8 of 61
Elder Advocacy Environmental Issues Gay/Lesbian Rights Labor Law Legal Services to the Poor Government Health Care HIV/AIDS Housing Law Human Rights Immigrant/Minority Populations Immigration Law Reform International Human Rights Marriage/Family Prisoners’ Rights Public Benefits Rape/Sexual Assault Reproductive Rights Social Justice Street/Poverty/Homeless Law Women’s Rights Workers’ Rights
Practice Types in Public Interest Law Within each area of public interest law, lawyers are involved in various types of practices. These practice types include: • • • • • •
Direct client service Policy-oriented class action and impact litigation Policymaking legal reform Lobbying activities for legal reform organizations Community organizing and educating activities Alternative dispute resolution.
Practice Settings in Public Interest Law There are also many different practice settings for lawyers interested in public interest law. These include civil rights groups, civil liberties groups, social action organizations, and public interest law firms.
Civil Rights Groups These organizations seek to remedy historical disparities based on things such as race, ethnicity, and gender. They also seek to ensure that minority groups have access to employment, housing, education, and other important resources. Another main function of these organizations is to Page 9 of 61
ensure minority groups' participation in the formulation of public policy. In order to reach these goals, these organizations specialize in class action and impact litigation. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) are examples of these types of organizations.
Civil Liberties Groups The main goal of these organizations is to protect the civil liberties protected by the First Amendment. These groups utilize class action and impact litigation to bring about change. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Center for Law in the Public Interest, Equal Rights Advocates, and the National Organization for Women’s (NOW) Legal Defense Fund are examples of these types of organizations.
Social Action Organizations These organizations generally focus on one or two areas of the law. Although they may do some litigation, these organizations focus their efforts on policy research and advocacy, appellate court brief writing, lobbying, political reform, and social change. Examples of these organizations include environmental law centers, consumer law centers, public interest research groups (PIRGs), public interest lobbying organizations, international organizations, and general public policy organizations.
Public Interest Law Firms These are usually small private firms working for under-represented groups or specializing in issue-oriented work such as civil rights, plaintiffs' tort cases, union-sided labor law, family law, criminal law, immigration, tenants' rights, worker's compensation, and environmental issues. One familiar type of public interest law firm is local legal aid offices such as Utah Legal Services. There are also non-traditional opportunities for public interest lawyers including economic development groups, alternative dispute resolution and mediation programs, think tanks, and management of non-profit organizations, foundations, and bar associations.
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What is the Difference between Public Service, Public Interest & Pro Bono? The terms ―public interest law‖ and ―public service law‖ are often used interchangeably. For purposes of this handbook, ―public interest law‖ will be used to refer to the use of law to provide legal representation to historically underrepresented people, groups, or interests. ―Public service law‖ will be used to refer to all legal careers with government agencies. Even defined this way, there is some overlap between the two terms, as there are opportunities with some government agencies for legal work that provides public interest representation. The focus of this handbook is on public interest law, but some sections will provide information and resources about public service law. The public interest focus of this handbook will include public interest opportunities with government agencies. ―Pro bono‖ is the short form of the Latin phrase pro bono publico, which means ―for the public good.‖ Pro bono legal services are legal work done by an attorney without charging a fee or at a significantly reduced charge. Even if a client does not have to pay for the legal services provided, the legal work is generally not considered to be done pro bono if an organization, agency, or firm pays the attorney a salary or other compensation for the work. Thus, public interest lawyers sometimes offer pro bono services, but ―public interest‖ is not synonymous with ―pro bono.‖ The American Bar Association states that "a lawyer should aspire to render at least fifty (50) hours of pro bono publico legal services per year."3 Surprisingly, only 46% of lawyers surveyed by the American Bar Association met this goal.
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In The United States ―Public interest law‖ is a term that became widely adopted in the United States during and after the social turmoil of the 1960s. It built on a tradition exemplified by Louis Brandeis, who before becoming a U.S. Supreme Court justice incorporated advocacy for the interests of the general public into his legal practice. In a celebrated 1905 speech, Brandeis decried the legal profession, complaining that ―able lawyers have to a large extent allowed themselves to become adjuncts of great corporations and have neglected their obligation to use their powers for the protection of the people.‖ In the late 1960s and 1970s, large numbers of American law school graduates began to seek ―relevance‖ in their work—wishing to have an impact on the social issues that were so visibly and hotly debated within American society at that time. They defined themselves as public interest lawyers in order to distinguish themselves from the ―corporate adjuncts‖ referred to by Brandeis. Summing up the movement's history in the United States, Stanford University Law Professor Deborah Rhode writes:"Public interest lawyers have saved lives, protected fundamental rights, established crucial principles, transformed institutions, and ensured essential benefits for those who need them most....In virtually every major American social reform movement of the last half century, public interest lawyers have played an important role." Public interest law is institutionalized in the United States(USA). Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that work to promote and protect human rights using the U.S. legal system, or fight to protect the environment, or advocate on behalf of consumers, call themselves public interest law organizations. A large community of lawyers practices public interest law in the form of providing legal aid free of charge to those who cannot afford to pay for it. However, the grim reality remains that lawyers are underpaid and grossly overworked, offering perfunctory Page 13 of 61
representation. Clinical legal education, which is well established in the United States, provides opportunities for law students to do practical legal work on basic legal matters as well as more complex public interest issues, such as women’s rights, anti-discrimination law, constitutional rights, and environmental protection, among others. Some law schools have public interest law centers, which advise law students interested in pursuing public interest law careers. Pro bono programs at bar associations and law firms provide opportunities for commercial lawyers to donate time to public interest law activities.
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Pro Bono Legal Work Pro bono publico (English: for the public good; usually shortened to pro bono) is a Latin phrase for professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment or at a reduced fee as a public service. It is common in the legal profession and is increasingly seen in architecture, marketing, medicine, technology, and strategy consulting firms. Pro bono service, unlike traditional volunteerism, uses the specific skills of professionals to provide services to those who are unable to afford them. Pro Bono Publico is also used in the United Kingdom to describe the central motivation of large organizations such as the National Health Service, and various NGOs, which exist "for the public good", rather than for shareholder profit.
Lawyers in the United States are recommended under American Bar Association (ABA) ethical rules to contribute at least fifty hours of pro bono service per year(s). Some state bar associations, however, may recommend fewer hours. Rule 6.1 of the New York Rules of Professional Conduct strongly encourages lawyers to aspire to provide at least 50 hours of pro bono service each year and quantifies the minimal financial contributions that lawyers should aspire to make to organizations providing legal services to the poor and underserved. The Chief Judge of New York has also instituted a requirement that applicants who plan to be admitted in 2015 and onward must complete fifty hours of pro bono service in order to qualify. All attorneys who register must report their voluntary pro bono hours and/or voluntary contributions. The ABA has conducted three national surveys of pro bono service: one released in August 2005, the second in February 2009, and the third in March 2013. The ABA Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service and its project, the Center for Pro Bono, are a national source of information, resources and assistance to support, facilitate, and expand the delivery of pro bono legal help. The ABA Standing Committee also sponsors Pro Page 16 of 61
Bono Week during the week of October 21–27. The ABA Standing Committee on Legal Assistance for Military Personnel and Section of Litigation jointly sponsor the ABA Military Pro Bono Project, which delivers pro bono legal assistance to enlisted, active-duty military personnel. In an October 2007 press conference reported in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, the law student group Building a Better Legal Profession released its first annual ranking of top law firms by average billable hours, pro bono participation, and demographic diversity. The report found that most large firms fall short of their pro bono targets. The group has sent the information to top law schools around the country, encouraging students to take this data into account when choosing where to work after graduation.
Pro Bono Outside the Legal Sector Corporate pro bono efforts generally focus on building the capacity of local nonprofits or mentoring local businesses. There are many models that businesses use and tailor to their specific strengths. They may loan employees, provide coaching and mentoring, complete a service marathon, create standardized team projects, engage in open-ended outsourcing, provide sector-wise solutions, perform general contracting, or work on a signature issue.
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Legal Aid Legal aid is the provision of assistance to people otherwise unable to afford legal representation and access to the court system. Legal aid is regarded as central in providing access to justice by ensuring equality before the law, the right to counsel and the right to a fair trial. This article describes the development of legal aid and its principles, primarily as known in Europe, the British Commonwealth, India and the United States. A number of delivery models for legal aid have emerged, including duty lawyers, community legal clinics and the payment of lawyers to deal with cases for individuals who are entitled to legal aid. Legal aid is essential to guaranteeing equal access to justice for all, as provided for by Article 6.3 of the European Convention on Human Rights regarding criminal law cases. Especially for citizens who do not have sufficient financial means, the provision of legal aid to clients by governments will increase the likelihood, within court proceedings, of being assisted by legal professionals for free (or at a lower cost) or of receiving financial aid. Legal aid has a close relationship with the welfare state, and the provision of legal aid by a state is influenced by attitudes towards welfare. Legal aid is a welfare provision by the state to people who could otherwise not afford counsel from the legal system. Legal aid also helps to ensure that welfare provisions are enforced by providing people entitled to welfare provisions, such as social housing, with access to legal advice and the courts. Historically legal aid has played a strong role in ensuring respect for economic, social and cultural rights which are engaged in relation to social security, housing, social care, health and education service provision, which may be provided publicly or privately, as well as employment law and anti-discrimination legislation. Jurists such as Mauro Cappelletti argue that legal aid is essential in providing individuals with access to justice, by allowing the individual legal enforcement of economic, social and cultural rights. His views developed in the second half of the 20th century, when democracies with capitalist economies established liberal welfare states that focused on the individual. States acted as contractors and service providers within a marketbased philosophy that emphasised the citizen as consumer. This led to an emphasis on individual enforcement to achieve the realisation of rights for all. Prior to the mid 20th-century, literature on legal aid emphasised collective enforcement of economic, social and cultural rights. As classic welfare states were built in the 1940s and following World War II, an underlying principle was that citizens had collective responsibility for economic, social and cultural rights; and the state assumed responsibility for those unable to provide for themselves through illness and unemployment. The enforcement of economic, social Page 19 of 61
and cultural rights was to be collective, through policies rather than individual legal action. Laws were enacted to support welfare provisions, though these were regarded as laws for planners, not lawyers. Legal aid schemes were established, as it was assumed that the state had a responsibility to assist those engaged in legal disputes, but they initially focused primarily on family law and divorce.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the role of the welfare state changed, and social goals were no longer assumed to be common goals. Individuals were free to pursue their own goals. The welfare state in this time expanded, along with legal aid provisions, as concerns emerged over the power of welfare providers and professionals. In the 1960s and 1970s, demand rose for the right of individuals to legally enforce economic, social and cultural rights and the welfare provisions they as individuals were entitled to. Mechanisms emerged through which citizens could legally enforce their economic, social and cultural rights, and welfare lawyers used legal aid to advise those on low income when dealing with state officials. Legal aid was extended from family law to a wide range of economic, social and cultural rights. In the 1980s, the role of the classic welfare state was no longer regarded as necessarily positive, and welfare was increasingly provided by private entities. Legal aid was increasingly provided through private providers, but they remained focused on providing assistance in court cases. Citizens were increasingly regarded as consumers, who should be able to choose among services. Where it was not possible to provide such a choice, citizens were given the right to voice their dissatisfaction through administrative complaints processes. This resulted in tension, as legal aid was not designed to offer advice to those seeking redress through administrative complaints processes. Tensions also began to emerge as states which emphasised individual enforcement of economic, social and cultural rights, rather than collective enforcement through polices, reduced funding for legal aid as a welfare state provision. Individual enforcement of welfare entitlement requires the kind of legal aid funding states emphasising collective enforcement were more likely to provide.
Legal Aid Movements Historically legal aid has its roots in the right to counsel and right to a fair trial movement of the 19th-century continental European countries. "Poor man's laws" waived court fees for the poor and provided for the appointment of duty solicitors for those who could not afford to pay for a solicitor. Initially the expectation was that duty solicitors would act on a pro bono basis. In the early 20th century, many European countries had no formal approach to legal aid, and the poor relied on the charity of lawyers. Most countries went on to establish laws that provided for the payment of a moderate fee to duty solicitors. To curb demand, legal aid was restricted to lawyer costs in judicial proceedings requiring a lawyer. Countries with a civil law legal system and common law legal systems take different approaches to the right to counsel in civil and criminal Page 20 of 61
proceedings. Civil law countries are more likely to emphasise the right to counsel in civil law proceedings, and therefore provide legal aid where a lawyer is required. Common law countries emphasise the right to counsel and provide legal aid primarily in relation to criminal law proceedings. In response to rapid industrialisation in the late 19th-century Europe, trade union and workers' parties emerged that challenged the social policies of governments. They gained passage of laws to provide workers with legal rights in the event of illness or accidents, in an attempt to prevent industrial action by industrial workers. Workers unions in turn started to provide workers with legal advice on their new economic, social and cultural rights. Demand for these services was high and in an attempt to provide workers with non-partisan advice, many governments started to provide legal aid by the early 20th century. In the 20th century, legal aid has developed together with progressive principles; it has often been supported by those members of the legal profession who felt that it was their responsibility to care for those on low income. Legal aid is driven by what lawyers can offer to meet the "legal needs" of those they have identified as poor, marginalised or discriminated against. According to Francis Regan, legal aid provision is supply driven, not demand driven, leading to wide gaps between provisions that meet perceived needs and actual demand. Legal service initiatives, such as neighbourhood mediation and legal services, frequently have to close due to lack of demand, while others are overwhelmed with clients. A number of delivery models for legal aid have emerged. The Legal Services Corporation was authorized at the federal level to oversee these programs. In a "staff attorney" model, lawyers are employed by levels of government on salary solely to provide legal assistance to qualifying lowincome clients, similar to staff doctors in a public hospital. In a "judicare" model, private lawyers and law firms are paid to handle cases from eligible clients alongside cases from fee-paying clients, much like doctors are paid to handle Medicare patients in the U.S. The "community legal clinic" model comprises non-profit clinics serving a particular community through a broad range of legal services (e.g. representation, education, law reform) and provided by both lawyers and non-lawyers, similar to community health clinics. Defendants under criminal prosecution who cannot afford to hire an attorney are not only guaranteed legal aid related to the charges, but they are guaranteed legal representation in the form of public defenders as well. For example, when Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his father were tried on charges of corruption, they claimed to be indigent, and their lawyers were paid more than a million dollars of public funds.
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Legal Awareness & Literacy
Legal awareness is the empowerment of individuals regarding issues involving the law. Legal awareness helps to promote consciousness of legal culture, participation in the formation of laws and the rule of law. Public legal education comprises a range of activities intended to build public awareness and skills related to law and the justice system. This term also refers to the fields of practice and study concerned with those activities, and to a social and professional movement that advocates greater societal commitment to educating people about the law. Distinct from the education of students in law school seeking a degree in law (which is often simply called "legal education") and the continuing professional education of lawyers and judges (which is sometimes called "continuing legal education"), public legal education is principally aimed at people who are not lawyers, judges, or degree-seeking law students. The term "public legal education" (PLE) is related to, and may encompass, several similar terms. The terms "public legal information" and "public legal education and information" (PLEI) emphasize a difference between educating and providing information. The term "community legal education" is common in Australia and the United States, where it often refers to community-based public legal education activities led by legal aid organizations. The term "lawrelated education" (LRE) usually refers to public legal education in primary and secondary schools (and sometimes in higher education), as opposed to PLE for adults and outside of school. According to the American Bar Association, Commission on Public Understanding, legal awareness is, "the ability to make critical judgments about the substance of the law, the legal process, and available legal resources and to effectively utilize the legal system and articulate strategies to improve it is legal literacy". The Canadian Bar Association (1992, 23) defines legal literacy as, "the ability to understand words used in a legal context, to draw conclusions from them, and then to use those conclusions to take action." With little change to the Multiple Action Research Group's(MARG, an NGO working for the promotion of legal awareness) definition, legal awareness can be defined as, "critical knowledge Page 23 of 61
of legal provisions and processes, coupled with the skills to use this knowledge to respect and realize rights and entitlements".
Thought, Philosophy, and Different Approaches to Legal Literacy The "continuum approach" considers legal literacy as, "a capacity spread along a continuum, with lawyers and judges at one end and relatively incapable laypersons at the other". This approach was adopted by the legal scholar White who considered legal literacy to mean, "that degree of competence in legal discourse required for meaningful and active life in our increasingly legalistic and litigious culture".
Author Bilder (1999) defines legal literacy as a, "spectrum of functional skills", related to the conduct of litigation. The continuum approach explains, "a certain degree of legal literacy is required for effective participation in modern society, but it is not necessary for the average citizen to reach the professional standard of 'thinking (and writing) like a lawyer.'" One of the recent approaches considers legal literacy as a metaphor. According to this view, the term is "intended to suggest some parallels between the institution of the law, and a system of language to be mastered, knowledge gained and understanding achieved". These authors suggest that the term legal literacy can also function as a model for educators who seek to promote such literacy. Proponents of legal literacy may thus look to the teaching of language for guidance.
Need and Importance Anoop Kumar, a researcher of Legal Literacy Mission, says in his study, "the legislature of the state and the parliament, while enacting the legislation, consider the objectives of it. Some laws Page 24 of 61
lay down the substantive rights of the masses and some touch upon the procedural aspect of certain laws. But it is due to lack of awareness of beneficiaries that most of the legislations are ineffective at the stage of their execution." Legal awareness can empower people to demand justice, accountability and effective remedies at all levels. Legal needs always stand to become crisis oriented because their ignorance prevents them from anticipating legal troubles and approaching a lawyer for consultation and advice in time. This magnifies the impact of their legal troubles and difficulties when they come. Without literacy people can get intimidated and alienated from law. This may evolve into a situation which results in people coming into conflict with the law, or being unable to obtain help from it. Courts have acknowledged the barrier raised by a lack of literacy to asserting guaranteed rights effectively. Low literacy may block people’s access to justice. At times, literacy requirements have been used to block access to rights and benefits
Goals and Objectives Goals of the legal literacy programs can be broadly divided in three types. Namely educational, competency and critical. In Reading the Legal World, author Laird Hunter expects legal literacy to achieve: "People using the legal system must be able to guide themselves through a process that they understand [...] and, at appropriate places along the way"
recognize they have a legal right or responsibility, in order to exercise or assume it; recognize when a problem or conflict is a legal conflict and when a legal solution is available; know how to take the necessary action to avoid problems and where this is not possible, how to help themselves appropriately; know how and where to find information on the law, and be able to find information that is accessible to them, know when and how to obtain suitable legal assistance; have confidence that the legal system will provide a remedy, and understand the process clearly enough to perceive that justice has been done
Depending on the goals there can be a number of objectives for legal literacy programs.
List of possible objectives: o raising awareness and building capacity o training of trainers o community education and empowerment o exposing law students to social justice work o strengthening community solidarity and supporting grass-roots advocacy Page 25 of 61
Methods Adopted to Promote Legal Awareness There are examples where governments have promoted long-term legal literacy missions or awareness campaigns. An example of a long-term goal for legal literacy, is when institutions arrange for legal literacy events. Legal awareness is also achieved through camps, lectures, and interactive workshops or crash programs on the essential and elementary legal laws. Among the general public, many wish to spend a few hours in the afternoon listening to scholars on contemporary issues that have significant bearing on the rights and livelihood of ordinary people. Other methods are road shows, radio talks, street and theatre plays, as well as the publication of relevant books, periodicals, posters, and charts that deal with particular laws, the distribution of pamphlets, brochures, and stickers, the display of paintings, illustrations in comics, and other ways to ensure publicity for various legal mobilisation activities. Display boards at strategic places of public activity (railway stations, bus stations, market places, in front of major government offices and police stations) are also used to help government officials, police, and the public to understand the spirit of law.
Obstacles According to Lorenzo Cotula, laws are usually published in the official gazette, few people outside legal circles have access to legal information. Illiteracy, economic barriers, language barriers, social taboos and a lack of zeal among the legal fraternity may lead to obstacles in gaining requisite levels of legal literacy. According to Hanna Hasl-Kelchner,at times lack of zeal among lawyers make them prone to saying no and killing a deal rather than working through the issues and finding solutions that are both practical and legally sound. In a note to the UN General Assembly 67th session, the UN Secretary General states, "the deprivations that persons living in poverty encounter throughout their lives — lack of access to quality education, reduced access to information, limited political voice and social capital — translate into lower levels of legal literacy and awareness of their rights, creating social obstacles to seeking redress". The absence of a legal culture and the resulting illiteracy are the main reasons for the large number of cases in the courts. If the accused citizen knows that an act is a crime punishable by law, they may not do it.
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In the domain of law a vast category of users need to exchange legal information world-wide and carry out activities in a context where a common understanding of law beyond language is highly desirable. However, this requirement is hard to meet, due to the variety of languages and modes in which the legal discourse is expressed as well as to the diversity of legal orders and the legal concepts on which these systems are founded. About lesser significance to legal literacy in US legal education, Leonard J. Long professor of law, Quinnipiac University School of Law says, "law students, law firms, consumers of legal services, and society as a whole would benefit from having a legal profession comprised and dominated by people who are literate in American law, its history, and its jurisprudence. But legal literacy is not promoted mainly because it is not viewed as necessary for the practice of law. This is part of the anti-intellectual tradition in American law generally, and in American legal education specifically".
Institutional and Corporate Legal Literacy Corporate, institutions and NGOs are subject to and are supposed to follow various sets of laws.
Corporate Legal Literacy Legal awareness is an important part of professional work life. According to John Akula,when law-sensitive issues arise, corporate executives often find themselves in what is, for them, unmapped territory, often without requisite law training. When corporate executives work with attorneys they need to develop a common language to bridge probable communication gaps to achieve legal astituteness.
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According to Hanna Hasl-Kelchner, legal literacy can help to bridge the gap between law and business by simplifying legal terms into language that makes business sense and offers a new way to think about the law as a useful business tool. Hanna Hasl-Kelchner says, "corporate legal literacy involves balanced understanding of cross disciplinary influences bringing in legal risk exposure,avoiding lawsuits and transforming potential business legal issues that threaten growth and profitability, into opportunities for building stronger business relationships, delivering sustainable stakeholder value, improving competitive advantage and foremost embedding compliance into the corporate culture to achieve organizational excellence". According to Hanna Hasl-Kelchner, corporate legal literacy tackles companies' legal risk profiles on both the employee and organizational levels. There is a need to identify the infrastructure needed to support legal literacy and promote effective communications throughout the organization.
Institutional Legal Literacy George Pulikuthiyil, Executive Director of NGO Jananeethi in his essay Legal Literacy for Social Empowerment says that, 'Well educated and highly placed professionals too are often not aware of provisions in laws and implications of their violations. Many would not know the nittygritty of several statutory laws and their applications.....However, the fact remains that vast majority of the officers and professionals like clinical psychologists, therapeutic counsellors, welfare officers, social workers, institutional heads and academia are ignorant of their role and responsibilities as contemplated in the Act. NGOs do take pains to organize workshops to sensitize them with respect to such new generation legislations wherein the pro-active role of various stake holders are great significance.' George Pulikuthiyil further believes NonGovernmental Organizations, Community based organizations, Faith groups, various service providers, trade unions, youth clubs,Police personnel,Elected representatives to local bodies, PG students of social work and service organizations also have larger scope of improving the quality of life provided they are made conversant with respective legislations.
Designated Legal Officers Apart from external legal advisors, internal legal officers and in certain countries like Australia and India, The company secretary is responsible for advising on good governance practices and compliance of corporate governance norms as prescribed under various corporate, securities and other business laws, regulations and guidelines made thereunder.
Related Concepts There are certain related concepts including legal consciousness, legal mobilization and legal socialization, legal empowerment, that helps to put legal literacy in perspective.
Civics and Socio-Legal Literacy Despite semantic proximity education of civics, civics literacy and legal literacy are not exactly the same. In the "legal literacy" semantic components are the dominant notion of the "right," Page 28 of 61
"law," "responsibility to the law," and "civic literacy" added to them the concept of "civil society", "individual rights and freedoms" and "man's responsibility to civil society". In the formal civic education system, human rights can be taken up as a part of civic education, values education and social studies, though they may have the limitation of presenting only certain aspects of human rights rather than their integrated whole, and duties of citizens may be overly emphasized to the detriment of certain rights and freedoms. At the elementary school level, usually minimal level legal literacy introduction is taught through civics, but which is not necessarily adequate for the rest of life. Applied legal education is imparted through business and commerce school and some other branches. News media also plays a part, but is unable to meet all socio-legal literacy needs. NGOs and legal aid centres may provide for limited legal literacy related to specific thrust areas.
Legal Literacy Mission China conducts Nationwide Legal Awareness Raising Campaigns (NLARC) this five year program has been conducted since 1986. National Legal Services Authority (India) conducted a five-year nationwide "National Legal Literacy Mission" from 2005 to 2010.
Legal Literacy Events and Celebrations Between March 20 to April 5 annual legal awareness celebrations take place in Australia. Australian Employee Legal Awareness Day is held annually on February 13. In India, National Legal Literacy Day is on November 9.
Internet and Legal Literacy The Internet as a legal research tool is advantageous for most primary legal research materials, which can be located for free to supplement fee-based services and library collections. The Internet offers increased access to resources, low- or no-cost access, and real-time information via social media. Founded in 1992 by Peter Martin and Tom Bruce, Legal Information Institute (LII) a non-profit, public service of Cornell Law School that provides no-cost access to current American and international legal research sources online at law.cornell.edu is a pioneer in the delivery of legal information online. LII was the first law site developed on the internet.
Important Institutions Promoting Legal Awareness and Legal Literacy Bar councils, lawyer federations and various NGOs take the lead in promoting legal awareness and legal literacy. In India, as per the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987, the National Legal Services Authority (NLSA) has been designated to take appropriate measures for spreading legal literacy and legal awareness amongst the people. In Indiana, in the United States, Outreach for Legal Literacy (OLL) is a community service program in which law students teach law to fifth-graders in local elementary schools. Page 29 of 61
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Elder Law Elder law is a legal term coined to cover an area of legal practice that places an emphasis on those issues that affect the aging population. The Three Major Categories That Make Up Elder Law Are: 1. 2. 3.
Estate planning and administration, including tax questions; Medicaid, disability and other long-term care issues; and Guardianship, conservatorship and commitment matters, including fiduciary administration.
Other issues found under the umbrella of elder law include such areas as estate planning; wills; trusts; guardianships; protection against elder abuse, neglect, and fraud; end-of-life planning; all levels of disability and medical care; retirement planning; Social Security benefits; Medicare and Medicaid coverage; Medicaid planning (United States); consumer protection; nursing homes and in-home care; powers of attorney; physicians' or medical care directives, declarations and powers of attorney; landlord/tenant needs; real estate and mortgage assistance; various levels of advice, counseling and advocacy of rights; tax issues; and discrimination.
History of Elder Law The history of the Older Americans Act (OAA), originally signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 14, 1965 (the same year Medicare was created), claims credit for creating the Administration on Aging (AOA), a division within the Department of Health and Human Services. The OAA also authorized grants to States for community planning and services programs, funding for research, and demonstration and training projects in the field of aging. In 1972 Amendments to the OAA added the national nutrition program for the elderly. The OAA of 2000 was amended on November 13, 2000 to include the National Family Caregiver Support Program, which was intended to help hundreds of thousands of family members who are struggling to care for their older loved ones who are ill or who have disabilities. This program provides grant funding for combined services between state and local agencies for such things as counseling, support groups, respite and other community based services. These services are focused on the care of the frail and aging members of society. The program also provides services geared towards the family units of grandparents and other older relatives now in the stages of care-taking for related children eighteen years of age and under. Page 31 of 61
Careers In or Associated with Elder Law Careers that are developing around the area of Elder Law include lawyers, paralegals, legal assistants, legal secretaries, guardians ad litem (GAL), various types of psychologists, care givers, financial planners, policy makers and legal advocates, benefit specialists, Better Business Bureau, Attorney General's Office, Consumer Protection Agency, political watch-dog groups, health care providers, researchers, funeral planners, grief counselors, case workers, abuse & fraud investigators, educators, product developers, transportation providers, entertainment and tour guides, real estate agents, mortgage brokers, insurance providers, or simply elder companions. Essentially any career field can create a benefit to the aging of modern society.
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Civil Rights
Civil and Political Rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals, and which ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the society and state without discrimination or repression. Civil rights include the ensuring of peoples' physical and mental integrity, life and safety; protection from discrimination on grounds such as race, gender, national origin, colour, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, or disability; and individual rights such as privacy, the freedoms of thought and conscience, speech and expression, religion, the press, assembly and movement. Political rights include natural justice (procedural fairness) in law, such as the rights of the accused, including the right to a fair trial; due process; the right to seek redress or a legal remedy; and rights of participation in civil society and politics such as freedom of association, the right to assemble, the right to petition, the right of self-defense, and the right to vote. Civil and political rights form the original and main part of international human rights. They comprise the first portion of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (with economic, Page 34 of 61
social and cultural rights comprising the second portion). The theory of three generations of human rights considers this group of rights to be "first-generation rights", and the theory of negative and positive rights considers them to be generally negative rights. The phrase "civil rights" is a translation of Latin ius civis (rights of a citizen). Roman citizens could be either free (libertas) or servile (servitus), but they all had rights in law. After the Edict of Milan in 313, these rights included the freedom of religion. Roman legal doctrine was lost during the Middle Ages, but claims of universal rights could still be made based on religious doctrine. According to the leaders of Kett's Rebellion (1549), "all bond men may be made free, for God made all free with his precious blood-shedding." In the 17th century, English common law judge Sir Edward Coke revived the idea of rights based on citizenship by arguing that Englishmen had historically enjoyed such rights. The Parliament of England adopted the English Bill of Rights in 1689. The Virginia Declaration of Rights, by George Mason and James Madison, was adopted in 1776. The Virginia declaration is the direct ancestor and model for the U.S. Bill of Rights (1789). In early 19th century Britain, the phrase "civil rights" most commonly referred to the issue of legal discrimination against Catholics. In the House of Commons support for the British civil rights movement was divided, many more well-known politicians supported the discrimination towards Catholics. Independent MPs (such as Lewis Eves and Matthew Mountford) applied pressure for Catholic emancipation on the larger political parties. This process culminated in the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 which restored the civil rights of Catholics. In the 1860s, Americans adapted this usage to newly freed blacks. Congress enacted civil rights acts in 1866, 1871, 1875, 1957, 1960, 1964, 1968, and 1991.
Protection of Rights T.H. Marshall notes that civil rights were among the first to be recognized and codified, followed later by political rights and still later by social rights. In many countries, they are constitutional rights and are included in a bill of rights or similar document. They are also defined in international human rights instruments, such as the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1967 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Civil and political rights need not be codified to be protected, although most democracies worldwide do have formal written guarantees of civil and political rights. Civil rights are considered to be natural rights. Thomas Jefferson wrote in his A Summary View of the Rights of British America that "a free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate." The question of to whom civil and political rights apply is a subject of controversy. In many countries, citizens have greater protections against infringement of rights than non-citizens; at the same time, civil and political rights are generally considered to be universal rights that apply to all persons. Page 35 of 61
Other Rights Custom also plays a role. Implied or unenumerated rights are rights that courts may find to exist even though not expressly guaranteed by written law or custom; one example is the right to privacy in the United States, and the Ninth Amendment explicitly shows that there are other rights that are also protected. The United States Declaration of Independence states that people have unalienable rights including "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". It is considered by some that the sole purpose of government is the protection of life, liberty and property. The right to self-defense is embodied in the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms. Ideas of self-ownership and cognitive liberty affirm rights to choose the food one eats, the medicine one takes, the habit one indulges.
Civil Rights Movements Civil rights guarantee equal protection under the law. When civil and political rights are not guaranteed to all as part of equal protection of laws, or when such guarantees exist on paper but are not respected in practice, opposition, legal action and even social unrest may ensue. Some historians suggest that New Orleans was the cradle of the civil rights movement in the United States, due to the earliest efforts of Creoles to integrate the military en masse. W.C.C. Claiborne, appointed by Thomas Jefferson to be governor of the Territory of Orleans, formally accepted delivery of the French colony on December 20, 1803. Free men of color had been members of the militia for decades under both Spanish and French control of the colony of Page 36 of 61
Louisiana. They volunteered their services and pledged their loyalty to Claiborne and to their newly adopted country. But in early 1804, the new U.S. administration in New Orleans, under Governor Claiborne, was faced with a dilemma previously unknown in the United States, i.e., the integration of the military by incorporating entire units of previously established "colored" militia. See, e.g., the February 20, 1804 letter to Claiborne from Secretary of War Henry Dearborn that "it would be prudent not to increase the Corps, but to diminish, if it could be done without giving offense." Civil Rights movements in the United States gathered steam by 1848 with such documents as the Declaration of Sentiment. Consciously modeled after the Declaration of Independence, the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments became the founding document of the American women's movement, and it was adopted at the Seneca Falls Convention, July 19 and 20, 1848. Worldwide, several political movements for equality before the law occurred between approximately 1950 and 1980. These movements had a legal and constitutional aspect, and resulted in much law-making at both national and international levels. They also had an activist side, particularly in situations where violations of rights were widespread. Movements with the proclaimed aim of securing observance of civil and political rights included:
the 1950s and 1960s Civil Rights Movement in the United States, where rights of black citizens had been violated; the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, formed in 1967 following failures in this province of the United Kingdom to respect the Catholic minority's rights; and movements in many Communist countries, such as Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia.
Most civil rights movements relied on the technique of civil resistance, using nonviolent methods to achieve their aims. In some countries, struggles for civil rights were accompanied, or followed, by civil unrest and even armed rebellion. While civil rights movements over the last sixty years have resulted in an extension of civil and political rights, the process was long and tenuous in many countries, and many of these movements did not achieve or fully achieve their objectives.
Problems and Analysis Questions about civil and political rights have frequently emerged. For example, to what extent should the government intervene to protect individuals from infringement on their rights by other individuals, or from corporations — e.g., in what way should employment discrimination in the private sector be dealt with? Political theory deals with civil and political rights. Robert Nozick and John Rawls expressed competing visions in Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia and Rawls' A Theory of Justice. Other influential authors in the area include Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld and Jean Edward Smith.
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First-Generation Rights First-generation rights, often called "blue" rights, deal essentially with liberty and participation in political life. They are fundamentally civil and political in nature, as well as strongly individualistic: They serve negatively to protect the individual from excesses of the state. Firstgeneration rights include, among other things, freedom of speech, the right to a fair trial, (in some countries) the right to keep and bear arms, freedom of religion and voting rights. They were pioneered in the United States by the Bill of Rights and in France by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in the 18th century, although some of these rights and the right to due process date back to the Magna Carta of 1215 and the Rights of Englishmen, which were expressed in the English Bill of Rights in 1689. They were enshrined at the global level and given status in international law first by Articles 3 to 21 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and later in the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In Europe, they were enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights in 1953.
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The American Civil Liberties Union The ACLU The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonpartisan non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, lobbying, and community empowerment. Founded in 1920 by Roger Baldwin, Crystal Eastman, and Walter Nelles, the ACLU has over 500,000 members and has an annual budget of over $100 million. Local affiliates of the ACLU are active in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. The ACLU provides legal assistance in cases when it considers civil liberties to be at risk. Legal support from the ACLU can take the form of direct legal representation, or preparation of amicus curiae briefs expressing legal arguments (when another law firm is already providing representation). When the ACLU was founded in 1920, its focus was on freedom of speech, primarily for antiwar protesters. During the 1920s, the ACLU expanded its scope to include protecting the free speech rights of artists and striking workers, and working with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to combat racism and discrimination. During the 1930s, the ACLU started to engage in work combating police misconduct and for Native American rights. Most of the ACLU's cases came from the Communist party and Jehovah's Witnesses. In 1940, the ACLU leadership was caught up in the Red Scare, and voted to exclude Communists from its leadership positions. During World War II, the ACLU defended JapaneseAmerican citizens, unsuccessfully trying to prevent their forcible relocation to internment camps. During the Cold War, the ACLU headquarters was dominated by anti-communists, but many local affiliates defended members of the Communist Party. By 1964, membership had risen to 80,000, and the ACLU participated in efforts to expand civil liberties. In the 1960s, the ACLU continued its decades-long effort to enforce separation of church and state. It defended several anti-war activists during the Vietnam War. The ACLU was involved in the Miranda case, which addressed misconduct by police during interrogations; and in the New York Times case, which established new protections for newspapers reporting on government activities. In the 1970s and 1980s, the ACLU ventured into new legal areas, defending homosexuals, students, prisoners, and the poor. In the twenty-first century, the ACLU has fought the teaching of creationism in public schools and challenged some provisions of antiterrorism legislation as infringing on privacy and civil liberties. In addition to representing persons and organizations in lawsuits, the ACLU lobbies for policies that have been established by its board of directors. Current positions of the ACLU include: opposing the death penalty; supporting same-sex marriage and the right of gays to adopt; supporting birth control and abortion rights; eliminating discrimination against women, minorities, and LGBT people; supporting the rights of prisoners and opposing torture; and Page 40 of 61
opposing government preference for religion over non-religion, or for particular faiths over others. Legally, the ACLU consists of two separate but closely affiliated nonprofit organizations: the American Civil Liberties Union, a 501(c)(4) social welfare group, and the ACLU Foundation, a 501(c)(3) public charity. Both organizations engage in civil rights litigation, advocacy, and education, but only donations to the 501(c)(3) foundation are tax deductible, and only the 501(c)(4) group can engage in unlimited political lobbying. The two organizations share office space and employees.
Positions The ACLU's official position statements, as of January 2012, included the following policies:
Affirmative action – The ACLU supports affirmative action. Birth control and abortion – The ACLU supports the right to abortion, as established in the Roe v. Wade decision. The ACLU believes that everyone should have affordable access to the full range of contraceptive options. The ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project manages efforts related to reproductive rights. Criminal law reform – The ACLU seeks an end to excessively harsh sentences that it feels "stand in the way of a just and equal society". The ACLU's Criminal Law Reform Project focuses on this issue. Death penalty – The ACLU is opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances. The ACLU's Capital Punishment Project focuses on this issue. Free speech – The ACLU supports free speech, including the right to express unpopular ideas, such as flag desecration. Campaign funding – The ACLU believes that the current system is badly flawed, and supports a system based on public funding. The ACLU supports full transparency to identify donors. However, the ACLU opposes attempts to control political spending. The ACLU supported the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. FEC, which allowed corporations and unions more political speech rights. Gun rights – The national ACLU's position is that the Second Amendment protects a collective right to own guns, rather than an individual right (some state affiliates consider the Second Amendment to refer to individual gun rights). The national organization's position is based on the phrases "a well regulated Militia" and "the security of a free State". However, the ACLU opposes any effort to create a registry of gun owners and has worked with the National Rifle Association to prevent a registry from being created and has favored protecting the right to carry guns under the 4th Amendment. HIV/AIDS – The policy of the ACLU is to "create a world in which discrimination based on HIV status has ended, people with HIV have control over their medical information and care, and where the government's HIV policy promotes public health and respect and compassion for people living with HIV and AIDS." This effort is managed by the ACLU's AIDS Project. Human rights – The ACLU's Human Rights project advocates (primarily in an international context) for children's rights, immigrants rights, gay rights, and other international obligations. Page 41 of 61
Immigrants' rights – The ACLU supports civil liberties for immigrants to the United States. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights – The ACLU's LGBT Rights Project supports equal rights for all gays and lesbians, and works to eliminate discrimination. The ACLU supports equal employment, housing, civil marriage and adoption rights for LGBT couples. National security – The ACLU is opposed to compromising civil liberties in the name of national security. In this context, the ACLU has condemned government use of spying, indefinite detention without charge or trial, and government-sponsored torture. This effort is led by the ACLU's National Security Project. Prisoners' rights – The ACLU's National Prison Project believes that incarceration should only be used as a last resort, and that prisons should focus on rehabilitation. The ACLU works to ensure that prisons treat prisoners in accordance with the Constitution and domestic law. Single Sex Public Education – The ACLU opposes single sex public education options. It believes that single-sex education contributes to gender stereotyping and compares single-sex education to racial segregation. Privacy and technology – The ACLU's Project on Speech, Privacy, and Technology promotes "responsible uses of technology that enhance privacy protection", and opposes uses "that undermine our freedoms and move us closer to a surveillance society". Child pornography – The Arizona chapter of the ACLU believes that production of child pornography should be illegal, but that possessing it is protected by the right to privacy. "Our policy is that possessing even pornographic material about children should not itself be a crime. The way to deal with this issue is to prosecute the makers of child pornography for exploiting minors." Racial issues – The ACLU's Racial Justice Program combats racial discrimination in all aspects of society, including the educational system, justice system, and the application of the death penalty. Religion – The ACLU supports the right of religious persons to practice their faiths without government interference. The ACLU believes the government should neither prefer religion over non-religion, nor favor particular faiths over others. The ACLU is opposed to school-led prayer, but protects students' right to pray in school. Voting rights – The ACLU believes that impediments to voting should be eliminated, particularly if they disproportionately impact minority or poor citizens. The ACLU believes that misdemeanor convictions should not lead to a loss of voting rights. The ACLU's Voting Rights Project leads this effort. Women's rights – The ACLU works to eliminate discrimination against women in all realms. The ACLU encourages government to be proactive in stopping violence against women. These efforts are led by the ACLU's Women's Rights project.
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The NAACP Legal and Educational Defense Fund, Inc. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (NAACP LDF, the Inc. Fund, or LDF) is a leading United States civil rights organization and law firm based in New York City. The organization can trace its origins to the legal department of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People that was created by Charles Hamilton Houston in the 1930s. However, in 1940, Thurgood Marshall established LDF as a separate legal entity and, in 1957, the organization became totally independent of the NAACP. John Payton served as LDF's 6th director-counsel and president from 2008 until his death in March, 2012. Sherrilyn Ifill was named the new president and director-counsel of LDF in November 2012. While primarily focused on the civil rights of African Americans in the U.S., LDF states it has "been instrumental in the formation of similar organizations that have replicated its organizational model in order to promote equality for Asian-Americans, Latinos, and women in the United States." LDF has also been involved in "the campaign for human rights throughout the world, including in South Africa, Canada, Brazil, and elsewhere." LDF's national office is in Manhattan, with regional offices in Washington, D.C. LDF has nearly two dozen staff lawyers and hundreds of cooperating attorneys across the nation.
Areas of Activity
Litigation Advocacy Educational outreach Policy research and monitoring legislation Coalition-building Provides scholarships for exceptional African-American students. Page 44 of 61
Areas of Concern
Education o Affirmative action o Desegregation Political Participation o Voting rights o Felony disfranchisement Economic access o Employment discrimination o Environmental justice o Fair housing Criminal justice o Opposition to the death penalty o Fourth Amendment o Sixth Amendment
History Creation and Separation from the NAACP The board of directors of the NAACP created the Legal Defense Fund in 1940 specifically for tax purposes. In 1957, intimidated by the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Internal Page 45 of 61
Revenue Service, LDF was completely separated from the NAACP and given its own independent board and staff. Although LDF was originally meant to operate in accordance with NAACP policy, after 1961, serious disputes emerged between the two organizations. These disputes ultimately led the NAACP to create its own internal legal department while LDF continued to operate and score significant legal victories as an independent organization. At times, this separation has created considerable confusion in the eyes and minds of the public. Indeed, in the 1980s, the NAACP unsuccessfully sued LDF for trademark infringement.
Well-Known Cases Probably the most famous case in the history of LDF was Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark case in 1954 in which the United States Supreme Court explicitly outlawed de jure racial segregation of public education facilities. During the civil rights protests of the 1960s, LDF represented "the legal arm of the civil rights movement" and provided counsel for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., among others.
1930s
1935 Murray v. Pearson, removed unconstitutional color bar from the University of Maryland School of Law admission policy. (Managed by Thurgood Marshall for the NAACP before the formal foundation of LDF.)
1938: Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, invalidated state laws that denied African-American students access to allwhite state graduate schools when no separate state graduate schools were available for African Americans. (Handled by Thurgood Marshall for the NAACP before the formal foundation of LDF.)
1940s
1940: Abbington v Board of Education of Louisville (KY), a suit argued by Thurgood Marshall and dropped though the settlement led to the removal of a 15 percent salary discrepancy between black and white teachers in the Louisville, Kentucky public schools (see NAACP in Kentucky) 1940: Alston v. School Board of City of Norfolk, a federal court order that African-American public school teachers be paid salaries equal to whites, regardless of race.
1940: Chambers v. Florida, overturned the convictions — based on coerced confessions — of four young black defendants accused of murdering an elderly white man.
1944: Smith v. Allwright, a voting rights case in which the Supreme Court required Texas to allow African Americans to vote in primary elections, formerly restricted to whites.
1946: Morgan v. Virginia, desegregated seating on interstate buses.
1947: Patton v. Mississippi, ruled against strategies that excluded African Americans from criminal juries.
1948: Shelley v. Kraemer, overturned racially discriminatory real estate covenants
1948: Sipuel v. Board of Regents of Univ. of Okla., reaffirmed and extended Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, ruling that Oklahoma could not bar an African-American student from its all-white law school on the ground that she had not requested the state to provide a separate law school for black students. Page 46 of 61
1950s
1950: McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, ruled against practices of segregation within a formerly all-white graduate school insofar as they interfered with meaningful classroom instruction and interaction with other students.
1950: Sweatt v. Painter, ruled against a Texas attempt to circumvent Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada with a hastily established inferior law school for black students.
1953: Barrows v. Jackson, reaffirmed Shelley v. Kraemer, preventing state courts from enforcing restrictive covenants.
1954: Brown v. Board of Education, explicitly outlawed de jure racial segregation of public education facilities.
1956: Gayle v. Browder, overturned segregation of city buses; see also Montgomery Bus Boycott.
1957: Fikes v. Alabama, a further ruling against forced confessions.
1958: Cooper v. Aaron barred Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus from interfering with the desegregation of Little Rock's Central High School; see also Little Rock Nine.
1960s
1961: Holmes v. Danner, began the desegregation of the University of Georgia.
1962: Meredith v. Fair, won James Meredith admission to the University of Mississippi
1963: LDF attorneys defended Martin Luther King, Jr. against contempt charges for demonstrating without a permit in Birmingham, Alabama. See Letter from Birmingham Jail.
1963: Watson v. City of Memphis, ruled segregation of public parks unconstitutional.
1963: Simkins v. Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital, ended segregation of hospitals that received Federal construction funds.
1964: Willis v. Pickrick Restaurant, ruled against segregation in public facilities such as restaurants; Lester Maddox closed his restaurant rather than integrate.
1964: McLaughlin v. Florida, ruled against anti-miscegenation laws. See also on this issue, Eilers v. Eilers (argued by James A. Crumlin, Sr.) - details in NAACP in Kentucky.
1965: Williams v. Wallace, made court order to allow a voting-rights march in Alabama, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., which had previously been stopped twice by state police.
1965: Hamm v. City of Rock Hill, overturned all convictions of demonstrators' participating in civil rights sit-ins.
1965: Abernathy v. Alabama and Thomas v. Mississippi, reversed state convictions of Alabama and Mississippi Freedom Riders on the basis of Boynton v. Virginia.
1967: Quarles v. Philip Morris, overturned the practice of "departmental seniority", which had forced non-white workers to give up their seniority rights when they transferred to better jobs in previously white-only departments.
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1967: Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, ruled that "freedom of choice" was an insufficient response to segregated schools.
1967: Loving v. Virginia, ruled that state laws banning interracial marriage ("anti-miscegenation laws") in Virginia and 15 other states were unconstitutional because they violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
1968: Newman v. Piggie Park, established that prevailing plaintiffs in civil rights act cases are entitled to receive attorneys' fees from the losing defendant.
1969: Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, ruled that a Mississippi school district's foot-dragging with respect to desegregation violated the "all deliberate speed" mandate of Brown v. Board of Education.
1969: Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, ruled against using the parade permitting process as a means of suppressing First Amendment rights.
1969: Thorpe v. Housing Authority of Durham, ruled that low-income public housing tenants could not be summarily evicted.
1969: Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp., required due process for the garnishment of wages.
1969: Allen v. State Board of Elections, guaranteed the right to a write-in vote.
1970s
1970: Ali v. The Division of State Athletic Commission, restored Muhammad Ali's boxing license.
1970: Carter v. Jury Commission, approved Federal suits over discrimination in the selection of juries.
1970: Turner v. Fouche, overruled a requirement in Taliaferro County, Georgia that grand jury and school board membership be limited to owners of real property.
1971: Kennedy-Park Homes Association v. City of Lackawanna, forbade a city government from interfering in the construction of low-income housing in a predominantly white section of the city.
1971: Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, upheld intra-district busing to desegregate public schools. However, this issue was contested in the courts for three more decades. In the most recent as of 2004 related cases, the U.S. Supreme Court in April 2002 refused to review Cappachione v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education and Belk v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, in which lower courts had ruled in favor of the school district.
1971: Haines v. Kerner, upheld the right of prisoners to challenge prison conditions in federal court.
1971: Groppi v. Wisconsin, upheld the right of a criminal defendant in a misdemeanor case to a venue where jurors are not biased against him.
1971: Clay v. United States, struck down Muhammad Ali's conviction for refusing to report for military service.
1971: Griggs v. Duke Power Company, ruled that tests for employment or promotion that produce different outcomes for blacks and whites are prima facie to be presumed discriminatory, and must measure aptitude for the job in question or they cannot be used.
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1971: Phillips v. Martin Marietta, ruled that employers may not refuse to hire women with pre-school-aged children unless the same standards are applied to men.
1972: Furman v. Georgia, ruled that the death penalty as then applied in 37 states violated the Eighth Amendment prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment because there were inadequate standards to guide judges and juries making the decision which defendants will receive a sentence of death. However, under revised laws, U.S. executions resumed in 1977.
1972: Wright v. Council of the City of Emporia and U.S. v. Scotland Neck City Board of Education, ruled against systems' avoiding public school desegregation by the creation of all-white "splinter districts".
1972: Alexander v. Louisiana, accepted the use of statistical evidence to prove racial discrimination in the selection of juries.
1972: Hawkins v. Town of Shaw, banned discrimination in the provision of municipal facilities.
1973: Norwood v. Harrison banned government provision of school books to segregated private schools established to allow whites to avoid public school desegregation.
1973: Keyes v. School District No. 1, Denver, addressed deliberate de facto school segregation, ruling that where deliberate segregation was shown to have affected a substantial part of a school system, the entire district must ordinarily be desegregated.
1973: Adams v. Richardson, required federal education officials to enforce Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which requires that state universities, public schools, and other institutions that receive federal money may not discriminate by race.
1973: Ham v. South Carolina, ruled that defendants are entitled to have potential jurors interrogated about whether they harbor racial prejudices.
1973: McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, ruled that courts should hear cases of alleged unlawful discrimination based on the "minimal showing" that a qualified non-white applied unsuccessfully for a job that either remained open or was filled by a white person.
1973: Mourning v. Family Publication Service, upheld the Truth in lending Act, requiring disclosure of the actual cost of a loan.
1975: Albemarle v. Moody, mandated back pay for victims of job discrimination.
1975: Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, upheld the Civil Rights Act of 1866, passed during Reconstruction, as providing an independent remedy for employment discrimination.
1977: Coker v. Georgia, banned capital punishment for rape, the most racially disproportionate application of the death penalty.
1977: United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburgh v. Carey, provided that states may consider race in drawing electoral districts if necessary to comply with the Voting Rights Act by avoiding a dilution of minority voting strength.
1980s
1980: Luévano v. Campbell, struck down Federal government use of a written test for hiring into nearly 200 entry-level positions because the test disproportionately disqualified African Americans and Latinos. Page 49 of 61
1980: Enmund v. Florida, struck down a federal "felony murder" statute.
1982: Bob Jones University v. U.S. and Goldboro Christian Schools v. U.S., denied tax exempt status to religious schools that discriminate on the basis of race.
1983: Major v. Treen, overturned a Louisiana gerrymander intended to reduce African-American voting strength.
1984: Gingles v. Edmisten, continued as Thornburg v. Gingles (1986), ruled that at-large countywide election of state legislators illegally diluted black voting strength.
1988: Jiggets v. Housing Authority of City of Elizabeth: a district court ordered the HUD to spend $4 million to upgrade predominantly black, as well as predominantly white, housing projects in the city, and to implement federal maintenance, tenant selection and other procedures equitably.
1989: Cook v. Ochsner: in a belated coda to Simkins v. Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital, a District Court approved a settlement ending a New Orleans hospital's discrimination in emergency room treatment and patient admissions. The settlement also provided increased opportunities for African-American physicians to practice at the hospital.
1990s
1991: Chisom v. Roemer and Houston Lawyers Association v. Attorney General, established that Voting Rights Act applies to the election of judges.
1992: Matthews v. Coye and Thompson v. Raiford, compelled California and Texas, respectively, to enforce and implement federal regulations calling for testing of poor children for lead poisoning.
1993: Haynes v. Shoney's: A record court-approved settlement in an employment discrimination case. Shoney's Restaurants agreed to pay African-American employees $105 million and to implement aggressive equal employment opportunity measures.
1994: Lawson v. City of Los Angeles and Silva v. City of Los Angeles, led to settlements to end discriminatory use of police dogs in minority neighborhoods.
1995: McKennon v. Nashville Banner: The Supreme Court refused to allow employers to defeat otherwise valid claims of job discrimination by relying on facts they did not know until after the discriminatory decision had been made.
1996: Sheff v. O'Neill: The Supreme Court of Connecticut, in view of the disparities between Hartford public schools and schools in the surrounding counties, found the state liable for maintaining racial and ethnic isolation, and ordered the legislative and executive branches to propose a remedy.
1997: Robinson v. Shell Oil Company, determined that a former employee may sue his ex-employer for retaliating against him (by giving a bad job reference) after he filed discrimination charges over his termination.
1998: Wright v. Universal Maritime Service Corp., determined that a general arbitration clause in a collective bargaining agreement did not deprive an employee of his right to enforce federal anti-discrimination laws in federal court.
1999: Campaign to Save Our Public Hospitals v. Giuliani, barred New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani's attempt to privatize public hospitals.
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2000s
2000: Rideau v. Louisiana, threw out the 28-year-old, third conviction of Wilbert Rideau for murder because of discrimination in the composition of the Grand Jury that originally indicted him more than 40 years earlier. (As of 2004 he is still facing a fourth trial).
2000: Smith v. United States, was resolved when President Clinton commuted the sentence of Kemba Smith. Smith was a young African-American mother whose abusive, domineering boyfriend led her to play a peripheral role (she did not sell drugs but was aware of the selling) in a conspiracy to obtain and distribute crack cocaine. She had been sentenced to a mandatory minimum of 24½ years in prison even though she was a first-time offender.
2000: Cromartie v. Hunt and Daly v. Hunt, ruled that it is legal to create, for partisan political reasons, a district with a high concentration of minority voters; hence the North Carolina district from which Mel Watt was elected to the House of Representatives was ruled not to be an illegal gerrymander.
2003: Gratz v. Bollinger, ordered the University of Michigan to change admission policies by removing racial quotas in the form of "points", but allowed them to continue to utilize race as a factor in admissions, to admit a diverse entering class of students.
2007: Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled racial quotas unconstitutional, but allowed other remedial integration programs to continue
2009: Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder, the Supreme Court ruled the Voting Rights Act Section 5 preclearance process constitutional.
2010: Lewis v. City of Chicago, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the City of Chicago can be held accountable for each and every time it used a hiring practice that arbitrarily blocked qualified minority applicants from employment.
Prominent Legal Defense Fund Attorneys A number of prominent attorneys have been affiliated with LDF over the years, including Barack Obama who was an LDF cooperating attorney. The following, non-exhaustive list of LDF alumni demonstrates the breadth of positions these attorneys have held or currently hold in public service, the government, academia, the private sector, and other areas.
Derrick A. Bell, Jr., the first tenured African-American Harvard Law School professor and preeminent Critical Race Theorist. Jacqueline A. Berrien, the current chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, appointed by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate on December 22, 2010. Immediately prior to her appointment, Ms. Berrien was the Director of Litigation and Associate Director-Counsel for LDF. Robert L. Carter, an assistant counsel at LDF until its 1956 separation from the NAACP, and an architect of Brown v. Board. After the separation, he replaced Thurgood Marshall as the General Counsel for the NAACP. He won numerous cases at the Supreme Court. Julius L. Chambers, third director-counsel of LDF. William Thaddeus Coleman, Jr., President emeritus of LDF's board and Secretary of Transportation in the administration of President Gerald Ford. Drew S. Days, III, the first African-American Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division and the United States Solicitor General from 1993 to 1996. Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children's Defense Fund. During the Mississippi Freedom Summer she headed LDF's Jackson, Mississippi office and handled more than 120 cases. Jack Greenberg succeeded Thurgood Marshall and served as LDF's second director-counsel from 1961 to 1984. Greenberg began as an Assistant Counsel at LDF in 1949. He argued more than 40 of LDF's cases before the Supreme Court, including a portion of Brown v. Board. While he was director-counsel, LDF successfully defended the civil Page 51 of 61
rights movement, ended "all deliberate speed" in desegregation, won the first employment discrimination lawsuits in the Supreme Court, and brought about a national moratorium on the death penalty. Greenberg is currently a Professor at Columbia Law School and the former Dean of Columbia College. Lani Guinier, voting rights advocate and the first African-American woman tenured professor at Harvard Law. Eric Holder, the first African-American United States Attorney General. Holder interned for LDF as a law student. Elaine Jones, successfully argued Furman v. Georgia. LDF's fourth director-counsel and the first female directorcounsel. Pamela S. Karlan, Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law at Stanford Law School. She is frequently mentioned as a potential democratic appointee to the U.S. Supreme Court. David E. Kendall, a partner at Williams & Connolly LLP, he represented President Bill Clinton during the President's impeachment proceedings. He is a former LDF staff attorney and currently a member of its Board of Directors. Bill Lann Lee, the first Chinese-American Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. Thurgood Marshall, LDF founder and the first African-American Supreme Court Justice. Marshall left LDF in 1961 to become a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit before going on to become Solicitor General of the United States and Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Constance Baker Motley, the first African-American woman to be appointed a Federal Court Judge and the first to argue before the Supreme Court . James Nabrit, III was an LDF attorney from 1959–1989. Deval Patrick, the first African-American Governor of Massachusetts and only the second African American to be elected governor of any state. Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Convention since 2011. He interned for LDF as a law student. Constance L. Rice, civil rights activist and founder of the Advancement Project. Spottswood William Robinson III, the first African-American appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Theodore Shaw, Professor, Columbia Law School (2011–); 5th President and Director-Counsel, LDF
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References ______
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_interest_law 2. http://www.law2.byu.edu/publicinterest/Handbook/PIH%201%20Introduction%20to%20 Public%20Interest%20Law.html 3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elder_law_%28United_States%29 4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_awareness 5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_and_political_rights 6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_Liberties_Union 7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP_Legal_Defense_and_Educational_Fund
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Attachment A Careers in Public Interest Law
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CAREERS IN PUBLIC INTEREST LAW
PROVIDED BY THE JAMES L. PETIGRU PUBLIC INTEREST LAW SOCIETY I. Intro: Careers in Public Interest Law……………………………………………………....2 II. Types of Careers and Fields………………………………………………………………..2 III. Finding Summer Clerkships/Internships…………………………………………………..4 IV. What do Employers Look For?…………………………………………………………….5 V. Long-Term Considerations…………………………………………………………………6 VI. Resources…………………………………………………………………………………..8 Special thanks to the following for their advice and assistance: Eddie Weinberg, Esquire, Susan Ingles, Esquire, and Chris Bonds, Esquire, all of South Carolina Legal Services; Susan Berkowitz, Esquire, of South Carolina Appleseed Legal Justice Center. Last Updated: January 2008
I. Intro: Careers in Public Interest Law Public interest law is the practice of law to further interests shared by the entire public or significant segments of it. The clients and issues handled by a public interest lawyer reflect broad areas of public concern, such as illegal discrimination, environmental protection, child welfare, and domestic violence. For many, the choice to specialize in public interest law, or to simply spend a summer focused on such work, is not available because of financial constraints. The Public Interest Law Society (PILS) at the USC School of Law works to increase awareness about the public interest legal community, public interest job opportunities, and accessibility to funding for such work.
II. Types of Careers and Fields There are many different types of jobs in public interest law, and it is worthwhile to consider and inquire about different careers to determine which might best fit your talents, aspirations, and desired lifestyle. The following are several of the most common types of organizations where lawyers concerned with the public interest practice, but bear in mind that there may be other types of groups where a lawyer could make a meaningful societal impact. Organizations will sometimes fit into more than one of these categories; for example, a group may provide direct legal services and also advocate for policy change on behalf of the indigent.
Legal Services Organizations Legal services organizations provide direct legal services to indigent individuals and families in civil matters, including transactional work and litigation. These organizations are sometimes analogized to public defender offices, which are distinguished by the fact that public defenders provide legal representation in criminal matters. Legal services attorneys represent clients with regard to a broad range of issues, including housing discrimination, consumer bankruptcy, predatory lending, immigration issues, and many others. Legal services offices, like public defender offices, give new attorneys early opportunities to handle litigation; private law firms, on the other hand, generally require new attorneys to put in considerable time (sometimes years) before handling their own litigation. Law clerks at legal services organizations are also given exposure to litigation through attendance at the attorneys’ courtroom appearances. The major legal services organization in South Carolina is S.C. Legal Services, formerly the S.C. Centers for Equal Justice. Offices are located throughout the state. Another organization in the state is LowCountry Legal Aid in Hilton Head. Also, the Center for Heirs’ Property Preservation, located in Charleston, provides direct legal services (and education) to indigent families whose family homes and land are threatened due to the fact that the property has been passed down by intestate succession for several generations.
Policy Advocacy Organizations Policy advocacy organizations work for changes in legislation, regulations, and other types of policy. Policy advocacy attorneys work to effect systemic change; public defenders and legal services attorneys, in contrast, seek justice at the individual level. In fact, policy advocates often have great insight into issues that affect underrepresented groups precisely because they have previously worked as public defenders or legal services 2
attorneys. Policy advocacy groups are involved in many different issues, including environmental justice, education, immigration, consumer rights, community development, affordable housing, capital punishment, domestic violence, and child welfare. The attorneys in this area work for systemic change in many different ways; examples include lobbying members of Congress or a state legislature for legislation favorable to disenfranchised groups (or against legislation that would harm these groups), raising public awareness of injustices or environmental abuses, educating community members about their rights, and working with community groups and local governments to find solutions to local problems. Generally, policy advocacy attorneys have very little client contact, and certainly less than legal services attorneys or public defenders. The trade-off is said to be that, while there is less client contact, the work of a policy advocate has the potential to benefit large groups of people. Another twist is that policy advocacy groups are often involved in impact litigation. This is litigation intended to make a broad social impact by setting a legal precedent that benefits disenfranchised groups or individuals, the environment, or some other cause. Some groups focus almost entirely on impact litigation; examples are the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. S.C. Appleseed Legal Justice Center is a policy advocacy organization in Columbia that works with a broad range of issues.
Public Defender Offices Public defenders provide legal representation in criminal cases for clients who cannot afford to pay for counsel. Like legal services attorneys, public defenders have a high degree of client contact. Generally, a public defender’s office is a state agency, but can also be funded through non-profit organizations, government subsidies, and grants. Often times, students interested in pursuing private criminal defense practice are encouraged to work for either a public defender or solicitor’s office prior to entering the private sphere. Further, organizations such as the Department of Justice, Federal Defenders, Attorney Generals offices and other high-level state agency posts may sometimes prefer a candidate with work experience in a public defender or solicitor’s office. Public defenders represent clients at all phases of the legal process, from bond and probation hearings to complete jury trials. Attorneys spend a good deal of time outside of the office, meeting with incarcerated clients at the jail, doing investigative work in the community and representing clients in the courtroom. County public defender offices in the Columbia area include the Richland and Lexington County Public Defender Offices.
Prosecutor’s Offices/ State Attorney General/ DOJ Work at a prosecutor/solicitor’s office, the state Attorney General’s office, or the Department of Justice is also sometimes considered to fall under the umbrella term “public interest law.” Note that the Department of Justice also includes divisions that prosecute civil rights violations and work to protect battered women, among other things.
Legal Staff at Government Entities/Organizations Government entities at both the state and federal levels often have in-house legal staffs that enforce laws and regulations and further the goals of these organizations in other ways. For example, attorneys at the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development investigate and fight housing discrimination 3
and work with developers to encourage affordable housing development. Attorneys at the Environmental Protection Agency work to enforce federal environmental regulations. Federal agencies also employ attorneys who work to ensure that the agencies themselves are in compliance with the law; for example, attorneys might work to ensure that a federal agency is distributing grants or awarding contracts in a nondiscriminatory matter. At the state level, many South Carolina government agencies have legal staffs, including the Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC), the Department of Social Services (DSS), the Department of Education, and the Department of Consumer Affairs. Additionally, city and county governments often have staff attorneys, called city or county attorneys, who represent the local government in a wide range of legal matters. The attorney who heads up such a legal staff is often appointed by the city or county council.
Pro-bono work at law firms Some firms, especially larger ones, offer opportunities for their attorneys to become involved in public interest law through pro-bono work. This may be an option for students who will not be willing or able to take a typically lower-paying public interest job after graduation. Some firms may also encourage attorney’s to volunteer their time to non-legal pro bono causes; for example, attorneys at private firms often serve on the boards of non-profits. When interviewing with these firms, there are many important questions to ask in order to get a realistic view of their pro bono programs: How many pro bono cases does the firm take? How much time do young associates get to spend on these cases? Are associates who are eager to take these cases looked on unfavorably with regard to promotions? Try to get a sense of whether the pro bono program is a valued component of the firm culture. Bear in mind, however, that this type of interview can be a balancing act, and a job applicant who is only interested in pro bono work may not be very attractive to a private law firm that operates to make a profit. Firms often advertise their pro bono programs on their websites. The Office of Career Services may also be able to direct you to firms with strong pro bono programs. Finally Public Justice is a 3,500 member network of trial and appellate lawyers who work at a variety of private firms and public interest organizations across the country (http://www.tlpj.org/). Members support innovative litigation involving the environment, civil rights, consumer protections, and many other issues.
III. Finding Summer Clerkships Applying for public interest clerkships is similar to applying for jobs at private firms in many ways, with the notable exception that public interest employers are not as likely to participate in active recruitment such as On Campus Interviewing. Job applicants should send a cover letter and resume which are tailored to each individual organization and which highlight past experiences and signs of commitment to the public interest. Students should dress for interviews with public interest organizations just as they would for an interview with any other legal employer.
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Because public interest employers often do not have the time or resources to actively recruit clerks, students will benefit from being proactive in seeking out potential opportunities. In looking for summer clerkships, students should consult with Pam Robinson in the Pro Bono Office, the Office of Career Services, and the other resources listed at the end of this manual. The best sources of first-hand information about experiences working for particular public interest employers are second- and third-year students who have worked at different organizations in the past. Students should not send resumes until the beginning of the spring semester, but are strongly advised to begin seriously researching prospective employers during the fall. Students are also encouraged to arrange during the fall for informational interviews with attorneys who work at public interest organizations. This is an excellent way to establish contacts, refine your knowledge about areas of professional interest, and demonstrate sincere interest in a particular organization’s work. Many of these summer clerkships are non-paying or low-paying, so financing your summer public interest opportunity will probably be a major concern. However, students may be able to obtain funding through one or more of the following resources: • The PILS Summer Grant Program (inquire in the Pro Bono Office or on the PILS TWEN website) • The Federal Work Study Program (consult Megan Seiner in the Career Services Office) • The Equal Justice Works Summer Corps stipend program (http://www.equaljusticeworks.org/programs/ summercorps) • Many other outside grant programs (see the PILS TWEN website)
IV. What Do Employers Look For? The managing attorney and staff of a local legal services office offered the following advice about starting and succeeding in a career in public interest law: ¾ If you think you may be interested in doing public service law, make it a point to work as a volunteer or law clerk in a public service law firm to see if you really fit into that kind of environment before you make it your life goal. ¾ You must be self motivated and able to find satisfaction from your personal achievements and not from the salary you will earn (or not earn, as the case may be). ¾ Good self esteem is very helpful. ¾ I look for a person who is passionate about doing a good job, not necessarily passionate about helping those less fortunate. (Though that is very helpful as is caring about those who are less-fortunate). ¾ Experience with the private bar may be helpful but is not necessary. ¾ Good personal characteristics for public interest attorneys are integrity, sincerity, trustworthiness, respect for all persons, creativity, non judgmental – basically well balanced individuals. ¾ Experience in working with a diverse group of people – coworkers and persons served. ¾ To be successful it will be necessary to go the extra step or mile. Sometimes we have to visit clients at home, in the hospital or other locations. Along with this is being 5
flexible regarding work hours – requirements to help low income clients do not always fit into a 9-5 day. ¾ You need to be able to work with limited resources. Most of our funding comes from grants that may or may not be renewed from year to year at a constant rate. ¾ Skills that serve one in public interest law are the ability to listen well, knowledge of negotiation techniques, good PR skills for speaking to groups for community education and outreach events, and of course, the traditional measures of law school achievement can add to a person’s skills and knowledge resulting in better help for our clientele. However, being an A+ student is not our primary standard. If you are an A+ student who has all of the other attributes, more the better; and if you’re not the A+ student, remember that C students can make the best lawyers!
V. Long-Term Considerations Finding employment in any part of the legal field can be a stressful and time-consuming process; students interested in public interest law need to be especially aware of certain issues as they chart their law school and post-law school trajectories.
Keep Down Your Student Debt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Because public-interest jobs typically pay lower salaries than private-sector positions, it is crucial for students interested in public interest law to minimize the debt that so many of us accrue to pay for law school (on top of what many have left over from undergrad). This is especially important as tuition continues to rise. Students who are seriously interested in public interest careers should take the time to realistically evaluate the amount of educational debt they will accumulate over the next few years and the amount of the monthly payments they will be required to make after graduation. Officers at the organization issuing your loans and the University’s Office of Financial Aid may also be able to help you determine what your monthly payments will amount to. Students should also think about any changes they could make right now in their lifestyles and consumer habits that would help to minimize the amount of loans they need to take out. Equal Justice Works, a national organization that provides support and guidance to students pursuing careers in public interest law, recommends that students consider the possibility of working at a privatesector job during the summer in order to save money for after graduation and minimize the amount of loans they need to take out (noting, however, that students should continue to be involved in public service activities to gain experience and demonstrate commitment) (see The Path to Public Interest: Educational Debt at http://www.equaljusticeworks.org/). A report provided by Equal Justice Works and the Partnership for Public Service, From Paper Chase to Money Chase: Law School Debt Diverts Road to Public Service (available at http://www.equaljusticeworks.org/), discusses in detail the financial problems facing law school graduates who want to take public interest or governmental public service jobs. 66% of graduates who responded to a survey used in the report stated that educational debt prevented them from taking a public interest position. (p.19). Also according to the report, a typical law school graduate has accrued $84,000 in debt, and must pay around $1,000 a month in loan payments; this is about half of a typical public interest lawyer’s salary. (pp.5-6). Students should read this report and find other sources of information about how educational debt affects a new attorney’s ability to take a public interest job. Also, be aware of loan repayment assistance programs (LRAP’s), which pay off a portion of the monthly loan payments of attorney’s practicing in public interest jobs. The LRAP at the South Carolina 6
School of Law is the Public Interest Law Loan Forgiveness Fund; for more information on the specifics of this program, inquire in the Pro Bono Office. Some public interest employers also provide LRAP’s. Finally, the federal College Cost Reduction and Access Act (CCRAA) of 2007 has the potential to take a large portion of the debt burden off of attorneys who pursue long-term careers in public interest law. Essentially, this new legislation allows public interest lawyers (as well as government workers and all employees of 501(c)(3) non-profits) to have a major portion of their federal education loan debt forgiven after 10 years of full-time work in the public interest. Of course, lawyers with debt will still be required to make regular repayments on their loans during the ten-year period. This legislation was a major victory in the movement to prevent debt from limiting professional options after law school, and students interested in public interest law careers should consider it in long-term career and debt-management planning. For more information about the CCRAA, inquire in the Career Services Office and read the article on the following link: http://www.law.georgetown.edu/news/releases/documents/Forgiveness_000.pdf
Experience is Key One of the most important things that employers look for in potential new hires is experience in public interest legal work. It is crucial for students to begin gaining experience. One important reason for this is that many public interest employers, like many small private firms, do not have tremendous amounts of money or time to invest in training new attorneys. Acquiring experience in a related public interest field will make an applicant more valuable to a public interest employer. A second, and perhaps more fundamental, reason is that employers like to see a demonstrated commitment to the public interest. People do not go in to public interest work for the money. It is important to show employers that you share a passion for their cause (or social justice in general); that you made a thoughtful and informed decision to pursue a public interest career, and did not just follow an idealistic whim; and finally that you will have the conviction to stick with your work even when the sometimes low salary and heavy workload make a private-sector job seem like a pretty good option (for more money, though probably not less work). Students at the USC School of Law are lucky to have many avenues for acquiring experience and demonstrating commitment to the public interest. All of the following are good ways for students to do so: o Working public interest jobs during the summer and/or school year. The PILS Summer Grant program helps make this a viable choice for many students, and other organizations such as Equal Justice Works provide similar grants. o Getting involved with one of the projects sponsored by the Pro Bono Board or another student organization; these projects serve a wide variety of causes, both legal and non-legal related. Students are also encouraged to start new Pro Bono projects or student organizations; doing so can help you gain experience in an area of particular interest and connect you with students who have similar interests, and also shows a tremendous amount of initiative. o Working in one of the School of Law Clinics, particularly those with a public interest orientation, such as the Environmental Clinic or Child Law Clinic. The Criminal Law Clinic and Federal Litigation Clinic also provide valuable experience for students interested in public defender work, legal services, or any other type of practice that involves courtroom advocacy from the get-go.
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The Reality of Public Interest Salaries While this manual does not attempt to provide specific information about salaries in different types of public interest jobs, students should do everything they can to find out the starting salaries in the careers they are interested in pursuing. Such information may be obtained during job or informational interviews, as well as by inquiring in the Career Services and Pro Bono Offices. Public interest salaries are of course generally lower than private sector salaries, and students may need to make tough career decisions in light of their existing debt, familial or other obligations, and desired lifestyle.
Legal Fellowships Can Pave the Way There are a number of public interest law post-graduate fellowship programs that provide a partial or full salary for outstanding recent graduates for one or two years. Examples of these fellowships are Equal Justice Works Fellowships and Skadden Fellowships. Often, these programs are looking for new attorneys who will work in innovative ways at existing public interest organizations to address needs or problems that are not already being addressed. The Equal Justice Works website provides a detailed list of the different projects their fellows have worked on during the past several years. These fellowships can provide law school graduates with an opportunity to practice in a way that is specifically tailored to their interests and passions, and may potentially turn into long-term careers in positions that did not previously exist. Students interested in fellowship opportunities should begin researching for existing programs and their requirements during the first year of law school. Many of these fellowships are highly competitive, and students should make themselves aware of the criteria used in awarding the different fellowships (public interest experience, pro bono work, grades, etc.) as they chart out their law school careers and activities. However, these fellowships are by no means reserved for ivy league graduates; many fellowships are awarded to students from state or less prestigious law schools. For information about public interest law post-graduate fellowship opportunities, see the Public Interest Law Society website and inquire in the Career Services and Pro Bono Offices. Also, students are encouraged to ask PILS officers and members about such opportunities, as well as to join the PILS TWEN group to receive new information about fellowships.
VI. Resources The Public Interest Law Society’s TWEN group provides an extensive list of links to resources with information about public interest law careers and job opportunities. Join the PILS TWEN group today!!! Other useful resources include the following: • The Pro Bono Office (Contact: Pam Robinson) • The Career Services Office (Contact: Megan Seiner) • The PILS website (www.law.sc.edu/organizations/pils/) • PILS Faculty/Staff Advisors • Equal Justice Works (www.equaljusticeworks.org) (a national organization that supports law students pursuing public interest careers and provides post-graduate fellowships) • Idealist.org (www.idealist.org) (a great resource for finding job opportunities around the world in public interest law and other non-profit fields) 8
Attachment B International Public interest Law
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International Public Interest Law
YALE LAW SCHOOL • CAREER DEVELOPMENT OFFICE
2011-2012
Table of Contents Chapter 1
Introduction and Advice ............................................................................................. 3 A. The Guide......................................................................................................................... 3 B. Practice Types .................................................................................................................. 3 C. Personal Profile ................................................................................................................ 4 D. Self-Assessment ............................................................................................................... 5 E. Networking ....................................................................................................................... 5 F. Law School and Training.................................................................................................. 6 G. Summer Internships ......................................................................................................... 7 H. Post Graduate Experience ................................................................................................ 8 I. Salaries .............................................................................................................................. 8 J. Some Practical Considerations .......................................................................................... 8 K. Funding a Public Interest Career...................................................................................... 9 L. YLS Fellowships .............................................................................................................. 9 M. Some Additional Post-Graduate Fellowship Opportunities ............................................ 10 N. The International Public Interest Resume ........................................................................ 11 O. Frequently Asked Questions ............................................................................................ 12
Chapter 2
The United Nations ....................................................................................................... 15 A. Internships ........................................................................................................................ 15 B. Post-Graduate Employment ............................................................................................. 16 C. Recruitment of Young Professionals through Competitive Examinations....................... 17 D. Short-Term Consultancies................................................................................................ 17 E. Young Professional Programs .......................................................................................... 17 F. Organizational Listings..................................................................................................... 18
Chapter 3
Applying for Positions ................................................................................................ 19 A. CDO Assistance ............................................................................................................... 19 B. Mentors ............................................................................................................................ 20 1. Alumni Mentors ................................................................................................... 20 2. Faculty Mentors ................................................................................................... 24 3. Recent Graduate Mentors .................................................................................... 25 C. Classes .............................................................................................................................. 27 D. YLS Student Organizations and Journals ........................................................................ 29 E. International Projects and Centers .................................................................................... 30
Chapter 4
Words of Wisdom .......................................................................................................... 32 A. Practicing Attorneys......................................................................................................... 32 1. United Nations ..................................................................................................... 32 2. Intergovernmental/Foreign Government Settings................................................ 37 3. United States Government ................................................................................... 40 4. Nongovernmental Organizations ......................................................................... 46 B. Student Interns ................................................................................................................. 60 1. United Nations ..................................................................................................... 60 2. Intergovernmental/Foreign Government Settings................................................ 65 3. United States Government ................................................................................... 69 4. Nongovernmental Organizations ......................................................................... 71
Appendix A Public Interest and Government Employers of Current YLS Students................................................................................................. 79
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION AND ADVICE A. The Guide With the increasing interconnectedness of our world, the breadth and range of international institutions and jobs continues to grow. Attorneys are involved in diplomacy, policy-making, administration, and internationally-oriented advocacy and activism. The goal of the guide is to facilitate the process of career exploration for law students and recent graduates interested in public international work. This guide takes an expansive definition of international public interest. Opportunities are available in varied fields such as documenting human rights abuses, humanitarian work, international courts and tribunals, regional organizations such as the Asia Pacific Forum or the African Development Bank, intergovernmental agencies including the United Nations and the diverse types of non-profit organizations operating either domestically in the United Nations. This guide provides career advice, practice areas and ideas to prepare students interested in international public interest work. It also includes extensive online resources, YLS resources, and contains numerous narratives of YLS students and alumni who have worked in international human rights, explaining the rewards and demands of the work, and providing suggestions and encouragement for finding your path. In addition, our Opportunities with International Tribunals and Foreign Courts provides information and listings of court-based international public interest positions and is available on the CDO website, www.law.yale.edu/cdo under Resources then CDO Publications, or in the Career Development Office. H
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The good news is that it is possible to have a lifelong career as a lawyer in international public service. The bad news is that there is no clear and guaranteed path leading to a career in this broad field. This is in part because of the great diversity of public international work done by lawyers. Additionally, as in the domestic sphere, international public and nonprofit organizations have fewer resources than private corporations and law firms. Because of this, they have fewer openings, may not offer formal training for young attorneys, and usually prefer to hire attorneys with at least three to five years of experience. However, opportunities for entry level work do exist and are discussed in the chapters that follow. Breaking into a career in public international law may require taking short-term positions, seeking work as a consultant, or applying for fellowships or grants to fund your work. Most important is your determination to stick with it and your willingness to be inventive in attaining your goals. B. Practice Types Finding the right job means assessing your needs and expectations. In researching practice areas, think about clients (many or just one?); the advocacy type (mostly litigation, community-based legal education, legislative work, or a combination?); and their location (are they permitted to work openly, without reprisal?). Some types of employers include: •
The Federal Government. There are agencies within the federal government that have robust international components such as the U.S. Agency for International Development (www.usaid.gov), the U.S. Department of State (www.state.gov), some agencies within the U.S. H
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Inter-Governmental Agencies (IGO). This refers to an entity created by treaty involving two or more nations. IGOs address variety of human rights and other issues of common interest to members and provide forum for development of international law. They can be organized worldwide (United Nations (UN), International Monetary Fund (IMF), regionally (the African Union (AU), Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Organization of American States (OAS)), or around a specific issue such as finance or trade (World Bank, African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, World Trade Organization). H
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International Tribunals and Courts. The last decade has seen a proliferation of international tribunals and courts providing multiple forums for adjudicating a multitude of cases. Consult the Opportunities with International Tribunals and Foreign Courts for additional information.
Each of these broad areas will require different skill sets and competencies. It may mean a field posting versus one at headquarters. At some point in your career, you may be an activist or an academic. You could seek change within a government structure or with diplomacy. All are valid practice types. Are you interested in being in the “middle” of things and having contact with individuals in the field or would you like to think of the bigger picture and work on policies which will affect the greatest number of people? The immediacy of field work can be overshadowed by the incremental changes that you are able to make. Conversely, the politics of working at headquarters may be frustrating to some. You need to find the type or types that you find most fulfilling and consider the fact that these considerations may shift as you progress in your career. C. Personal Profile Despite the fact that there is no “typical” path for those who wish to do international public interest law, they often have the following in common: •
Knowledge of International Law—In order to be the most effective, a good knowledge of international law and local law is strongly encouraged. You should take advantage of courses and clinics to give you a solid foundation in international legal laws and rules.
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Demonstrated Commitment and Interest—You will be expected to show that you are truly interested in the work that the organization does, the geography, the subject area or the advocacy type. Few organizations will expect you to have the exact experience they are looking for, but you need to make a good faith argument that you are someone who will work hard for further their mandate.
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Language Skills—You must be able to communicate in the language(s) in which the work is being done. One of the most important things you can do to prepare for an international law career is to make sure to keep up any language skill you may have or spend some time in developing the skills you will need. You should take advantage of any opportunities to enhance your language skills. For instance, after the first term, YLS students may take a limited number of courses in the graduate and professional schools or undergraduate college of Yale University for Law School credit and these could include language classes. You could use part of your summer to advance your language skills. You can find another student to practice with by creating language tables. You can go online and read newspapers and magazines in the language you are learning. You can also get a good compilation of news from Lexis’ News tab.
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International Experience—International organizations will value your ability to work in their environment. Your resume and cover letter can highlight your travel experiences, including study abroad and leisure travel.
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Relevant Work Experience—Last but not least, you will need to demonstrate that you have the appropriate skill set for the work you would like to be hired for. You do not have to have worked in that specific context to demonstrate that you are capable of doing their work. Domestic litigation experience can translate well internationally. Focus on the skills that you believe would be useful for the organization. D. Self- Assessment
As you search for an international law practice career that is right for you, it is important for you to do self-assessment and evaluation. Individuals who do international public interest work share a few characteristics. There are some things to keep in mind: • • • • • • • •
Do you have the personality which allows you to work on some of the most difficult issues, sometimes away from family and friends? Is this really what you’d like to do, even when the next job seems unclear? Are you endowed with a healthy dose of realism and pragmatism to deal with situations where sometimes there isn’t an absolute right or wrong? Are you able deal with concepts of fairness and justice that may be different from yours? Are you comfortable with knowing that there may be periods when your employment situation might be uncertain? Are you all right knowing that you may be live and work in areas of conflict, political and social repression or intense poverty? Have you thought about living and working in places where there may be little infrastructure, including running water and electricity? Do you know when to step away from work and recharge? Are you preparing yourself for your “dream” job? Are you taking the classes you might need? Are you networking with individuals who are of interest? Are you getting as much advice you can? E. Networking
A great number of international positions are obtained through networking. In this field more so than other public interest fields, a personal introduction can net you not only insights and advice but also opportunities. There are opportunities to network not only in the law school but throughout the Yale Law School Career Development Office
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University. Look broadly for individuals to connect with in a variety of ways. Once you have made initial contact, keep in touch with these individuals. Letting your contacts know of changes and updates in your situation or acknowledging theirs is crucial in keeping the connection relevant. Take the time to introduce yourself to presenters and panelists when you attend their program. Informal conversations may lead to discovering that they are looking for a research assistant or that your ideas on a particular issue may be useful for a project they are working on.
F. Law School and Training Law school can be a time to deepen your knowledge and broaden your experience within your chosen field and to learn about related fields, or to explore and better define your specific interests. Your own values and interests should be your primary guide for choice of classes, extracurricular activities, summer jobs, and other learning opportunities in this field. While it is not necessary to narrow your interests down to one “dream job” or even one particular practice area, you can take better advantage of opportunities that arise in law school if you have articulated to yourself what you want to get out of the experience. See CDO’s Introduction to Career Development guide for information on self assessment and be sure to tap into the resources available through the Career Development Office and the Schell Center for International Human Rights. Without going overboard, exhausting yourself, or losing perspective on what matters in life, you can gain valuable professional experience while in law school from clinical and other classes, scholarly research, extracurricular activities, pro bono projects, internships, journals and other law student pursuits. Many Yale Law School Career Development Office
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professors are willing to offer informal career advice to students. Seek out professors whose area of specialization overlap with some of your own interests and who seem approachable. Take advantage of the speakers and visitors not only to the law school but to the University. They not only will provide first-hand information about their practice and advocacy, but will offer you the opportunity to network with key players in the field. Creating and maintaining a robust network is a crucial component of your professional success. Be strategic as you are planning the training you’ll need. If you aim for a career in international criminal law, going abroad may not be the most important facet of your training. Make sure you get good criminal litigation under your belt - that is what international courts and tribunals will be looking for. Be creative and think outside the box as you consider various opportunities. G. Summer Internships One of the best ways to get essential international public service experience is through a summer internship. Before applying for an internship, you should try to ensure that your interests, strengths and goals are a good match for the organization you have in mind. Talk to Jim Silk of the Schell Center about your goals. He has years of experience with many international public interest placements. In addition to researching organizations through websites like PSLawNet.org (see below) or other print information, it is a good idea to search out past interns. CDO and the Schell Center have YLS student reports about where they have worked. CDO online summer job evaluations provide five years of searchable summer employment reports. Communicate with people at the organizations in which you are most interested and people knowledgeable about those organizations, and get clear answers to your important questions. Is this organization willing and able to provide you with the degree of supervision you seek? Will you be able to work on legal projects? International projects? Will there be other interns? Will you have access to computer, telephone and other resources necessary for doing your work? What is it like to live in that area? Make sure that you and your potential sponsoring organization agree on your goals for the summer and how they will be met. In addition, do your research about the organization since in some instances they may not have well developed websites. Have they participated in recent international/regional conferences? Have they been the subject of recent newspaper articles? Do they have connections with other U.S. law schools? International internships may carry different expectations than U.S. based one. The pace or scope of work may be defined differently than what you are used to seeing in the United States. Legal work may encompass more community based advocacy or policy work than you may expect. Clarify expectations by asking specific questions about your internship and work product. And once you get “on the ground” be flexible and proactive in seeking work that interests and challenges you. Be aware of significant events at the organization and in the region that might affect your summer internship. For example, it would be important to find out if the project you intend to work on will not go forward if the organization does not receive critical funding, or if the region is politically unstable. You may want of confirm that you supervisor will be there when you are. Keep in mind that some questions are more appropriate to address to someone outside of the organization who is familiar with its work. Generally, international placements decide on interns later than U.S. ones. Organizations abroad will typically make decisions about a summer internship in the middle or late Spring semester. You may wish
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to be gently persistent in following up on your application. In addition, infrastructural glitches such as lack of internet or unreliable phone lines may delay decisions. H. Post Graduate Experience Once you decide to further your professional experience in the international field, finding post-graduate employment can be a challenge. With perseverance and ingenuity you can work in a field that you truly are passionate about. You can look to fellowships; take on contract work with organizations like the United States Agency for International Development or the United Nations; or, if you are able, get your backpack and get in the field to volunteer and network your way to in-country opportunities. See the section below on Funding Resources. It cannot be said enough that the majority of opportunities in international public interest are found through personal and professional connections. Make sure to network vigorously. Keep up your membership with affiliated organizations such as relevant sections of the American Bar Association and the American Society of International Law. I. Salaries Salaries for international work can vary a great deal. Salaries are typical for public interest work for organizations based in the United States. Some sample annual salaries: • • •
Human Rights Watch (post graduate fellowship): $55,000 United Nations, P-2:$44,000-$56,000; ($71,000 - $90,000 for NYC) U.S. Government: $62,000
Do note that local salaries in developing countries may be much lower which can be offset by the lower cost of living. J. Some Practical Considerations Yale University provides FrontierMEDEX Travel Assistance at no cost to all students, and current University employees while traveling on University business or for pleasure. The program provides International and Domestic emergency medical, security and travel assistance services anywhere in the world. H
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If you are going overseas, you will need passports, valid through the date of return, and, for many of the countries to which you will be going, visas. Ascertain whether a visa is necessary by calling the consulate of the country. Most consulates have hours for processing visa applications. For general passport information, consult the US Department of State Passport Services website at http://travel.state.gov/passport_services.html. H
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For general contact information for consulates in the United States, consult the U.S. Department of State “Foreign Consular Offices in the United States” website at http://www.state.gov/s/cpr/rls/fco/c9299.htm. Make sure to work with your host organization to get the right kind of visa. H
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There are many things to think about when traveling. Have you thought about the following?
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What is the best and safest place for me to exchange my money? What will be the easiest and safest way for me to do my banking? Have I made copies of my passport, immunization card, student identification card, credit cards, travelers’ check serial numbers and other important documents and left them in a secure place? If I don’t have the documents with me, can they be sent to me quickly in case of emergency? What will the weather be like?
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If I am planning on driving, do I have a valid license and the proper insurance? Did I make copies of my driver’s license and insurance papers and leave them in a safe place? Did I renew my prescriptions and take enough with me?
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M. Some Additional Post- Graduate Fellowship Opportunities •
The Fulbright Program (www.cies.org/) is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government. The program provides scholars with the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns. H
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Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org) is one of the world’s leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. Using objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy, the researchers build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human rights abuse. Fellows work at the sponsoring organization on issues and projects determined by the organization. H
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Open Society Foundations (www.soros.org) seeks to shape public policies that assure greater fairness in political, legal, and economic systems and safeguard fundamental rights. The foundations fund projects seeking innovative and unconventional approaches to fundamental open society challenges.
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Leitner Center’s Crowley Fellow in International Human Rights (leitnercenter.org/programs/2012crowleyfellowapp/) is an adjunct faculty of Fordham Law School, and teaches a seminar in human rights in preparation for the annual fact-finding project during the spring semester. In addition, the fellow is responsible for: planning all substantive and logistical aspects of the fact-finding project, participating in the project, writing and publishing a post-project report, and day-to-day administration of the program, including running a year-round lecture series, advising students seeking international human rights internships and postgraduation employment, and coordination with the human rights community.
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The American Society of International Law offers micro grants through their Arthur C. Helton Fellowship (www.asil.org/helton-fellowship.cfm) for law students and young professionals to pursue field work and research on significant issues involving international law, human rights, humanitarian affairs, and related areas. H
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Ashoka (www.ashoka.org) is a social entrepreneurship organization. They provide a living stipend for an average of three years, allowing fellows to focus full-time on building their institutions and spreading their ideas. The organization also provides Fellows with a global support network of peers and partnerships with professional consultants. H
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echoing green (www.echoinggreen.org) provides start-up capital and technical assistance to help new leaders launch their organizations and build capacity. H
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Foundation Center (www.foundationcenter.org) is a leading source of information about philanthropy worldwide. The Center maintains the most comprehensive database on U.S. and, increasingly, global grantmakers and their grants-a robust, accessible knowledge bank for the sector. People are served in its five regional library/learning centers and its network of more than 450 funding information centers located in public libraries, community foundations, and educational institutions nationwide and around the world. A section of the website focuses on individual grantseekers. CDO has an online subscription to Foundation Grants for Individuals; please contact the office for login information. Select Find Funders, Foundation Grants to Individuals Online then Subscriber Log In. H
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N. The International Public Interest Resume A resume used to obtain employment in the field of international public interest is very similar to the standard legal resume. Sample student resumes can be found in Introduction to Career Development and sample alumni resumes can be found on the CDO website under Resources, CDO Publications, Sample Alumni Resumes. The differences are dictated by the fact that your intended reader may not be familiar with U.S. education institutions, awards, employment, abbreviations, or conventions. With this in mind: •
Don’t abbreviate dates (use April 2006, rather than 4/6/06), degrees (Masters of Arts rather than MA), locations (Connecticut rather than CT) or employers (U.S. Department of Justice, not DOJ). Avoid using seasons, such as Fall 2009—they don’t always translate well.
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Emphasize your connection to the relevant geographical area and your familiarity with languages and cultures other than your own. Do not overstate your language abilities.
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Explain your credentials, such as law school honors or responsibilities of a job, whenever in doubt.
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Emphasize all of your knowledge and background of that region or topic area, including conferences, projects, or papers.
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You may want to translate your resume into the working language of the organization to demonstrate your language ability.
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Include publications, even if they are not legal, if relevant.
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It is possible that this increased detail and explanation may cause your resume to exceed one page. As long as you are focused on the position at issue, this is not a problem. O. Frequently Asked Questions
What classes should I take? Since international public interest law is very broad, there is no way to answer this question across the board. Your specific interests and career goals should guide you. Take classes that help you develop knowledge and clinics that help you develop skills—whether litigation, writing, oral argument, research, Yale Law School Career Development Office
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or something else—that relate to your career interest. Public Order is a popular, basic public international course at YLS, but many others may enrich your understanding and skills in international law. What skills are most important to landing a job in this area? Many attorneys involved in hiring law graduates for public international jobs believe that the basics are most important: good writing, strong research skills, the ability to analyze at a sophisticated level, and being able to advocate your ideas clearly and forcefully. For many legal jobs, proficiency in a foreign language or comfort with a foreign country or culture is also important. Otherwise, specific skills will depend on the particular job that interests you. 0B
How important is it that I be on a competitive law journal? This may be very helpful in helping you to stand out as an applicant for an “honors program” and other positions within the U.S. government, post-graduate fellowships, and other similarly competitive U.S.based employment opportunities. In general, however, being on a competitive journal is not likely to make or break your chances for a career in international public interest. Many employers do look favorably upon applicants who have published on subjects relevant to the job in question. For many jobs, however, what is most important is having relevant work experience. 1B
Is it important to work abroad? For most public international jobs, experience living and working abroad is extremely helpful personally as well as a good professional credential. In some cases, experience working abroad is essential, as with many positions related to human rights, international health, development or humanitarian assistance. 2B
Are judicial clerkships useful? Like being on the board of a very competitive law journal, holding a judicial clerkship can give you a leg up on the competition for U.S.-based jobs, especially with the government, by indicating that you are smart and have good research and writing skills. It is doubtful whether a clerkship in a U.S. court would give you a competitive edge with non-U.S. employers. If you are interested in working in a specific country or region, you may be able to arrange a clerkship abroad. U.S. law students and graduates have worked at the Israeli Supreme Court, for the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the Land Claims Court in South Africa, among other places. See CDO’s Opportunities with International Tribunals and Foreign Courts for guidance in this area. 3B
Is it possible to find a paid job right out of law school? Yes, but you should be willing to explore short-term opportunities such as fellowships, consultancies, “honors programs,” “junior officer programs” and other similar positions. Be creative and patient. 4B
What about becoming a career diplomat? The U.S. Department of State Foreign Service career track provides the means for U.S. citizens to pursue a career as a diplomat. Information can be found on their website at www.careers.state.gov/officer. A required Foreign Service Officer exam is offered several times each year. Entering officers begin in the Management, Consular, Economic, Political, or Public Diplomacy tracks. 5B
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How can I get a job with the United Nations (UN)? The National Competitive Recruitment Examinations (NCRE) is held on a yearly basis in countries that are selected on the basis of their representation in the Secretariat through the Young Professionals Program (YPP). The purpose of the YPP examination is to recruit people for career positions at the Secretariat. Recruits will initially be given a two-year fixed-term appointment followed by conversion to a career contract, provided their performance is satisfactory. The U.N. also sponsors lawyers through the United Nations Volunteer (UNV) program to work in peacekeeping missions or developing countries. Unlike the name implies, UNVs receive a stipend and per diem which can be more than adequate. H
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Additionally, positions are listed on the main U.N. career sites, http://un.careers.org or http://www.unsystem.org/jobs/job_opportunities.htm. The State Department publishes a bi-weekly list of international vacancy announcements http://www.state.gov/p/io/empl/. If you are interested in working for other United Nations agencies, funds and programmes, please visit their websites directly. Most websites can be accessed through the links found at the International Civil Service Commission. Enthusiastic networking should accompany the formal process of applying to the United Nations. Please contact the CDO office with any questions about this process. H
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When should I apply for summer internships and post graduate opportunities? Because there is no general structure to hiring for international public interest jobs, it pays to start your research early, develop an action plan, and follow through. For summer internships 2Ls should begin contacting organizations that interest them in the fall, and 1Ls should begin as soon after December 1st as they are ready. Many of these organizations (often the foreign NGOs) will not be willing to engage in the process for several months, but some (for example, the U.S. Government) will follow a very structured and early timeline so it is best to learn the specific employers’ timelines before they expire. The same advice applies for post graduate opportunities. There are benefits to making contact early, even though many of these organizations will not know their needs until a vacancy arises or funding develops. Once again, the exception tends to be government hiring, which commonly has very early and strict application deadlines for entry level jobs. Can I transition from international to domestic work or vice- versa? Generally, yes. You can make strategic decisions which will allow you to make the transition a bit more smoothly. Think about developing transferable skills which will make you more marketable. In addition, keep ties to the market you’d like to return to. For example, if you would like to return to the United States after spending some time abroad, think about doing a domestic internship for one of your summers. Can I survive on a public interest salary? Only you know that. Can people survive on a public interest salary and lead happy lives? Sure. They do it all the time. Not only is this question enormously dependent on what you consider the essentials of life, whether you have a working partner, where you live and whether you plan on raising some kids, but it is also dependent on the type of public interest work you pursue. Some legal services providers employ an amazing group of committed attorneys and offer relatively low starting salaries; however people working for the federal government will probably start in the fifties and can work up to well over $100,000. In addition, Yale’s loan repayment program (COAP) lightens the debt burden significantly and enables graduates to pursue public interest work.
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CHAPTER 2 THE UNITED NATIONS The United Nations is one of the most popular and attractive places to work for those considering international public law. However, securing employment with the U.N. is not often a straightforward process. This chapter will present some of the paths available for employment within this very large organization. Founded in the aftermath of World War II, the United Nations (U.N.) is the single largest intergovernmental organization in the world with 192 member states. The six organs which make up the United Nations are the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Secretariat. There are also 15 agencies and several programs affiliated with the U.N. called the U.N. Family of Organizations. The General Assembly is the main deliberative organ of the U.N. and is composed of representatives of all U.N. member states. The Security Council is responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security. The Economic and Social Council is the principal body coordinating the economic and social work of the U.N. and its family of organizations. Seventy percent of the U.N. human and financial resources are under the purview of the Economic and Social Council. The Trusteeship Council was established to supervise the transition of former colonies to self-government, and is now largely inactive. The International Court of Justice settles legal disputes submitted to it by States, and gives advisory opinions on legal questions to the United Nations and its agencies. The Secretariat, with a staff of approximately 44,000 and offices worldwide, takes care of a range of issues dealing with the management and day-to-day running of the United Nations. Within the Secretariat are the Office of Legal Affairs (OLA), the Department of Political Affairs (DPA), the Department for Disarmament Affairs (DDA), the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), and many others including Regional Commissions and International Tribunals. See www.un.org/en/mainbodies/secretariat/ for a full list. H
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U.N. headquarters are in New York but the U.N. has offices all over the world. Significant operations are carried out at the regional economic commissions in Addis Ababa, Bangkok, Beirut, Geneva, Santiago and Vienna. Official languages of the United Nations are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish; the Secretariat uses two working languages, English and French. The U.N. family of organizations is comprised of the Secretariat, U.N. programs and funds such as UNEP (U.N. Environment Programme) and UNFIP (U.N. Fund for International Partnerships), and specialized agencies (such as UNICEF, UNDP) that have their own governing bodies and budgets, and set their own standards and guidelines. Additionally, there are numerous subsidiary bodies dealing with legal or related issues within the U.N. system. Many of these meet as committees only several times a year and are staffed by individuals appointed by Member States—either as independent experts or state representatives. A. Internships Internships for law students (and others currently engaged in graduate studies) are available with the U.N. Secretariat, programs, and specialized agencies. The vast majority of U.N.-affiliated organizations hire Yale Law School Career Development Office
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interns year-round. Summer internships are usually full-time, but it is usually possible to work part-time during the semester. Minimum qualifications include proficiency in one or more U.N. languages and background in the substantive area of the specific organization’s work. Most internship positions (including all internships with the Secretariat) are unpaid, although a few organizations provide limited stipends. The minimum duration for U.N. internships ranges between one and three months, while the maximum duration is usually six months. Because of the U.N. bureaucracy, it is advisable to submit your application for an internship four to eight months before you wish to begin work. Some affiliated organizations have established internship programs, usually with a centralized application process. Detailed information about such internship programs can usually be found online. Occasionally, application forms can be downloaded from an agency’s website or application materials can be sent via email. Where there is a centralized application process, internship applicants have a varying degree of control over the division to which they are assigned. In most cases, applicants are asked to indicate their preferred assignment at the time of application, but are not guaranteed to receive their preference. Because most U.N. organizations are not primarily legal in focus, most internship programs are open to non-law graduate students and undergraduate as well as law students. We urge you to ask whether opportunities for legal work exist, and whether the application process differs from the general one, before submitting your application. Internships also frequently are possible to arrange with U.N. organizations that do not have established internship programs. You may be able to arrange an internship by directly contacting the department or individual for whom you wish to work. The United Nations Headquarters Secretariat Internship Programme is for the United Nations Secretariat New York only and is offered on a two-month basis three times a year: mid-January to mid-March; early June to early August; and mid-September to mid-November. The programme is normally full-time, in the department or office of the Secretariat which has selected them. Go to www.un.org/Depts/OHRM for internship information. H
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B. Post- Graduate Employment The U.N. seeks candidates with extensive international backgrounds. Most of its employees have traveled widely, lived in several countries and are fluent in at least two U.N. languages. Other factors taken into consideration are prior work experiences and relationships with the U.N. as an intern (paid or unpaid), as a consultant, or as an employee or volunteer with an organization that works in partnership with the U.N. Both the substance of your prior work and your established networks are important in obtaining positions in the U.N. system. Within the United Nations, individuals with legal backgrounds work as specialists in a variety of substantive areas in addition to law. For the most part, legal staffs are small and staff turnover limited. Most legal positions demand specialized knowledge in areas such as public international law, human rights, refugee law, labor law, patent and copyright law, or international criminal law. There are various paths to working in the U.N.: fixed contracts, competitive examinations, short-term consulting positions, and “young” or “junior professional programs.” Because many U.N. organizations prefer to hire professionals with three to five years of experience, opportunities for entry level employment are limited. The hiring processes also take a long time. For example, the hiring process for fixed contracts may take as long as one year.
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C. Recruitment of Young Professionals through Competitive Examinations In recruiting for professional posts, special attention is paid to the development and maintenance of a proper balance among Member States, some of which have few or none of their nationals on the Professional staff of the U.N. Secretariat. Entry-level posts for junior professionals (P-2) are filled through competitive recruitment examinations organized on a rotational basis for nationals of inadequately represented Member States. United States citizens were eligible for these competitive examinations for 2011. The examinations are offered in several occupational groups, including legal affairs, administration, economics, and political affairs. Candidates must be 32 years of age or younger with fluency in either English or French. Be prepared, however, for a long process. From application to selection, the Competitive Exam process can take up to two years. Additional information, such as country of nationality participation, application form, date of next exam, eligibility, etc., is available at https://careers.un.org/lbw/home.aspx?viewtype=GP. H
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D. Short- Term Consultancies For those with limited professional experience, short-term consultancies and jobs with “field operations” are usually the best ways to break into the U.N. system. Interested candidates may consider going to the city where you plan to work and spending several weeks doing intensive networking. E. Young Professional Programs In some cases, it is also possible to find employment through “Associate Expert/Junior Professional Officer Programme” or “Young Professional Programme” run by specialized agencies. Once again, the hiring process often is a slow one. A small number of these programs are open to applicants of all nations and are geared toward recruiting and grooming career staff for the agency in question. A larger number of training programs are more limited in scope: restricting participation to citizens of nations willing to fund their participation or from developing nations and typically offering “training” positions of two years duration. Specific information about these programs is provided in the organizational listings. Relevant academic training, language skills and international work experience are prerequisites for most U.N. professional positions. As previously stated, spoken and written command of at least two of the official U.N. languages is often required. Fluency or proficiency in other languages such as Arabic is often desired, depending on the location and nature of the agency or program. For lawyers, knowledge of French and/or Spanish (plus English) is especially valuable. In addition, work experience in the developing world is highly desirable and, in many cases, indispensable. Most U.N. agencies post job vacancies on their websites; the subsequent organizational listings provide directions for accessing such information. Listed below are other useful resources for U.N. employment, including internships. •
The homepage of the Office of Human Resources Management (OHRM), which is responsible for hiring within the U.N., has links to U.N. job listings and other useful information. Visit, https://careers.un.org/lbw/home.aspx?viewtype=GP. H
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The International Civil Service Commission, which regulates and coordinates hiring and employment policies for U.N. affiliated organizations, posts vacancy announcements by agency, as well as information on personnel and related issues. Check out individual programmes, funds Yale Law School Career Development Office
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and agencies at International Civil Service Commission, (icsc.un.org/joblinks.asp). For information on vacancies in peacekeeping field missions, go to www.jobs.un.org. H
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The Bureau of International Organization Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, which is responsible for coordinating the federal government’s participation in the U.N. and for managing an information and recruitment program, posts a list of vacancies at the U.N. and other international organizations on its website. Go to the Careers heading on www.state.gov and click International Organizations. Most federal employees are eligible by law to be “detailed or transferred” to an international organization for a period of up to five years–and in certain instances up to eight years—with reemployment rights to their respective federal agencies, continuity of service and protection of fringe benefits. This is subject to prior approval by the federal agency concerned. H
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United Nations Volunteers (UNV) recruits individuals for short-term assignments in developing nations related to humanitarian relief and rehabilitation, human rights, electoral and peacebuilding processes, and technical cooperation. Compensation and eligibility requirements vary, though some relevant experience is usually required. See www.unv.org for detailed information.
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Women Watch (www.un.org/womenwatch) lists all gender-related vacancies within the U.N. system. H
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F. Organizational Listings In addition to the agencies described above, you should look to the many subsidiary committees, commissions, working groups, special rapporteurs, and other bodies that relate to law, such as the International Law Commission, the Sixth Committee of the General Assembly, and the U.N. Commission on International Trade Law. Enterprising law students and graduates may well be able to arrange internships and other employment opportunities with such bodies. There are a number of organizations affiliated with the U.N., including the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), the Universal Postal Union (UPU), the World Food Programme (WFP), and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Generally, small professional staffs, technical subject matter, or citizenship issues limit opportunities for U.S. law students and lawyers in these organizations. See www.un.org for additional information. H
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CHAPTER 3 RESOURCES WITHIN THE YALE COMMUNITY A. CDO Assistance Yale Law School’s Career Development Office offers a number of useful resources for students interested in international public service careers. CDO Publications In addition to this guide, CDO publishes a guide to International Tribunals and Foreign Courts and a guide to Public Interest Fellowships. We also produce the brochures Public Interest Fellowship Opportunities and Searching for Fellowships on PSLawNet. All are updated yearly and available on the CDO website, and in the office. Summer Job Evaluations CDO has online summer job evaluations of YLS students, spanning the last five years. These evaluations can be searched by location and type of employer, allowing internationally oriented students to quickly find relevant reports. Public Interest Career Fair CDO organizes an annual Public Interest Student Career Fair each November, at which second-and thirdyear students who have worked in public interest jobs over the summer share their experiences with firstyear and other interested students. International placements are well represented. Career Connections CDO and the Alumni Office have created, and maintain, YLS Career Connections, an online alumni mentoring service. From this link on the CDO website you can search for YLS alumni who are involved in international public interest law and who are willing to assist students and YLS graduates in their career efforts. Counseling CDO public interest advisor Akua Akyea is available to help you pursue your public interest international career goals. Just make an appointment by calling 203-432-1676 or stopping by the office. Job Search Expenses CDO will reimburse the telephone and fax expenses of a student’s public interest job search, which may be more significant for international public interest students. Students should keep track of their expenses and complete a Bursar Credit Agreement Form, which is available in CDO. CDO has also created TRI PI (Travel Reimbursement Interviews for Public Interest) which reimburses 2Ls and 3Ls for travel expenses, up to $400, for travel to public interest fellowship and job interviews. H
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Print Resources Books, guides and directories related to the field of international public interest law can be found in the CDO library. For a complete listing, go to the CDO website under Resources, CDO Library, and look under Career Specialties and Public Interest.
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Career Development Office Robyn Acampora Akua Akyea Juliann Davis Marilyn Drees Amanda Hilton Uri Jurist Christine Severson Nikitia Tillman Kelly Voight
Associate Director, Administration Director Sr. Administrative Assistant Director Administrative Assistant Associate Director Director, Recruitment Programs and Administration Sr. Administrative Assistant Assistant Dean
Telephone: Fax: E-mail: Website:
(203) 432-1676 (203) 432-8423 cdo.law@yale.edu www.law.yale.edu/cdo
Mailing Address:
Career Development Office, Yale Law School, P.O. Box 208215, New Haven, CT 06520-8215
Physical Address:
Ruttenberg Hall, Room 184, 133 Wall Street, New Haven, CT 06511
Office Hours:
8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m.
CDO Publications:
Criminal Prosecution Entering the Law Teaching Market Environmental Law International LL.M. Career Planning Guide International Public Interest Law Introduction to Career Development Judicial Clerkships in the U.S. Law Firm Practice Lawyers in Business Opportunities with International Tribunals and Foreign Courts Public Interest Careers Public Interest Fellowships Vol. I Public Interest Fellowships: Sample Applications Vol. II The Fall Interview Program U.S. Supreme Court Clerkships Working on Capitol Hill
Yale Law School Nondiscrimination Policy Yale Law School is committed to a policy against discrimination based upon age, color, handicap or disability, ethnic or national origin, race, religion, religious creed, gender (including discrimination taking the form of sexual harassment), marital, parental or veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or the prejudice of clients. All employers using the school's placement services are required to abide by this policy. February 2012
Š 2012 Yale Law School. All rights reserved.
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