Welcome/Introductions (5 minutes)
The Benefits of Pro Bono Work (10 minutes)
Factors to Consider When Selecting a Pro Bono Program (10 minutes)
Choose a Program that Works for You (10 minutes)
Expectation of Ethical Pro Bono Volunteers (15 minutes)
Next Steps/Questions (10 minutes)
Adjourn
Eric W. Hughes is the Bershad Director of Communications at Volunteer Lawyers for Justice. Eric’s role involves engaging, storytelling, and cheerleading VLJ’s services and impact as well as the importance of making New Jersey a more just place to live and work. In addition to storytelling and cheerleading, Eric supports VLJ’s “first impression” recruitment efforts for prospective volunteers and partners.
Eric is no stranger to public interest law and nonprofit organizations. Prior to joining VLJ, Eric oversaw direct service programs at an anti-hunger organization, and he previously spent several years at civil legal services organizations in New Jersey and Florida working on community engagement and access to justice while providing civil legal help on veterans, public benefits, and LGBTQ+ matters. Eric is a member of the Florida Bar, and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims and the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
Eric graduated from the University of Kentucky with a BA in German, and he received his Juris Doctor from Florida Coastal School of Law.
Relevant
R.1:13-2(a)
R.1:13-2(b)
R.1:21-1
Rules of Professional Conduct
R.1:21-3
R. 1:21-11
R.1:21-12(a)
R.1:21-12(b)
R.1:27-2(g)
R.1:21-3(c)
Articles
Lawrence S. Krieger & Kennon M. Sheldon, Ph.D., What Makes Lawyers Happy?: A DataDriven Prescription to Redefine Professional Success, 83 GEO. WASH. L. Rev. 554 (2015)
Additional Resources
Frequently Asked Questions-Pro Bono Assignments http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/probono/probonofaq.pdf
New Jersey Lawyers’ Fund for Client Protection, Certification of Retirement – Legal Services Volunteer Form http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/cpf/11621_cert_retire_lsv.pdf
**Selected statutes and rules included. All others listed above are available upon request**
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As of: November 17, 2015 5:59 PM EST
Mad en v. De ran
Supreme Court of New Jersey
October 22, 1990, Argued ; February 10, 1992, Decided A-34 September Term 1990
Reporter
126 N.J. 591; 601 A.2d 211; 1992 N.J. LEXIS 12
JOHN LEE MADDEN, ALLEN S. FERG, THOMAS M. BARRONandJOHN C. GILLESPIE, t/a MADDEN, FERG, BARRONandGILLESPIE, Attorneys-at-Law, apartnership, Plaintiffs-Appellants, and HUDSON COUNTY BAR ASSOCIATION, Intervenor, v. TOWNSHIP OF DELRAN, A Municipal Corp.; TOWNSHIP OF BASS RIVER; TOWNSHIP OF WASHINGTON; CITY OF BEVERLY; CITY OF BORDENTOWN; TOWNSHIP OF CINNAMINSON; TOWNSHIP OF DELANCO; BOROUGH OF FIELDSBORO; TOWNSHIP OF HAINESPORT; TOWNSHIP OF MAPLE SHADE; BOROUGH OF MEDFORD LAKES; TOWNSHIP OF NEW HANOVER; BOROUGH OF WRIGHTSTOWN; BOROUGH OF PEMBERTON; TOWNSHIP OF RIVERSIDE; TOWNSHIP OF SHAMONG; TOWNSHIP OF SPRINGFIELD; and TOWNSHIP OF TABERNACLE, Defendants, and STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Office of the Public Defender; ALFRED A. SLOCUM, Public Defender; and BURLINGTON COUNTY BOARD OF CHOSEN FREEHOLDERS, Defendants-Respondents.
Prior History: [***l] On certification to the Superior Court, Appellate Division.
assigned, municipal court, attorneys, municipalities, public defender, cases, indigent defendant, counties, pro bono, assigned counsel, unfairness, courts, appointment, vicinage, inequality, statewide, municipal court judge, branch of government, deprivation, indigent, funds, equal protection, presentsystem,trial court, experienced, designated, services, invalid, revised
Procedural Posture
Appellant bar association challenged the judgment of the Superior Court (New Jersey), which sustained the
constitutionality of New Jersey's system of requiring attorneys to represent indigents without receiving compensation.
Appellant bar association brought an action challenging the constitutionality of NewJersey's system ofrequiringlicensed attorneys to represent indigents without compensation. The trial court upheld the constitutionality of the system, and appellant challenged thejudgment. Thejudgment of the trial court was affirmed but modified to require every New Jersey municipality to provide a public defender for the municipal courts.The courtheldthatitwas nota deprivation to require New Jersey attorneys to represent indigents without compensation. The court held that the state's ultimate goal was to provide equal legal representation to indigents, that there was no quantification of the unfairness to attorneys, and that the statewide system did not deprive attorneys of equal protection of the law, because any inequality was unintended.
Thejudgment of the trial court was affirmed butmodified to require every New Jersey municipality to provide a public defender for the municipal courts. The court held that itwas not deprivation to require New Jersey attorneys to represent indigents without compensation.
Criminal Law & Procedure > Commencement of Criminal Proceedings > Counsel > Assignment of Counsel
HNI If the assignment of counsel without compensation in most New Jersey counties is fairly distributed among all attorneys, and in those counties in which it is not, the disparity is minimal, then the system itself is not rendered invalid.
N.J. courts starting to hear eviction disputes again. Advocates fear many renters will be forced out. Updated12:45PM;Today12:01PM A renter who was forced to relocate with her two children. (LVL File)Oregonlive.com file photo
By Sophie Nieto-Munoz | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
Inthepre-coronavirusdays,hundredsoflandlordsandtenantswouldpackintocourtroomstosettledisputesthatoftencarriedthethreat ofeviction. Beforethejudgewouldbegintheproceeding,avideowouldbeshowninEnglishandSpanishinformingeveryoneoftheirrights Sometenantsandlandlordswouldworkoutsettlementsinthehallway,whileotherswouldgototrial.Ifalandlorddidn’tshowup, thecase wasdismissed.
That ended in mid-March, when COVID-19 arrived in New Jersey, forcing a shutdown of just about everything, courts included. All trials in landlord-tenant court are suspended indefinitely, and Gov. Phil Murphy signed an executive order banning lockouts until 60 days after the public health emergency ends.
But landlords have still been allowed to file eviction actions over the last four months against some of the thousands of out-of-work New Jerseyans who could not pay their rent, contributing to the backlog that already existed.
Now, two county courthouses are beginning settlement hearings over Zoom to chop through the avalanche of filings — and housing and racial justice advocates are worried this will make it much harder for tenants to know their rights.
In letter to the administrator of the state court system, 29 community leaders, advocates and lawyers are demanding the courts take more steps to protect tenants by ensuring due process and that eviction complaints follow guidelines set by the federal CARES Act, which is designed to help residents cope with the economic fallout from the pandemic.
“If the pandemic, or this wave, is followed by waves of evictions and displaces thousands of low-income people, and it happens in a way that doesn’t serve due process, we’ll have done an incredible injustice to our neighbors,” said Catherine Weiss, chair of the Lowenstein Center for Public Interest. “It’s important for courts to take a role in ensuring fairness, because otherwise, tenants have no shot.”
Weiss said without due process, mass evictions will begin amid the public health and economic crisis, leading to greater instances of displaced families and homelessness, particularly affecting communities of color and low-income residents.
“When we say flatten the curve, it’s not just coronavirus. It’s mass eviction, and we’re going to have another wave of mass eviction and that has not been adequately discussed. The government has to play a role in making sure people don’t lose their homes because they got sick or lose their job,” she said in a phone interview with NJ Advance Media. “That’s not an acceptable consequence of the pandemic.”
The advocates say in the Zoom proceedings, there are dozens of people on and off mute in the “lobby” while the judge reads the docket. Settlements are worked out in a “breakout room” but those without access to a camera have to hang up and reenter the large video conference. Many can’t hear their rights being read, or understand that the conference is voluntary.
Weiss noted some glaring issues in landlord-tenant court — lack of legal representation for tenants, chaos swirling around hundreds of cases each day, tenants who aren’t familiar with their rights — will be exacerbated once the deluge of evictions need to be heard.
Burlington and Mercer county courthouses have already begun limited settlement conferences, in an effort to speed up the process.
A spokesman for the state court system, Peter McAleer, said the courts will work to respond to the advocates’ issues.
“We met with the authors of the letter on Wednesday and are exploring different measures to address some of their concerns,” said McAleer. “It is important to note that evictions are not occurring at this time.”
But some of these cases are being filed illegally or do not protect the tenants’ due process, the advocates said in their letter.
Under the CARES Act, landlords in federally subsidized housing, Section 8 housing or housing programs for at-risk groups like seniors and veterans, or who hold federally backed mortgages are barred from filing evictions.
In New Jersey, there are no requirements that landlords verify an eviction complies with the CARES Act. And the tenant is unlikely to know what type of mortgage their landlord has or what other properties they own. Fourteen other states require landlords to certify that they are within the federal guidelines to file eviction.
It’s unknown how many of the “thousands of eviction actions pending throughout the state were filed in violation of federal law,” the letter states. “This serious problem is compounded by the initiation of settlement hearings throughout the state.”
And tenants might not be familiar with every executive order the governor has signed and how it could affect them, Weiss added. Some residents didn’t know they still had to pay rent during an eviction moratorium, or that a landlord cannot add certain fees as additional rent.
“Many, many tenants don’t know there’s a moratorium on being removed. They often don’t know that landlord-tenant trials are suspended. They don’t know these settlements they’re entering are voluntary. These things have to be said before the tenant agrees to anything,” she stressed.
The advocates say courts should only hold the conference if both parties have lawyers and access to video. Those without a screen face a severe disadvantage and further confusion, especially during stressful negotiations, the letter says.
Allison Nolan, staff attorney with Volunteer Lawyers for Justice in Newark, said there’s been an imbalance when landlords are represented and tenants are not.
“It’s an extraordinary time,” said Nolan. “We’re all facing a lot of challenges, so these protections are more important now than ever.”
“What’s at stake in these cases is a tenant’s home,” Nolan added. “That’s why it matters so much that the court get these cases right and that tenants voices are heard.”
The state Department of Community Affairs created a $100 million rental assistance program for low-income residents or those who became unemployed due to the coronavirus pandemic in May. Applications for the lottery begin Monday. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Sophie Nieto-Munoz may be reached at snietomunoz@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her at @snietomunoz.
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