Rebellious Lawyering Conference

The RebLaw Conference is an annual, student-run conference that brings together practitioners, law students, and community advocates from around the country to discuss innovative, progressive approaches to law and social change.

Where: Yale Law School, New Haven, CT.
When: Friday, February 20–Sunday, February 22, 2009
Cost: Standard registration is $30.
(Registration is free for members of the Yale, UConn, New Haven, and Quinnipiac communities)

Go here to register and to check out schedules, information, and links (including the Reblawg, updated frequently with rebellious tidbits).

New NY State Bar Exam Rules

The New York State Board of Law Examiners recently revised certain rules, policies, and deadlines that are effective immediately and will impact graduates planning to take the February or July 2009 New York State Bar Examination.

Go here to view the new rules.

Managing Your Career in Difficult Times

Here is an interesting article in Law Practice Today, a publication of the American Bar Association, concerning dealing with a legal career in difficult economic times:

Because of the difficult economic times we currently face, and the layoffs that have already occurred in the legal market, attorneys are understandably concerned about job security, and what to do if they are victims of downsizing.

Law Practice Today brought together three well known legal career experts from different parts of the country to talk with us about how they are advising their clients today. Shelley Canter, based in San Francisco, is the author of Make the Right Career Move: 28 Critical Insights And Strategies to Land Your Dream Job, Marcia Pennington Shannon is based in Washington, D.C., and serves as a columnist for the ABA’s Law Practice Management magazine, and Kathleen Brady is based in New York City, and is the author of the book Navigating Detours on the Road to Success.

To read the piece, go here.

Interested in Criminal Law and Capital Cases?

The University of California at Berkeley Law School's Death Penalty Clinic maintains a website that lists summer and other internship opportunities in capital defense offices. The site has recently been expanded to include full-time paid positions in these offices as well. Go here to access this great resource.

Loan Forgiveness Podcast

Check out this podcast! Equal Justice Works and American University's Washington College of Law have teamed up to launch an all-new podcast: The Student Debt Relief Series.

The first episode, "How to Figure Out if You Benefit from the College Cost Reduction & Access Act - and How Much?" is available now. Listen to the episode, stream, download or subscribe to the series here.

You can also download the corresponding Loan Forgiveness for Public Service Employment Checklist here.

Manhattan Legal Services Summer 2009 Jobs

Manhattan Legal Services is a very popular summer job placement for fist-year students. This is the first year in which MLS is interviewing students for summer jobs on a rolling basis, so it is best to get your resume, cover letter, and writing sample (most 1Ls use their first semester memorandum) in to them as soon as practical.

(Click on image to enlarge it.)

The Cover Retreat. An important conference.

The 22nd Annual Robert M. Cover Retreat, organized by students at the University of Maine Law School, is taking shape. The theme this year is "Energizing Your Interest in Public Interest Law." The keynote speaker will be Ezra Rosser, a 2003 graduate of Harvard Law School and currently an Assistant Professor of Law at American University Washington College of Law. Professor Rosser will be speaking on the topic of "Public Interest, Individual Responsibility, and Markets."

Also speaking are William Eubanks, a 2007 graduate of the environmental LLM program at Vermony Law School; Rafael Cancel-Vazquez, a 2008 graduate of the University of Puerto Rico School of Law, and Echoing Green Fellow; Ben Smilowitz, a 2009 J.D. candidate from Unviersity of Connecticute School of Law and also an Echoing Green Fellow.

The Cover Retreat regulars will also join the event this year: John Brittain from the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights; Danny Greenburg of Schulte, Roth and Zabel; Professor Chris Northrop from the juvenile Justice Clinic at Maine Law; Zach Heiden from the Maine ACLU, and many others.

More information and a Cover registration form can be found on the Cover Retreat webpage.

Summer Job Money!

The Summer Funding Resources page on PSLawNet is freshly updated with the most current information. The website lists different funding sources for those with unpaid summer internships and is organized alphabetically.

Go here to view all of the summer funding opportunities.

Nassau County Bar Association Writing Competition

Local law students now have the unique opportunity to hone their legal writing skills, receive scholarship aid to prepare for the Bar exam, be discovered by their future employer, and receive the many benefits as a member of the Nassau County Bar Association, all from an idea from a first year bar association member. Simone Freeman’s idea led to the NCBA’s Publications Committee hosting the 2009 Law Student Writing Competition, the first time NCBA has hosted such an event. Freeman worked in conjunction with long-term NCBA member Doug Lieberman, a past chair of the Publications Committee.

Freeman, who is in her first year practicing law as an assistant town attorney for North Hempstead, joined NCBA this year and decided to get involved by joining the Publications Committee. “My main goal was to get students more interested in NCBA, as well as to address current student members who may not have found an avenue to participate in the Bar,” she said.

The 2009 competition is open to all student members of NCBA, as well as all full or part-time law school students enrolled in an ABA accredited Law School in the Second Judicial Department of the State of New York. In addition to having the top three winning entries published in the Nassau Lawyer, the three winners will receive scholarships to Pieper Bar Review courses.

For more information about the writing competition, including the topic and deadline, go here.

Pride Law Fund Fellowships

Pride Law Fund funds several Summer internship opportunities for those seeking experience in the areas of sexual orientation discrimination, individual rights litigation, direct legal services to people with HIV/AIDS, and other legal issues of concern to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community. In 1999, Pride Law Fund created the Tom Steel post-graduate fellowship to fund a recently licensed lawyer for a full year of work on a project addressing the needs of the LGBT community.

Previous fellowships have funded work on impact litigation in the areas of employment, education and family law; developing legislative/educational strategies on the issues of privacy and sodomy law reform; developing legal materials to assist clients with family law questions; documenting sexual orientation and HIV related discrimination in youth and minority communities; compiling national surveys of sexual orientation and HIV nondiscrimination laws; providing direct legal services to people with HIV/AIDS; and developing educational information on the issues of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered youth, military personnel and people living with HIV/AIDS.

Pride Law Fund’s Fellowship Program has provided critical support for projects at such diverse organizations as the AIDS Benefits Counselors, the American Civil Liberties Union, National Center for Lesbian Rights and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, among many others.

For more information about Pride Law fellowships, go here.

Employment with the Department of Justice

Here is a PowerPoint presentation from the Department of Justice regarding spring, summer, and post-graduate employment. Check it out.

20th Anniversary Video/Essay Competition: ABA Commission on Women in the Profession

20th Anniversary Video/Essay Competition

Gender Diversity: Have we solved the problem? If not, where do we go from here?

The ABA Commission on Women in the Profession is now accepting video and essay entries from law students and young lawyers.

Eligibility

The contest is open to
(a) law students – all law students attending an ABA-accredited law school; and
(b) young lawyers – lawyers under 36 years old or admitted to practice for less than 5 years.

Prizes

1. There will be one YouTube video winner and one essay winner in each category of law students and young lawyers.

2. Each winner will be presented with a $500 honorarium.

Rules

1. Subject: Each entry must address the following topic: Gender Diversity: Have we solved the problem? If not, where do we go from here?

2a. No joint entries: Joint entries submitted by a group of two or more people are not permitted and are void.
2b. Multiple entries: An individual may submit one entry in the video competition and one entry in the essay competition. Multiple entries in each competition by a single person are void.

3. Original work: Videos and essays must be original works created for purposes of this competition. Entries published elsewhere previously will not be accepted and are void.

4. Submissions:

4a. Videos: YouTube video entries are limited to three (3) minutes in length and must be uploaded to the YouTube contest submission site at www.youtube.com/group/GenderDiversity. Nothing in the videos shall identify the entrant.

4b. Essays: Essay entries must be submitted online as a Microsoft Word document no more than 600 words (actual text) or six (6) pages in length, double spaced, Times New Roman font, 12 point, with 1-inch top, bottom, and side margins. Footnotes are prohibited. Essays must be uploaded.

5. Deadline: Entries must be submitted by 12:00 p.m. Central Time on December 31, 2008. Entries submitted after that time will not be accepted.

6. Announcement of winners: The award-winning entries in each category will be announced during the 2009 American Bar Association Midyear Meeting in Boston, MA held from February 11-17, 2009.

7. Publication of winning entries: The award-winning entries will be published on the Commission’s web site following their announcement at the 2009 Midyear Meeting but no later than March 1, 2009.

For additional information on this great contest, go here.

Professor Miller has a New Podcast

Professor Meredith Miller, author of the blog The Slippery Slope, recently interviewed Ari Kaplan, of Ari Kaplan Advisors. Ari provides consulting services to law firms, speaks at law schools and ghostwrites. Their conversation focuses on his book, The Opportunity Maker: Strategies for Inspiring Your Legal Career Through Creative Networking and Business Development. Professor Miller states that Ari's book is well-written, thoroughly researched, encouraging, and dense with helpful hints on building business. Topics include: "organic self-promotion," what law school career services never told you, making friends not contacts, the importance of publishing, and commonalities among rainmakers.

To hear the podcast, go here.

Long Island Business News: Forecast of Legal Specialties

Recently, Michael H. Samuels penned an article in Long Island Business News in which he talked about his conversations with Long Island attorneys and business people who attempted to forecast which legal specialties will be busy during these lean financial times:

The economy and the new presidential administration will have the biggest effects on Long Island’s law practices in 2009.

Lawyers throughout the Island say that for the next year and for many to come, they will be reacting to the national recession and how it locally impacts Long Island’s businesses and homeowners.

That means company reorganizations, real estate workouts and upticks in fraud and white collar crime.

Among the practice areas expected to be busiest: bankruptcies and foreclosures.

* * *

One particular area in which [Jeff] Wurst [head of the financial services practice group at Uniondale’s Ruskin Moscou Faltischek] said he expects to see more business is commercial foreclosures. When big-box retailers like Circuit City and Linens ‘N Things go out of business and close stores, the landlords of many Long Island strip malls can no longer collect those hefty rents. If those landlords default on their loans and banks foreclose on the properties, even more businesses could go out of business on Long Island, he said.

* * *

[Jerry] Sloane [partner in charge of Berdon’s Jericho office. Berdon is an accounting firm that helps law firms deal with economic issues] said he expects to see an increase in white-collar crime because bad economic times are when company officers tend to misrepresent financial statements and companies take a harder look at their books to discover which employees have been stealing from them.

“The forensic stuff is going to be a very busy area,” he said. “Attorneys are going to get hired to do internal investigations, to interview management, staff, vendors.”

John Bauer, a shareholder in Littler Mendelson’s Melville office, said he also expects to assist more companies with layoffs in 2009. He said as the economy worsens, businesses are going to seek ways to cut costs, especially with personnel.

“The down economy leads to more work in the labor and employment area,” Bauer said.

For the rest of the article, go here.

Money for Post-Graduate Public Interest Projects

Are you a 3L interested in public interest work? Do you have a project you'd like to get off the ground next year? If so, apply for funding from the Initiative for Public Interest at Yale.

The Initiative is a non-profit organization that provides start-up money for projects that protect the legal rights or interests of inadequately represented groups. It funds cutting-edge projects whose successful execution might be a model for other organizations seeking new and better ways to represent clients. For information about how to apply, visit The Initiative's web site here.

The deadline to submit applications for one-year grants of up to $30,000 to be awarded in the summer of 2009 is February 2, 2009.

Questions about the Initiative in general or about the grant application and selection process should be directed to intiativeforpublicinterest@gmail.com.

Registration Deadline for NYU Job Fair Looms

The deadline to register for the NYU Public Service Job Fair is:

Friday, December 5, 2008, at 3:00 p.m.

Do not wait until the last couple of days to register, as the NYU servers have been known to crash and you may not be able to register.

All first-year students should register. Upper-level students should register if they are at all interested in government and/or public interest work.

Register now and ask questions later. You need to register if you want to attend the Fair.

In addition, while the resume upload deadline is January 1, 2009, the sooner you upload your resume the better. Employers review resumes as they are uploaded, so you should choose employers and upload your resume as soon as you can. First have your resume reviewed by a CSO counselor, of course.

Go here to register.