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Please browse around, catch up on our latest public interest law projects, peruse our links (including the one to our home site, New England Law | Boston), and add your comments. Before you start, we encourage you to become familiar with our Terms of Use.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Center for Public Health and Tobacco Policy – Law Clerk (Work Study Position)

Reports to: Director and Assistant Director, Center for Public Health and Tobacco Policy
Hours: Full-time (40 hours/week) or half-time (20 hours/week)
Pay: $10.00/hour

The Center for Public Health and Tobacco Policy (Center) at New England Law | Boston’s Center for Law and Social Responsibility is seeking current day or evening students to work full-time or part-time during the summer.

The Center works with the New York State Department of Health and communities around New York to develop policies to reduce the availability of tobacco products, protect non-smokers from secondhand smoke, and minimize or remove tobacco advertising. The Center is directed by Professor Berman.

Duties:
* Assist with legal and policy research projects by conducting research, drafting memoranda, creating fact sheets, and working on policy reports.
* Assist with workshop preparation and logistics.
* Other items as assigned by the Center’s director or the Center’s staff.

Preference will be given to those students showing a sincere interest in public health law or public interest law. Please contact Financial Aid to determine work-study eligibility.

Interested students should e-mail a resume, writing sample, (unofficial) transcript, and a cover letter explaining their interest in working at the Center to tobacco@nesl.edu. Deadline for applications is Friday, March 11.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Public Health Event Invitation

New England Law | Boston’s Public Health Law class presents: Public Health Policies for Massachusetts: Lessons from Minnesota

When: Wed., April 6 3:00-4:30 PM
Where: Massachusetts Department of Public Health
Public Health Council Room
250 Washington St. 2nd Floor
Boston MA 02108


New England Law | Boston’s students have spent this semester working with public health law students at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota to identify public health successes in Minnesota that can help inform public health efforts in Massachusetts. Come hear the results of their research and support the next generation of public health lawyers. Presentations will discuss tobacco control, obesity and nutrition, environmental health, and emergency preparedness.

For more information, please contact Professor Micah Berman, mberman@nesl.edu/(617) 368-1366.

Light refreshments will be provided

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

The Center for Law and Social Responsibility Seeks a 2011-2012 Fellow

About the Position:
The Center for Law and Social Responsibility (CLSR) is seeking a New England Law graduating student to serve as its Fellow for the 2011-2012 academic year. Applicants must be interested in completing public service legal projects in one or more of the following areas:
• Criminal Justice
• Environmental Advocacy
• Immigration Law
• Tobacco Policy and Health
• Women and Children’s Advocacy
• Public Interest Law

The position runs for 10 months, beginning mid-August. During this time the Fellow is a full-time employee of New England Law | Boston, and as such receives salary and benefits.

The CLSR Fellow provides both substantive and administrative support for all Center Projects. In addition, the Fellow must develop and complete one or more substantial public service legal projects in one or more of the above-listed areas. The position is highly flexible, and requires creativity, independence, initiative, and a genuine desire to spend ten months working as a lawyer and advocate in the public service field.

Past Fellows have represented clients in agency proceedings, teamed with other attorneys to write briefs, and joined advocacy groups to foster regulatory change. Fellows are encouraged to write and teach as part of their experience.

To Apply:
Please submit the following application materials, via email, to Martha Drane at martha.s.drane@nesl.edu, by March 10, 2011:
• letter of introduction explaining your interest in the position
• resume
• official New England Law | Boston transcript
• legal writing sample no longer than 5 pages– must have been written by the applicant alone
• list of three references with telephone and e-mail contact information

Please contact the current CLSR Fellow, Martha S. Drane at Martha.S.Drane@nesl.edu or visit the CLSR website for more information.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Patrick’s radical attack on CPCS a fast-track to disaster

Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
Patrick’s radical attack on CPCS a fast-track to disaster

by David M. Siegel
Published: February 10th, 2011

The page 1 story in the Feb. 7 issue, “Governor fast-tracks radical overhaul of CPCS,” is disturbing. Former Committee for Public Counsel Services Chief Counsel William J. Leahy summed up matters well in a recent Boston Herald piece:

“Governor Deval Patrick’s proposal to destroy the independence of CPCS by abolishing its board, forcing it into the Executive Branch and personally selecting its chief counsel is a shocking betrayal of the right to counsel for poor people in Massachusetts.”

Economic difficulties demand hard choices, but indigent defense in Massachusetts ranks among the nation’s finest, and this attack will gut it, on the backs of the poor.

The proposal will require lawyers to carry crushing caseloads that will prevent them from representing clients in a manner consistent with ethical and constitutional obligations, effectively dismantling the constitutional protections constructed by thousands of lawyers and judges from the hemisphere’s oldest functioning written constitution over the past 230 years. No self-respecting attorney would want to participate in such a profoundly unconstitutional and destructive enterprise.

There should be a hearing before the Legislature’s Joint Committee on the Judiciary, at which the criminal defense bar and other experts on indigent defense programs and the defense of constitutional liberties should be given a fair opportunity to address the profoundly destructive implications of the governor’s plan.

The hearing should not be a debate between prosecutors and defense attorneys. Although the idea of abolishing bar advocates was first proposed by prosecutors, the debate is not about prosecution, but rather about the adequacy of a system to defend the constitutional liberties of the poor and thus, by extension, all of us. Prosecutors simply have no expertise to bring to the design of that system.

The hearing should consider:

Cost: Eliminating all bar advocates will cost, not save, money. With constitutionally acceptable caseloads, public defenders are more expensive than bar advocates. CPCS documented this in excruciating detail in its March 2010 “50/50 Report,” showing that the true cost of public defenders, with benefits and fringes as state employees, exceeds that of bar advocates.

The claim that this new agency will “ensure fixed costs over the state’s public defense spending” is flat wrong. The explosive rise in the cost of state employees is primarily because of fringe benefits such as health care and pensions, which the state does not provide to bar advocates. The Office of the Comptroller has calculated that the fringe benefit rate for state employees rose 6.7 percent in the past year alone.

The 50/50 Report estimated it would require 746 more lawyers just to handle half of all trial level cases in the District Court in which counsel is required. By extension, it would take 1,492 new lawyers to handle all appointed cases in District Court at the trial level, so how will 1,000 new lawyers handle all the cases, trial and appeal, in all the courts — District, Juvenile, Superior and appellate — in which counsel is required?

The answer is by taking crushing and unconstitutionally high caseloads, which will produce (1) lengthier delays in trials, which raise pre-trial incarceration costs; (2) class action lawsuits (as in Connecticut and Rhode Island), with huge litigation costs, and possibly a federal takeover of the system, all funded by Massachusetts taxpayers; (3) a massive expansion of ineffective assistance claims that will have to be pursued by bar advocates because staff lawyers employed by the governor’s new agency will not be permitted to pursue ineffective assistance claims against themselves; and (4) a greater risk of wrongful convictions, causing additional civil judgments.

The U.S. Department of Justice reported in September 2010 that Massachusetts was one of only four states whose public defender system’s caseloads met the standards of its National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice. Why don’t we want to meet the department’s standards?

Quality: No one, outside of the governor and prosecutors, has ever criticized CPCS for fiscal irresponsibility, cronyism or systemic incompetence. Massachusetts’ indigent defense program is recognized by outside observers as a model system.

Dean Norman Lefstein, who served for nine years as chair of the American Bar Association’s Indigent Defense Advisory Group, which oversees the association’s nationwide efforts to strengthen legal services for the poor in criminal cases, describes CPCS as “the best statewide indigent defense program in the country.”

Legality: The proposal to move the agency charged with administering an indigent criminal defense system into the executive branch creates an inherent conflict of interest. The chief executive should not dictate the structure of a legal defense organization. The executive branch enforces the laws. A defender organization defends against the accusations of those charged with enforcing the laws. It is for this reason that the governor’s plan would violate the first of the ABA’s 10 Principles of an Effective Public Defender System: “that the counsel-providing agency be independent.”

Justice: Finally, the proposal will severely weaken constitutional liberties of the poorest and most vulnerable members of our society and, by extension, everyone else. Why would the governor dismantle a model agency that provides a crucial constitutionally mandated protection for our most vulnerable? How many government agencies resist a five-fold increase in staff? Doesn’t that suggest something about CPCS’s priorities?

In 2005, the “Rogers Commission” of legislators and attorneys studied the state’s indigent defense funding and recommended decriminalizing six minor, non-violent misdemeanors and activating a permanent commission to review the categorization of misdemeanors, avoiding unnecessary criminalization and its attendant cost of appointed counsel. Three of these offenses are still crimes and no such commission exists. It recommended pilot programs to expand CPCS representation in district courts, which were just fully funded last year. And it recommended improved verification of indigence, which has been implemented but not yet assessed.
These reforms don’t grab headlines like wholesale agency takeovers. But maybe careful and thoughtful improvement of a well-functioning system is preferable to throwing it away, especially when it benefits us all.

David M. Siegel is a professor at New England Law|Boston. He serves on the board of directors of Suffolk Lawyers for Justice, Inc., but does not take bar advocate appointments.
Complete URL: http://masslawyersweekly.com/2011/02/10/patrick%e2%80%99s-radical-attack-on-cpcs-a-fast-track-to-disaster/

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Center for Public Health and Tobacco Policy – Assistant Director

The Center for Public Health and Tobacco Policy (Center) at New England Law | Boston’s Center for Law and Social Responsibility is seeking a full-time Assistant Director. The Center works with the New York State Department of Health and communities around New York to develop policies to reduce the availability of tobacco products, protect non-smokers from secondhand smoke, and decrease tobacco-related morbidity and mortality in New York. The Center conducts legal research and provides technical assistance to government officials and public health advocates; it does not conduct litigation or otherwise represent clients.

General Responsibilities: The Assistant Director will work closely with and report to the Center’s Director to develop the Center’s agenda and implement the Center’s legal research projects. The Assistant Director will supervise the Center’s student law clerks and student volunteers.

Legal Oversight & Programmatic Role: The Assistant Director is responsible for the oversight, management and implementation of the substantive legal and policy work of the Center. The Assistant Director has primary responsibility for the following projects:
  • Assessing the tobacco policy needs of the New York tobacco control community and developing research projects in response to identified needs;
  • Supervising the production of all legal content produced by the Center, including website content, newsletters, model policies, fact sheets, legal memoranda, case law reviews, and technical reports;
  • Proactively communicating with New York’s tobacco control community to offer technical assistance (through webcasts, conference calls, e-mails, and other avenues of communication);
  • Responding in a timely matter to technical assistance requests; and
  • Developing content for the Center’s seminars and other programming.

External Relations: The Assistant Director will become a recognized advocate for tobacco prevention and cessation by presenting seminars to the New York tobacco control community, engaging with the Tobacco Control Legal Consortium and other national tobacco control advocates, and, where appropriate, speaking to other external audiences.

Qualifications:
  • J.D. degree. (bar passage from any state acceptable).
  • Minimum three years as practicing attorney (five years or more preferred).
  • Prior experience with public policy development and/or policy advocacy required.
  • Background or experience with tobacco and other public health legal/policy issues required.
  • Prior experience in the supervision of students and volunteers preferred.

Salary and Benefits: Competitive salary commensurate with experience, in addition to an excellent benefits package.

Interested applicants should e-mail a cover letter detailing interest in the position, resume, writing sample and references to the attention of Nancy Scicchitani, Director of Human Resources at resume@nesl.edu.

For more information: http://www.nesl.edu/info/hr.cfm

Center for Public Health and Tobacco Policy – Staff Attorney

The Center for Public Health and Tobacco Policy (Center) at New England Law | Boston’s Center for Law and Social Responsibility is seeking a full-time Staff Attorney. The Center works with the New York State Department of Health and communities around New York to develop policies to reduce the availability of tobacco products, protect non-smokers from secondhand smoke, and decrease tobacco-related morbidity and mortality in New York. The Center conducts legal research and provides technical assistance to government officials and public health advocates; it does not conduct litigation or otherwise represent clients.

General Responsibilities: The Staff Attorney position includes both legal and administrative duties. The Staff Attorney will work closely with both the Director and Assistant Director to help conduct the Center’s substantive research projects. Duties will include drafting model legislation, researching and writing policy reports, reviewing and editing work by student law clerks, and preforming legal research in response to technical assistance requests. The Staff Attorney will also serve as the initial point of contact between the public and the Center and will assist with the Center’s day-to-day activities by, for example, editing and formatting the Center’s publications, maintaining a detailed records of expenditures, updating the interactive website, planning events, and managing the Center’s office. The Staff Attorney reports to the Director.

Qualifications:
  • J.D. Degree (bar passage from any state acceptable)
  • Two years of legal or policy experience preferred
  • Law Review experience preferred
  • Previous administrative experience preferred
Salary and Benefits: Competitive salary commensurate with experience, in addition to an excellent benefits package.

Interested applicants should e-mail a cover letter, resume, writing sample, and J.D. course transcript to the attention of Nancy Scicchitani, Director of Human Resources at resume@nesl.edu

For additional information: http://www.nesl.edu/info/hr.cfm

Professor Berman Seeks a Research Assistant

Professor Berman seeks a research assistant to work 10 hours per week. Send resume and cover letter highlighting your interest and qualifications to Professor Berman at mberman@nesl.edu by Friday, Feb. 11.