Fellowship Season

It is fellowship season. Checkout the convenient fellowship calendar at pslawnet.org to find our where and when to apply. Some fellowships are simply jobs with a set term (1 year or 2 year), but others require you to develop a project and find a host organization in addition to finding a source of money.

Two of the largest funders of the latter type of fellowship are Equal Justice Works and Skaden Arps. Sometimes host organizations go out looking for people who want to apply for fellowships. These searching hosts can usually make a fast fellowship application possible (without a searching organization it takes months to develop a project find an organization and put together an application).

PSLawNet.org has many nationwide searching organizations in their database (signup for a free account to search), and there are some right her in the Pacific Northwest. One of these is the Northwest Workers' Justice Project (NWJP):

NWJP SEEKS FELLOWSHIP APPLICANTS

The Northwest Workers' Justice Project (NWJP) is seeking to sponsor fellowship candidates for Equal Justice Works and/or Skadden Arps fellowship programs. See www.equaljusticeworks.org/ or www.skaddenfellowships.org/. NWJP staff will help the successful applicant design a project for the proposal and act as the sponsor. Please submit resume and letter of interest to D. Michael Dale,michael@nwjp.org as soon as possible (final applications for the fellowships are due September 17 and October 5).

At NWJP we believe that all workers share the fundamental human right to live and labor with dignity, safety, and hope. Whether harvesting the food on our tables, cleaning our offices, houses, and hotel rooms, or constructing and landscaping the buildings in our communities, all workers deserve freedom from fear in the workplace, the assurance of payment for their labor, a wage that is enough to meet their basic needs, and the right to bargain collectively a wage and working conditions – in short, fair and lawful working conditions. People who work hard ought to have enough time to spend with their families and be able to participate in civic life, to contribute to making their community a better place to live.

Founded in 2003, NWJP uses advocacy, education, organizing, and direct legal services to protect workers’ right to organize, defend and strengthen the rights of contingent¹ and immigrant workers, and challenge the negative effects of international trade on low wage workers. Over 95% of the workers that NWJP supports are people of color and immigrants from Mexico and Central America who speak little or no English. They work in diverse industries, including agriculture, construction, manufacturing, child care, janitorial, automotive services, food service, landscaping, and food processing. At work, they face employers’ wage and hour violations, retaliatory acts for organizing, illegal and unsafe working conditions, and race and sex discrimination (including severe sexual harassment). While our primary focus is on improving the wages, working conditions, and legal protections for low wage workers in the Pacific Northwest, we engage in national and even international strategies where necessary and appropriate. A key part of our strategy for social change begins with the understanding that the problems facing low wage workers today are global.

Everybody does it, even the judges, so why don't you?

Last week in an article on the Law.com Legal Blog Watch Blog, they reported on a number of judges with LinkedIn profiles, including five US Circuit Court Judges. Like it or not, between Facebook and LinkedIn more and more social and professional interaction is taking place online, so why not just dive in, talk to people, and share your life online?

Well, as an earlier article on the Legal Blog Watch Blog shows, even the best of us, judges included, can get carried away with the social networking. There are, of course, the issues of sharing too many of your youthful indiscretions too freely. (I am personally thankful that, even though photos of me--both strangely messianic and less flattering--are freely available online, I came of age in the era before ubiquitous camera phones and Facebook; otherwise I might regret some of my wilder days, or that toga party when I was in law school...) But beyond unseemly photos of your last kegger, there are more complex social networking considerations for lawyers and law students.

The judge who got reprimanded for using Facebook fell into the trap of commenting without enough thought. You see the Judge's Facebook Friend was an attorney who had an active case in front of the judge, and Facebook comments can be ex parte communications; hence, a trial no-no and a reprimand. The judge did some other mis-deeds like Google a litigant and read the litigant's online poetry into the record, but this story is about caution in social networking...

So you might do well to network in the electronic world possibly even finding a judge to be your friend, but you should not leave your reason and ethical considerations at the keyboard.

Helping clear up some of the fuzzy details of OSCAR

OSCAR the online application for federal clerkships can be a bit of a bear to deal with, and there are many aspects are not well documented. To help you out on your journey through OSCAR, I prepared a step by step (with pictures and little red circles with shadows) Guide to Starting Applications and Adding Recommenders in OSCAR.

The Guide tries to clear up the process and, along the way, answer a couple common questions from this year:

1. When are recommenders notified? Notification happens only after you have BOTH added recommenders to the My Recommendations tab and created a draft application with the recommender attached.
2. I think I am done, is there anything else I have to do? Possibly, make sure to Finalize your applications. If your application is in all other respects complete but you have not Finalized it, it will NOT be released to judges.

Adding recommenders, attaching them to applications, and finalizing applications are all covered in the guide.

As an added bonus, here is a template excel file that you should use to supply lists of your judges to your faculty recommenders and/or their faculty assistants.

Sometimes someone else sums up your feelings completely

Feeling bad about not blogging.

Hopefully very few of you have been feeling this way during the first week of classes.

Welcome back returning students and hello new students!

Perspective on Seventy Cents

Seventy Cents an hour, or about $1,400 a year for full-time workers is what today's minimum wage increase means. In Oregon, though, it will not mean any change because the state minimum wage is already $8.50 per hour, that is $1.25 more than the new national minimum wage of $7.25.

What does $7.25 per hour mean for the working poor? First it means that, in states where the federal minimum wage applies, a single parent of one who works a full-time minimum wage job will make just slightly more than the federal poverty guideline for a two person family. But beating the poverty level (just $14,570 annually for a family of 2 in 2009) is far from a comfortable or secure life.

The State of Oregon Housing and Community Services attempts to make a more realistic estimate of what constitutes poverty in each of Oregon's County and reports the results in an annual report. According to the most recent, January 2009, report that single parent with one child living in Multnomah County would require $35,556 per year to afford a basic family budget. In order to create that income, the single parent working full time would have to earn $17.09 per hour. More than twice Oregon's minimum wage, and nearly ten dollars an hour more than the new national minimum wage. It would take $41,316 for two parents with one child to afford a basic budget in Multnomah County, equivalent to $9.93 per hour with both parents working full-time jobs; still well in excess of Oregon's and the nation's minimum wages.

Surely the 24 hour news channels and the Sunday TV Politics and Press shows of the chattering class will be full of people alternately calling the minimum wage increase salvation for the poor and the death knell for our economy, but neither of those things loudly proclaimed straight from the gut of their speakers will prove to be true. When talking about those who live at the edges of poverty, it is easy to react from the gut, but a little perspective can provide more meaning.

Even with the 70 cent increase in the minimum wage, it is still possible to work hard, to work full-time in American and not make ends meet. It is possible for a woman to work full time and come home to wonder how she will find enough money to pay a lawyer to get a restraining order to help keep herself and her child safe from an abusive relationship she just escaped. It is possible for man to work full time and wonder where the money will come from to pay a lawyer to help get back what was lost when a shady mechanic took advantage of him. It is possible for a couple, both working full time to find themselves staring at a retaliatory eviction notice without money for a lawyer to fight and afraid that they and their kids will be kicked out into the street.

These are some of the people served by public interest attorneys. To leave you with a little more perspective: some of these public interest attorneys do not even make enough to afford the state of Oregon's budget for a single parent in Multnomah County. See the national distribution of attorney salaries for the class of 2008.

Returning to Plan A

Sometimes when the job market is tough, it can be important to embrace your ideals and return to the reasons you came to law school to guide your search for work.

Law school entrance essays across the country are filled with people expressing their mission to fight for civil and human rights, help the downtrodden, and contribute to the increase of human development around the world. By law school graduation time, many have shed that mission, citing finances or a lack of opportunity in the place they want to stay. Nationally this means that, for the class of 2008, only 5.4% of law graduates took public interest positions with an additional 11.8% working for the government in public service positions. Lewis & Clark does better with our 2008 class sending 11% to public interest careers and 17% to government work, but there are still many who have a change in direction while they are students.

For those concerned with money, it is worth looking into the new loan repayment programs for federal school loans that allow graduates to pay only 15% of discretionary income and have their loans canceled after 10 years if they work public service positions (non-profits and government).

For those looking for positions in a certain local, it can pay off to go all in and let the world be the place that you consider. Jobs with places like the Peace Corps, USAID, and the Department of State fit those Plan A ideals of many entering law students, but relatively few take these jobs after graduating. This is the time to return to ideals and seriously consider these careers.

The Peace Corps offers the chance to have hands on involvement in developing countries with a commitment of a little over two years. When you return, you will have had an extraordinary experience and fantastic material for your resume whether you seek to continue in the direction of international social development, take a legal services job, or head into the private sector. If the three mission goals of the Peace Corps--

1. Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
2. Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
3. Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

appeal to you then check out the Peace Corps. There will be presentations on the Peace Corps in Portland on August 26, 2009 and September 16, 2009.

USAID works to provide a better future for everyone in the world by

• Supporting Agriculture & the Environment
• Expanding Education & Training
• Fostering Democracy & Governance
• Advancing Global Health
• Promoting Economic Growth & Trade
• Cultivating Global Partnerships
• Providing humanitarian assistance

Graduates start in Foreign Service positions through the Junior Officer Program. Applicants respond to postings for specific subject areas relating to USAID's mission. A listing of current openings is available. Junior Officers receive training including language training in DC before they go abroad for additional training. For those seeking careers in international humanitarian work, USAID can be a great start.

Foreign Service Careers through the Department of State allow you not only to represent the United States Government abroad, but they also let you escape the job search. If you have ever wished there was just a test that would result in an appropriate job at the end if you pass, then you will appreciate the application process for becoming a Foreign Service Officer through the Department of State. The process starts with the Foreign Service Officer Test, and continues on with an Oral Assessment. Foreign Service Officers work throughout the world in Management, Consular, Political, Economic, and Public Diplomacy Positions. The next written test dates are October 3 through 10, 2009 nationwide including Portland, Eugene, Salem, and Medford.

Volunteers needed to serve on the Portland Police Citizen Review Committee

The Portland police are looking for people to serve on the Citizen Review Committee. The work involves looking into complaints about the police and reviewing police bureau policies. You must be a Portland resident or business owner and you must commit to a two-year term with 5-7 hour a week of committee work. Applications are due July 20. Full details and application.