BLS Library Blog

Earlier this month, New York State Court of Appeals Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman issued an Order making New York the first state to require would-be lawyers to perform free legal work as a prerequisite for admission to the bar. Any law student planning on practicing in New York State will be required to perform a minimum of 50 hours of pro bono work prior to filing an application for admission with the appropriate Appellate Division department of the Supreme Court. When the pro bono requirement was first announced in May, legal professionals thought that it would put an unfair burden on law school graduates with large student loan debt. Others were concerned that new attorneys might not be up to the challenges presented to them with so little experience. Regardless of these and all other opinions, the Order will cover students entering law schools as of January 1st, 2013. The rule applies to those admitted to the NY bar on or after Jan. 1, 2015, meaning students currently in their third year of law school will be exempt.

The pro bono work can be contributed to civil rights organizations, nonprofits, those who cannot afford personal legal services or any branch of the U.S. government. They can put in the hours at any point between completing their first year of school and when they apply for their New York State license. And as long as the law student is supervised by a judge, a faculty member or a currently practicing lawyer, they can perform the pro bono in any state or territory of the United States, the District of Columbia, or any foreign country. The Report of the Advisory Committee on New York State Pro Bono Bar Admission Requirements stated that the Committee consulted with deans and representatives of the 15 New York State law schools to understand the clinical and other programs that are available in law schools, the resources available to assist students in complying with this proposed rule, their experience in administering pro bono projects and their concerns about foreign-educated students in LL.M. programs. In addition the November 2011 Report of the Task Force to Expand Access to Civil Legal Services in New York found that “63 percent of New Yorkers are unrepresented at statutorily required settlement conferences in foreclosure cases, and 90 percent of the reports from civil legal services providers in New York documented that they had to turn away the same number or even more potential clients than they did just one year ago.”

The Brooklyn Law School Library has in its collection Private Lawyers and the Public Interest: The Evolving Role of Pro Bono in the Legal Profession (Call #KF299.P8 P745 2009). The book is a collection of essays by scholars examining the history, conditions, organization, and strategies of pro bono lawyering tracing the American Bar Association’s campaign to hold lawyers accountable for a commitment to public service and to encourage public service within law schools. The essays investigate the evolving role of pro bono in the legal profession and in law schools.

Library Director and Associate Professor of Law Janet Sinder will hold a workshop on “Bluebooking with Success” for first year students on Thursday, October 25, 2012 from 4:00pm to 4:50pm in Room 503.  This event is part of the Library’s annual workshop series on research topics geared to first year students, but all students are welcome to attend.  This presentation will be repeated on Monday, October 29, 2012 from 4:00pm to 4:50pm in Room 601.   We were able to obtain large classrooms for these presentations and it is not necessary to register in advance.  Professor Sinder loves The Bluebook and is an expert on its use so we hope to see you there.

One of my favorite sources of legal news and analysis is the Law360 web site.  Also, BLS students, faculty and administrators can sign up to receive daily (Monday-Friday) Law360 e-mail alerts about developments in topic areas of interest.  These topics include: Appellate Law, Competition, Intellectual Property, International Trade and Technology.  On September 25, Law360 will launch a new “wire” topic: Corporate Law360.  According to a Sept. 14, 2012 Law360 update, Corporate Law 360 will cover “developments in Delaware corporate law;  compliance issues at the state and federal level, including securities, employment, and environmental regulation; shareholder rights and other  corporate governance matters; executive compensation; consumer  protection and privacy rights; directors and officers liability and  other corporate insurance issues; creditor and debtor rights issues in  Chapter 11 cases; high-stakes litigation; personnel moves; and pertinent legal industry trends.”  Corporate Law360 will be included in our BLS subscription.  One change: Corporate Law360 will replace the existing Top News category.

A recent Jurist article Despite Claims, ICC Prosecution of Bush, Blair Would Be Illegal by Jesse Oppenheim, Brooklyn Law School Class of 2013, questions whether the International Criminal Court (ICC) has to file war crimes charges against former US President George W. Bush and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair for invading Iraq. The article comes in response to Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s suggestion that the two former leaders “should be treading the same path as some of their African and Asian peers who have been made to answer for their actions in The Hague.” The ICC hears cases on genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. It was established ten year ago in 2002 when the Rome Statute became a binding treaty with sixty signatories including the United States, the minimum number required to bring it into force. Since then, three states—Israel, Sudan and the United States—have informed the UN Secretary General that they no longer intend to become states parties and have no legal obligations arising from signing the Statute.

The article by Oppenheim, the Notes and Comments Editor of the Brooklyn Journal of International Law, points out the jurisdictional limitations of the ICC. Article 13 of the Rome Statute provides that only State Parties are subject to the ICC. Since the US has not ratified the Rome Statute and it is unlikely that the UN Security Council will refer the case to the ICC, former American officials will remain beyond the jurisdiction of the ICC. The BLS Library also has in its collection Hybrid and Internationalised Criminal Tribunals: Selected Jurisdictional Issues by Sarah Williams (Call #KZ7240 .W55 2012). For more on the pros and cons of whether the US should the US and other countries should join the ICC, see this Debatepedia webpage.

A NY Times article, Judge Rules Against Law on Indefinite Detention, reports on the Order and Opinion in Hedges v. Obama, where US Court Judge Katherine Forrest of the Southern District of New York permanently blocked enforcement of § 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2012. Plaintiffs claimed that the provision could subject them to indefinite military detention for news reporting and political activism. The definitional language in § 1021(b)(1) of the statute defines “covered person” as any person “who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored those responsible for those attacks.” The next definitional, § 1021(b)(2), expands the definition to a “person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.” The complaint filed in January charged that this section of the law allows for detention of citizens and permanent residents on “suspicion of providing substantial support” to people engaged in hostilities against the US, such as al-Qaeda, and that the phrases “associated forces,” “substantially supported,” and “directly supported” are vague and authorize detention based on speech and associations protected by the First Amendment.

The latest Order makes permanent a May Order for a preliminary injunction after a March hearing where plaintiffs Hedges, O’Brien, Wargalla and Jonsdottir testified. The Government argument that the Court should not permanently enjoin § 1021(b)(2) on the basis that plaintiffs lack standing, but Judge Forrest ruled for the plaintiffs, writing at page 8 of the latest opinion that “plaintiffs testified credibly to their specific past activities and concerns. At that hearing, the Court repeatedly asked the Government whether those particular past activities could subject plaintiffs to indefinite military detention; the Government refused to answer.” The Court also addressed the Government’s central challenge to plaintiffs’ standing that their fears of detention cannot be reasonable since § 1021(b)(2) is simply a reaffirmation of the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). The judge wrote at page 33 of the opinion “Repeatedly throughout this litigation, the Government has argued that the AUMF is coextensive with § 1021(b)(2). The Court preliminarily rejected that position in its May 16 Opinion, and does so again now.”

At page 101, the opinion says “To the extent that § 1021(b)(2) purports to confer authority to detain American citizens for activities occurring purely on American soil, it necessarily becomes akin to a criminal statute, and therefore susceptible to a vagueness analysis. Constitutional guarantees require that criminal statutes carry an array of due process protections. If it did not, then § 1021 must be interpreted as follows: Congress has declared that the U.S. is involved in a war on terror that reaches into territorial boundaries of the United States, the President is authorized to use all necessary force against anyone he deems involved in activities supporting enemy combatants, and therefore criminal laws and due process are suspended for any acts falling within the broad purview of what might constitute ‘substantially’ or ‘directly supporting terrorist organizations. If this is what Congress in fact intended by § 1021(b)(2), no doubt it goes too far.”

For further reading on the subject, see The National Defense Authorization Act for FY2012: Detainee Matters in the Brooklyn Law School Library catalog. Content includes Background — Scope of detention authority conferred by the AUMF — 2012 NDAA : summary and analysis of detainee provisions. Detention authority –General counterterrorism matters.