PARTNERS FOR PUBLIC SERVICE at Quinnipiac University School Of Law

Cindy Slane
Assistant Clinical Professor of Law & Director of Field Placement Programs

The Context: Clinics, Externships, and Public Interest Lawyering at Quinnipiac

The clinical curriculum at Quinnipiac University School of Law includes fifteen clinic and externship courses that provide students with instruction in the skills and values they will need to be professionally competent, ethical, and socially responsible lawyers. Every Quinnipiac student has the opportunity to participate in at least one clinic or externship prior to graduation.

Many of Quinnipiac’s clinical programs allow students to work with lawyers in traditional public interest practice settings: in in-house Civil, Health Law, and Tax Clinics, which serve low-income people in surrounding communities, and in externships in legal services organizations, public defenders’ offices, government agencies, and not-for-profit advocacy organizations throughout the state and beyond. Until recently, though, one important practice setting was off-limits to Quinnipiac students, notwithstanding the ofttimes significant public interest contributions made by lawyers in that setting. Under rules enacted long before the ABA Accreditation Standards changed to require careful oversight of programs awarding credit for study away from the Law School, Quinnipiac students could not earn law school credit for externships in private law firms.

The Rule Banning Private Firm Externship Placement: Its Origin and Impact

Without question, there were good reasons for Quinnipiac’s “no private firm placement” policy when it was enacted. Chief among them was the concern that private attorneys who could secure student assistance at no cost through an externship program would decline to offer paying, part-time jobs to student law clerks. Externships, the faculty reasoned, should not deprive students of opportunities to “earn while learning.” The blanket prohibition made sense, too, because when the faculty last had visited this issue, our externship programs were loosely organized at best. The combination of private firm placement and minimal law school oversight carried with it two significant risks: 1) that supervising attorneys would enrich themselves with student labor, billing clients for student time spent on fee-generating matters; and 2) that supervising attorneys, under pressure to meet billable-hour quotas, would be disinclined to commit adequate time to “non-billable” student supervision.

Although the concerns that gave rise to the policy were sound at one time, they were less worrisome after the 1994 restructuring of Quinnipiac’s externship programs. That restructuring had provided safeguards (e.g., site visits, seminar meetings, and semester planning and journal requirements) that could effectively insure against the moral hazards that made private firm placement risky under the old model. Even so, our “just say no” policy remained firm. As a consequence, externship students were unnecessarily denied exposure to a very important practice setting - ironically, the very practice setting in which they were most likely to find employment after graduation - and to an invaluable opportunity to learn how busy lawyers integrate public interest lawyering into the private practice of law.

The Winds of Change

In the summer of 1999, at the prompting of third-year law student Catherine Creager (who hoped to secure an externship with a private law firm that provided pro bono representation to low-income artists and actors) and United States Magistrate Judge Holly Fitzsimmons (who hoped that the prospect of law student assistance would make lawyers more receptive to court appointments in prisoners’ rights cases), I agreed that it was time to take steps to dismantle our institutional barrier to private firm placement.

Ms. Creager set to work, researching programs in place at other law schools and identifying potential players for our first effort to forge a partnership between our externship program and the private bar. In February 2000, Ms. Creager, Magistrate Judge Fitzsimmons, my clinical colleague Carolyn Kaas, and I convened a focus group of distinguished legal professionals representing private and public organizations. We charged the group with assisting us in designing an externship program that would pair law students with lawyers in private practice to increase legal representation for low- and moderate-income individuals and public interest entities. All present offered encouragement and helpful advice. Many indicated strong interest in participating in the program, which we christened “Partners for Public Service,” or “PPS.”

The Partners for Public Service Proposal

In March 2000, Ms. Creager presented to the faculty the fruits of our collective labors: a proposal for a change in law school policy to permit some students enrolled in Quinnipiac’s externship programs to work with private attorneys for credit. Happily (although not before almost an hour of robust debate centering on the concerns that animated the “no private firm placement” policy - debate which convinced Ms. Creager that ten months of hard work was about to go down in flames), the faculty voted decisively in favor of the proposal.

The two-year pilot program we envisioned, Partners for Public Service, is now in its second year of operation.

The PPS Program: Nuts & Bolts

Partners for Public Service offers students enrolled in four of Quinnipiac’s externship programs (Corporate Counsel, Criminal Justice, Family & Juvenile Law, and Public Interest) placements in private law firms that provide pro bono, statutory-fee, or reduced-fee legal services to low- to moderate-income clients referred by courts and established legal services organizations, and/or pro bono or significantly reduced-fee representation to public and private, not-for-profit organizations dedicated to serving the public good.

The externship faculty has proceeded very cautiously in developing PPS placements, relying on recommendations from trusted lawyers and judges who have had extensive contact with prospective attorney-mentors. Our first PPS students have worked for the outside general counsel to the New Haven Housing Authority, for a small firm that represents consumers, for a solo practitioner (and former Legal Aid lawyer) who accepts a significant number of pro bono housing and disability cases from Connecticut’s Statewide Legal Services, and for a number of private law firms and solo practitioners that accept court appointments and/or Statewide Legal Services referrals in family and juvenile matters.

Four types of clients receive legal representation through the Partners for Public Service program: 1) income-eligible individuals who, for various reasons, cannot obtain representation through established legal services or public defender organizations; 2) income-eligible individuals for whom state or federal courts appoint counsel in pending civil matters; 3) individuals who exceed the income tests for established legal service organizations, but cannot afford to pay market rates for legal representation; and 4) public or private, not-for-profit agencies and organizations dedicated to serving the public good.

Other program policies are relatively straightforward.

Students apply for all PPS externships through established procedures, but indicate a preference for Partners for Public Service placement when registering for the externship semester. All course prerequisites/co-requisites apply.

PPS students may work only on “eligible” matters during the externship semester, although they may observe lawyers performing other work (taking depositions, presenting oral arguments, etc.) if doing so helps them prepare for work they will do for eligible clients.

Participating lawyers may not bill student time to clients or the state, though we are seeking the bar association ethics committee’s blessing for a plan by which lawyers, ex ante, would assign fees attributable to student work on fee shifting cases to a Partners for Public Service Fellowship fund at the School of Law. Assuming that a contingent assignment of an hourly rate for student time does not violate ethics rules prohibiting fee splitting with non-lawyers (and my own research has convinced me that we will survive ethics scrutiny on that point), our plan is to use those monies to provide stipends for law students who accept unpaid summer positions in public interest organizations. In that way, student work on behalf of low-income clients in fee shifting cases would become the classic gift that keeps on giving.

The Initial Assessment: How Are We Doing?

The overall goals of Quinnipiac’s Partners for Public Service program are fivefold:

1. to instill in students a commitment to public service and pro bono activity for the benefit of under-served communities;
2. to encourage lawyers in private practice to increase their commitment to public service and pro bono activity for the benefit of under-served communities;
3. to create opportunities for students to earn credit for work with private firms, and for lawyers in private firms to become more familiar with the School of Law and its students;
4. to develop a model program for a public interest lawyering partnership between lawyers and law students which can be replicated by other law schools; and
5. in doing so, to make needed legal services more available to low- and moderate-income individuals, and to public and private, not-for-profit entities dedicated to the public good.

Because PPS has been in operation for only a short time and has placed only fifteen students, we cannot evaluate reliably its success in meeting these goals. However, based on the evidence available to date, we are optimistic.

To be sure, not every at-bat has produced a home run, although the problems we have encountered are not unique to externship placements in private law firms. One PPS lawyer, though well-intentioned, was too busy to provide the supervision his student-intern needed, leaving her to scavenge assistance from other lawyers in the office. One PPS student, though capable and motivated, seemed “stuck” on a fairly straightforward project despite her supervisor’s Herculean attempt to offer direction and feedback.

In the main, though, participating lawyers have been enthusiastic about the program, taking readily to their mentoring roles. Participating students have been equally engaged, often continuing to work at their PPS placements (and for their PPS clients) long after all requisite externship hours have been logged. One student, for example, became involved through her externship in a community project that outlasted her clinical semester by several months, organizing a contingent of Quinnipiac law students and faculty members to clean and refurbish a donated building that now serves as a day care center for infants and toddlers in a New Haven housing project. Another returned to his placement after the semester ended, volunteering his time to conclude a housing matter on behalf of a pro bono client. Not a few (like their classmates in in-house clinics and more traditional externship placements) have assessed their externships as the “best thing” they have done in law school.

Most importantly, by working side by side with lawyers in private practice who have arranged their professional lives to include significant commitments to public interest lawyering, students begin to understand that private practice is not incompatible with public service. In journal entries and class discussion, they reveal their growing belief that they, too, will be able to cover rent and car payments and repay student loans and still honor the highest pro bono publico ideals of our profession.

We hope to gather empirical evidence to support these anecdotal reports. In the meantime, though, we are forging ahead, confident that the data will confirm what many of us already believe: commitment to public interest lawyering is contagious, and the earlier we expose law students to known carriers, the better.