January 10, 2012

Present:    Jean Lastine (co-chair), Pat Burns, Gary Hird, Michael Friedman, Andrea Yang, Linda Forman, Anna Beadle, Cathy Haukedahl, Bridget Gernander, Karen Canon, Katie Trotzky, Jim Baillie, Pam Wandzel, Dianne Heins, Bricker Lavik, Sue Pontinen, Joe Dixon, Jay Quam, Jessica Mount, Andrew Gordon, Emily Good, Sarah Schwebs, M. Graciela Gonzalez
Telephone:     Peter Knapp, Sarah Brenes, Dwayne Huffman, Beverly Heydinger, Chris Wendt, Janine Laird

Introductions

Acceptance of November minutes

Program presentation: Children’s Law Center

• Work with volunteer lawyers to represent youth in foster care. Case load is increasing due to extended age in foster care and more court appointments. Expanding services beyond metro area. Looking particularly at Stearns and St. Louis counties. CLC has research available on issues effecting children’s rights.

Subcommittee Reports

• Emeritus (Pat Burns)
  • Assembly approved modified proposal that includes reduced CLE requirement for retired lawyers. CLE Board will meet and consider proposal in mid-January. If approved by CLE, MSBA staff will work with CLE staff to draft joint petition to Supreme Court. Staff will circulate draft along with initial Report & Recommendation to LAD members for review.
• Pro Bono Council (Steve Marchese)
  • Listing of award opportunities – compiling master list with timelines for each award.
• Corporate Counsel Outreach – US Bank and Mayo Clinic have adopted Pro Bono Standard. Looking at outreach to increase involvement of corporate counsel offices.
• Pro Bono Standard – 22 firms have signed up. Firms will be recognized in upcoming Bench & Bar.
• Developing mini-conference on pro bono best practices for law firms.
• Diversity (Andrea Yang)
  • LAD Law Student internship: with MJF, creating program to involve law students in LAD initiatives.
  • Page Education Foundation Mentoring Program: link college students of color with professionals in community organizations for mentoring relationships. Foundation fellows in turn mentor younger students. Need for more mentors, especially lawyers. Info at www.page-ed.org.
• Law School Initiative (Janine Laird)
  • Initiative to involve law students with MSBA sections in doing pro bono work. Currently working with five sections.
  • Law school funding for MJF: significant improvement this past year.
• MN-CABS (Jean Lastine)
  • Reviewing report for potential new projects and replication of existing projects.
  • Preparing report summary.
  • Identifying MSBA sections that could be involved in implementing report recommendations.
• Cy Pres (Sue Pontinen)
  • Researching cy pres rules in other states, including any local federal and bankruptcy rules.
  • Subcommittee agrees that rule should designate Legal Aid Foundation Fund to ensure wide distribution of any awards.
  • State court administration has just begun tracking state court class actions. So far, the number of cases is very small.
• IOLTA (Cathy Haukedahl)
  • Developing bank recognition campaign.
  • Researching efforts in other states.
  • Intent to have proposal for LAD to consider in March.

Updates

• MSBA Access to Justice Summit (Jean Lastine)
• Two initiatives: messaging and developing support for legal services from related organizations.
• Meeting yesterday with Grassroots Solutions for suggestions on developing grassroots campaign to support legal services.
• Pro Bono Counsel subcommittee met to consider ways to strengthen relationships with non-legal organizations that serve low income clients. Will be discussed at next meeting of Summit group.
• Next meeting: late February.
• CLE for Pro Bono rule amendment (Bridget Gernander)
• Discussion between LSAC and CLE Board on eligibility of social service organizations that have a legal component. CLE Board wants to limit designation to organizations that only serve low income people. LSAC believes focus should be on income screening for legal component only, so as not to exclude organizations that serve, for example, veterans. LSAC meeting to discuss this week.
• Funding & Legislative Strategy Update (Jean Lastine)
• LSC basic field funds are being cut 14.8% for current fiscal year. Loss of over $600,000 for Minnesota programs.
• Current state surplus hopefully means that there will be no additional cuts to legal services this session. Basic strategy is to just monitor developments. Updates via Twitter feed: MCLSfunding.

New Business

• Civil Gideon Task Force Report: http://tinyurl.com/7bjulxx (Steve Hirsh)
  • To be discussed at March LAD meeting.
• Becker Awards (Steve Hirsh)
  • Selection committee: Jean Lastine, Pam Wandzel, Katie Trotzky.
• Selection committee will make recommendation directly to MSBA Council.

Next meeting: March 6, 2012