Proud Member of The Moms Clean Air Force
Print This Post
May
26
Remains of the Day, 5-26-07
Filed Under Politics | 2 Comments
Early edition:
1. The Family Research Council doesn’t seem to understand the difference between rejecting discrimination on the basis of religion because a program uses federal funds and a sincere follow up question to Monica Goodling’s professing, through her attendance of Regent University’s law school, that the will of God must be brought to bear on the legal profession. From the FRC’s post:
This is part of the exchange according to transcripts:
COHEN: “The mission of the law school you attended, Regent, is to bring to bear upon legal education and the legal profession the will of almighty God, our creator. What is the will of almighty God, our creator, on the legal profession?”
GOODLING: “I’m not sure that I could define that question for you.”
Click here and fast forward to 2:43 minutes to view the exchange between Rep. Cohen and Ms. Goodling (with WPost reporter Dana Milbank giving commentary).
The post also references this commentary by Byron York.
2. A bone from me to the gun rights advocates. I’m in a generous mood.
3. The Daily Briefing informs us that an abortion rights compromise bill, similar to that being pursued in the U.S. Congress, is hitting Ohio. There was a lot of fanfare about this approach earlier this year. I like it, personally.
Have a great Saturday night.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 8:56 pm May 26th, 2007 in Politics | 2 Comments
Print This Post
May
26
Connie Schultz signs with Creators Syndicate
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
I’ve interviewed syndicate folks before – when I wrote this profile of syndicated cartoonist and Chagrin Falls resident, Jenny Campbell (her Wikipedia entry seems to have borrowed very generously from my original copy, good thing I really love Jenny). It is next to impossible to become syndicated by the biggies, and there are not a lot of biggies out there in the first place. So, being asked to join a syndicate? Something that happens to even fewer people.
That said, major congrats to Connie Schultz for getting a deal. From the Editor & Publisher piece:
Connie Schultz will bring her Pulitzer Prize-winning column to Creators Syndicate next month, while continuing to be distributed by Newhouse News Service.
“I’m not leaving Newhouse,” The Plain Dealer of Cleveland staffer told E&P this morning. “They own The Plain Dealer, and they’ll still circulate me on their list. Creators allows me to cast a much wider net.”
Schultz, whose first column for Creators will be her June 12 piece, said syndicate President Rick Newcombe called her in February and “made a convincing pitch.” That was soon after Schultz returned from an 11-month sabbatical she took to help with the ultimately successful U.S. Senate campaign of her husband, Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).
Her book, …and His Lovely Wife, comes out June 19.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 6:24 pm May 26th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
Print This Post
May
26
Remains of the Day, 5-26-07
Filed Under Politics | 2 Comments
Early edition:
1. The Family Research Council doesn’t seem to understand the difference between rejecting discrimination on the basis of religion because a program uses federal funds and a sincere follow up question to Monica Goodling’s professing, through her attendance of Regent University’s law school, that the will of God must be brought to bear on the legal profession. From the FRC’s post:
This is part of the exchange according to transcripts:
COHEN: “The mission of the law school you attended, Regent, is to bring to bear upon legal education and the legal profession the will of almighty God, our creator. What is the will of almighty God, our creator, on the legal profession?”
GOODLING: “I’m not sure that I could define that question for you.”
Click here and fast forward to 2:43 minutes to view the exchange between Rep. Cohen and Ms. Goodling (with WPost reporter Dana Milbank giving commentary).
The post also references this commentary by Byron York.
2. A bone from me to the gun rights advocates. I’m in a generous mood.
3. The Daily Briefing informs us that an abortion rights compromise bill, similar to that being pursued in the U.S. Congress, is hitting Ohio. There was a lot of fanfare about this approach earlier this year. I like it, personally.
Have a great Saturday night.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 4:56 pm May 26th, 2007 in Politics | 2 Comments
Print This Post
May
26
Dennis Kucinich on Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
From the Plain Dealer’s OPENERS.
We listen to about 15 mins of this show every Sunday when I’m driving my son to karate. We always hear the part when the guest is supposed to be able to answer really ridiculous multiple choice questions and win an answering machine message for a listener. They’ve had on some pretty fascinating folks, including Tony Snow just before he was diagnosed with the last bout of cancer.
Good luck, Dennis. And please, don’t cut and run like you did to Diane Rehm, huh, back in February.
Anyone taking bets on whether the hosts will mention the river burning?
By Jill Miller Zimon at 3:49 pm May 26th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
Print This Post
May
26
SB117: opposition testimony will be 5/30
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
The post on PO outlines 10 reasons to oppose the bill. The best approach, at this point, according to folks who are certain that some form of 117 will pass, might be to at least get amendments proffered and passed that reflect the reasons.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 3:47 pm May 26th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
Print This Post
May
26
Another distinguished voice voices reality: the news business isn’t dying, it’s changing
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
Thanks much to my pal Unique for forwarding this very good take (not that it’s new, though) on what’s happening in the newspaper industry. My favorite part:
What I think is occurring is that we news types are mourning our lost autonomy and power. We’re angry that, like everyone else, we’re subject to business and financial pressures. Editorial independence has subtly eroded. Decisions about what topics to cover (health, technology) are increasingly tailored to appeal to advertisers. Splintering media markets have weakened the economic base for newsgathering. In 2005 and 2006, Time magazine cut its news staff by 14 percent, says the Project for Excellence in Journalism; it reckons that NEWSWEEK’s staff is half its 1983 level (though Web hiring has offset some losses). Even if the Journal rebuffs Murdoch, it cannot escape these pressures. It has already put ads on section fronts.
The changes involve more than economics. When I started, print journalism required two basic skills: reporting and writing. Now, journalists are expected to be multimedia utility players, feeding Web sites, posting videos and doing TV. Up to a point, this is valuable: finding new ways to engage and inform. But it’s also time-consuming and detracts from reporting. Just what constitutes journalism is less clear. Hitwise, a survey firm, counts 8,001 news and media Web sites. The largest (Yahoo! News) has only 7 percent of the traffic. The skills that are rewarded are shifting from diligent, curious and clear, to tech-savvy, quick and edgy.
People come to realize the same thing via different paths and and paces. There’s no need to be snarky because of the circuitous route or the lagging acknowledgement. Unless it causes the death of something you love.
In the case of those who love news, realizing what Robert J. Samuelson says in the essay, sooner rather than later, would be a most excellent thing I would think.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 3:40 pm May 26th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
Print This Post
May
26
Connie Schultz signs with Creators Syndicate
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
I’ve interviewed syndicate folks before – when I wrote this profile of syndicated cartoonist and Chagrin Falls resident, Jenny Campbell (her Wikipedia entry seems to have borrowed very generously from my original copy, good thing I really love Jenny). It is next to impossible to become syndicated by the biggies, and there are not a lot of biggies out there in the first place. So, being asked to join a syndicate? Something that happens to even fewer people.
That said, major congrats to Connie Schultz for getting a deal. From the Editor & Publisher piece:
Connie Schultz will bring her Pulitzer Prize-winning column to Creators Syndicate next month, while continuing to be distributed by Newhouse News Service.
“I’m not leaving Newhouse,” The Plain Dealer of Cleveland staffer told E&P this morning. “They own The Plain Dealer, and they’ll still circulate me on their list. Creators allows me to cast a much wider net.”
Schultz, whose first column for Creators will be her June 12 piece, said syndicate President Rick Newcombe called her in February and “made a convincing pitch.” That was soon after Schultz returned from an 11-month sabbatical she took to help with the ultimately successful U.S. Senate campaign of her husband, Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).
Her book, …and His Lovely Wife, comes out June 19.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 2:24 pm May 26th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
Print This Post
May
26
Remains of the Day, 5-26-07
Filed Under Politics | 2 Comments
Early edition:
1. The Family Research Council doesn’t seem to understand the difference between rejecting discrimination on the basis of religion because a program uses federal funds and a sincere follow up question to Monica Goodling’s professing, through her attendance of Regent University’s law school, that the will of God must be brought to bear on the legal profession. From the FRC’s post:
This is part of the exchange according to transcripts:
COHEN: “The mission of the law school you attended, Regent, is to bring to bear upon legal education and the legal profession the will of almighty God, our creator. What is the will of almighty God, our creator, on the legal profession?”
GOODLING: “I’m not sure that I could define that question for you.”
Click here and fast forward to 2:43 minutes to view the exchange between Rep. Cohen and Ms. Goodling (with WPost reporter Dana Milbank giving commentary).
The post also references this commentary by Byron York.
2. A bone from me to the gun rights advocates. I’m in a generous mood.
3. The Daily Briefing informs us that an abortion rights compromise bill, similar to that being pursued in the U.S. Congress, is hitting Ohio. There was a lot of fanfare about this approach earlier this year. I like it, personally.
Have a great Saturday night.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:56 pm May 26th, 2007 in Politics | 2 Comments
Print This Post
May
26
Crying like John Boehner
Filed Under Politics | 2 Comments
I have tears in my eyes from reading the “About” page on Equal Justice Works.
So many folks in law, and outside of law, fail to understand let alone realize what it is to want to be a public interest lawyer. To want to represent the un-represented and under-represented. People outside the disciplines that make up the legal system read the sensational stories everyday and maybe have been or are parties in cases themselves. And they imagine either scruffy, aggressive underdogs or finely-suited dripping with big words tort or corporate lawyers.
But I’ve wanted to work in this field all my life, literally all my life, and the tears come from remembering the crusades – literal crusades – those of us in law school who believed in public interest law had to fight and follow to describe the desire to others, not to mention: find jobs that would keep us clothed.
Think I’m being dramatic? Read this. People do not get why anyone would turn down money, egads.
I remember going to Washington, DC for my first National Association for Public Interest Law conference (NAPIL is now the Equal Justice Center). I went with another law school student and former law school instructor, Paula Klausner. Paula had been a a nurse before going to law school (she’s married to professor Jonathan Gordon for those familiar with Case’s law school). And it appears as though she’s gone back to nursing as well.
When I’d been accepted to Case’s joint degree program in law and social work in early 1988, I visited Cleveland to check it out. Case set me up with Paula for a day. Obviously the experience stuck with me and I chose Case. But then, when I started school, I continued to follow this public interest law (not to be confused with public law, which has to do with municipal ordinances etc.) track. At the time, Paula and a few others were working with the school and the Biskind family to create a fellowship program for students who wanted to do summer work in public interest law and also to create a bona fide loan forgiveness program such as those that other law schools had created.
NB: The Skadden Fellowship, based at the NYC law firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meacher & Flom, is the most well-known and possibly oldest assistance program for law school grads who want to work in the public interest.
NB2: Mass. Senator Ted Kennedy is championing the Student Debt Relief Act which includes a loan forgiveness provision for college graduates who work in the public interest; so far, it’s only been introduced.
NB3: I knew about the Skadden initiative because I’d been working at the Yale Development Office for the years before I moved to Cleveland. Part of my job was to read 10-30 magazines a week and search for Yalies with money or positions we didn’t know about. The initiative was big news in those periodicals and got a lot of play partially in reaction to conservatives and Ronald Reagan’s attempts to eliminate all legal aid assistance for Americans.
NB4: One of the most memorable arguments I ever had with my father was over why oh why did I have to take the least paying public interest law work possible instead of pursuing the $5000/week NYC big law firm summer internships where you did nothing but schmooz (that was a big thing in the late 80s and 90s, when first year law school pay was out of control). I obviously won that argument.
NB5: I’ve mentioned this once or twice before, but the only race I’ve ever run was for Case law school’s student public interest law group. I didn’t need consolation for losing to Mike Benza (not Benz), even though we tied twice, and then he won by one vote, because he is a fantastic, life-long public interest law person too and had the edge of being in school with everyone on a consistent basis. A lot of folks didn’t know me because I was over at the social work school during their entire 1L year – a lot less bonding.
Just how fantastic is this guy? He was the law school’s teacher of the year this year. Congrats, Michael. So completely worthy, I’m sure. Very, very neat. Oops – I’m crying again. (And here’s just a bit more on him – ever get the feeling of how lucky you are to even say you know someone?)
An attorney and educator, Mike brings a broad knowledge of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. He teaches criminal procedure as an adjunct professor at the Case School of Law and practices privately in the areas of criminal law, death penalty defense, and habeas corpus litigation. Prior to his current roles, Mike served as a Biskind Fellow in South Africa, as an assistant public defender in the Capital Defense Unit of the Office of the Ohio Public Defender, and as an assistant counsel with the Cleveland Bar Association.
See see see? That public interest thing? Biskind thing?
Anyway, lucky for Case law students that he is an adjunct professor there now – death penalty is one of his classes, too, plus mock trial team advisor (I was only an alternate on the team when I was there and didn’t go too far with that).
But back to the story:
We succeeded (really, Paula, Mike and the Case law school administration) in getting the Saul S. Biskind Public Interest Law Fellowship established and it continues to fund students who work in public interest law. Funny note: when it started in 1990, the summer stipend was $400 max. Now, according to the website, it’s $3,500. Whoa.
With my joint degree in social work, I focused on children and families but had considered pursuing a job in women’s corrections after graduation. I ended up at Bellefaire JCB as its first (and only) ombudsman. During the grad school summers, I worked in numerous capacities at Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court (paid) but had considered work at legal aid offices in Toledo (ABLE), Philadelphia and San Francisco. Chicago was also well-known for public interest law opportunities with kids. By my second summer, I had to do a zillion field placements and during the summer between my third and fourth year, I worked for a couple of domestic relations attorneys downtown, mostly writing briefs (one which actually won the case for the client and has gone down in Ohio’s history with me on the page as Jill Zion – I’ve never bothered to go through the steps to correct that).
But throughout my time in grad school, I went to every career fair I could (which was only one or two a year at that time, but it’s where I first saw the Capital Steps) and I browsed the lame career placement office offerings on public interest law (contained in one simple three-ring binder in the library), desperately looking at the same few opportunities, the raw truth being, students with an interest in public interest law were nontraditional and had to make the opportunities happen. When the postcards started to go up for intern and job interviews, you rarely if ever saw one that had to do with public interest law, except for the very occasional public defender job. (Prosecutors haven’t been considered public interest, historically.)
That kind of pluck probably characterizes a lot of folks who go into public interest law. We’re looking to be plucky and pluck the system for people who otherwise can’t pluck for themselves. That’s always been attractive to me.
And so, to come full circle, when I saw that there is this fabulous, extensive website to help students and others interested in public interest law find an employment match, my eyes actually started to well up.
For every person who wants to argue with me til there face turns blue about legalizing gambling, regulating strip clubs, arming every man, woman and child, that’s how I will argue that if you want to do public interest law, don’t tell me you can’t afford it.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:29 pm May 26th, 2007 in Politics | 2 Comments
Print This Post
May
26
Dennis Kucinich on Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
From the Plain Dealer’s OPENERS.
We listen to about 15 mins of this show every Sunday when I’m driving my son to karate. We always hear the part when the guest is supposed to be able to answer really ridiculous multiple choice questions and win an answering machine message for a listener. They’ve had on some pretty fascinating folks, including Tony Snow just before he was diagnosed with the last bout of cancer.
Good luck, Dennis. And please, don’t cut and run like you did to Diane Rehm, huh, back in February.
Anyone taking bets on whether the hosts will mention the river burning?
By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:49 am May 26th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
Print This Post
May
26
SB117: opposition testimony will be 5/30
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
The post on PO outlines 10 reasons to oppose the bill. The best approach, at this point, according to folks who are certain that some form of 117 will pass, might be to at least get amendments proffered and passed that reflect the reasons.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:47 am May 26th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
Print This Post
May
26
Another distinguished voice voices reality: the news business isn’t dying, it’s changing
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
Thanks much to my pal Unique for forwarding this very good take (not that it’s new, though) on what’s happening in the newspaper industry. My favorite part:
What I think is occurring is that we news types are mourning our lost autonomy and power. We’re angry that, like everyone else, we’re subject to business and financial pressures. Editorial independence has subtly eroded. Decisions about what topics to cover (health, technology) are increasingly tailored to appeal to advertisers. Splintering media markets have weakened the economic base for newsgathering. In 2005 and 2006, Time magazine cut its news staff by 14 percent, says the Project for Excellence in Journalism; it reckons that NEWSWEEK’s staff is half its 1983 level (though Web hiring has offset some losses). Even if the Journal rebuffs Murdoch, it cannot escape these pressures. It has already put ads on section fronts.
The changes involve more than economics. When I started, print journalism required two basic skills: reporting and writing. Now, journalists are expected to be multimedia utility players, feeding Web sites, posting videos and doing TV. Up to a point, this is valuable: finding new ways to engage and inform. But it’s also time-consuming and detracts from reporting. Just what constitutes journalism is less clear. Hitwise, a survey firm, counts 8,001 news and media Web sites. The largest (Yahoo! News) has only 7 percent of the traffic. The skills that are rewarded are shifting from diligent, curious and clear, to tech-savvy, quick and edgy.
People come to realize the same thing via different paths and and paces. There’s no need to be snarky because of the circuitous route or the lagging acknowledgement. Unless it causes the death of something you love.
In the case of those who love news, realizing what Robert J. Samuelson says in the essay, sooner rather than later, would be a most excellent thing I would think.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:40 am May 26th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
Print This Post
May
26
Connie Schultz signs with Creators Syndicate
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
I’ve interviewed syndicate folks before – when I wrote this profile of syndicated cartoonist and Chagrin Falls resident, Jenny Campbell (her Wikipedia entry seems to have borrowed very generously from my original copy, good thing I really love Jenny). It is next to impossible to become syndicated by the biggies, and there are not a lot of biggies out there in the first place. So, being asked to join a syndicate? Something that happens to even fewer people.
That said, major congrats to Connie Schultz for getting a deal. From the Editor & Publisher piece:
Connie Schultz will bring her Pulitzer Prize-winning column to Creators Syndicate next month, while continuing to be distributed by Newhouse News Service.
“I’m not leaving Newhouse,” The Plain Dealer of Cleveland staffer told E&P this morning. “They own The Plain Dealer, and they’ll still circulate me on their list. Creators allows me to cast a much wider net.”
Schultz, whose first column for Creators will be her June 12 piece, said syndicate President Rick Newcombe called her in February and “made a convincing pitch.” That was soon after Schultz returned from an 11-month sabbatical she took to help with the ultimately successful U.S. Senate campaign of her husband, Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).
Her book, …and His Lovely Wife, comes out June 19.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:24 am May 26th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
Print This Post
May
26
I have tears in my eyes from reading the “About” page on Equal Justice Works.
So many folks in law, and outside of law, fail to understand let alone realize what it is to want to be a public interest lawyer. To want to represent the un-represented and under-represented. People outside the disciplines that make up the legal system read the sensational stories everyday and maybe have been or are parties in cases themselves. And they imagine either scruffy, aggressive underdogs or finely-suited dripping with big words tort or corporate lawyers.
But I’ve wanted to work in this field all my life, literally all my life, and the tears come from remembering the crusades – literal crusades – those of us in law school who believed in public interest law had to fight and follow to describe the desire to others, not to mention: find jobs that would keep us clothed.
Think I’m being dramatic? Read this. People do not get why anyone would turn down money, egads.
I remember going to Washington, DC for my first National Association for Public Interest Law conference (NAPIL is now the Equal Justice Center). I went with another law school student and former law school instructor, Paula Klausner. Paula had been a a nurse before going to law school (she’s married to professor Jonathan Gordon for those familiar with Case’s law school). And it appears as though she’s gone back to nursing as well.
When I’d been accepted to Case’s joint degree program in law and social work in early 1988, I visited Cleveland to check it out. Case set me up with Paula for a day. Obviously the experience stuck with me and I chose Case. But then, when I started school, I continued to follow this public interest law (not to be confused with public law, which has to do with municipal ordinances etc.) track. At the time, Paula and a few others were working with the school and the Biskind family to create a fellowship program for students who wanted to do summer work in public interest law and also to create a bona fide loan forgiveness program such as those that other law schools had created.
NB: The Skadden Fellowship, based at the NYC law firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meacher & Flom, is the most well-known and possibly oldest assistance program for law school grads who want to work in the public interest.
NB2: Mass. Senator Ted Kennedy is championing the Student Debt Relief Act which includes a loan forgiveness provision for college graduates who work in the public interest; so far, it’s only been introduced.
NB3: I knew about the Skadden initiative because I’d been working at the Yale Development Office for the years before I moved to Cleveland. Part of my job was to read 10-30 magazines a week and search for Yalies with money or positions we didn’t know about. The initiative was big news in those periodicals and got a lot of play partially in reaction to conservatives and Ronald Reagan’s attempts to eliminate all legal aid assistance for Americans.
NB4: One of the most memorable arguments I ever had with my father was over why oh why did I have to take the least paying public interest law work possible instead of pursuing the $5000/week NYC big law firm summer internships where you did nothing but schmooz (that was a big thing in the late 80s and 90s, when first year law school pay was out of control). I obviously won that argument.
NB5: I’ve mentioned this once or twice before, but the only race I’ve ever run was for Case law school’s student public interest law group. I didn’t need consolation for losing to Mike Benza (not Benz), even though we tied twice, and then he won by one vote, because he is a fantastic, life-long public interest law person too and had the edge of being in school with everyone on a consistent basis. A lot of folks didn’t know me because I was over at the social work school during their entire 1L year – a lot less bonding.
Just how fantastic is this guy? He was the law school’s teacher of the year this year. Congrats, Michael. So completely worthy, I’m sure. Very, very neat. Oops – I’m crying again. (And here’s just a bit more on him – ever get the feeling of how lucky you are to even say you know someone?)
An attorney and educator, Mike brings a broad knowledge of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. He teaches criminal procedure as an adjunct professor at the Case School of Law and practices privately in the areas of criminal law, death penalty defense, and habeas corpus litigation. Prior to his current roles, Mike served as a Biskind Fellow in South Africa, as an assistant public defender in the Capital Defense Unit of the Office of the Ohio Public Defender, and as an assistant counsel with the Cleveland Bar Association.
See see see? That public interest thing? Biskind thing?
Anyway, lucky for Case law students that he is an adjunct professor there now – death penalty is one of his classes, too, plus mock trial team advisor (I was only an alternate on the team when I was there and didn’t go too far with that).
But back to the story:
We succeeded (really, Paula, Mike and the Case law school administration) in getting the Saul S. Biskind Public Interest Law Fellowship established and it continues to fund students who work in public interest law. Funny note: when it started in 1990, the summer stipend was $400 max. Now, according to the website, it’s $3,500. Whoa.
With my joint degree in social work, I focused on children and families but had considered pursuing a job in women’s corrections after graduation. I ended up at Bellefaire JCB as its first (and only) ombudsman. During the grad school summers, I worked in numerous capacities at Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court (paid) but had considered work at legal aid offices in Toledo (ABLE), Philadelphia and San Francisco. Chicago was also well-known for public interest law opportunities with kids. By my second summer, I had to do a zillion field placements and during the summer between my third and fourth year, I worked for a couple of domestic relations attorneys downtown, mostly writing briefs (one which actually won the case for the client and has gone down in Ohio’s history with me on the page as Jill Zion – I’ve never bothered to go through the steps to correct that).
But throughout my time in grad school, I went to every career fair I could (which was only one or two a year at that time, but it’s where I first saw the Capital Steps) and I browsed the lame career placement office offerings on public interest law (contained in one simple three-ring binder in the library), desperately looking at the same few opportunities, the raw truth being, students with an interest in public interest law were nontraditional and had to make the opportunities happen. When the postcards started to go up for intern and job interviews, you rarely if ever saw one that had to do with public interest law, except for the very occasional public defender job. (Prosecutors haven’t been considered public interest, historically.)
That kind of pluck probably characterizes a lot of folks who go into public interest law. We’re looking to be plucky and pluck the system for people who otherwise can’t pluck for themselves. That’s always been attractive to me.
And so, to come full circle, when I saw that there is this fabulous, extensive website to help students and others interested in public interest law find an employment match, my eyes actually started to well up.
For every person who wants to argue with me til there face turns blue about legalizing gambling, regulating strip clubs, arming every man, woman and child, that’s how I will argue that if you want to do public interest law, don’t tell me you can’t afford it.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 9:29 am May 26th, 2007 in Politics | 1 Comment
Print This Post
May
26
Dennis Kucinich on Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
From the Plain Dealer’s OPENERS.
We listen to about 15 mins of this show every Sunday when I’m driving my son to karate. We always hear the part when the guest is supposed to be able to answer really ridiculous multiple choice questions and win an answering machine message for a listener. They’ve had on some pretty fascinating folks, including Tony Snow just before he was diagnosed with the last bout of cancer.
Good luck, Dennis. And please, don’t cut and run like you did to Diane Rehm, huh, back in February.
Anyone taking bets on whether the hosts will mention the river burning?
By Jill Miller Zimon at 8:49 am May 26th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
Print This Post
May
26
SB117: opposition testimony will be 5/30
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
The post on PO outlines 10 reasons to oppose the bill. The best approach, at this point, according to folks who are certain that some form of 117 will pass, might be to at least get amendments proffered and passed that reflect the reasons.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 8:47 am May 26th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
Print This Post
May
26
Another distinguished voice voices reality: the news business isn’t dying, it’s changing
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
Thanks much to my pal Unique for forwarding this very good take (not that it’s new, though) on what’s happening in the newspaper industry. My favorite part:
What I think is occurring is that we news types are mourning our lost autonomy and power. We’re angry that, like everyone else, we’re subject to business and financial pressures. Editorial independence has subtly eroded. Decisions about what topics to cover (health, technology) are increasingly tailored to appeal to advertisers. Splintering media markets have weakened the economic base for newsgathering. In 2005 and 2006, Time magazine cut its news staff by 14 percent, says the Project for Excellence in Journalism; it reckons that NEWSWEEK’s staff is half its 1983 level (though Web hiring has offset some losses). Even if the Journal rebuffs Murdoch, it cannot escape these pressures. It has already put ads on section fronts.
The changes involve more than economics. When I started, print journalism required two basic skills: reporting and writing. Now, journalists are expected to be multimedia utility players, feeding Web sites, posting videos and doing TV. Up to a point, this is valuable: finding new ways to engage and inform. But it’s also time-consuming and detracts from reporting. Just what constitutes journalism is less clear. Hitwise, a survey firm, counts 8,001 news and media Web sites. The largest (Yahoo! News) has only 7 percent of the traffic. The skills that are rewarded are shifting from diligent, curious and clear, to tech-savvy, quick and edgy.
People come to realize the same thing via different paths and and paces. There’s no need to be snarky because of the circuitous route or the lagging acknowledgement. Unless it causes the death of something you love.
In the case of those who love news, realizing what Robert J. Samuelson says in the essay, sooner rather than later, would be a most excellent thing I would think.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 8:40 am May 26th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
Print This Post
May
26
I have tears in my eyes from reading the “About” page on Equal Justice Works.
So many folks in law, and outside of law, fail to understand let alone realize what it is to want to be a public interest lawyer. To want to represent the un-represented and under-represented. People outside the disciplines that make up the legal system read the sensational stories everyday and maybe have been or are parties in cases themselves. And they imagine either scruffy, aggressive underdogs or finely-suited dripping with big words tort or corporate lawyers.
But I’ve wanted to work in this field all my life, literally all my life, and the tears come from remembering the crusades – literal crusades – those of us in law school who believed in public interest law had to fight and follow to describe the desire to others, not to mention: find jobs that would keep us clothed.
Think I’m being dramatic? Read this. People do not get why anyone would turn down money, egads.
I remember going to Washington, DC for my first National Association for Public Interest Law conference (NAPIL is now the Equal Justice Center). I went with another law school student and former law school instructor, Paula Klausner. Paula had been a a nurse before going to law school (she’s married to professor Jonathan Gordon for those familiar with Case’s law school). And it appears as though she’s gone back to nursing as well.
When I’d been accepted to Case’s joint degree program in law and social work in early 1988, I visited Cleveland to check it out. Case set me up with Paula for a day. Obviously the experience stuck with me and I chose Case. But then, when I started school, I continued to follow this public interest law (not to be confused with public law, which has to do with municipal ordinances etc.) track. At the time, Paula and a few others were working with the school and the Biskind family to create a fellowship program for students who wanted to do summer work in public interest law and also to create a bona fide loan forgiveness program such as those that other law schools had created.
NB: The Skadden Fellowship, based at the NYC law firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meacher & Flom, is the most well-known and possibly oldest assistance program for law school grads who want to work in the public interest.
NB2: Mass. Senator Ted Kennedy is championing the Student Debt Relief Act which includes a loan forgiveness provision for college graduates who work in the public interest; so far, it’s only been introduced.
NB3: I knew about the Skadden initiative because I’d been working at the Yale Development Office for the years before I moved to Cleveland. Part of my job was to read 10-30 magazines a week and search for Yalies with money or positions we didn’t know about. The initiative was big news in those periodicals and got a lot of play partially in reaction to conservatives and Ronald Reagan’s attempts to eliminate all legal aid assistance for Americans.
NB4: One of the most memorable arguments I ever had with my father was over why oh why did I have to take the least paying public interest law work possible instead of pursuing the $5000/week NYC big law firm summer internships where you did nothing but schmooz (that was a big thing in the late 80s and 90s, when first year law school pay was out of control). I obviously won that argument.
NB5: I’ve mentioned this once or twice before, but the only race I’ve ever run was for Case law school’s student public interest law group. I didn’t need consolation for losing to Mike Benza (not Benz), even though we tied twice, and then he won by one vote, because he is a fantastic, life-long public interest law person too and had the edge of being in school with everyone on a consistent basis. A lot of folks didn’t know me because I was over at the social work school during their entire 1L year – a lot less bonding.
Just how fantastic is this guy? He was the law school’s teacher of the year this year. Congrats, Michael. So completely worthy, I’m sure. Very, very neat. Oops – I’m crying again. (And here’s just a bit more on him – ever get the feeling of how lucky you are to even say you know someone?)
An attorney and educator, Mike brings a broad knowledge of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. He teaches criminal procedure as an adjunct professor at the Case School of Law and practices privately in the areas of criminal law, death penalty defense, and habeas corpus litigation. Prior to his current roles, Mike served as a Biskind Fellow in South Africa, as an assistant public defender in the Capital Defense Unit of the Office of the Ohio Public Defender, and as an assistant counsel with the Cleveland Bar Association.
See see see? That public interest thing? Biskind thing?
Anyway, lucky for Case law students that he is an adjunct professor there now – death penalty is one of his classes, too, plus mock trial team advisor (I was only an alternate on the team when I was there and didn’t go too far with that).
But back to the story:
We succeeded (really, Paula, Mike and the Case law school administration) in getting the Saul S. Biskind Public Interest Law Fellowship established and it continues to fund students who work in public interest law. Funny note: when it started in 1990, the summer stipend was $400 max. Now, according to the website, it’s $3,500. Whoa.
With my joint degree in social work, I focused on children and families but had considered pursuing a job in women’s corrections after graduation. I ended up at Bellefaire JCB as its first (and only) ombudsman. During the grad school summers, I worked in numerous capacities at Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court (paid) but had considered work at legal aid offices in Toledo (ABLE), Philadelphia and San Francisco. Chicago was also well-known for public interest law opportunities with kids. By my second summer, I had to do a zillion field placements and during the summer between my third and fourth year, I worked for a couple of domestic relations attorneys downtown, mostly writing briefs (one which actually won the case for the client and has gone down in Ohio’s history with me on the page as Jill Zion – I’ve never bothered to go through the steps to correct that).
But throughout my time in grad school, I went to every career fair I could (which was only one or two a year at that time, but it’s where I first saw the Capital Steps) and I browsed the lame career placement office offerings on public interest law (contained in one simple three-ring binder in the library), desperately looking at the same few opportunities, the raw truth being, students with an interest in public interest law were nontraditional and had to make the opportunities happen. When the postcards started to go up for intern and job interviews, you rarely if ever saw one that had to do with public interest law, except for the very occasional public defender job. (Prosecutors haven’t been considered public interest, historically.)
That kind of pluck probably characterizes a lot of folks who go into public interest law. We’re looking to be plucky and pluck the system for people who otherwise can’t pluck for themselves. That’s always been attractive to me.
And so, to come full circle, when I saw that there is this fabulous, extensive website to help students and others interested in public interest law find an employment match, my eyes actually started to well up.
For every person who wants to argue with me til there face turns blue about legalizing gambling, regulating strip clubs, arming every man, woman and child, that’s how I will argue that if you want to do public interest law, don’t tell me you can’t afford it.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 6:29 am May 26th, 2007 in Politics | 1 Comment
Print This Post
May
26
Remains of the Day, 5-25-07
Filed Under Politics | 3 Comments
I actually had hoped to do a “jump start your morning” post with the leftovers of yesterday’s Remains. But that didn’t happen. So now I’m clearing out postable material from yesterday and today, material which is seriously slowing down my MacBook (did you know you can’t expand its memory? I should have gone for at least the 1 gig; live and learn).
1. From the It Could Happen To You section, Connecticut is hopefully going to figure out what the proper judgement should be for former substitute teacher Julie Amero, who appears to have been the victim of a school’s crappy understanding of the Internet and over-eager prosecutor. Of course, if the computers were Macs, I might feel differently. But I can remember numerous times toward the end of my Toshiba laptop’s life when I would get hideously self-replicating spyware ads. Like I said, it could happen to anyone – unless they step away from the Windows.
2. A study, to be published in a future issue of International Journal of Aging and Human Development, assesses “the well-being of childless women in their 50s compared to mothers with early, delayed, or normatively timed first births.” According to this news (accompanied by a podcast with the principal inevstigator) from the University of Michigan, Sociologist Amy Pienta discovered that:
“If you just look at women who had kids compared to those who didn’t, childless women reported being somewhat less happy and more depressed,” Pienta said. “But when we factored in socioeconomic characteristics and marital status, there was no difference between the two groups.”
Instead of just comparing childless women and mothers, the researchers examined how the late-life well-being of childless women compared to that of three different groups of mothers who had their first children at different times—women who became mothers early (before age 19), “on-time” (between 19 and 24) or late (age 25 or later).
When they compared each group and controlled for sociodemographic factors as well, a more complex picture emerged that suggests how much the timing of motherhood matters.
Early mothers were the least satisfied and most depressed of all four groups, while delayed or late mothers were the most satisfied with their lives and the happiest.
All other things being equal, the childless women were about as satisfied and happy with their lives as the on-time mothers.
I exchanged emails with Pienta today because UMich’s info confused me as to when the survey data was collected. The answer: 1992. Whether or not women born a full ten years later and now in the 51-61 range would cluster similarly, we don’t know.
Hattip Women and Tech News blog.
3. Kentucky governor’s race (I figure that if their gun owners can make such a ruckus in Ohio, the least we can do is link to some info on their gov race). It’s odd for me to watch KY politics from NEO because my experience in KY was in Red Bird Mission in Beverly, an Eastern KY Methodist Church locale. Odd, but I guess it’s a bit like the difference between how Cleveland looks if you’re on Lake Erie and how it looks if you’re heading North on 77.
4. Speaking of Lake Erie, scary stuff on Science Friday with Ira Flatow re: the diseased fish in the lake. Here’s a Plain Dealer article about it, from yesterday.
5. I’m not really sure what this development with Facebook means, and it might be a lot of hoopla over absolutely nothing. But I can tell you for sure that, since I don’t have a Facebook profile and I don’t think I’ve ever even browsed to its URL, it’s not going to affect me much for a while. Something with members being able to create tools and platforms and networks, oh my.
6. The 4th Annual International Weblogger’s Day is June 14th. It’s also in the not sure what it means category but notable nonetheless.
7. In this post on The Brad Blog by Greg Palast, you can see documents connected to Monica Goodling’s reference to vote caging. Nasty, nasty stuff.
8. Skill or chance? Attorney General Marc Dann is going to test for it. I have to tell you, to me, this feels like one of those intuitive things: the person wagering and most likely losing the money knows far better than any testing system does as to whether the way they’re losing their money is through lack of skill or because skill ain’t got nothing to do with it.
9. Len of Blogesque wrote about the threatened iGasm lawsuit here. I checked with my favorite Intellectual Property lawyer and the best I can tell you is that he agrees, IP is a hot, sexy area of law. Don’t you think that Steve Jobs only wishes he thought of and produced the item first? Frankly, if anyone has a right to sue about anything here, it should be whomever owned the logo for the 1970s beauty products that used a cursive “i” – I can’t find info on that logo anywhere at the moment, and I didn’t wear makeup much then – too young. But all the girls at camp from Long GUYland had them.
10. Joy Padgett is mixing up 911 service with Internet access? Honey, these are very separate and important needs, not either/or. And that 911 thing? Remember, land lines are decreasing, the revenue from them to support 911 are decreasing and the demand and need for wireless 911 capabilities are increasing – and no one’s prepared for that.
11. More newsroom buyouts, this time at the Hartford Courant. Is it me, or does it seem like this kind of news is coming almost every week or at least a couple of times a month now?
12. Chinks in the Bancroft family armor that shielded WSJ from Rupert Murdoch?
13. Good stuff from The Blog Herald: here, about blogging to reflect your age and here about 101 resources for bloggers.
14. Our state legislators really know how to hide their hands. Kind of counter-intuitive, though, when you think about it: if they want to argue that oh so many Ohioans support restrictions on adult entertainment to protect…well…whomever, then you’d think that they’d want the fourth graders in the statehouse to know exactly what it was they were voting on, yes?
16. Two from Plunderbund:
- Education will be the topic on Thursday, 5/31, at the Progress Ohio office, complete with experts.
-EXCELLENT post about the logic of SOS Brunner’s high school diploma-voter registration effort. If all that is written there is true, the folks ripping her program as partisan politics should be ashamed.
17. Last but not least, from the “Ya think???” department: campus safety recommendations focus on mental health. Another oh my effing goodness revelation – because the connection is so obvious and we’re in such denial about it. Sigh.
Shabbat shalom.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:47 am May 26th, 2007 in Politics | 3 Comments
Voted into Top 25 Political Mom Blogs
Now on sale-WLST essay included!
Posts About Pepper Pike City Council2010 WE Magazine 101 Women Bloggers to Watch
Category Specific RSS
Pepper Pike Cleveland+ Politics Women Ohio Elections Law Jewish
