• Fellowships Provide Real Help for Real People
• Foundation Honored with Arts Advocacy Award
• Bar Foundation Web Site Gets Facelift
• Mock Trial Competition Highlights Drama While Teaching Court System
• New Manual on Special Education Law Demystifies Process for Parents and Advocates of Children with Disabilities

Fellowships Provide Real Help for Real People

The New Jersey State Bar Foundation currently provides nearly half a million dollars in funding to support nine public interest legal clinics at New Jersey's three law schools, Montclair State University and Covenant House of New Jersey. The assistance the Foundation provides to these law clinics goes directly to fund a full or part-time Fellowship Program in which the Bar Foundation Fellow provides training to law students in public interest law, oversees the students casework and guides law students in representing actual clients.

Law clinics provide valuable services to under-served populations while allowing law students to get their feet wet with hands-on experience and exposure to real clients with real problems. In most cases, clinical students are required to work 15 to 20 hours per week.

"Lending financial support to these nine law clinics allows the Bar Foundation to fulfill part of its mission to foster an increased awareness, appreciation and knowledge of the law and legal system among New Jersey residents," said Foundation President Daniel M. Hurley. "In addition, through the great work of these bar fellows, the Foundation helps to provide advocacy to New Jersey's underserved populations and helps train future lawyers in much-needed areas of public service law."

The Foundation has been supporting programs such as these for more than 10 years. Following are descriptions of all nine programs.

Elder Law Project - Rutgers Law School-Camden

According to statistics provided by the law school, 40 percent of Camden's 87,000 residents live below the poverty level and almost 85 percent receive some form of public assistance. The elderly population of Camden is particularly vulnerable and has distinctive legal problems such as complications from declining physical and mental capacities and susceptibility to consumer fraud.

Handling 41 cases dealing with landlord/tenant issues, consumer fraud, wills and applications for Social Security benefits, 21 law students participated in the Elder Law Project last year. In addition to representing senior citizens in legal matters, the Elder Law Project also provides public education intended to inform seniors of their rights, as well as strategies they can follow to reduce their risk of being victimized or deceived.

LEAP Legal Project - Rutgers Law School-Camden

A partnership between the Rutgers Civil Practice Clinic and the LEAP Academy Charter School, the LEAP Legal Project provides legal advice, representation and community education to LEAP Academy students and their families. This year, the LEAP Legal Project also included LEAP University High School.

Law students participating in the LEAP Legal Project provide legal advice and representation to parents in the areas of housing, immigration law, bankruptcy law, estate administration and consumer issues. The Legal Project does not guarantee that the program will accept all legal problems presented by students or parents. Cases are screened by the fellow at the law school and are accepted based on their impact on families, their academic value for teaching law students and the probability of a successful outcome. For cases that are not accepted, Rutgers/LEAP arranges for referrals with existing legal resources in the city of Camden.

Special Education Clinic - Rutgers Law School-Newark

According to the Division of Special Education's Bureau of Policy and Planning within the New Jersey Department of Education, approximately 740 special education cases are filed with the state each year. Of those cases, less than 40 percent are transferred to the New Jersey Office of Administrative Law for a due process hearing. The Rutgers Special Education Clinic helps to meet a substantial public need recognized by all three branches of New Jersey government and educational experts across the nation by representing indigent children with disabilities and their parents or caregivers, including foster parents, in obtaining special education programs and services.

Special education cases require a variety of skills, which law school students participating in a clinical program are well-suited to provide, according to the bar fellow at the Special Education Clinic. These skills include extensive document review of school records and child study team assessments, as well as client and witness interviewing, all of which are handled by law school students at Rutgers-Newark.

Child Advocacy Center - Rutgers Law School-Newark

According to the Association for Children of New Jersey (ACNJ), there are approximately 108,000 poor families with children in the state. Within these families, ACNJ reports, there are 246,000 children. In Newark, one out of every three children live in poverty and are at-risk for hunger and chronic illness. The Child Advocacy Center's mission is to serve the needs of children who are living in poverty in Newark and the surrounding areas through individual advocacy, community education and outreach. The Center has prioritized the needs of two groups of children-those with disabilities and those living in families headed by a kinship caregiver. A kinship caregiver is someone who cares for a child and is not that child's natural or adoptive parent. Often the kinship caregiver is a relative such as a grandparent, aunt or uncle. Because the relative is not the legal guardian of the child, he or she may have a difficult time meeting the basic needs of the child, including obtaining and consenting to medical care, enrolling the child in school and receiving financial assistance.

Law students participating in the Child Advocacy Center attend weekly two-hour seminars to educate them on the substantive topics of public benefits and child welfare law. It is the hope of the law school that this intensive training will produce a force of highly trained young lawyers ready to represent disadvantaged children and work on the critical issues they face on a daily basis.

Women and AIDS Clinic - Rutgers Law School-Newark

According to staff at the Women and AIDS Clinic, New Jersey leads the nation in the percentage of women living with HIV and AIDS. In addition, low-income people living with HIV face culture-specific barriers to accessing legal services, including the cost of services, limited transportation, language barriers and availability of services at all stages of illness, not just the end stages of AIDS. The Women and AIDS Clinic attempts to remove some of these barriers by providing legal advocacy and public education to families affected and/or infected by HIV/AIDS living in the Newark area and Jersey City.

Trained law students working under the supervision of the clinic director provide client services, including screening callers and evaluating a client's short and long-term legal needs. Weekly meetings with the clinic director provide each student an opportunity to discuss case development, work evaluation and program evaluation. The clinic has handled cases dealing with such issues as discrimination, guardianship and invasion of privacy.

Homelessness Advocates' Clinic - Seton Hall University School of Law

According to statistics provided by Seton Hall University School of Law, in Essex County more than 50,000 eviction actions are listed for trial every year. Due to the September 11 tragedy, the Homelessness Advocates' Clinic expects a future rise in the need for its services with the increased loss of jobs, particularly in the service and tourism industries.

The Clinic provides services for the homeless, near-homeless and for homelessness advocates in three areas-direct representation in legal matters relating to homelessness, educational seminars on housing and welfare topics, and social service referrals. Under the supervision of the bar fellow, clinical students represent clients in a variety of legal matters including the threat of eviction. Cases are also pursued involving illegal actions by landlords, such as lockouts or refusal to return security deposits or tenants' belongings.

Consumer Protection Division of Civil Litigation Clinic-Seton Hall University School of Law

The Center for Social Justice identifies several consumer fraud areas that target low-income residents, minorities, inner city residents and the elderly. Predatory lending and foreclosures, fraud involving the sale and lease of automobiles and unfair or deceptive debt collection and bankruptcy-related practices are areas where these populations are susceptible.

With the help of its clinical law students, the Consumer Protection Division of the Civil Litigation Clinic provides direct legal representation to members of these targeted populations. Clinical students have handled cases involving unfair debt collection, bank credit card fraud, consumer fraud in home repair and student loan cases. The Clinic has filed lawsuits on behalf of individuals and also represented some cases in arbitration before the New Jersey Division of Consumer Protection.

Paralegal Public Interest Law Clinic - Montclair State University

Operated in conjunction with the Community Health Law Project, a legal service organization that provides free legal services to the disabled and the elderly, the Paralegal Public Interest Law Clinic provides legal services to a diverse population of disadvantaged and disabled citizens in northern New Jersey.

Under the auspices of a CHLP staff attorney, clinical students conduct client interviews, review and summarize medical documents, obtain medical and non-medical evidence, draft pleadings in family and housing law cases, conduct legal research and assist in the preparation of Social Security hearings. Last year, clinical students worked on a total of 70 cases, providing legal research and client advocacy. This year, the program has expanded to include a bilingual element, allowing the Clinic to better serve its non-English speaking community members.

Youth Advocacy Projects - Covenant House of New Jersey

Covenant House's Youth Advocacy Projects, based in Newark and Atlantic City, provide legal aid to young people who are 21 years old or younger and who are homeless or at-risk of becoming homeless. The Foster Care Independence Act of 1999 or Chafee Act changed the scope of federally funded independent living programs that states could offer young people transitioning from foster care into adulthood, allowing states to develop sustained advocacy on behalf of youth in foster care transitioning into adulthood. Among other things, the Act expanded the scope of "independent living" by eliminating the minimum age of 16 and extending services until the age of 21.

With the help of law students, the bar fellows work to secure appropriate transitional, independent living programs for their clients and ensure that they have access to the full range of financial, educational and structural supports that are available to them under the law.

Foundation Honored with Arts Advocacy Award

The George Street Playhouse honored the New Jersey State Bar Foundation with the 2002 Thomas H. Kean Arts Advocacy Award. The Bar Foundation has been a committed sponsor of GSP's Educational Touring Theatre, which produces socially relevant plays for more than 80,000 students, teachers, and parents annually. Together, the Foundation and George Street launched the Tolerance Initiative in 2000, a special project designed to increase the impact of Touring Theatre productions, teaching conflict resolution skills and important lessons on tolerance to students across the state.

The Bar Foundation provided funding to bring Touring Theatre productions to underserved public schools and has been a major sponsor for GSP's yearly Student Week and FYI: Focus on Youth Issues programming, which offers the community free performances and symposia on violence prevention issues to the community. In addition, the Bar Foundation sponsors the printing of student and teacher study guides for each play to complement the productions and help facilitate discussion in the classroom that goes beyond the performance. The student study guides mirror the traditional theatrical playbill, preserving the theater experience for the students.

"The Foundation found the perfect vehicle that would bring home the messages conveyed in our various programs in a way that would impact kids more profoundly in the Educational Touring Theater productions of the George Street Playhouse," said NJSBF President Daniel M. Hurley. "Through these thought-provoking plays, all of the messages of peaceful conflict resolution, respect and tolerance are conveyed in a compelling, engaging and creative format that kids carry with them long after the show is over. We are delighted to be partners with the George Street Playhouse in this most important effort to teach our children the skills they need to create a more peaceful world for the generations to come," he said.

Hurley accepted the award at George Street's star-studded benefit gala held in May at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in New Brunswick. George Street also honored Broadway and Hollywood writer/director Arthur Laurents who wrote the books to the Broadway musicals West Side Story, Gypsy, and Anyone Can Whistle and directed the Broadway hit La Cage Aux Folles. Laurents also wrote the screenplays for the films The Turning Point, Rope, and The Way We Were. Performers that evening included Bernadette Peters, Chita Rivera, Tyne Daly and Lauren Bacall. For more information about the George Street Tolerance Initiative, contact the George Street Playhouse at 732-846-2895 ext. 115.

Award of Excellence

In addition to the award from George Street, the Foundation received the Award of Excellence in the 2002 Associations Advance America Awards program, a national competition sponsored by the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) in Washington, DC. The award was received for the Foundation's Law Fair and Law Adventure mock trial programs for grades 3 - 8. In addition, both of these programs have now been nominated to receive a Summit Award, also to be presented by ASAE.

Now in its 12^th year, the prestigious Associations Advance America Awards program recognizes associations that propel America forward with innovative projects in education, skills training, standards-setting, business and social innovation, knowledge creation, citizenship and community service.

For more information about Law Fair or Law Adventure, contact Sheila Boro at 732-937-7519 or sboro@njsbf.org.

National Conference of Bar Foundations Award

The Foundation was also selected by the National Conference of Bar Foundations (NCBF) to receive its Award for Bar Foundation Excellence in Public Service Programming for the new publication, Bill of Right Bulletin. The award was presented in August at a luncheon held at the American Bar Association's annual meeting in Washington, D.C. Each year the NCBF recognizes a deserving bar foundation who has demonstrated excellence in public service programming.

Intended for elementary and middle school students, the Bill of Rights Bulletin is a 16-page publication published in a newsletter format. The newsletter contains articles on the first 10 Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which originally appeared in The Legal Eagle. Colorful and packed with crossword puzzles, word searches, constitutional trivia, little-known facts about our founding fathers and much more, the Bill of Rights Bulletin has been distributed free to more than 50,000 students around the state. To order the Bill of Rights Bulletin, visit the Foundation's Web site at www.njsbf.org or call 1-800 FREE LAW.

Bar Foundation Web Site Gets Facelift

With the wealth of information provided on the New Jersey State Bar Foundation's Web site, navigation of the site was becoming cumbersome, so the Foundation embarked on a complete redesign. What visitors will find now at www.njsbf.org, is the same law-related information as before in a more pleasing and organized format, allowing users to maneuver the site easily and find what they need quickly.

Some of the new features on the site include a completely redesigned home page that resembles a news-oriented Web site such as CNN. Headlines alert visitors to what is happening in the Foundation as well as what law-related seminars and conferences are coming up. A "Today's Feature" box located at the bottom of the home page changes daily and highlights certain programs, publications or pertinent information about the Bar Foundation. An easy-to-follow navigation bar appears at the top of every page on the revised site, allowing users to go to any section with just one click without returning to the home page. The Students' Corner, For Attorneys section and the About NJSBF section of the Web site also have prominent positions on the home page, allowing easy access to those much-used features.

Students' Corner revamped

The Students' Corner section is the most popular area of the Foundation's Web site. With the abundance of student-based legal learning programs available through the Foundation and the heavy traffic that this section sees, it warranted its own home page. Now, when users click on the Students' Corner they are greeted by a colorful, kid-friendly array of icons depicting all of the Foundation's school-based programs and publications as well as a separate "Today's Feature" box highlighting a different student-based program or publication everyday.

Registering for most Foundation workshops can be as easy as the click of a mouse. This fall, teachers were able to register online for more Foundation workshops than ever before. Online registration forms were used for the Mini-Court Workshop, held Oct. 10, the Law Fair/Law Adventure Mock Trial Workshop, held Oct. 17, and the High School Mock Trial Instructional Workshop, held Oct. 24. Visitors may also register online for the Foundation's popular Law Center Seminar Series.

Foundation publications available

Most NJSBF-produced publications are available on the Foundation's Web site in either a printable html version or pdf file that can be downloaded. In addition, a number of Foundation publications can be ordered in audio format or in Braille for the visually impaired. The Students' Rights Handbook, Educational Guide for Trial Jurors, AIDS and the Law in New Jersey, Law Points for Senior Citizens, Consumer's Guide to New Jersey Law and Disability Law: A Legal Primer are also available on the Foundation's Web site in streaming audio for the visually impaired. In addition, all the material on the Foundation's site is accessible to individuals who are visually impaired or blind who utilize special web-reading software. As before, when new programs and publications are produced, they will be added to site.

Mock Trial Competition Highlights Drama While Teaching Court System

The 2002-2003 mock trial season is getting underway with more than 200 mock trial teams focused on winning the 2002-2003 Vincent J. Apruzzese High School Competition. Teams in this year's competition could take a few pointers from last year's champions, High Point Regional High School of Sussex County, who defeated Hunterdon Central Regional High School of Hunterdon County with dramatic flair and a command of the case.

The High Point Regional students' performances reflected the fact that more than half of the team are also members of their school's drama club. In fact, one member of the team, Karen Bocchino, channeling Marisa Tomei's performance in My Cousin Vinny, mesmerized the audience with her grasp of prosecution witness Ronnie Romer and the mock trial material.

"The truth of the part comes out under cross-examination," said High Point Teacher-Coach Joseph Santora. "If you don't know the material cold, it will show."

According to Santora, one asset that the team has is its second teacher-coach, Kory Loyola, who made her debut with the team last year. Loyola competed in the Foundation's Mock Trial Competition in the past as a student-attorney. She said the most important advice she gave the student-attorneys on the High Point team was "to take what they heard during the trial and relate it back to the case in the closing argument."

While last year, competitors enacted a criminal case, this year students will tackle a complex civil case. The case involves a high school student who rented a barn from an elderly farmer, ostensibly to store landscaping equipment for a summer job. The student grew tired of mowing lawns and converted the barn into an illegal casino, serving up gambling and liquor to crowds of minors late into the summer nights. One night a fire broke out, severely burning another student who frequented the barn. The injured student is now suing the owner of the barn, claiming that the owner did nothing to stop the illegal activity or prevent a tragedy. Workbooks containing the 2002-2003 case will be published and distributed in late October.

As state champions, the High Point team traveled to St. Paul, Minn. to represent New Jersey in the National High School Mock Trial Championship. New Jersey teams have consistently performed well over the years in the national competition, often placing in the top ten and capturing the national title twice.

A record 239 teams across the state entered last year's competition and an equal number are expected this year. All of New Jersey's 21 county bar associations cosponsor the high school competition. The competition began in 1982 and has taught more than 54,000 students about the fundamentals of our court system while developing critical thinking and public speaking skills. The 2002-2003 mock trial competition will begin in January at the county level.

New Manual on Special Education Law Demystifies Process for Parents and Advocates of Children with Disabilities

To help parents and advocates understand the complexities of New Jersey's special education laws, the New Jersey State Bar Foundation joined forces with the Education Law Center (ELC) of Newark to produce The Right to Special Education in New Jersey-A Guide for Advocates, an 84-page manual produced by ELC and published by the Bar Foundation. The manual explains in plain language state and federal laws on special education.

"The Right to Special Education in New Jersey provides comprehensive, updated information on special education law and is an essential resource for parents and advocates," said ELC Executive Director David Sciarra.

The free publication outlines the requirements of the federal law governing special education, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the New Jersey regulations implementing IDEA. It also provides practical information about the special education system, and includes sections on the Right to a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE), Identification and Referral of Children with Disabilities, the Right to an Individualized Education Program (IEP), the Right to an Appropriate Placement in the Least Restrictive Environment and the Right to Challenge School District Action.

In addition, conveniently located at the back of the manual are three New Jersey Department of Education request forms allowing parents or advocates to request a mediation/due process hearing, an emergency relief hearing or a complaint investigation. The book also contains several sample letters that parents can use to request an evaluation, a re-evaluation, an independent evaluation or IEP services for their child. An appendix also lists valuable advocacy and information resources, as well as all New Jersey Department of Education County Supervisors of Child Study.

"The Foundation hopes that the publication of The Right to Special Education in New Jersey will foster a better understanding of the complex issues surrounding special education law and provide parents with the knowledge they need to ensure that their child receives the education he or she is entitled to by law," said NJSBF President Daniel M. Hurley.

The manual was written by Ellen Boylan, senior attorney at Education Law Center, with contributions by her colleague, Elizabeth Athos and the attorneys at Education Law Center-Pennsylvania. Education Law Center attorneys Ruth Lowenkron and Elisabeth Yap also provided additional assistance in the preparation of the book.

Free copies of The Right to Special Education in New Jersey may be ordered directly from the Foundation's Web site at www.njsbf.org, or by calling 1-800-FREE-LAW. Copies of the manual will also be available to those attending the Foundation's special education seminar to be held at the New Jersey Law Center in New Brunswick on November 14 from 7 to 9 p.m.

Future Foundation Publications

Updated editions of the Students' Rights Handbook, cosponsored with the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey and Domestic Violence: The Law and You, a pamphlet outlining the rights of domestic violence victims, are planned for distribution early next year. Plans are also underway to publish a manual on residential construction prepared by the New Jersey State Bar Association Construction and Public Contract Law Section. The manual will address, among other things, home inspection licensing, home improvement contracts and residential construction liens.