ALBANY - A program offering new or out-of-work attorneys the chance to volunteer as law clerks for state judges is attracting interest, sponsors of the new initiative say.
The Unified Court System has received 75 applications from attorneys since the clerkship program was announced two weeks ago, a court official said yesterday.
Attorney Lauren J. Wachtler, who is helping organize the program through the New York State Bar Association's Committee on Lawyers in Transition, said 35 lawyers attended a meeting she held last week on the initiative while another 150 watched over the Internet.
"We have had an overwhelming response," said Ms. Wachtler, chairwoman of the Committee on Lawyers in Transition and a partner at Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp.
The idea behind the program is to allow attorneys to serve the public, and to acquire new professional skills while they ride out the economic slump, said state bar President Michael E. Getnick.
"At the same time, judges from western New York to eastern Long Island require quality legal minds to help with their workload," said Mr. Getnick, of Getnick Livingston Atkinson & Priore in Utica.
Attorneys interested in the program must fill out an application available on the court system's Web site (http://www.nycourts.gov). In addition to documenting their legal qualifications, lawyers will be asked to indicate what matters they would like to work on — civil, criminal, Family Court and so on —a nd where they live.
The volunteers will perform the typical duties of law clerks, including drafting opinions, performing research and helping judges prepare for conferences with opposing counsel, state bar officials said.
The program is not open to new law school graduates who are attached to a law firm through a deferment agreement under which the attorneys are receiving compensation to delay beginning full-time employment. Such arrangements have become far more common in the past few years as the economic slump has resonated across the legal industry (NYLJ, April 29).
More veteran lawyers must have severed all ties with their former employers to qualify.
The court system said no paid court personnel will be displaced by volunteer law clerks. Annual salaries for full-time law clerks range from $60,000 to $120,000. There are about 1,300 law clerks working in chambers in the state court system.
Information about the program is also available at the site maintained by Ms. Wachtler's committee (http://www.nysba.org/LawyersinTransition).
Ms. Wachtler estimated that it will take six weeks to two months before the volunteer attorneys are working in court chambers.
Chief Administrative Judge Ann Pfau said in an interview that as the economy has cost some attorneys their jobs or the opportunity to begin their careers, it has also increased the case loads of some judges.
She said it will be up to judges looking for help in their chambers to come forward and to select volunteer clerks from those approved by the court system.
Judge Pfau said in an interview that she foresees the program as one in which lawyers will help out judges for relatively short periods of time before the attorneys enter or reenter professional practice as job prospects improve.
"We don't consider this to be kind of a long-term situation," Judge Pfau said. "It is just more making use of someone's legal skills. It is hard for me to imagine that it will be a five-year relationship."
Conflicts Considered
Lawrence Marks, director of administration for the state courts, said it is unclear how many attorneys will volunteer but that the initial response has been encouraging.
It will be up to judges how precisely to use the volunteers and to train them, Mr. Marks said.
Ms. Wachtler and Judge Pfau said the program has been under discussion for months and that the potential conflicts of interest involved in volunteer court lawyers have been carefully considered.
In April, the courts' Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics held in an advisory opinion that it would be permissible for an appellate court to employ an unemployed attorney or a recent, unattached law school graduate to perform work for the court without compensation on a temporary basis.
The committee added the caveat that the attorneys should not work on any matter involving a law firm they were employed with within the previous two years and that judges must disqualify themselves from any matter involving law firms for whom the volunteers worked.
In a second decision in April, the ethics committee said it is impermissible for courts in all cases to use volunteer attorneys if the lawyers are receiving stipends from firms in exchange for deferred employment.
While the committee acknowledged that the arrangement would likely benefit both the fledgling lawyers and the courts, it concluded that the potential for an "appearance of impropriety" was too great to risk.
"The perception that private law firms . . . may benefit from undue access to, or influence with, the court or judges, however unlikely or that they will simply create 'good will' is nearly impossible to dispel," concluded the committee, which is comprised of current and retired New York judges.
The state of Massachusetts last month abandoned plans to allow deferred associates to serve as unpaid clerks in its courts, citing conflict-of-interest concerns.
The volunteer clerk program is one of several initiatives prompted by the recession. Attempts to marshall attorneys for legal service to the poor have been launched by New York City (NYLJ, April 28) and the court system (NYLJ, March 30).
