FRANKLIN PIERCE LAW Center's Public Interest Coalition sponsors PIC Fellowships that are solely funded by proceeds from the annual PIC Auction.

PIC Fellowships allow Franklin Pierce Law students who apply for and are awarded a fellowship to work for public interest causes. Without PIC Fellowships, these would be unpaid, volunteer positions. With a PIC Fellowship, students are given a stipend that covers some of their living expenses. Last summer, seven students were each awarded $3,000. (In accompanying articles, three students provide accounts of their experiences.) FPLC hopes to fund at least 10 fellowships this year.

The 10th annual PIC Auction will be held on Friday, March 22, 2002, at the Concord Courtyard Marriott. Previewing and the silent auction will begin at 6:00 p.m. and live bidding will begin at 8:00 p.m. Tickets are $10 each and may be pre-purchased or purchased at the door.

Donations of auction items as well as fellowship sponsors are being sought. So far, the Merrimack County Bar Association has donated a full fellowship in the amount of $3,000, and 12 law firms and organizations have reserved tables at the auction. This year, because these fellowships are an important way to support the public interest and pro bono efforts of our future lawyers, incoming Bar President Marty Van Oot has agreed to serve as the auction's first-ever honorary Bar chair.

For more information or to reserve a table or purchase tickets, please contact Brigette Siff Holmes, director of FPLC's Social Justice Institute and PIC Auction advisor, at 228-1963, ext. 1166 or at bholmes@fplc.edu.

Donations may also be made online at the auction Web site, www.fplc.edu/PIC/PIChome.

My first several weeks at The Disabilities Rights Center were, at best, a time when I said to myself, "Yikes, what am I doing here?" My summer ended, however, with a feeling of accomplishment, satisfaction, and eagerness to do more.

For the first few weeks, I did the initial intake interviews. Every half-hour, I called a new person for a previously scheduled phone appointment. At that point, I did not know enough to give them any direction or advice. Also, my job was simply to get the information so we could determine whether and how we could help them. At times, I felt like I was a spectator at a parade of New Hampshire's sick, crippled, poor, deranged and generally hopeless citizens. It was wrenching and I felt powerless.

What those weeks gave me, however, was a strong sense of the very personal nature of law and a sense of the breadth and scope of issues relating to people with physical, mental and developmental disabilities.

After the initial shock, I participated with awe in the process of addressing people's concerns and issues. I was amazed at the number of questions and issues that are resolved at the intake level. Many times, the issue can be resolved with a few phone calls and letters. Sometimes it requires educating someone on the laws and regulations that must be followed or educating people on their rights and how to get what they need. Occasionally, it merely requires listening; sometimes a person just wants a chance to tell his story. Not only did I hone my interviewing skills and quickly learn how to get a person's story in a half-hour or less, I also realized that this is where many people develop their sense of justice.

As the summer progressed, I began to feel like an advocate. I did not intentionally seek out this role ("I'm just a 1L doing research"). I felt it take over me. The example that stands out in my mind involved a woman with a form of multiple sclerosis. As a result, she is quadriplegic and unable to swallow food. For nutrition, she is fed intravenously (total parenteral nutrition, or TPN). In her case, the process is both time-consuming - typically 10-hours - and particularly delicate because the IV is in the carotid artery in her neck. The smallest glitch can be fatal. Yet, the insurance company decided to reduce her nursing care to only two hours per week. According to the insurance company, personal care attendants (unskilled in IV therapy and paid for by the patient) could adequately serve the patient's needs.

After the hearing, I was given a last chance to provide information showing that TPN administration requires skilled nursing care. How do I do this when there is no law to turn to, and nursing standards do not specifically address the issue? I pulled together general IV nursing standards and regulations pertaining to IV training. I spoke with the Board of Nursing, the Infusion Nursing Society, the supplier of the TPN equipment, and nursing schools. I gathered internal e-mails from the insurance company and letters from her doctor. While writing the document, I began to feel myself being pulled into the topic and the goal. I sincerely cared about the outcome, but this was something more. What I was doing would directly impact a person's life.

I felt like an advocate. I really helped someone. (We won!) And, I really believe in this. Yeah, this is why I'm here! Quite a change from my first few weeks; now I think back and say, "Wow, I love this!"

James Allmendinger and Steve Sacks serve as the NEA-NH staff attorneys for 12,000 NEA-NH schoolteachers and support staff. Their caseloads consistently encompass a wide range of legal issues. When they're not representing an aggrieved public school teacher, their job requires them to give legal advice about negotiating 185 collective bargaining agreements between New Hampshire school districts and NEA-NH teachers and support staff. They also conduct numerous legal education seminars for the NEA-NH teachers and support staff, as well as for school districts.

Throughout my fellowship experience, I studied public education employment law, primarily focusing on issues involving the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution, the Law of Agency, the NH Retirement System statute, sexual harassment claims, federal tort claims, and many other areas of law pertaining to the role of public education in society. I wrote several in-house and external legal memos, briefs and fact-based timelines, as well as a five-count federal district court complaint.

Intertwined with my research and writing responsibilities, I traveled with attorneys Allmendinger and Sacks to public school districts throughout the state. I assisted both attorneys in conducting client interviews with public school teachers who had been suspended, fired or simply let go. I attended and participated in negotiations between the aggrieved teachers and the superintendent or principal that had rendered the disciplinary action. I also attended and assisted the NEA staff attorneys in arbitration hearings and Public Employer Labor Relation Board hearings. Both attorneys allowed me to participate as an active and responsible member of the NEA-NH legal department.

In cases involving the termination of a teacher's contract, I quickly learned RSA 189:14-a grants New Hampshire school boards the authority to fire a non-tenured (probationary) teacher without providing a reason or a hearing. This statute is based on a US constitutional argument that probationary teachers do not have a property right in their teaching employment until the completion of their third year with the same school district. This means that probationary teachers are not entitled to 14th Amendment procedural due process protections. RSA 189-14a further enunciates that if tenured/veteran teachers move to another New Hampshire school district, they lose their tenured status and become probationary for another two years in the new district.

My concern over the plight of the probationary teacher being fired for no reason led me to develop an argument that challenges the constitutionality of RSA 189-14a. My research unearthed Village of Willowbrook v. Olech, 528 US 562 (2000). This per curium opinion states that the Equal Protection clause is no longer limited to individuals of a suspect class and enabled me to construct an Equal Protection argument against RSA 189-14a.

In sum, my fellowship experience with NEA-NH was excellent. I learned a great deal about many areas of the law, especially education, labor and employment law. For me, this experience was a great way to put the legal concepts that I learned during my first year into a meaningful practice. More importantly, this experience heightened my self-esteem, assuring me that I had the skill and ambition to succeed as a lawyer.

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