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FLS Summer Internship Description
Background
Farmworker Legal Services of Michigan (FLS) is a nonprofit, public-interest legal aid office that provides free civil legal services to indigent migrant and seasonal farmworkers throughout the state of Michigan. From its office in Kalamazoo, the organization provides access to legal services to the approximately 90,000 eligible farmworkers and their dependents throughout Michigan.
Farm work is the second most dangerous occupation in the United States; the average farmworker has a life expectancy of less than 50 years. The vast majority of Michigan's migrant and seasonal farmworkers have incomes well below the poverty level, with an average annual income of about $10,000 for a family of four. In addition to poverty, other unique barriers prevent this population from accessing needed resources:
- Communication difficulties. Michigan farmworkers are predominantly Spanish-speakers in an overwhelmingly English-speaking environment.
- Geographic isolation. The homes and work sites of this population are scattered throughout remote, rural locations.
- Transience. Farmworkers must continually move from place to place to follow the crops.
- Lack of education. Continuous migration patterns interfere with long-term education. The average educational level is sixth grade for adults and eighth grade for children.
- Cultural insensitivity. The vast majority of Michigan's farmworkers are of Latino descent, with other minorities represented. They must often confront cultural and racial stereotyping and other trust-inhibiting treatment.
The legal problems that farmworkers confront include:
- Refusal of employers to pay minimum wages or promised bonuses
- Unexpected changes in the employment contract
- Deplorable housing conditions in the migrant labor camps
- Inadequate workplace sanitation (toilets, drinking water, and hand-washing facilities in the fields)
- Exposure to toxic pesticides in the workplace
- Confusion about immigration status, the immigration laws, and USCIS procedures
- Access to public benefits and accommodations
- Overt and subtle discrimination
Farmworker Legal Services is the seventh-largest migrant legal services program in the country, and the largest program in the Midwest. FLS is a seven-attorney law office, with a legal assistant and 5 to 7 summer staff each year. All staff is bilingual.
FLS is a division of Legal Services of South Central Michigan (LSSCM), which serves low-income clients from five field offices in southern and central Michigan. LSSCM operates the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center (MIRC) in the same office as FLS in Kalamazoo; MIRC is a resource for state support and coalition-building around immigrant rights issues in the state (see www.MichiganImmigrant.org). LSSCM jointly operates the Family Law Project clinical program with the University of Michigan Law School. LSSCM also operates the Michigan Poverty Law Program, a statewide legal services support center that conducts trainings, writes legal manuals, coordinates statewide task forces, and provides advice and consultation on poverty law issues to legal services attorneys throughout Michigan. All of LSSCM's considerable resources and expertise are available to FLS and its interns.
FLS also collaborates with the Diocese of Kalamazoo Immigration Assistance Program, which offers immigration representation to eligible clients. In addition, FLS has collaborated for years with Michigan Migrant Legal Assistance Project, Inc. (MMLAP), which is based in Grand Rapids.
Each summer FLS participates in a three-day Farmworker Law Training. Since 2001, the training has been a regional training attended by staff of migrant legal services programs from Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa. The training is typically held during the last week of May, and FLS hosts the training every other year. The training agenda is designed mainly for summer staff, and it includes an overview of the substantive legal issues most commonly encountered by migrant legal services staff, as well as issue-spotting exercises and mock client interviews. Summer staff is also instructed in conducting outreach at migrant labor camps and in how to collaborate with other migrant service agencies in the state and in the region. In addition, FLS will hold its own "in-house" training, designed to familiarize the summer staff with the FLS intake process, office personnel, equipment, and office procedures.
Student interns at Farmworker Legal Services can expect a highly educational, challenging, and rewarding summer experience. FLS gives student interns a great deal of responsibility and we hold them to a high standard of professional conduct and ability. Interns are considered members of the legal staff and perform work that FLS attorneys would normally handle. Interns' general responsibilities consist of client intake, case support, and community outreach.
We assign interns cases from our practice areas to work on under the supervision of, and in consultation with, the attorneys. Case work generally involves interviewing clients, completing intake forms, analyzing each client's legal problem, and providing legal advice. Interns will be expected to communicate to clients orally and through letters in English or Spanish in order to explain the client’s legal situation. Sometimes, the interns will need to simply refer a client to another agency that can assist them when we cannot.
Depending on the circumstances of a case, the intern’s role may be to support the attorney through fact investigation, document preparation, legal research and writing, negotiations with adverse parties, and litigation preparation and support.
Interns are also important components of our outreach plan to reach migrant farmworkers throughout the season. Interns will conduct outreach to migrant labor camps throughout the state of Michigan, which involves informing workers about their rights, passing out informational brochures, and conducting intakes on the workers’ legal problems. Interns can expect to do camp outreach an average of two evenings every week. In addition, weekend outreach events are occasionally required throughout the season.
Interns will also give Community Legal Education (CLE) presentations to client groups about their legal rights, and they may draft CLE materials for clients.
FLS' attorneys have an open-door policy, permitting any member of the legal staff, including the student interns, access at almost any time to discuss cases or other issues. In addition to this daily hands-on supervision, the interns will attend weekly case review meetings during which all members of the legal staff report on current projects, exchange information, and brainstorm about their cases. The office also maintains a collegial atmosphere in which all members of the legal staff, including the interns, are free to seek input on their cases and projects from any other member of the staff.
Interns should expect to put in more than 40 hours per week, since regular evenings and occasional weekends will be necessary for community outreach. Interns will also receive a substantial amount of client contact as they work with the migrant population to try to resolve their legal issues.
For more information about FLS or legal services in Michigan, visit www.FarmworkerLaw.org, www.Facebook.com/FarmworkerLaw, www.mplp.org, or www.lsscm.org. FLS' website contains information about cases and issues that we have been working on recently. FLS can also be contacted by email at: fls @ lsscm.org
Rev. 10/14/2011
