U.S. DISTRICT COURT, DISTRICT OF MONTANA, Billings, Mont., April 9, 1968. Hon WAYNE MORSE, Chairman, Education Subcommittee, Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR MORSE: As I wrote you on March 28, I am satisfied from our experience with the Montana Defender Project that a program of curriculum pport encompassing the clinical practice of the law is feasible and would be Aptly beneficial to the participating law schools. Enclosed are a letter from Dean Robert E. Sullivan of the School of Law of the University of Montana and an article which I wrote for the February, 1968, De of "The Legal Aid Briefcase," the publication of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association. These explain in some detail the operation of the Montana Defender Project. My special interest in the project is based in part upon the fact that there are Indian reservations in the divisions over which I preside, and most of the minal cases in my court arise on the reservations. Nearly all of the defendants are indigent, and since the enactment of the Criminal Justice Act of 1964, counsel have been appointed for all appearances before United States Commissioners as vel as in district court. By reason of the distances involved and limited number f attorneys residing on or near the reservations, it is often difficult to provide pt and adequate investigation of the cases. Although the Law School is located from 400 to 600 miles from most of the servations, it has been possible during the summer months and spring vacations meet this need, at least in part. For example, I have received this morning "ports on the work of five students who devoted ten days during spring vacaon to investigative work in a number of serious cases. All of the court appointed se who were assisted by the students have commented most favorably on the Cents' work, and the director of the project writes that, "All of the students red the experience and found it very interesting and valuable." We have arranged with the Administrative Office of the United States Courts for partial reimbursement where the student performs investigative work which ve the time of counsel. In many cases this results in a substantial saving, ce we charge $4.00 an hour for the students' time against $10.00 for counsel. The student who investigates any case is permitted to sit at the counsel table en the case is tried. This is helpful both to the student and counsel. No claim Ar reimbursement of course is made for this time or any other time for the dents work might duplicate that of counsel. Both during the summer and the school year students have worked with ters at Montana State Prison at Deer Lodge. Deer Lodge is approximately es from Missoula, where the Law School is located, so this does not present e distance problem, as does the work among the Indians. As indicated in the Are in the Legal Aid Briefcase, the Chief Justice of the Montana Supreme has requested that the Montana Defender Project investigate the case they prisoner who feels aggrieved by his conviction or sentence. To facilitate work, a rule of court was promulgated to permit law students to participate the preparation and presentation of petitions for writs in all the courts of Bow Chief Justice Harrison of the Montana Supreme Court shares my astic endorsement and support of the project. old of course be much easier to conduct a program of this nature in whools which are located in a more densely populated area. I feel that seeded in Montana under the most adverse conditions from the standof time and expense involved in traveling substantial distances. if you should desire any further information regarding the Montana project, Sivan and I shall be pleased to furnish it. Sincerely. W. J. JAMESON. UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA, Hon. WILLIAM J. JAMESON, U.S. Post Office Building, Billings, Mont. DEAR BILL: This is in answer to your letter of March 28 raising questions posed to you by Senator Wayne Morse. I will give a little background although I am sure you are familiar with it, and then give some statistics to implement the operation of our internship programs. Our internship programs are divided into two parts-the academic year and the summer session. In the matter of expense, the summer part of the program poses the greatest problem. During summer, we employ law students at the rat of $400 per month for an aggregate of $1,200.00. We employ a director at a salar of $3,000.00. The University pays one-half of the salary of the director. We als have extensive travel and per diem expenses during the summer months becaus of the travel by the director to supervise people in the field and because of th necessity of travel by certain of the interns from the established base of opera tions during those summer months. During the academic year the progra continues on a modified scale. No salaries are paid to students, but one-half ‹ the academic year salary of the director is paid by the University, one-half from other funds. There is considerable travel and some per diem during the academ year as students travel to cities of Montana to assist counsel who are assigne as defense counsel in the case of indigent accused. We also have extensive trav to the State Penitentiary at Deer Lodge as our students process petitions f post-conviction relief from inmates there. In addition to the salaries of th director and students, we also have been able to provide from project funds th salary of a full-time secretary during the entire calendar year. Allowances f communications (telephone, telegraph, correspondence, etc.), clerical suppli and a fifteen percent overhead charge have also been important parts of t program. During the summer of 1967 we administered two separate programs whi were designed to reach a common objective. There was the Montana Defend Project funded under the National Defender Project and a project under t Law Enforcement Assistance Act of 1964. The latter project enabled us broaden our student participation into fields of probation, city police, coun attorneys and ombudsmen on Indian reservations. Request for funds were pre cated upon the basis outlined above, that is, $400.00 per month per student pl allowances for travel at the rate specified by Montana law (8¢ per mile) and p diem at the rate specified by Montana law when the assigned student was aw from the base of his assignment ($12.00 per day). In order to give you some id of the amount requested under the Defender Project and under the Law Enfor ment Assistance Act, and to see how these funds were allocated during t academic year and during the summer months-so far as we are able to bre them down-I am reproducing below in tabular form the Montana Defen Project and the Law Enforcement Assistance Project. I am indicating amount requested in various categories under each project and the source of funds whether from University sources or from the grants and the amo actually expended for an indicated period in each of the categories for wh funds were requested or allocated. I hope this will be of assistance to you replying to the inquiry from Senator Morse. If there is further detail require, please let me know. MONTANA DEFENDER PROJECT (JUNE 1, 1966, TO MAY 31, 1967) LAW ENFORCEMENT ASSISTANCE ACT (APR. 1, 1967, TO SEPT. 30, 1967) Education Subcommittee consideration of modification to S. 3098, the Higher Education Amendments of 1968. WAYNE MORSE, » Senate, shington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR: I am happy to respond to your request for a letter concerning at views on the above matter. I enjoyed your speech at our law school meeting Detroit and certainly enjoyed the opportunity to become acquainted with when you were on the K.U. campus last. My colleagues and I are intrigued, and pleased, with the idea of a new section the above law providing for grants to finance practical “clinical" training "crans in laws schools. We believe that we have been the pioneer in the country, or certainly one , in the area of clinical emphasis within the law school. We were the to develop a law school course in juvenile problems, for which the Western tre Fund a year ago gave us a national award. We were the first to develop al judge clerkship, involving placing senior law students for one full month the state trial judges in this and other states. These students observe all ities in those courts during a busy period, and in a sense, act as clerk for *ate trial judges. We were the first school to develop legal aid in the iaries, a program now being widely copied. so have a relatively large grant from the National Legal Aid and der Project under which we have developed a course in criminal proceanother course taught by a psychiatrist on human behavior as it is of to lawyers, and expanded our legal aid projects from the federal to the penitentiary, involved students to work with assigned counsel on criminal in the Kansas City area, and are developing other projects of practical Rodents are also serving as juvenile probation officers, and participating eighborhood law office program in the Kansas City, Kansas area. Te have the students enroll in a course which we call "Clinic." They receive or of credit for each semester of this activity. We have close faculty on and try to involve the students in a variety of field experiences. have been careful not to shortchange the theoretical training of law We require 90 semester hours for graduation, whereas some other **tools require as little as 82. With our higher graduation requirement do not mind giving students some credit for clinical type activities, though **mat such credit to four hours in total. ason we got into training in the clinical area is our feeling that giving theoretical training is still only part of the job of preparing a lawyer. the student loose only trained in theory, depending upon the lawyers es associated with to educate him on the "clinical" aspects may work Hard, which sends nearly everyone to Wall Street type firms, but not |