Vote: passed

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23. AUTHORIZATION TO SOLICIT DONATIONS AND GENERATE FINANCIAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO ENDOW THE GIDEON FELLOWSHIP Grant permission to the Office of the Public Defender to solicit donations and generate financial contributions to the Arizona State University Foundation to endow the Gideon Fellowship for Criminal Defense. The Gideon Fellowship provides one outstanding ASU law student per year exposure to indigent criminal defense work through a series of clinical experiences with the Maricopa County Public Defender’s Office and the Federal Public Defender. These experiences offer direct client interaction, research and writing and courtroom practice. The Fellow is chosen through an application and interview process and receives a $1,500.00 stipend paid through the ASU Foundation, and six graded and six pass/fail credit hours from the ASU Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law. The Gideon Fellowship serves as an excellent recruitment tool for Maricopa County by helping to promote public service in conjunction with the Public Defender’s Office. In this respect, the Fellowship has been remarkably successful – the Public Defender’s Office has hired four of the five students who have completed the Gideon Fellowship as attorneys when they passed the Arizona State Bar Exam. The fifth Gideon Fellow is employed as a public defender in Colorado, and the current Gideon Fellow has indicated that she will apply for law clerk and attorney positions at the Public Defender’s Office after she completes the Fellowship. The Gideon Fellowship attempts to provide for law students interested in indigent criminal defense what the Truman Young Fellowship provides for students interested in prosecution. The Truman Young Fellowship, which has been in existence since the 1980’s, is sponsored by the Arizona Prosecuting Attorneys Advisory Council, and includes a semester of work in the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. The Truman Young Fellowship has an endowment that enables it to provide a $10,000 stipend that is also funded through the ASU Foundation. Unlike the Truman Young Fellowship, the Gideon Fellowship does not have an established endowment and the ASU Foundation has advised us that it must end its financial support of the Gideon Fellowship in 2015 if a reliable funding source is not established. If the Office of the Public Defender is not permitted to solicit financial contributions, the fellowship will not include any stipend and will likely end. Therefore, the Public Defender’s Office is seeking approval to solicit donations and conduct fundraisers outside the office on behalf of the ASU Foundation for the Gideon Fellowship, and to participate in ASU fundraising efforts to generate the $1,500 needed each year to support this fellowship. Examples of fundraising include: requesting donations at indigent defense-related conferences and other continuing legal education seminars and programs, sending letters, meeting with potential donors and holding fund-raising events. All funds collected will be submitted to the ASU Foundation for the purpose of sustaining this program. (C-56-14-005-M-00)