Much attention has been devoted to Virginia's inadequate system for ensuring that poor defendants facing criminal charges have meaningful legal representation.
While that problem requires much more effort, far less time has been devoted to the other legal problems that regularly confront men and women without the resources to hire an attorney: A domestic violence victim needs a protective order. A laid-off worker must file for bankruptcy. A low-income couple seeks a no-fault divorce. A father faces termination of his parental rights.
"A lot of people aren't going to lose sleep over that case, but I will," Virginia Supreme Court Chief Justice Leroy Hassell said Tuesday. "We have to ensure that everyone has access to the courts."
Hassell is doing more than just worrying. Last year in his State of the Judiciary address he asked the Virginia Bar Association to help create a plan for encouraging attorneys to donate legal services to the poor. This week, Hassell presided over a "Pro Bono Summit" to assess the progress and share success strategies.
It must be distressing to Hassell, a Norfolk native, to see the unmet needs in the region he once called home. Less than 2 percent of lawyers in Hampton Roads participate in Legal Aid pro bono programs, the lowest rate in the state. In comparison, the Harrisonburg Rockingham Bar Association brags a 30 percent participation rate.
"And we still turned away twice as many people as we helped last year," said John Whitfield, executive director of Blue Ridge Legal Services.
While bar associations occasionally help out with phone banks, the greater need in Hampton Roads and across the state is for attorneys with expertise in bankruptcies, estates and other civil issues to provide a backup to overworked and underfinanced legal aid groups.
The situation has grown dire during the recession. The Legal Aid Society of Eastern Virginia faces $460,000 in state budget cuts next year and is already operating with two fewer attorneys than it had this time last year, said executive director Raymond Hartz.
Recruiting volunteers has been a challenge across the state. U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Urbanski posted a notice seeking volunteer attorneys on his court's website. "For four years, I got not one response," he reported.
Petula Metzler of the Prince William County Bar Association summed it up when she said the challenge is "to make pro bono cool."
Among the ideas for accomplishing that goal: recruiting more retired and semi-retired attorneys as volunteers, recognizing pro bono services through awards and banquets and even designating a prime parking space at courthouses for lawyers who donate the most time to helping the poor.
Attorneys who gathered at the summit this week agreed that pro bono work will grow if and when law firms, judges and bar associations all make it clear that they value this vital public service. That's a challenge to every attorney in the state, and it's coming straight from the top.
"Constitutional rights are of no value if there is no way or no method to vindicate those rights," Hassell said.
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"Virginia's inadequate system .."
period!
To: Virginia Supreme Court Chief Justice Leroy Hassell
If you want a revolution, you gotta make a difference on your own.
Another Lecture from a Gov't Employee
As Chief Justice of the Virginia Supreme Court, Judge Hassell gets to say whatever is on his mind. And I guess if it is his opinion that private lawyers are a greedy, selfish bunch, who are we to question him?
But it does bother me at least a little bit that someone whose paycheck is assured, and is virtually unaccountable to anyone but himself, gets to lecture others who are having to wake up every morning in order to find and perform paying work -- not just to enrich themselves bit also to pay their employees and their vendors and also pay the taxes that go toward Justice Hassell's guaranteed salary.
So now in addition to trying to run a positive cash-flow operation, Justice Hassell decrees that private lawyers need to give more or their own time away. How generous of him.
I guess it's not enough for a private lawyer to simply be an honest, productive taxpayer. If this attitude were limited just to lawyers, that might be fine (who cares about lawyers, after all). But I suspect that the attitude extends well beyond the legal profession.
Well, this should just about prove...
That there is only as much justice as you can afford in a Hampton Roads Courtroom.
There are public defenders available.
The opinion is about items that require fees and posible legal representation. The only way to "fix" this is to force lawyers to volunteer. The last time I looked forcing and voluntering are not the same thing. Now Virginia Supreme Court Chief Justice Leroy Hassell says "A lot of people aren't going to lose sleep over that case, but I will. We have to ensure that everyone has access to the courts." He can start this by making it so lawyers are not required a every step. Will he? No, judges were lawyers and want paid too. If he feels so strongly he can lead by example and volunteer one day a week to perform the functions he calls on others to do. Then he can ask others to follow his example.