Virginia legal aid unit asks for higher court filing fees

Faced with budget cuts and rising demand, legal aid officials in Virginia will ask state lawmakers to increase civil court filing fees and require interest on money being held for clients to go to legal aid rather than banks.

Federal grants to legal aid, which provides free services to poor people in civil litigation, were cut about 4 percent in 2011, with an additional 15 percent cut effective Sunday, a loss of about $1.2 million in Virginia, according to the Legal Services Corporation of Virginia.

Interest paid on trust accounts - money that lawyers are holding for clients - declined from $4.6 million in 2007 to $680,000 in 2011.

"We're dealing with about $5 million less than we had a few years ago," said Mark D. Braley, executive director of the corporation. "We'll have to lay off as many as 20 attorneys and probably 10 or so support staff."

Statewide, legal aid employs about 125 lawyers in 38 offices. Open positions went unfilled this year.

In the office that covers Hampton Roads, Williamsburg and the Eastern Shore, three attorneys are taking early retirement, bringing the staff attorney level from 27 to 24. An additional three or four could be laid off in 2012, said Raymond Hartz, executive director of the Legal Aid Society of Eastern Virginia.

"We're almost certainly going to have layoffs in the coming year," he said. "This is happening at the same time that we're getting a huge increase in the number of people applying for services."

In more and more cases, lawyers aren't able to do more than give advice, Braley and Hartz said.

Legal aid will push two measures at the state level to offset cuts:

•  The program that sends interest on money held in trust to legal aid in Virginia is voluntary. It is mandatory in all states except Virginia, Alaska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska and Idaho. With backing of Virginia's bankers, the General Assembly passed a law in the 1990s stopping the program from becoming mandatory.

Del. Manoli Loupassi, a Richmond Republican, has introduced a bill to repeal that law and thus allow the Virginia Supreme Court to consider requiring all lawyers to participate in the program. Similar bills died in the General Assembly a year ago.

•  Legal aid will ask lawmakers to approve a budget amendment that would increase the civil filing fee that goes to legal aid from $9 to $13.

"We're obviously like every other state, dealing with really tight budgets and proposed cuts in all kinds of places," Braley said. "So it's a very difficult environment to try to get something, but we're going to try."

Legal aid handles cases such as domestic-violence restraining orders, child custody and support, and consumer protection issues. Braley estimates that requests for help with foreclosures have tripled in the past three years.

To make its case, legal aid officials will argue that their clients are not undeserving. An example Braley provided is an Iraq War veteran in Winchester dealing with health problems and a financial crisis that led to foreclosure proceedings. A legal aid attorney helped negotiate a repayment plan on his mortgage.

"We're dealing with working people who work two jobs at minimum wage," Braley said. "We're representing veterans."

Patrick Wilson, (757) 222-3893, patrick.wilson@pilotonline.com