Press Release

For More Information Contact:

Rhonda Knight, Director of Development
Email: rhondak@vlas.org
 

The Virginia Legal Aid Society (VLAS), which provides civil legal services to low-income persons in an area that includes the state’s poorest region, has proposed a five-year strategic plan that will use distance lawyering, pro bono help, and a rearrangement of practice areas to overcome financial losses cause by the economy.

The plan calls for the Legal Aid office in Emporia to be shut down at the end of 2012 due to declining funding. Residents of Emporia and neighboring counties will be served primarily by the VLAS office in Suffolk.

The draft VLAS Strategic Plan 2013-17 is posted at www.vlas.org. Public comments are invited. They should be submitted by Aug. 31 to plancomments@vlas.org or by using the survey linked on the website.

VLAS currently has offices in Lynchburg, Danville, Emporia, Farmville, and Suffolk, and serves twenty counties and six cities in Central, Southside, and western Tidewater Virginia. In 2010 the Southside region had the state’s highest percentage (19.9%) of individuals living below the poverty level, according to an analysis posted at Virginia.gov (http://vaperforms.virginia.gov/indicators/economy/poverty.php).

VLAS proposes to take the following steps to make most efficient use of its nine attorneys and two paralegals who provide direct legal services and two attorneys and six paralegals who do client intake and advice:

• Organize the attorneys into practice groups that focus on housing, family law, employment, foreclosures, and other areas of civil law covered by legal aid. Currently, all the lawyers are generalists with “soft” specialties. The narrowing of focus will develop expertise in the specialty areas. Each specialist lawyer will work with clients through the VLAS service area, using local Legal Aid offices for services that must be provided in person.
• Solicit more pro bono assistance from lawyers in private practice, including Richmond’s Firms in Service — law firms that have organized to support pro bono. This help also can be provided using distance lawyering.
• Increase the number of remote sites where clients can go for intake and interviews about their cases. Through this service, clients go to a community location — a library or church, for example — where they use Skype or other electronic communication to discuss their cases with Legal Aid staff in another location.

David B. Neumeyer, executive director of VLAS, said the changes will result in “more sophistication in subject area, more efficiency, and more impact.”

The program, already underfunded due to the limited resources in its service area, has been hit hard by the recession and a sizeable cut in support from the federal Legal Services Corporation caused by congressional budget cuts. VLAS did not fill three attorney positions that became vacant this spring. The Emporia office now is staffed only by a paralegal and a secretary. Offices in Martinsville and Halifax were closed 10 years ago for budget reasons.

In developing the strategic plan, VLAS held 20 meetings in March and April across its service area to gather community input.

The draft plan proposes to continue housing assistance in disputes involving public housing, subsidized housing, and domestic abuse situations. But the draft plan would stop representing clients in private landlord-tenant matters unless a grant source provides dedicated funding. VLAS also will reduce the number of contested divorces it handles.

The program also plans to redouble its fundraising efforts, in part by heightening awareness of legal aid in its service area and how its work benefits clients and the community.

“We hope the communities we serve value the assistance we provide on important problems for people who have nowhere else to turn,” Neumeyer said. “Our purpose is to protect our clients’ rights in disputes that affect the fundamentals of life like income, shelter, and family safety. Equal justice is the cornerstone of our democracy.”

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Virginia Legal Aid Society’s mission is to resolve serious legal problems of low-income people, promote economic and family stability, reduce poverty through effective legal assistance, and champion equal justice. VLAS uses legal skills to solve problems in health care, public benefits, housing, family relations, advance directives, consumer, education, and economic self-sufficiency.