The Law School recently received a $150,000 grant from the Jessie Ball duPont Fund to finance pro bono legal services for low-income families, particularly those that have been affected by the recent economic downturn and rise in unemployment.
The grant will go toward the fund's Access to Justice Partnership, an alliance created with the intentions of assisting clients of the Legal Aid Justice Center and its sister organization, the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society.
The partnership is expected to yield pro bono services from about 75 private-sector attorneys and 75 Law students each year with assistance from the local bar, according to a University press release.\n"We've worked with this fund many times before, so we've gotten money from them for a variety of pro bono initiatives over the years," said Kimberly Emery, assistant dean for pro bono and public interest at the Law School. "They're very easy to work with. Their board of trustees met and the full grant was approved in February. [Then] we received the money in March."
Emery submitted the grant application in conjunction with Alex Gulotta, executive director of the Legal Aid Justice Center.
Gulotta said in an email that the money will be used by the center for tasks such as developing and coordinating volunteer attorney services, creating and conducting training and performing client intake, screening and triage. Much of partnership's efforts will focus on legal issues concerning such areas as unemployment, housing and home ownership protection, consumer protection, access to health care and public benefits.
"The long-term goal is to create and maintain a dedicated team of pro bono attorneys and volunteer law students to address critical unmet legal needs in our community," Gulotta said.
Steve Dickinson, executive director of the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society, echoed Gulotta's thoughts on those needs, emphasizing the implications of the recession for families in Central Virginia.\n"The recession of the last few years has placed more people in need of legal services and dramatically increased the number of people who qualify as low-income," Dickinson said. "Central Virginia Legal Aid Society has had a 30 percent increase in requests for legal assistance over the last three years."
At the same time, Dickinson said, funding cuts from private and government sources have reduced the capacity of legal aid programs to meet that increased demand. This is where the duPont grant will come in to help with the effort, Dickinson said.
The grant also promises not only to help those in need of legal services, but also to further the educative goals of the University. Under the partnership agreement, legal aid attorneys will supervise and train Law students during these pro bono cases. The students must apply to the program and must agree to commit for a full year.
"It's a great way for the law students to get more exposure to pro bono," Emery said. "We never have enough, given that we're a very large law school in a very small area. Leveraging the services of a private bar provides more opportunities for the students and the clients"
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