2014 Grants – $330,000
ARLINGTON BAR FOUNDATION – $10,000
Juvenile Licensing Ceremony Video – The Bar Foundation has been asked to produce “A Victim of Circumstance II” and utilize the same formula as the original video, but add more relevant challenges that face young drivers today. These challenges would include distracted driving, texting, and cell phone use in a moving car. These evolving distractions simply did not exist during the production of the original program. The current production has been shown at every monthly licensing ceremony since 1998 and has received two national awards.
CAIR – CAPITAL AREA IMMIGRANT’S RIGHTS – $3,000
The CAIR VA Justice Program will provide training, written resources, and individualized consultations to indigent defense providers throughout Virginia on the immigration consequences of criminal charges and convictions. The purpose of the program is to ensure equal access to justice for Virginia’s non-citizens by providing indigent defense attorneys with the tools they need to competently defend their clients against the disproportionate immigration penalties that often accompany criminal convictions, including immigration detention, deportation and family separation.
CAPITAL DEFENSE WORKSHOP – $17,000
A project of the Virginia Bar Association Foundation
The Capital Defense Workshop is the only educational program that covers both training requirements (forensics and litigation) for Virginia lawyers representing defendants charged with capital murder. This is the 18th year of the Virginia Law Foundation’s financial support to this one and one-half day training program for Virginia attorneys. Each year, up to 250 lawyers receive training in forensics and litigation to help them meet standards set by the Virginia Supreme Court and the Virginia Indigent Defense Commission, in conjunction with the Virginia State Bar, for the defense of capital cases in Virginia.
Goals of this workshop are to (1) maintain/increase the current level of qualified lawyers certified to accept capital cases; (2) provide attendees additional insight regarding national developments in death penalty litigation; and (3) enhance participants overall level of skills and productivity as representatives of capital defendants. .
HILL-TUCKER PRE-LAW INSTITUTE – $10,000
A project of the Diversity Conference of the Virginia State Bar and the Millennium Diversity Initiative
During a week-long program, students are introduced to the legal profession by attending mock classes and seminars on test taking strategies, the college admissions process, and career opportunities in the law. The students meet with law professors, judges, guest lecturers, and lawyers, and participate in a mock trial. The Institute culminates with a graduation banquet where a prominent African American member or member of diversity of the Bar is the featured speaker. The goals of the institute are to: 1) provide area high school and other students throughout the state with access and exposure to African American lawyers and other lawyers of diversity in the Richmond area; 2) Educate students on the basic fundamentals for successful law careers and provide them with an opportunity to experience the field of law first hand; and 3) Provide a practical learning experience through the mock trial to further expose area high school students to the practice of law.
JUSTICESERVER – $90,000
A project of the Greater Richmond Bar Foundation
JusticeServer is a state-of-the-art information management and case referral system. Inside legal aid organizations, JusticeServer improves efficiency of case screening and legal service provisions, improves reporting capabilities and improves identification of unmet needs. With one step Legal Aids can send pro bono matters to a secure online Portal and access a virtual law firm of volunteers from throughout the Commonwealth. For the private bar, JusticeServer is centralized source for finding pro bono opportunities that match designated areas of interest and ability.
PUBLIC SERVICE INTERNSHIPS – $40,000
Each of Virginia’s eight American Bar Association-accredited law schools will receive $5,000 to fund public service internships during the summer. Continuing a VLF tradition begun in 1989, the internships enable Virginia host employers to hire selected students who will have completed one or two years of law school. The students work under the supervision of an attorney; the work they complete varies widely and depends on the missions and caseloads of their respective organizations. Some students gain experience working on individual client matters and some work on projects affecting many clients in the organization’s service area. These internships advance law-related education by sensitizing students to the importance of public interest and pro bono work.
The following Virginia law schools are involved:
- George Mason University School of Law
- Regent University School of Law
- University of Richmond School of Law
- Appalachian School of Law
- William and Mary School of Law
- Liberty University School of Law
- University of Virginia School of Law
- Washington & Lee University School of Law
RULE OF LAW PROJECT – $50,000
A project of the Virginia Law Foundation and the Virginia Bar Association
The Rule of Law Project is an educational program developed for middle and high school civics students to teach the rule of law through an extensive web-based curriculum designed by educators and taught collaboratively by teachers, lawyers and judges directly in the classroom. The purpose of the project is to change fundamentally the way the rule of law is taught in America’s schools, and to empower students at a formative age to become active and engage citizens as adults.
STATEWIDE LEGAL AID CONFERENCE – $20,000
A project of the Virginia Poverty Law Center
The Virginia Poverty Law Center holds an annual conference on legal issues relating to poverty. The three-day conference is comprised of approximately 30 training sessions on issues including consumer, health, family, housing and other areas of civil poverty law. The project will serve all of Virginia with the goal of educating legal aid attorneys and staff on those issues that most impact low income Virginians. It will also provide attorneys with the opportunity to earn required number of CLE credits at little or no cost, and provide a meeting ground for legal aid attorneys and staff to discuss the latest developments in the valuable work they do. .
THE IMMIGRATION ASSISTANCE PROJECT – $30,000
A project of the Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
The IAP povides pro bono legal services to the underserved Hispanic community and other individual in the immigrant community. Since its inception, the IAP has served 4,000 individuals primarily from the Tidewater, Central and Northern Virginia areas. The IAP assists with the recovery of unpaid wages, identifying and obtaining forms of lawful status for illegal immigrants to obtain asylum, NACARA, Temporary Protected Status, status through U-VISA; administrative closure and prosecutorial discretion. The IAP also assists with immigration related documents to include citizenship applications, employment authorization and family member petitions.
VIRGINIA HOLOCAUST MUSEUM – RULE OF LAW DAY & AWARD – $10,000
A project of the Virginia Holocaust Museum
The Virginia Holocaust Museum has worked in tandem with the Virginia Law Foundation for five years to sponsor Law Day programming and “The Rule of Law Award”. Programming is connected to a series of even30+30ts ranging from lectures to workshops. The “Rule of Law Award” will be presented to an individual who has demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to promoting the rule of law as the foundation of peaceful, stable, and prosperous nation states.
WILLIAM & MARY LAW SCHOOL’S LEWIS B. PULLER, JR. VETERANS BENEFITS CLINIC – $50,000
Willam & Mary Law School’s Puller Clinic is nationally recognized as an innovator in veterans’ services and legal education. The clinic provides pro bono access to justice to veterans with complex disability claims. The clinic provides legal service while educating law students in the ethical practice of this complicated are of law. VLF funding will double the number of veterans the Clinic serves annually and double the number of future lawyers with expertise in veterans’ law.
