President’s Message by Edward L. Weiner Holding Out for a Hero Hero: One who, in the face of danger and adversity or from a position of weakness, displays courage, bravery or self-sacrifice for some greater good. L IKE MOST KIDS, I had quite a few heroes when I was growing up. As a practicing attorney, I have learned a great deal about a different type of heroism — the fight for access to justice — and the heroes who fight that fight every day. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, Jr. said: Equal justice under law is not merely a caption on the facade of the Supreme Court building, it is perhaps the most inspiring ideal of our society. It is one of the ends for which our entire legal system exists ...it is fundamental that justice should be the same, in substance and availability, with-out regard to economic status . Access to justice is in the first line of our Constitution and the last line of our Pledge of Allegiance. Unfortunately, too many Americans — too many Virginians — are, as ABA President Paulette Brown says, “Outside of the umbrella of our justice system.” The Supreme Court’s 1963 unani-mous ruling in Gideon v. Wainwright affirmed that those accused of a crime have a constitutional right to a lawyer whether or not they can afford one. Despite what is widely considered one of the most significant judicial declara-tions of equality under law, many say that the promise inherent in the Gideon ruling remains unfulfilled because so many legal needs still go unmet. There is no right to counsel for civil matters. The chasm between the promise of “equal justice under the law” and the reality of America’s working poor is often called the “Justice Gap,” and it’s growing. Legal Services Corporation of Virginia helps to bridge the Justice Gap. LSCV provides grants to a statewide network of non-profit orga-nizations that enable low-income Virginians to address critical legal issues affecting their families, homes, income, jobs, and access to vital ser-vices such as education and health care. 1 Legal Services assists clients who live in households with annual incomes at or below 125 percent of the federal poverty guidelines: 2 12 Month Income 100% 125% Poverty Poverty Guideline Guideline $11,770 $14,713 $15,930 $19,913 $20,090 $25,113 $24,250 $30,313 Family Size 1 2 3 4 Today, more than one million Virginians (one in eight) are eligible for Legal Aid. 3 Nationwide, sixty-three million Americans (one in five) are eligible. While the number of those eligible for and in need of Legal Aid assistance grew sharply during the recession, funding dropped for three consecutive years beginning in FY 2010–11. This was due to tight federal and state bud-gets, as well as minimal interest income from IOLTAs. Even with a slight increase in funding last year, Legal Aid organizations in Virginia operated with thirty-seven fewer attorneys and forty-two fewer support staff than in 2009. Last year, LSCV Legal Aid Advocates: • Closed 28,688 civil cases, providing direct measurable benefits to 68,857 Virginians. (Of these cases, 2,674 [9.3 percent] were handled by pri-vate attorneys pro bono or for a minimal fee.) • Helped 553,990 Virginians to under-stand and act upon their legal rights and responsibilities as tenants, par-ents, employees, spouses, and con-sumers via: ° telephone legal “hotlines,” ° pro se (self-help) assistance, and ° community legal education. But the Justice Gap is huge. Legal Services estimates that 80 percent of the legal needs of the poor go unmet — all while huge numbers of new lawyers remain unemployed or under-employed. At the 2011 National Pro Bono Summit, then Attorney General Eric Holder said: We are bound by a responsibility to use our unique skills and training — not just to advance cases, but to serve a cause; and to help our nation fulfill its founding promise of equal justice under law...The obligation of pro bono service must become a part of the DNA of both the legal profes-sion and of every lawyer. Here’s what we can do: Get the Facts: 1. Review Legal Services Corporation of Virginia Report to the Commonwealth and the General Assembly FY 2013–2014 . It’s brief and lays out the issue clearly. (http://leg2.state.va.us/ dls/h&sdocs.nsf/By+Year/RD552015/ $file/RD55.pdf) 2. Learn about the Virginia Access to Justice Commission, one of thirty-eight in the United States. (http://www.courts.state.va.us/ programs/vajc/home.html) 10 VIRGINIA LAWYER | December 2015 | Vol. 64 www.vsb.org