2017–18 VSB President Doris Elcenia Henderson Causey Central Virginia Legal Aid Society Virginia State Bar: Executive Committee Council Budget and Finance Committee Better Annual Meeting Committee Bench-Bar Relations Committee Clients’ Protection Fund Study Committee on the Future of Law Other Affi liations: City of Richmond Bar Association Old Dominion Bar Association Virginia Bar Foundation Fellow ABA Fellow ABA House of Delegates Education: University of Mississippi, B.S. Mathematics and Political Science Tennessee State University, Masters of Education Texas Southern University, J.D. Family: Doris and Tracy Causey are the parents of three children: Caleb, Jillian, and Joshua Causey created this collage in third grade showing herself as a lawyer. Though she was president of her high school student body and her law school class, and was on the student government at Ole Miss, Causey never had a defi ned goal to get involved in the bar. Curtis Hairston always said, ‘You need to get involved,’” she recalls. “One day a card came in the mail looking for people to run for bar council, so I did. I was the only woman to get elected, and (VSB executive director) Karen Gould asked me to come meet her. I looked up at all the past presidents of the bar and I saw there were no black presidents, and maybe that’s where it started.” Of her hopes for the coming year, Causey says, “I want people to see that you too can be a bar leader. I bring a dif-ferent voice. I bring a different perspec-tive. I will see places where there needs to be some diversity. Some people will say this does not matter, but to people of my race it does. You want to be includ-ed. You want to have your say.” 10 VIRGINIA LAWYER | June 2017 | Vol. 66 Causey refers to her past as a means of explaining the journey that took her from private practice to legal aid. When she graduated from law school she recalls, “My mama said, ‘You going to work in legal aid?’ and I said, ‘No, I want to make some money!’” she fi nishes with a laugh. But she had grown up watching US Attorneys Calvin “Buck” Buchanan and Ava N. Jackson do considerable good for others with their law degrees. “In small town Mississippi, we saw these lawyers using legal aid to do great things for good people. I started volunteering here at Central Virginia Legal Aid, and it eventually became my profession.” Causey draws the connection between the legal aid community and the bar by saying, “I’m not going to win every case. But I am going to tell someone’s story. There are people being charged $3,000 in rent and deposits who fi nd them-selves with rats and fi lth, and that’s not right. You have to go and argue what’s right, and the bar must argue for what’s right as well. You have to address what’s right.” “I like that I am the fi rst African American to have this role, the fi rst African American woman, and also that I am the fi rst legal aid lawyer,” Causey says of her historic bar fi rsts. “We have seen so many big lawyers have this role — it’s important to show that legal aid lawyers can do it too.” When asked how she feels about her upcoming year and the role she will forever hold in bar history she says, “I think of myself in this role as: It’s time. I am leading a historic bar where there are lots of traditions, and I am glad I did it. I’m glad I put my name in the hat.” www.vsb.org