Virginia's legal aid chapters, which provide free legal representation to Virginia's poor and working poor, were told this week by their federal funding source that they must immediately implement a 4 percent cut.
A $15.8 million reduction to the national Legal Services Corporation's budget was fresh on the minds of Virginia legal aid directors at the corporation's board of directors meeting, held in Richmond Friday. The government-funded nonprofit's cuts were considerably less than the $70 million it was warned might be eliminated from its budget as recently as a few weeks ago, said treasurer David Richardson.
The 4 percent cut will be passed along to the corporation's 136 grantees, which resulted in a nearly $300,000 loss for Virginia.
"I was grateful that it wasn't more severe," said David B. Neumeyer, executive director of the Richmond-based Virginia Legal Aid Society, which represents 20 rural counties and six small cities in central Virginia. "I was expecting worse."
However, he noted that some of the state's nine agencies are starting staff layoffs, including attorneys.
Mark Braley, executive director of the Legal Services Corporation of Virginia, an umbrella organization, said the cut is "4 percent more than we wanted." He said because the cuts take effect mid-year, it feels like an 8 percent cut.
He said that three years ago Virginia legal aid was turning away one client for every client it served. Now, in the midst of a recession that has resulted in more need but fewer attorneys, the state's nine legal aid societies serve one person for every two they turn away.
"It's like emergency room triage," Braley said.
Braley said the legal aid societies are forced to do more with less. They represent clients on civil matters, including filing restraining orders, fighting bank foreclosures, and monitoring unemployment benefits.
"One of the things we don't know is what clients do if they can't get our help," he said.
The legal aid chapters have for years relied on help from law students and private lawyers to provide legal advice that is above what staff attorneys can do.
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