New Insurance Program for VBA Members!

Starting this month, members of The Virginia Bar Association will have an opportunity to purchase reliable, affordable insurance services that not only provide benefits for themselves, their families and employees, but also offer a source of non-dues revenue to the Association.

The program, which offers products and services of MassMutual Financial Group, is administered by Dean Hardy and Howard DiSavino Jr. of Richmond.

The new program will offer VBA members a great variety of personal and business insurance and financial services. Through MassMutual, Dean and Howard offer life, disability and long-term care insurance plans in addition to employee benefit programs and business-oriented services. Health insurance, college tuition funding plans, retirement planning, estate analysis and other investment services are among the other available features available. Watch future issues of the VBA News Journal for in-depth information about these new member services!

The MassMutual long-term care product was endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in April 2001 and is available at a 10 percent discount to VBA members. The income-protection policies are also available to VBA members at discounts starting at 10 percent.

“Successful people are often simply too busy to coordinate all of their assets into a systematic strategy... We offer a team of professionals who can provide the required coordination and implementation,” Dean and Howard state on their web page at www.hardy-disavino.com. “Our goal is to help you to achieve your financial objective. We pledge our knowledge, our resources and our dedication to integrity in all that we do.”

Implementation of the new insurance program will require the amendment and restatement of The Virginia Bar Association’s Articles of Incorporation, as presented at left. This will be presented for adoption at a special meeting of the VBA Executive Committee and membership, to be held at 4 p.m. on January 8, 2002, in the 23rd-floor training room of the Troutman Sanders Mays & Valentine offices in the Bank of America Building, 1111 East Main Street, Richmond.

Dean and Howard will represent MassMutual at the VBA Annual Meeting in Williamsburg next month to discuss their products and services with VBA members. They will also present a program, “What Is a Small Firm Practitioner to Do About Insurance? An Overview of the Wide Coverage Now Available Through the VBA,” at the Small Firm Information Exchange Luncheon on January 18 from 12:30-2 p.m.

All VBA members are invited to stop by the MassMutual Financial Group booth at the VBA Annual Meeting to meet Dean and Howard. In the meantime, please visit www.hardy-disavino.com on the Internet to learn more about their wide range of insurance coverage options for VBA members, or call 1-800-358-7987. Return to Top

Free for All: We Are What We Value

As 2001 draws to a close, we look back on a year of irrevocable changes in our lives. The events of September 11 have shaken our nation to its core. Yet amidst the bleakness of our horror, grief and fear, we see a rising triumph of goodness, compassion and valor, an emerging nobility of spirit.

We Americans are not the same people we were on September 10. Certainly, we are more cautious, anxious and vigilant. We are not as carefree, but neither are we as self-centered as we have been in the past. We no longer take the good things of life for granted, and we are more aware of sharing what we have with others.

We are learning that we are, or can become, what we value.

As we mend and heal, we seek strength for whatever may lie ahead, and many of us are finding that strength in comforting and traditional sources: family, friends, spiritual practices, recreation, volunteerism, altruism, patriotism—and professionalism.

The September issue of the VBA News Journal highlighted the community service and pro bono aspects of professionalism; this issue features “complete professionalism,” the delicate but necessary art of balancing one’s personal and professional lives, and other issues of 21st-century professionalism

This issue also showcases the 112th Annual Meeting of The Virginia Bar Association, January 17-20 in Williamsburg. “Strengthening Our Touch with Humanity” is the unofficial theme of this meeting, and many programs will focus on issues VBA members encounter in both their professional and personal lives. The meeting promises to be a time of drawing closer to friends and colleagues, sharing the collegiality for which the VBA is well known.

We do not know what 2002 will bring, but we can prepare ourselves to meet its challenges with hope and fortitude, holding to our values and beliefs, just as people throughout history have done in uncertain times.

At Christmas 1939, early in the conflict which would become World War II, King George VI closed his address to the British people with the following words, which are appropriate for our wartime holiday season as well:

“A new year is at hand. We cannot tell what it will bring. If it brings peace, how thankful we shall all be. If it brings us continued struggle we shall remain undaunted.

“In the meantime I feel that we may all find a message of encouragement in the lines... ‘I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year, “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.” And he replied, “Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way.”’ May that Almighty Hand guide and uphold us all.”

With those words, The Virginia Bar Association staff wishes all VBA members and their loved ones a peaceful, joyous and safe holiday season and New Year.
—The Editor Return to Top

President’s Page:
People Who Walk Straight
Jeanne F. Franklin

Alvaro Nunez Cabeza de Vaca was a 16th-century conquistador who came to North America with dreams of adventure and glittering riches in his head. Then his party of explorers encountered fierce resistance in Florida and horrible storms in the Gulf of Mexico. All but a few of them perished in battle or from the elements. It was just a few survivors, including Cabeza de Vaca, who set out on foot to cross North America, hoping to reach the Pacific Ocean and rescue there by a Spanish ship. Their astounding eight-year transcontinental journey was aided at one point by a sojourn among a band of Native Americans who gave the conquistadors shelter. Cabeza de Vaca learned that these early Americans called themselves “The People Who Walk Straight.”

He survived his journey, and wrote about his experiences, including those among this tribe which impressed him so. He wrote that they migrated from winter quarters each year to more suitable summer camping grounds by walking tortuous, narrow trails along the ridges of mountains. It was necessary for them to walk in single file, men, women and children alike, bearing their essential earthly goods, to avoid slipping down steep inclines.

Today their descendants still live in the same areas and describe a similar way of life. Perhaps the nature of the disciplined migration was internalized, and inculcated in this people a personal discipline, a comprehension of the necessity for rules and practices that enabled the group to survive and maintain order. As described by a modern-day descendant, they are the people who had to walk straight — in their hearts as well as with their feet.

Why do I bother an audience of lawyers with that story? Well. lawyers have concerned themselves with the struggle to maintain professionalism for as long as I can remember. The VBA was actually founded in 1889, amidst a post-Civil War movement particularly strong in the South, to address abuses of the law and citizens by “so-called” lawyers. The VBA’s founders were determined to set and encourage professional standards for lawyers.

Professionalism remains a critical focus of VBA activity. As recently as 1995, Past President Phil Stone made the advancement of professionalism a hallmark of his presidency. The “traveling” professionalism programs, born of their work and conviction, are just one result of their effort, and to date have been featured in more than 25 jurisdictions in Virginia.

Then in 2001, pursuant to Immediate Past President Anita Poston’s Strategic Planning Initiative, the VBA formed three professionalism work groups to address 21st-century legal practice and particular aspects of professionalism in a changing world. It was our strategic view that the definition of professionalism should be reexamined and more broadly written.

Integrity and adherence to the rules of ethics must be the foundation of professionalism but so too must be the cultivation of personal characteristics that enable the lawyer to be a finely tuned instrument better able to practice the principles we preach.

One part of this effort was featured in our September VBA News Journal, the work of the professionalism group on community service and pro bono. In this issue, you will read of the outstanding work of the two other professionalism groups, under the leadership of Executive Committee members Heman Marshall and Jayne Barnard; their work and reports are too good not to share with our membership.

To date, they have accomplished a definition of 21st-century professionalism and “VBA Values,” set forth and explained in the following articles. Furthermore, a groundbreaking program on 21st-century professionalism will be held on January 18 during our Annual Meeting in Williamsburg, which attorneys from all practice settings and stages of experience should benefit from attending The substance of this panel is intended to be inspiring, provocative and most importantly, helpful on a practical level. Phil Stone has returned to this subject, about which he is passionate, and has agreed to speak and moderate the panel.

Also as a part of our renewed focus on professionalism, we have trained attention on lawyers’ duties as teachers, mentors and role models for our system of justice and what we believe it should be. Thus the third professionalism group is guiding the expansion of current Association projects which mentor and otherwise encourage students and young lawyers. We will focus on those from the diversity of cultural and ethnic backgrounds that comprise Virginia’s citizenry, to welcome them into a life in the law and its finest, highest standards.

Together the work of our three professionalism groups this year has been carefully and thoughtfully coordinated by President-elect Ed Betts, whose skills as a law firm managing partner have also added significantly to the work.

When we have engaged other VBA leaders and volunteers in preliminary discussion of our ideas, we have been met with two very clear reactions. The first response is their evident fascination with the discussions. I have personally seen lawyers who are tired from too many meetings and too much talk, sit up straight at full attention; these professionalism issues matter to them, be they young attorneys, wondering what they’ve gotten themselves into, be they managing partners handling challenges to the stability and traditions of law firm practice, or be they attorneys who thought they were “fine,” but then feel reinvigorated by what they hear of our work.

The second response is clear expression of ennui with the word “professionalism”; some tell us that because the term is so often used, it belies the importance and excitement of the issues, and might not gain appropriate attention. They implored us to develop a new term for the effort.

It was not long afterward that I heard the story of the rescuing angels in Cabeza de Vaca’s journey. I was struck by the rightness of their name and the clarity of their vision of what they must do to survive. Their self-chosen name served as a reminder to themselves of their values.

I do not suggest that we lawyers or a bar association are going to begin to call ourselves “The People Who Walk Straight.” Our education and sophistication would make us feel silly if we did so. Our work is highly evolved and aspirational; we probably do not assign the same urgency, the very survival of our profession, to these professionalism issues.

Or should we?

Are we so highly evolved that in the process of our increasing sophistication and material success, we are in danger of losing touch with the most important values of our profession and our humanity? Will renewed, heightened concepts of professionalism be what is necessary to preserve order in our profession in the 21st century, to encourage respect among ourselves and by others outside the law, be what is necessary to the survival of all that is valuable and honorable in our profession?

Perhaps it will not hurt after all if we whisper privately to ourselves, by way of encouragement, as we begin our workdays, “I will seek this and each day to be a person (a lawyer, a citizen) who walks straight.”

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VBA Strategic Planning:
Toward Complete Professionalism: Balancing Lifestyle and Practice
Heman A. Marshall III

This year, the general charge of the Practice Management/Lifestyle Balance Subcommittee was to focus upon the law practice setting, both as to law firm organization, structure and practices and as to the issues of time management, work organization and lifestyle balance for the individual lawyer.
It was also charged with developing, for recommendation to the Professionalism Group and ultimately to the Executive Committee, a new definition of “professionalism” to include a healthy balance between practice and lifestyle consideration, excellence in the practice of law, public service and adherence to ethical standards.The subcommittee was also requested to consider new organizational mechanisms that might be appropriate for a continuing focus on professionalism, as redefined, and to consider other methods of defining, promoting and maintaining the concept of the “complete professional” for VBA members.

Subcommittee members agreed that a law practice/lifestyle balance is not only necessary, but a critical element in the concept of complete professionalism in the 21st century. It established four primary goals as its initial work plan:

• Identification of the characteristics of “complete professionalism”;
• Identification of the characteristics of law firms that will promote the characteristics identified above;
• Development of methods by which the VBA can assist in the advancement of “complete professionalism”; and
• Development of recommendations for an institutional structure within the VBA to communicate these characteristics and to perpetuate methods to assist in the advancement of these characteristics.

The term “complete professional” does not imply perfection, the ability to maximize income, or the potential to become the most proficient at one’s legal practice. Rather, it refers to a disciplined commitment to all the characteristics of being a model professional. While the definition of a “complete professional” may vary in its details, the subcommittee members believe that there are certain values and characteristics of professionalism which have emerged through the test of time or as the result of careful thought which provide an aspirational, yet achievable, definition to the term “professional.”

Generally, the complete professional ought to be one who reflects the best values of the legal profession: a commitment to personal integrity; a strong sense of accountability for family, community and profession; and a balanced life of learning, aesthetics and leisure. It is especially incumbent upon lawyers who, by definition, are better educated than most of the general population, to reflect not only the intellectual aspects of formal education, but also a commitment to continued learning and personal fulfillment.

Characteristics of a ‘Complete Professional’
The following values and characteristics are core qualities of a complete professional:

Competence in Legal Practice. Clearly, an attorney ought to be competent in the legal work undertaken. In fact, the Code of Professional Responsibility, the rules by which lawyers may be disciplined, requires that one not undertake a matter in which one is not competent. The complete professional will not be satisfied to meet only required minimum standards of competence and conduct: there will be an effort to become expert in one’s area of legal practice; to continuously improve one’s skill and knowledge; to read, attend seminars and interact with others in the practice; and generally to always strive to become better and more competent.

Ethical Practice. A professional will obviously meet the requirements of the Code of Professional Responsibility and all criminal laws. More is required of a complete professional. The complete professional will insist that both the substance and the perception of his or her life and practice meet high ethical standards. Not only should lawyers want to be perceived by other lawyers, judges and the community as persons of honesty and integrity; they should also want their profession to be perceived as highly ethical.

Civility. While it might be thought that ethical practice implies civility, it can be argued that they are quite different propositions. Lawyers who are ethical as far as complying with aspirational standards of honesty and candor might still engage in conduct that is deemed discourteous and uncivil. Civility reflected in courtesy to the court, other lawyers, other participants in the legal system, and members of one’s own firm and staff as well as the general community helps generate within the community a recognition that lawyers can engage in debate and advocacy without shrillness, discourtesy or personal insult. In addition to creating a better environment for those who benefit from the extension of such courtesy, the lawyer helps promote civil discourse and establishes models of how advocacy and disagreement can be done in a civil context in many non-legal forums.

Liberal Arts Philosophy. Many attorneys have been educated in a liberal arts tradition. Even those whose background is more specialized have been exposed to liberal arts to the extent that a breadth of learning can be fully appreciated. It is ironic that some lawyers, among the most educated persons in our community, demonstrate so little interest in the arts, aesthetics, intellectual endeavors and global matters. One might naturally conclude that such high levels of formal education would produce a different result. A complete professional ought to demonstrate to the community that a college and law school education does more than prepare one for proficiency in the tactics of one’s profession. It ought to show how one can be more fulfilled, liberated from provincialism and parochialism, stirred to accountability for community issues, supportive of the arts, and globally aware. Lawyers have a special responsibility not only to demonstrate the values of education and professionalism but to assert leadership reflecting their liberal arts backgrounds.

Family Activities. Even if a lawyer is not a member of a traditional family, all of us are in some manner engaged in special family or social relationships which need to be adequately protected and nurtured in order for us to fulfill responsibilities to those special relationships and to maintain our own emotional, spiritual and social health. For a lawyer to work so hard or to be otherwise so distracted from family life as to jeopardize responsibilities as a parent, sibling or special friend will not only take away from the richness of life, but also may create significant social, personal and emotional problems.

Community Activities. Blessed with a high degree of formal education and a monopoly on providing legal services, the lawyer is in a particularly good position to provide leadership in the community. Virginia lawyers have an excellent record of providing such leadership. It may be provided in public office, serving on commissions and boards, participating in political activities and a myriad of other ways to promote public conversation and community life. The true professional will not be so narrowly focused on the practice of law or even personal and family matters that his or her responsibility to the community will be ignored. In addition to the specific value generated by the work of the lawyer in the community, the profession benefits from the increased respect generated by the work of the attorney in the community.

Professional Activities. In order for the profession of the practice of law to continue as a profession, as opposed to merely a licensed occupation, it is important that the profession police itself, continue to raise its standards, improve the quality of legal services, and respond to societal needs. These responsibilities cannot be left to a handful of people who are willing to provide leadership in bar organizations. All lawyers ought to feel a responsibility to contribute to the welfare of the legal profession. A complete professional will be active in local bar matters, in The Virginia Bar Association and the Virginia State Bar, and take interest in other regional, state or national bar groups which attempt to elevate the competence and ethics of the profession.

Mentoring. Whether through a formal program as established by some local bar associations whereby senior lawyers are assigned as mentors to newer lawyers or by informal arrangements of lawyers simply being available to a newer lawyer who needs assistance, a complete professional will try to aid other lawyers in improving their own practice skills. The efforts of several local bar groups to establish formal mentoring systems are to be commended. Providing an opportunity for a new lawyer to ask for assistance, practical advice, ethical counsel or simply to serve as a sounding board provides invaluable assistance to the newer lawyer and helps assure that the newer lawyer will also become a complete professional. By seeing how a more senior attorney practices, how he or she provides time to a colleague, and the obvious commitment shown by the attorney to higher levels of professionalism, the newer lawyer will come away with an impression of what complete professionalism entails. In addition to improving the practice skills of the younger lawyer, it provides a model for how other lawyers should act as professionals.

Physical and Emotional Health. A lawyer committed to the practice of law may be tempted to expend so much time and energy in the practice in order to adequately serve clients, to meet firm expectations, to improve in the practice, or simply out of a sense of responsibility that one is not fair to one’s own needs for physical and emotional health. A lawyer who is to be of full value to clients, firm and community must be sufficiently energetic, strong and healthy to serve. In the long run, no favors are done to the firm, community, clients and certainly to one’s family or self, to risk physical or mental health by indefinitely maintaining exhausting practice styles. In addition to managing one’s practice in such a way as to be able to meet the reasonable requirements of good physical and emotional health, adequate family life and personal fulfillment are critical to a lawyer’s ability to maintain good health. In addition, the lawyer should have a disciplined approach to health with exercise, regular vacations, good nutrition and sufficient separation from work to assure that health can be protected.

Promotion of Justice Within the Legal System. Lawyers are the advocates for and defenders of the legal system. Many lay people do not fully understand the legal system, particularly the adversarial nature of the litigation system. It is incumbent upon lawyers to try to make the system better understood but certainly to make sure that the system works fairly, equitably and efficiently. Lawyers ought to be the primary advocates for needed reform, instructors to the community of how the system works, and competent practitioners who help assure that the system works effectively.

Intellectual Development. As lawyers have been the beneficiaries of a significant amount of formal education, it is unseemly and disappointing when lawyers seem to evince so little intellectual curiosity or activity after starting into their profession. While most lawyers will certainly find time to read legal periodicals and practice aids, it is regrettable that so many lawyers do not seem to display an interest in the liberal arts and in intellectual activity generally. A complete professional is one whose intellectual development as reflected by formal education continues to be demonstrated throughout his or her life not only in the study of law and legal issues but in other matters which fulfill and enrich one’s life.

Collegiality. While ethical practice and civility may very well imply collegiality, it is such an important characteristic of a complete professional that it needs additional emphasis. The Virginia Bar Association, in its own mission statement, emphasizes the value of lawyers interacting socially and professionally as an important characteristic of professionalism. Lawyers who have an opportunity to become personally acquainted and meet each other socially and professionally are less likely to be partisan and personal in their disagreements. Attending bar association functions, introducing oneself to new lawyers, offering to take lawyers to lunch, meeting in small groups or as bar groups all have the potential benefit of improving the collegiality of lawyers. The improved collegiality within the profession will not only make the profession more enjoyable for its participants but it will also demonstrate to the community that the practice of law is a profession, not combat, and that those who practice law are exemplary in their personal and professional lives and provide a role model to the community for civil discourse and accountability.

Characteristics of a ‘Completely Professional’ Law Firm
Just as individual attorneys ought to reflect the best values of their profession, their formal education and their ethical commitments to family and community, their law firms, whether small or large, ought to provide an environment which supports, nurtures and values the characteristics of the complete professional. This commitment needs to be more than rhetorical. If the firm urges its members to be active in the community, to pay proper attention to personal health and family, and to live a balanced life, but through its conversation, attitude and compensation system rewards overwork, narrow commitment to the practice and a lack of attention to personal health, its rhetoric will serve little purpose.

There are several ways in which the firm ought to be a nurturing environment for complete professionals:

Culture. Whether it has been specifically designed, constructed or is simply a function of experience and happenstance, every organization has a culture. A professional firm will want to specifically identify important values of the firm, consistent with those attributed to truly professional attorneys, and faithfully pursue the realization of those values, including competence; ethical, civil and collegial conduct; attention to community needs; and encouragement of a disciplined approach to practice that protects the need of each member of the firm for time for family, community and other personal needs. The health, both emotional and physical, of each member will also be acknowledged as an important value.

Workload. The firm needs to make sure that each member disciplines himself or herself to an appropriate level of work which maintains the financial viability of the firm while at the same time leaving sufficient time for personal, family and social needs. In setting budgets and performance goals, in assessments and rewarding performance, and in maintaining the firm’s culture of work, it ought to be clear that work is to have rational limits.

Mentoring. A good firm will want to make sure that newer lawyers in the firm receive adequate mentoring to learn not only how to practice, but also the values of professionalism and the culture of the firm. Even after the early years of practice, when a practitioner feels confident to practice without mentoring in specific practice areas, the firm ought to make sure that all lawyers in the firm benefit from the firm’s educational and social activities as a means of continuing improvement.

Vacation Policy. The firm ought to have very specific policies about vacation and should enforce them. All lawyers ought to be encouraged or even required to take blocks of time (not just an occasional day) to assure a good mental and spiritual break from the stress of the law practice. Since the evidence is uncontroverted that an appropriate amount of leisure and vacation time enhances emotional and physical health, a professional firm ought to assure that its policies are consistent with this important value. To point to a vacation policy that is honored in the breach is hardly a sign of a nurturing firm. Instead, it represents a failure to acknowledge proven requirements for good health. Eventually, the firm itself will suffer because of reduced production, energy and morale.

Work Arrangements. Not all firms may be in a position to provide flex-time or part-time arrangements. Still, to the extent that a firm is able to do so, it should take into consideration the special needs of parents of young children, persons with special disabilities or illnesses, or those with other needs which make it difficult for them to work in a traditional manner in the law firm. For a person to be pushed to full-time employment when their personal and family needs simply will not support that effort, is an invitation for emotional problems arising from stress and a route toward failure of the person involved.

Training Programs. Formal training programs for new associates and appropriate training programs for others, whether in-house or through outside sources, be instituted by the professional firm to assure continuous improvement of its lawyers and staff.

Community Activity and Pro Bono Work. A firm has a special responsibility to encourage its members to be active in the community. Contributions to the community include pro bono legal work as well as providing general support of and leadership for community organizations. As persons particularly well educated and trained, lawyers stand in a position to benefit their communities. Complete professionalism dictates that the firm encourage such activity.

Encouragement of Professional Activities. The professional firm encourages its members to be active in local and state bar associations. In addition, the firm ought to encourage members to participate in specialty bars, national bar associations and other professional groups as they relate to their areas of practice. Lawyers who participate in associations like The Virginia Bar Association will benefit from the collegial activities, the continuing legal education programs, and the reminder of the aspirational values of Virginia’s best practitioners.

Firm Relations. If the firm fails to operate as a team, employing practices of courtesy and civility toward each member, it is certainly not expected that the members of the firm will extend those attributes to other lawyers, judges and the public. Professional firms model the civility and courtesy they hope to see in the bar. Open and honest communications within the firm, equitable and fair treatment of all members, and respectful and courteous dealings will go a long way toward inculcating the values of civility and collegiality within the lawyers as they deal with the public.

The Virginia Bar Association is well suited through experience and structure to directly and indirectly advance the characteristics of complete professionalism, most obviously through a variety of educational efforts. While further analysis is necessary prior to formal recommendations, the consensus is that these aspects of complete professionalism are critical to all Association members.

VBA members attending the 112th Annual Meeting will have an opportunity to learn more about the concept of “complete professionalism” at 11 a.m. on Friday, January 18, when the Strategic Planning Professionalism Groups of the VBA Executive Committee present a panel discussion entitled “21st-Century Professionalism: A Balanced Life vs. The Bottom Line.”

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VBA Strategic Planning:
VBA ‘Pipeline Project’ to Expand to New Venues
Professor Jayne W. Barnard

Imagine you are a college student toying with the idea of becoming a lawyer.

Imagine, too, that you don’t really know any lawyers in your community, that no one in your family is or does business with a lawyer, and all you really know about the practice of law is what you see on TV. Where do you turn to learn more?

The Virginia Bar Association Young Lawyers Division Minority Recruitment Project is one answer. Currently operating successful programs in Richmond and Roanoke, this project provides information, encouragement, and opportunities for college students who are dreaming of becoming a lawyer.

The need for such a project may not be obvious. Certainly, the legal profession has grown by leaps and bounds over the last 20 years and it has become undeniably more diverse. Still, many college students who might be successful law students and might thereafter turn out to be wonderful lawyers, do not pursue a legal career. African-American students, for example, do not apply to law school in anywhere near the numbers one would predict by observing their success in college. The same is true of Latino and Asian-American students.

According to Jimmy F. Robinson Jr., an associate at Gentry Locke Rakes & Moore in Roanoke, many college students – especially students of color – may not have a clear sense of what is required during college to prepare for a legal education, may not have a sense of how their existing skills and personal drive can assist them in becoming an effective lawyer, and may lack a sense of support for their goals that will help them withstand the “long haul” of a legal education.

Robinson, who heads the VBA/YLD Minority Recruitment Project in Roanoke, has partnered VBA members with members of the Old Dominion Bar Association and devised a program to meet these students’ needs.

The Roanoke project serves undergraduate students from Radford University, Virginia Tech, Longwood College, Liberty University, Lynchburg College, Washington & Lee University, Roanoke College and Hollins University. Students sign up for the program through their pre-law advisor, and are assigned a lawyer-mentor. Then, the students attend various workshops throughout the school year, including a personal statement workshop, an LSAT preparation workshop, an alternative careers workshop, and a “pursuing the dream of justice” workshop. Based on their participation in the workshops, the students compete for paid internship opportunities in local law offices. (Typically they receive $500 for one week’s work.) Robinson expects there may be as many as 10 such internships in the spring and summer of 2002.

A similar project also exists in Richmond. Aisha Bullard, an associate at Williams Mullen, has developed mentoring relationships for area college students interested in practicing law. She also works with a national program called “Inroads,” which pre-screens the students, tracks their development through a series of summer-long internships in business settings, and then sends them to the Minority Recruitment Project for assignment to a law firm, typically during the students’ spring break. In the past three years, the Project has assisted nine students in finding paid internships in Richmond.

At its October meeting in Orange, the Executive Committee voted to try to replicate these projects in the Tidewater area and in Northern Virginia. The committee saw this as an opportunity to link up with the ODBA, the Hispanic Bar Association, the Asian-American Attorneys Association, and local bar associations in a common project. It also provides an opportunity for senior VBA members – including judges – and VBA/YLD members to work together on a project and create a greater sense of community within the VBA.

The projects will soon be recruiting lawyers to serve as mentors, provide one- or two-week internship opportunities in their firms or legal departments, contribute to the funding for these internships, provide housing and after-hours programs for student interns, and participate in the workshops.

The return on these investments can be enormous. John L. Walker III, a partner at Williams Mullen and a co-founder of the Richmond project, recalls working with a University of Virginia student, Abraham Walker, with whom he has maintained contact for several years. Though Abraham Walker ultimately decided not to go to law school and now works in banking, he and John Walker have “stayed very close.” For John Walker, their friendship has been “extremely rewarding.” And Abraham Walker, now 25, says that his work with lawyers at the Williams Mullen firm improved his writing and prepared him for the working world. He also says that having a mentor was helpful in understanding “exactly what it is I want out of life.”

If you are interested in knowing more about the Pipeline Project in Richmond, Roanoke, Tidewater, or Northern Virginia, or you think you might want to play a role in one of these projects, contact VBA Young Lawyers Division Coordinator Regina Moss at the VBA, (804) 644-0041 or rmoss@vba.org.

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VBA Young Lawyers Division:
Lawyers work with DMV, juvenile judges to improve safety of teen drivers
R. Braxton Hill IV

According to a recent National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study, motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for 15-to-20-year-olds across the country. In 1999, nearly 3,600 drivers within that age group were killed, and an additional 362,000 were injured, in motor vehicle accidents.

Of those young drivers killed in crashes, 29 percent had been drinking alcohol. Apart from the physical and emotional toll on individuals and families, the estimated economic cost of police-reported crashes involving 15-to-20-year-old drivers was $32.2 billion in 1999.

In an attempt to put the brakes on such troubling statistics in Virginia, Arlington attorneys Mark Cummings and Tom O’Neill developed a videotape, titled “A Victim of Circumstance,” for the Arlington Bar Foundation under the auspices of then Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court Judge Joanne F. Alper. Cummings and O’Neill hoped to use the videotape to invigorate and modernize the juvenile licensing ceremony, a statutorily mandated, judicially-run process by which young drivers, accompanied by their parents, receive their first drivers’ licenses. The videotape, which features introductory and closing remarks by former Arlington resident and national news figure Katie Couric, depicts the often unexpected legal and financial consequences to young drivers when they mix alcohol with driving. For the past several years, Cummings and O’Neill have presented the videotape as part of the Arlington County juvenile licensing ceremony, receiving rave reviews from teen drivers, parents and judges.

Given the success of the Arlington Bar Foundation program, members of the Virginia bench and bar turned to VBA Young Lawyers Division to help expand the licensing ceremony program to other jurisdictions within the state. In January 2001, the VBA/YLD received a $30,000 federal grant, administered by the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, to incorporate attorneys into juvenile licensing ceremonies in targeted jurisdictions across the state, primarily using the “Victim of Circumstance” videotape as a vehicle for the discussion of legal, financial and safety issues with ceremony attendees. In order to maximize the relevance of the videotape for the intended audiences, the grant included funds to edit the videotape to suit the particular needs of the target jurisdictions.

The VBA/YLD established its version of the program by July of this year, when Cummings and O’Neill trained pools of volunteer attorneys from the Richmond and Roanoke metropolitan areas to participate in licensing ceremonies for the target jurisdictions of Botetourt and Henrico Counties. As an incidental benefit, the Virginia State Bar approved the attorney training program for 1.5 hours of mandatory continuing legal education credit. By October, the volunteer attorneys had taken part in four juvenile licensing ceremonies and had reached an aggregate audience of approximately 800 teens and parents with the message of sobriety, safety and accountability. Prospectively, the VBA/YLD hopes to reach no fewer than 800 teens and parents per month through its licensing ceremony presentations in Botetourt and Henrico Counties.

As reported in the September 2001 edition of the VBA News Journal, the groundbreaking nature of the VBA/YLD juvenile licensing ceremony program has received national recognition, garnering a 2001 American Bar Association Award of Achievement for Service to the Public. Of course, the VBA/YLD is indebted to forward-thinking members of the Virginia bench for the program’s success, such as Judge Dudley J. Emick Jr. of the Botetourt County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court and Judges William G. Boice, A. Elisabeth Oxenham, Dennis F. Soden and Sharon B. Will, as well as Clerk Thomas Elliott, of the Henrico County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court. Without the active involvement of such supportive members of Virginia’s judicial branch, the VBA/YLD program would never have coalesced.

Based on the uniformly positive feedback received thus far from licensing ceremony attendees, as well as from the presiding judges, the VBA/YLD hopes to expand the juvenile licensing ceremony program to at least six other jurisdictions throughout Virginia over the next 12 months. By implementing a dynamic, interactive presentation of driving rights and responsibilities to young drivers, as a complement to the traditional juvenile licensing ceremony, the VBA/YLD strives to help improve the awareness, and therefore the safety, of Virginia’s young drivers.

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Across the Commonwealth

Town hall meetings held in five areas this fall
LG candidates’ debates, House candidates’ forum, public safety and biotechnology are featured attractions for VBA/YLD-sponsored programs

The Virginia Bar Association Young Lawyers Division has pursued an ambitious course of programs and projects since its inception in the late 1950s. Many of its innovative programs have been rewarded with national recognition, a testament to the hard work and creativity of the VBA’s youngest and newest lawyers.

This fall, the VBA/YLD’s Town Hall Meeting committees outdid previous efforts by planning a series of debates between the Democratic and Republican candidates for lieutenant governor, a forum for Charlottesville-area House of Delegates candidates and programs on such timely and critical issues as biotechnology in Southwest Virginia and recent developments in the arena of public safety in America.

Debates between lieutenant governor candidates Tim Kaine and Jay Katzen were planned by the Richmond, Roanoke and Northern Virginia Town Hall Meeting Committees.

The Richmond debate was held on October 5 before a standing-room-only audience of approximately 300 at the University of Richmond’s Jepson Center for Leadership Studies. Moderated by John Reid of WRIC-TV, the debate featured questions posed by panelists Mike Porter of WWBT-TV, Pamela Stallsmith of the Richmond Times-Dispatch and Wayne Farrar of WCVE-FM Radio (which broadcast the taped debate later that evening).

Brian Greene and Michael Mueller, both associates with the law firm of Christian & Barton, co-chair the VBA/YLD Richmond Town Hall Meeting Committee.

Both candidates appeared before participants in the VBA Corporate Counsel Section’s Fall Forum at The Jefferson Hotel earlier that same day, but at different times on the schedule.

The Roanoke debate, originally scheduled for October 10 at Roanoke College’s Olin Hall, was an indirect casualty of the U.S. attack on Afghanistan on October 7. A TV debate between the Democratic and Republican gubernatorial candidates planned for that evening was hastily rescheduled for the evening of the 10th, one hour later than the VBA/YLD’s planned event. Kaine and Katzen agreed to defer to the gubernatorial candidates’ rescheduling and the VBA/YLD debate was canceled.

Plans for another Roanoke Town Hall Meeting were already in the works, however. Biotechnology in Southwest Virginia — its growth, its impact, its future — was the topic of a call-in Roanoke Town Hall Meeting televised live on Blue Ridge Public Television on November 14.

Dr. Robert Denton, professor of political science at Virginia Tech, moderated a panel of experts in the fields of biotechnology and economic development, including Dr. Bruno Sabrol, director of the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute; William H. Daugherty, chief operating officer of the Carilion Biomedical Institute; Dr. Tracy Wilkins, president of TechLab, Inc.; and John Phillips, economic development director for Virginia Tech.

James K. Cowan Jr., a principal in the law firm of Flippin, Densmore, Morse & Jessee, chairs the VBA/YLD Roanoke Town Hall Meeting Committee.

The next Kaine-Katzen debate took place on October 25 at the Hilton McLean Tysons Corner before an audience of approximately 130. Although Libertarian candidate Gary Reams of Mason Neck did not participate in the debate, he made a short statement prior to its start. Barbara Hollingsworth, opinion page editor of The Fairfax Journal, served as moderator, with Julie Carey of WRC-TV 4, Peggy Fox of WUSA-TV 9 and Matt Brock of NewsChannel 8 as panelists.

Jeffrey Harvey and Daniel Collins, both associates in the law firm of Troutman Sanders Mays & Valentine, L.L.P., co-chair the VBA/YLD Northern Virginia Town Hall Meeting Committee.
Candidates for the House of Delegates in the 25th, 57th, 58th and 59th districts appeared in a public forum, the first-ever Charlottesville Town Hall Meeting, on October 29 at the Albemarle County Office Building. The forum was co-sponsored by the VBA/YLD Charlottesville Town Hall Meeting Committee, chaired by Donald D. Long of Feil, Pettit & Williams and Michael E. Derdeyn of McGuireWoods, L.L.P.,and the League of Women Voters.

The season ended with “The New Era of Public Safety: Protecting or Eroding American Freedom?” the Hampton Roads Town Hall Meeting, held on November 27 at the Contemporary Arts Center of Virginia in Virginia Beach.

Joel Rubin, host of WVEC-TV’s “On the Record,” moderated the program. Panelists included Virginia Beach Police Chief A.M. “Jake” Jacocks, State Senator Kenneth Stolle (R-Virginia Beach), Prof. John Paul Jones of the University of Richmond School of Law, Dr. Frederick Krimgold of Virginia Tech, director of the World Institute of Disaster Risk Management; Cmdr. Robert James Orr III, JAGC, USN, staff judge advocate for the Mid-Atlantic Command; and Prof. Joseph E. Goldberg of the College of Armed Forces and National Defense University.

Jeffrey S. Miller of Cooper, Spong & Davis in Portsmouth and Brandon H. Zeigler of Stallings & Richardson in Virginia Beach co-chair the VBA/YLD Hampton Roads Town Hall Meeting Committee. Christopher S. Boynton of the Virginia Beach City Attorney’s Office serves as statewide coordinator of VBA/YLD Town Hall Meetings. Return to Top

Dec. 19 is deadline for letters of intent from VBA entities seeking VLF grants

The Virginia Law Foundation (VLF), a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, is now accepting Letters of Intent from organizations wishing to request grant support for the 2002-03 grant cycle (July 1, 2002, through June 30, 2003).

Letters of Intent to be submitted under the VBA umbrella should be prepared in the name of The Virginia Bar Association Foundation and must reach the VBA office at 701 East Franklin Street, Suite 1120, Richmond, Virginia 23219, no later than December 19, 2001.

An estimated $500,000 is expected to be awarded to support programs which promote or provide improvements in the administration of justice, legal services to the poor, education of the public about the law and the legal profession, and public service internships for Virginia law students.

Letters of intent should be no more than three pages and should (1) state the applicant organization’s name, tax exemption status, and FEIN; (2) briefly explain the organization’s mission; (3) describe the proposed project; and (4) summarize expense and income items for the total project, indicating the amount of funding to be requested from the Virginia Law Foundation.

From among letters received, the Foundation Grants Committee will select for further consideration projects for which a fully developed proposal will be invited.

VBA staff can be reached to assist with basic information about The Virginia Bar Association Foundation and preparation of Letters of Intent by calling (804) 644-0041. Return to Top

Legislative dates to remember
The VBA’s 112th Annual Meeting is just around the corner, but the start of the 2002 General Assembly of Virginia is even closer. The Commonwealth’s legislators, including a number of first-timers who are replacing longtime House members, will convene in Richmond on January 9.

More information about specific VBA proposals and bills of interest to Association members will be featured in upcoming issues of the VBA News Journal and posted on the VBA website at www.vba.org.

January 9: Session convenes. First Day Introduction Requirement by Statute: charter, claims, property tax exemption, local fiscal impact, correctional impact, retail sales and use tax exemption, and VRS bills.
February 12: Crossover deadline.
March 9: Adjournment sine die.
April 9: Last day for Governor to act on legislation.
April 17: Reconvened session.

Information about the General Assembly is available on the Internet at http://leg1.state.va.us. Return to Top

How to contact transition offices
While legislative proposals are readied and General Assembly Building offices are reassigned to new occupants, the newly elected leaders of Virginia and their transition teams are busily planning for the next four years. Contact information for all three transition offices is listed below.

The VBA offers congratulations to its members, Lieutenant Governor-elect Tim Kaine and Attorney General-elect Jerry Kilgore, on their successful campaigns, and offers best wishes to former Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Mark Earley, also a VBA member.

Governor-elect Mark Warner
Virginia Retirement System Building
1200 East Main Street, 3rd Floor
Richmond, VA 23219
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 1194, Richmond, VA 23218
Phone: (804) 225-3111, Fax: (804) 225-3404,
TDD: (804) 225-3407
E-mail: transition@govelect.state.va.us
Website: www.warnertransition.com

Lieutenant Governor-elect Tim Kaine
Pocahontas Building, 1st Floor
900 East Main Street
Richmond, VA 23219
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 1195, Richmond, VA 23218
Phone: (804) 225-2787, Fax: (804) 225-2954,
TDD: (804) 225-3386

Attorney General-elect Jerry Kilgore
Virginia Retirement System Building
1200 East Main Street, 3rd Floor
Richmond, VA 23219
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 1300, Richmond, VA 23218
Phone: (804) 225-2856, Fax: (804) 225-2282,
TDD: (804) 225-2285 Return to Top

Become a Patron!
It’s not too late to become a VBA Patron for 2001! To become a Patron, a VBA member pays $100, in addition to regular dues, to support the Association’s public service and law reform programs. Our activities have expanded — but we continue to operate with a modest budget. Last year, Patrons provided more than $35,000 in additional revenue, without which some of our efforts would have had to be curtailed. To become a Patron, you may call the VBA toll-free at 1-800-644-0987 and charge your payment. Return to Top

VBA Foundation, Chapple Fund welcome year-end charitable gifts
If you are planning end-of-year charitable gifts, keep The Virginia Bar Association Foundation in mind.
The Virginia Bar Association Foundation is a 501(c)(3) corporation which underwrites many of the public service projects of the VBA.

Your contributions are welcomed, as they strengthen our Association’s resources for positive action. One prominent recent project is the Southside Flood Legal Assistance Fund, which generated thousands of dollars for support services for Virginia lawyers seeking to rebuild their practices and help their clients following devastating floods in the fall of 1999. For more information about the VBA Foundation, please contact the VBA office at (804) 644-0041.

Persons with a particular interest in the Lawyers Helping Lawyers Program may contribute to The Stephen C. Chapple Recovery Assistance Fund.

Established in 1995 in memory of former Substance Abuse Committee member Stephen C. Chapple, the fund assists attorneys with the expense of treatment for alcohol or drug addiction or with similar expenses related to rehabilitation agreements. The Fund is housed in the VBA Foundation and contributions are tax-deductible. For more information, please contact the VBA office at (804) 644-0041. Return to Top

News in Brief

Prof. Robert E. Shepherd Jr. of Richmond, chair of the VBA Commission on the Needs of Children and a longtime advocate for children and youth, was recently honored as a “Champion for Children” by the Action Alliance for Virginia’s Children and Youth at Capital One’s “Beat the Odds Celebration” in Glen Allen on November 15. Other honorees included Target Stores and Art 180.

Former VBA President and Delegate Whittington W. Clement (D-Danville) and VBA member and State Senator William C. Mims (R-Loudoun County) have been named among the recipients of the 2001 Tech Ten Award by the Northern Virginia Technology Council. The award recognizes Virginia legislators who “worked tirelessly in advocating innovative legislation and public policies designed to strengthen the Commonwealth’s legal framework for e-commerce activities,” and who acted to further public and private technology investments, broaden technology education and job training and invest in infrastructure to support technology-driven economic growth.

Congratulations to the following VBA members who have been announced as 2001 Fellows of the American Bar Foundation: Past VBA Presidents G. Franklin Flippin of Roanoke, Douglas P. Rucker Jr. of Richmond, and John M. Ryan of Norfolk; VBA Executive Committee law faculty representative Prof. Jayne W. Barnard of Williamsburg; Prof. Robert E. Shepherd Jr. of Richmond, chair of the VBA Commission on the Needs of Children; VBA members Thurston R. Moore and W. Scott Street III, both of Richmond; and VBA Executive Vice President C.B. Arrington Jr. of Richmond.

The VBA leadership and staff rejoices with the family of aid worker Heather Mercer, formerly of Vienna, in her release from imprisonment in Afghanistan on November 14. Heather’s uncle, David Mercer, a partner in the law firm of Troutman Sanders Mays & Valentine in McLean, is a VBA member and a past chair of the VBA Substance Abuse Committee.

“Scales of Justice,” the VBA Young Lawyers Division’s entry in Richmond’s “Go Fish!” public art project, has been sold to an unidentified bidder for $1,050 in the online auction of piscine art, with the proceeds to benefit The Virginia Bar Association Foundation.

VBA annual dues statements will be mailed in January. Is your address and contact information in VBA records up-to-date? If not, please submit any changes to your listing to the VBA by e-mail to Judy King at jking@vba.org or by fax at (804) 644-0052.

Information for lawyers who are assisting deployed service personnel, their employers and their families is available on the American Bar Association’s website at www.abanet.org. This information can be accessed through the VBA website’s September 11 response page at www.vba.org, which includes an ever-changing menu of links and information related to the terrorist attacks and their aftermath.

The Virginia Lawyer, successor to The Virginia Lawyer's Basic Practice Handbook, was first published in 1966 by the VBA Young Lawyers Division. In 2000, Virginia CLE and the VBA/YLD joined in a cooperative effort to produce a new two-volume guide for practitioners designed to assist attorneys in dealing with unfamiliar areas. Details are available on the Internet at http://www.vacle.org/wn111.htm#valawyer.

VBA Leadership Firms support the mission of The Virginia Bar Association in its service to the public, promotion of professionalism, and improving law and administration of justice by encouraging VBA membership among their lawyers. We recognize these firms by holding them up to the bar and to the public as examples of the most professional Virginia firms at our meetings and by publishing their names in our publications and on our website. For more information about the Leadership Firms Program, please contact the VBA office at (804) 644-0041. We hope to count your firm among the VBA Leadership Firms! Return to Top

Copyright 2007 The Virginia Bar Association