![]() It has received state and national recognition, including the American Bar Association’s prestigious Harrison Tweed Award in 1995 and the Virginia State Bar’s Lewis F Powell Jr. Thirty-five years later, this program is still going strong. The bar’s program presumes universal participation by its members and an expectation that each will donate a minimum of 20 hours annually to these pro bono referrals, in addition to other pro bono and community service undertaken. To wit, the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Bar Association has operated a pro bono referral program with Blue Ridge Legal Services (“BRLS,” the legal aid society that serves the Shenandoah Valley, the Roanoke Valley, and the Alleghany Highlands) for over 35 years. This culture of professionalism and the duty to render pro bono service it engenders - embodied in Judge Bumgardner’s pro bono representation of my mother a half century ago - is still alive amongst the members of the valley’s legal community. In the process, it impressed upon me the critical importance of ensuring access to justice for the less fortunate and the crucial role pro bono service plays in accomplishing this. Judge Bumgardner’s pro bono assistance had a real impact on the lives of my mother and her children. She would always note that not only did he do an outstanding job in representing her, but that he was also unfailingly respectful and courteous to her - “treating like a queen” - even though she could not afford to pay him for his services. She was eternally grateful for his representation. Bumgardner graciously agreed to represent my mother on a pro bono basis, and he zealously did so over the next several years, ultimately obtaining a favorable outcome for her. Her great fortune was that a promising young lawyer in Staunton, Rudolph “Duke” Bumgardner III (later, a general district, circuit, and Virginia Court of Appeals judge), had signed up for the pro bono list, and she was referred to him. I was 14 years old at the time, but my recollection is that Mary Baldwin College had just started a pro bono referral program in our town as a community service, and my mother was one of the first to seek assistance through it. There was no legal aid program in the Shenandoah Valley in 1969 when my late mother, penniless and distraught, walked the streets of downtown Staunton searching for an attorney who would represent her even though she had no means to pay. Note: This article was published in the October 2018 edition of the Virginia State Bar’s Virginia Lawyer, see. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |