BRLS Blog

Gentry Locke Attorneys Commits to Matching up to $10,000 for Blue Ridge Legal Services End of Year Campaign

Contact: John Whitfield,

BRLS Executive Director

jwhitfield@brls.org

**FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE**

Gentry Locke Attorneys Commits to Matching up to $10,000 for Blue Ridge Legal Services End of Year Campaign

Roanoke, VA – [November 16, 2023] – Gentry Locke Attorneys, one of Virginia’s largest and most respected law firms, is demonstrating its continuing commitment to access to justice by generously agreeing to match donations up to $10,000 for the Blue Ridge Legal Services (BRLS) End of Year campaign. The partnership between Gentry Locke and BRLS exemplifies a shared mission to support low-income people in need of civil legal assistance.

Gentry Locke, with a rich history starting a century ago, has established itself as a prominent advocate for justice in the Roanoke Valley and across the Commonwealth. Known for its excellence in providing a wide range of legal services, the firm has a long-standing tradition of philanthropy, reflecting its dedication to making a positive impact within the community. More information about Gentry Locke can be found at https://www.gentrylocke.com/.

John Whitfield, Executive Director of Blue Ridge Legal Services, noted: “We are immensely grateful for the generous support from Gentry Locke. Their commitment to matching donations for our End of Year campaign is a testament to their deep commitment to equal access to justice. With their pledge, helping to boost the support of the legal community and the public, we can provide vital legal assistance to those in need, ensuring that vulnerable individuals and families can secure their rights and obtain justice.”

The funds raised during the End of Year campaign will support BRLS in its mission to provide free civil legal assistance to low-income individuals and families in the Blue Ridge region. The campaign will help BRLS continue its work in addressing critical legal issues, such as housing, domestic violence, consumer protection, eldercare, and more. Contributions will directly impact the lives of those who rely on BRLS for guidance and representation.

Monica T. Monday, Chair of Gentry Locke, noted that “BRLS serves a critical role in our community in helping to bridge the justice gap for low-income residents in the Shenandoah and Roanoke Valley. We are proud to partner with BRLS and to support their important work through this matching donation for their end-of-year campaign, so that high-quality legal representation is afforded to all.”

As BRLS embarks on this crucial End of Year campaign, the generous matching contribution from Gentry Locke underscores the importance of equal access to justice and reaffirms the power of community partnerships in creating lasting change.

To support the Blue Ridge Legal Services End of Year campaign and have your donation matched by Gentry Locke , please visit brls.org/donate and contribute today.


Blue Ridge Legal Services, Inc. is a non-profit charitable civil legal aid society providing free legal assistance in civil matters of critical importance to low-income residents of the Shenandoah and Roanoke valleys.

Charlie Phillips Recognized For Years Of Pro Bono Work

BRLS Attorney Wins Top Pro Bono Award from American Bar Association

ROANOKE, VA (August 15, 2023).  Charles B. (Charlie) Phillips of Salem, Virginia, has received a 2023 Pro Bono Publico Award from the American Bar Association (ABA), the top honor given by the ABA in national recognition of pro bono volunteerism. He was recently presented the award at the 2023 ABA Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado, August 4, 2023. A video produced by the ABA for the presentation, featuring local judges and several of Mr. Phillips’ pro bono clients, can be viewed on the ABA Center for Pro Bono channel on YouTube, see https://youtu.be/w39GUq3h0ck.

Phillips was nominated for the award by John Whitfield, executive director of Blue Ridge Legal Services (BRLS), the legal aid society where Phillips donates his time helping legal aid clients. 

Since retiring from his law practice in 2018 at the age of 80, Phillips immediately began volunteering around 30 hours a week in the Roanoke office of BRLS. Since then, he has closed more than 1,500 cases, including over 200 in litigation. His efforts have resulted in recovering more than $450,000 in benefits for his clients, according to the nomination by Whitfield.

Phillips is a former Commonwealth’s Attorney for the City of Salem and maintained a private practice for 50 years.  He was born in Tazewell County, Virginia, attended Emory & Henry College on a football scholarship and attended the University of Richmond School of Law, graduating in 1963.

In addition to this national recognition, Phillips received the 2021 Lewis F. Powell Jr. Pro Bono Award from the Virginia State Bar. He was also the 2022 recipient of the Carl and Ruth Looney Humanitarian Award from Emory & Henry.

In the words of Robert Williams, an attorney with BRLS, “Charlie Phillips is the best of us.” Perhaps the most ringing endorsement for Phillips’s work, however, comes from a client who wrote, “Charlie Phillips saved my life. Were it not for his brilliant, tireless efforts, I would have become homeless and in all likelihood, died as a result. I will be grateful to him…forever. He is a noble gentleman.”

Blue Ridge Legal Services, Inc. is a non-profit charitable civil legal aid society providing free legal assistance in civil matters of critical importance to low-income residents of the Shenandoah and Roanoke valleys.

Attorney Highlight: Elizabeth Coltrane

Blue Ridge Legal Services Attorney
BRLS Attorney Elizabeth Coltrane

Elizabeth “Lizzy” Coltrane is a BRLS housing law attorney and Virginia native who has helped nearly 700 clients in her four years with BRLS. See what some of her clients said about her and learn a little more about her below in this month’s “attorney interview!”

“Mrs. Coltrane was the BEST! We saw her go well beyond what was expected and were very happy with the outcome. Thank you!”

“[Working with] Elizabeth Coltrane was the best experience you could ever have. She took my case and kept me informed daily and I never had one worry. She took care of it- she is the best!”

Question and Answer:

Why do you work in legal aid?

I work in legal aid because I believe that the legal system should protect all people, not just those who can afford an attorney.

What’s the most rewarding part about your job, and what’s the hardest?

The most rewarding parts of my job are helping people who have been treated unfairly, being a voice to the Court on matters it had not previously considered and assisting people who have historically had a lack of support in their lives.

The hardest part of my job is navigating the laws that often benefit landlords instead of tenants.

Is there a case that stands out in your mind as something that was particularly rewarding?

There was a Circuit Court case that was particularly rewarding because the tenant’s situation was very typical. Low-income tenants often get into unbalanced rental agreements where the landlords hold most of the power. The leases are often written in favor of the landlords and don’t provide much security to the tenants. Landlords can use their leases and their knowledge of the eviction process to scare tenants into not fighting for themselves. Tenants deserve and need our help because we can help balance everything out to make sure the tenants’ rights are being respected and protected. 

In this case, the client had redeemed (paid all rent owed) but the landlord just felt like evicting her anyway and moved forward with the eviction despite the law stating he was no longer able to do that.  We were able to get through the appeal process and have the eviction dismissed.

What do you wish people knew about legal aid?

I wish people knew that we are actually “real” attorneys.  We do not charge our clients to represent them, but we do get paid. We try just as hard (if not harder) than an attorney in a more traditional firm.

What’s an interesting fact most people don’t know about you?

An interesting fact that most people don’t know about me is that I have run at least 7 half marathons.

Anything else we should know?

It’s cool to be kind.

The Valley’s Tradition of Pro Bono Service

Note: This article was published in the October 2018 edition of the Virginia State Bar’s Virginia Lawyer, see http://www.vsb.org/site/publications/valawyer/october-2018.)

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. 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. 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. Mr. 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. She was eternally grateful for his representation. 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 [her] like a queen” — even though she could not afford to pay him for his services. Judge Bumgardner’s pro bono assistance had a real impact on the lives of my mother and her children. 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.

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. 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. 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. Thirty-five years later, this program is still going strong. 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. Pro Bono Award in 1998.

Similar pro bono programs have long been supported by the various bar associations across the Shenandoah Valley, dating back to the early 1980s. At the southern end of BRLS’ service area, the legal community in the Roanoke Valley has similarly displayed a strong commitment to pro bono service for decades. The Virginia Bar Association won the ABA’s Harrison Tweed Award in 1995 for its pro bono hotlines, including its pro bono hotline in Roanoke. In addition to supporting the pro bono hotline, the Roanoke Valley’s legal community has supported a robust pro bono referral program operated by legal aid since the 1980s. In 2017, at the request of Chief Justice Lemons, the judiciary and bar leaders in the 25th Judicial Circuit collaborated with BRLS in a pro bono recruitment initiative among the four bar associations in the circuit, ranging from Staunton to Fincastle. The initiative resulted in an impressive 86 percent of the actively practicing private attorneys in the Circuit agreeing to participate in BRLS’ pro bono referral programs.

In 2013, the Virginia State Bar’s Access to Legal Services Committee undertook the first study ever to measure the amount of pro bono service being rendered across the commonwealth. Using the data available (there being no system in place at that time for comprehensive pro bono reporting), the study found that the Valley’s attorneys were performing pro bono service at twice the rate of the Commonwealth as a whole. The Valley led every other region of the state both in the percentage of lawyers participating in pro bono programs and in the number of pro bono cases handled per capita.

I proudly commend the lawyers in the Valley of Virginia for your quiet, longstanding tradition of pro bono service. If there are attorneys in our service area who are not yet being provided meaningful pro bono opportunities, please contact me, and we will work together to find the best way to use your skills to provide access to justice for folks in the valley who really need legal representation — just as my mother did, fifty years ago.

John E. Whitfield is the executive director of Blue Ridge Legal Services.

The Virginia Self-Represented Litigant Study

In December 2017 the National Center for State Courts released the Virginia Self-Represented Litigant Study: Outcomes of Civil Cases in General District Court, Juvenile & Domestic Relations Court, and Circuit Court. This was final report in a series of reports analyzing court data from the Virginia judicial system’s case management databases. The study was funded by a Technology Initiative Grant (TIG) from the Legal Services Corporation to Blue Ridge Legal Services, who contracted with the National Center for State Courts to undertake this study. This report, along with its companion reports, can be accessed here.

The Sobering Findings of the Virginia Self-Represented Litigants Study, Virginia Lawyer, June 2018 edition

Summary Report on the Findings of the Virginia Self-Represented Litigant Study rev

VIRGINIA SELF-REPRESENTED LITIGANT STUDY: Outcomes of Civil Cases in General District Court, Juvenile & Domestic Relations Court, and Circuit Court

VIRGINIA SELF-REPRESENTED LITIGANT STUDY: Summary of SRL-Related Management Reports for General District Court, Juvenile & Domestic Relations Court, and Circuit Court

VIRGINIA SELF-REPRESENTED LITIGANT STUDY: Descriptive Analysis of Civil Data in General District Court

VIRGINIA SELF-REPRESENTED LITIGANT STUDY Descriptive Analysis of Civil Data in Juvenile & Domestic Relations Court

VIRGINIA SELF-REPRESENTED LITIGANT STUDY Descriptive Analysis of Civil Data in Circuit Court

The Impact of the Justice Gap on Litigants: Are We Providing a Level Playing Field?

By John E. Whitfield, Executive Director, Blue Ridge Legal Services, and Co-chair of the Virginia Access to Justice Commission

(Note: This article was published in the October 2014 edition of the Virginia State Bar’s Virginia Lawyer, see http://www.vsb.org/site/publications/valawyer/october-2014. The following version includes a number of graphs that were omitted in the published version.)

The ideal of equal justice, regardless of one’s wealth or station in life, is a cherished hallmark of our judicial system. We certainly pay lip service to it constantly. If there is any such thing as an American Creed, it is our Pledge of Allegiance, which we teach to every one of our grade school students, and which we solemnly recite at almost every public function, with our hands over our hearts. Of course, the Pledge concludes with the promise of “liberty and justice for all.”

The very first written code of law – the Code of Hammurabi, written in 1700 BC – explicitly stated that one of the fundamental purposes of law was to protect the powerless from the powerful. This view was likewise reflected in Judeo-Christian ethics. In the Book of Proverbs, circa 900 BC, Solomon admonished:

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,
for the rights of all who are destitute.
Speak up and judge fairly;
defend the rights of the poor and needy.
— Book of Proverbs, 31:8-9

In our lifetime, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice and arguably the greatest Virginia jurist since John Marshall, observed, “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…[I]t is fundamental that justice should be the same, in substance and availability, without regard to economic status.”

Unfortunately, the harsh reality confronting most low-income Virginians when they go to court is more likely to be as described by retired California Court of Appeals Justice Earl Johnson, Jr.: “Poor people have access to the American courts in the same sense that the Christians had access to the lions when they were dragged into a Roman arena.” In the absence of available legal aid or pro bono assistance, a low-income person is typically unable to afford the services of an attorney in a non-fee-generating civil matter. As a result, he or she is often forced to litigate even the most serious civil legal problems without the benefit of counsel, even if the opposing party has counsel. The resulting imbalance can result in a tilted playing field that produces significantly worse outcomes for self-represented litigants than those where both parties are represented. There are compelling data that confirm Justice Johnson’s disturbing characterization of our civil justice system’s unequal treatment of the poor.

The unmet civil legal needs of persons unable to afford legal services are well documented at both the national and state levels. On a national level, the American Bar Association first commissioned a comprehensive legal needs study 20 years ago. It found that only 20 percent of the civil legal needs of low-income Americans were being met by legal aid or pro bono attorneys. In 2005 and again in 2009, the federally funded Legal Services Corporation (LSC) conducted a “Justice Gap” survey among its 120 legal aid grantees across the country and found that for every person helped by a legal aid program, another needy person was turned away due to a lack of a sufficient number of legal aid or pro bono attorneys.

In Virginia, the Virginia State Bar, the Virginia Bar Association, and the Virginia Law Foundation first undertook a study of the civil legal needs of the poor in Virginia in 1991. This study found that 84 percent of Virginia’s poor did not have benefit of counsel when faced with a serious legal problem, despite the work of Virginia’s legal aid societies and the pro bono efforts of private attorneys across the Commonwealth. This study was updated in 2007 by the Legal Services Corporation of Virginia, with partial funding from the Virginia Law Foundation. The 2007 study found that only 17 percent of Virginia’s low-income population had the benefit of counsel when facing a serious civil legal problem, closely mirroring the findings of the 1991 report.

The Documented Unmet Civil Legal Needs of the Poor

120914_0321_TheImpactof1

Reinforcing this finding, in a survey of citizens across Virginia conducted by the Office of the Executive Secretary of the Supreme Court of Virginia in 2007, a majority of the public said they believe the poor receive worse treatment in Virginia’s courts compared to other segments of the population. Thirty-six percent thought the poor received “somewhat worse treatment,” and another 20 percent thought the poor received “much worse treatment.”

The Public’s Perceptions about How Different Groups Are Treated in Virginia Courts

120914_0321_TheImpactof2

What sort of treatment do you think the following groups of people receive in Virginia Courts, compared to other groups?

Source: Office of the Executive Secretary, Supreme Court of Virginia, 2007 Citizens Survey.

Philosophically, it is a tenet of faith for Americans that the poor should have meaningful access to our civil justice system, regardless of their ability to afford the services of an attorney. Yet, as the studies noted above establish, it is well documented and undisputed that if we equate meaningful access to our civil justice sytem to having the benefit of counsel, we are failing miserably in achieving that ideal. As a practical matter, what impact does a lack of representation have on the outcome of a case?

With the exception of our small claims courts, our system of justice relies upon the adversarial model, with each side capably and zealously represented by counsel. When functioning properly, it is a peerless mechanism for arriving at the truth and applying the law fairly. But when one of those parties can’t afford the services of an attorney, the system cannot function properly. The normal level playing field is tilted, despite the best efforts of the court. The judge can’t be the pro se litigant’s counsel. What is the result? There is a growing body of research that indicates that outcomes for unrepresented litigants are often far less favorable than those for represented litigants – confirming what, I suspect, common sense already tells most of us.

In March 2012 the Boston Bar Association Task Force on the Civil Right to Counsel released the results of an important study, The Importance of Representation in Eviction Cases and Homelessness Prevention. This was a carefully designed, controlled, randomized study designed by Harvard Law School Professor Jim Greiner, a statistician and lawyer, with statistically valid results. The study compared the outcomes for tenants facing eviction who were represented in the Boston housing courts versus those who were unrepresented in those courts. It found that in the perfect court setting, with both sides represented, tenants were able to retain possession of their homes two-thirds of the time. In contrast, unrepresented tenants facing represented landlords retained possession in only one-third of their eviction cases. If you view the first scenario, where both sides were represented –creating a level playing field – as the model that produced the most correct results, then the discrepancy between the two is, essentially, the error rate – an alarming error rate of 33 percent.

Correlation between Representation and Outcomes in Eviction Cases

120914_0321_TheImpactof3

Percentage of Tenants Retaining Possession of Their Homes in Eviction Cases Source: Boston Bar Association Task Force on the Civil Right to Counsel, The Importance of Representation in Eviction Cases and Homelessness Prevention (2012).

This particular study was just the latest of a number of studies on the correlation of representation and outcomes in landlord-tenant cases. There have been at least eight other such studies of landlord-tenant eviction cases, from different courts across the country, over the last 40 years. As the next graph shows, while the results varied in the size of the discrepancy, in every study, the pro se tenant fared much, much worse than the represented tenant.

Correlation between Representation and Outcomes for Tenants in Landlord-Tenant Cases

120914_0321_TheImpactof5

120914_0321_TheImpactof4

We see similar results in a study of child custody cases in Maryland in 2006. When both parents were represented, or when neither parent was represented – a level playing field in both cases – mothers won custody approximately 65 percent of the time. In contrast, when only the mothers were represented and the fathers were unrepresented, mothers won a lopsided 95 percent of the time. When the situation was reversed, with only the fathers represented, fathers won 55 percent of the time. Clearly, the presence or absence of counsel had an enormous impact on the outcome of the case, and to the extent the results varied from the norm – that is, the situation in which both parties were represented – those discrepancies constitute error rates of significant proportions.

Correlation between Representation and Custody Outcomes

120914_0321_TheImpactof6

Source: The Women’s Law Ctr. of Md., Inc., Families in Transition: A Follow-up Study Exploring Family Law Issues in Maryland (2006), available at http://www.wlcmd.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Families-in-Transition.pdf (last accessed Aug. 14, 2014).

Other types of cases have also been the subject of similar studies reflecting similar findings:

  • Social Security appeals results: 78 percent of represented claimants won, 28 percent of unrepresented claimants won.
  • Unemployment appeals results: 44 percent of represented claimants won, 30 percent of unrepresented claimants won.
  • Immigration removal appeals results: 44 percent of represented immigrants won, 39 percent of unrepresented immigrants won.
  • Domestic violence cases results: 83 percent of represented victims obtained protective orders, 32 percent of unrepresented victims obtained protective orders.

These studies confirm what the general public already intuitively knows and common sense tells us all: you need a lawyer in order to effectively navigate our court system. So if you’re poor and can’t afford an lawyer, you’re effectively locked out of our system of justice in the absence of legal aid or pro bono assistance. As a result, injustice occurs on a regular basis – not intentionally, not due to anyone’s prejudice or bias, and notwithstanding the best efforts of our judiciary to be fair, but because of the inherent imbalance created by lack of counsel in a system that presumes the presence of counsel. While a judge may be bending over backwards to compensate for the pro se litigant’s lack of counsel during the trial, the judge cannot serve as the pro se litigant’s attorney. Moreover, by that stage of the litigation, the die may have already been cast for the unrepresented party. She has not had the the benefit of counsel to analyze her case for the most effective causes of action or defenses, to draft her pleadings to identify those causes of action or defenses and bring them to the court’s attention, to discover those facts necessary to develop her case, to subpoena the necessary documents and witnesses to have the evidence available at trial, and to provide all the other “added value” that attorneys bring to litigation when they represent a party, even before the trial begins. It is therefore no surprise to find that pro se litigants fare poorly vis-à-vis represented litigants.

Take the high error rates in case outcomes for pro se litigants documented by these studies, multiplied by the documented overwhelming level of unmet need, and I think we can all agree that we have a hidden crisis in our system of civil justice, if we truly believe what we say about equality under the law being fundamental to that system. At current funding levels, legal aid cannot realistically meet the most critical civil legal needs of the poor without the help of the private bar.

The Justice Gap is not just legal aid’s problem – it is the courts’ problem, the bar’s problem, a problem for our entire society. We all proclaim how highly we value the Rule of Law, and Equality and Justice under Law, and yet we benignly allow inequality and injustice to persist unabated in our civil justice system. If we want the poor to “play by the rules,” as a society we need to demonstrate to them that the rules work for them as well as against them. Otherwise, the very Rule of Law itself is threatened.

If “justice for all” is going to be more than an empty phrase at the close of the Pledge of Allegiance, we need the full-throated pro bono commitment of Virginia’s lawyers. As comment 1 to Rule 6.1 of the Virginia State Bar Rules of Professional Conduct notes, “Every lawyer, regardless of professional prominence or professional work load, has a personal responsibility to provide legal services to those unable to pay, and personal involvement in the problems of the disadvantaged can be one of the most rewarding experiences in the life of a lawyer.”

Whether we rise to the challenge and meet this responsibility will clearly make a difference in the outcomes of the civil cases of the less fortunate members of our community, affecting whether they will be homeless – or not, whether they will have court protection from domestic violence – or not, whether the best interests of their children will be served when their custody is adjudicated – or not. Whatever their civil legal problems are, the availability of your pro bono assistance will affect whether those critical, life-changing problems will be fairly decided on a level playing field – or not.

If you are not currently participating in a pro bono program and would like to volunteer, Karl Doss, the VBS Director of Access to Legal Services, would be happy to assist you in locating pro bono opportunities in your areas of interest. You can reach Mr. Doss at doss@vsb.org or by calling (804) 775-0522.