Virginia Legal Aid Society thanks the members of our Lynchburg Pro Bono Task Force, who have volunteered to take on additional cases to help some of our clients obtain divorces in the coming months.
The Task Force members are: David Bice, Mark Burgin, Mary Chamberlin, Jim Childress, Peter Davies, Pavlina Dirom, Sarah Houck, Tripp Isenhour, Kaitlyn Martin and Robin Wood.
The Lynchburg Task Force, started in 2010, plays a critical role in encouraging private attorneys in the area to donate their time to helping VLAS clients. Every year, private attorneys handle 100 or more cases for VLAS clients without charging a fee, with Lynchburg-area attorneys handling most of those cases. For decades, members of the Lynchburg Bar Association have been active volunteers in helping VLAS clients.
Many of these cases are for clients who seek an uncontested divorce, because there are always many requests for help on these cases. VLAS serves low-income clients without charging a fee, and many of these clients could not afford to hire a private attorney to obtain a divorce if it weren’t for this extensive volunteer effort.
This spring, area attorneys have gotten very busy, as the region begins to recover from the COVID-19 crisis. As a result, VLAS has had a harder time finding help for people hoping to obtain divorces.
When VLAS approached the Lynchburg Task Force asking for help to meet this demand, each member of the task force volunteered to take on two divorce cases.
“The Lynchburg Bar Association and Lynchburg Task Force have been critical supporters of Virginia Legal Aid Society,” said David Neumeyer, VLAS Executive Director. “Once again, they are rising to the occasion to meet the needs of low-income clients in our community.”
