To celebrate our 40th anniversary in 2017, Virginia Legal Aid Society is telling 40 stories that reflect our history, our people and the cases and events that have made the past 40 years so memorable.
Alan and Carol Gravitt began working as volunteers for a Legal Aid society in the mid 1970s.
Legal Aid Inspires, Trains Carol and Alan Gravitt (Part I)
Carol and Alan Gravitt Champion Equal Justice (Part II)
Hester Honda: Introducing Legal Aid to Rural Virginia
Hester Honda, Part II: Taking on School Discipline, Inadequate Financial Services and Chinese Food
VLAS Battles a Restaurant’s Work Force Racial Quotas
A restaurant manager is demoted for what appear to be racist reasons.
VLAS Battles a Restaurant’s Racial Quotas, Part II
VLAS attorney Pam Fortune has to demonstrate, among other things, that the manager was demoted with discriminatory intent.
Judge Joel Cunningham Sr.
Judge Cunningham’s Path to Serving Low-Income Clients (Part I)
People find their career inspiration from all sorts of sources. Joel Cunningham found his from seeking to buy food.
Joel Cunningham Sr.: Challenging Unequal Justice at VLAS (Part II)
Joel takes a school that unfairly punished a student, an unscrupulous car dealer and a restaurant that would not serve African Americans.
Joel Cunningham Sr.: A Judge Who Listened to the Voiceless (Part III)
Joel begins a ground-breaking career as a judge.
Jessie Woodson-Johnson
Gail Braxton
Farmville Pair Have Been With Office Almost From the Start
Experienced paralegals Gail Braxton and Jessie Woodson-Johnson remember the days of using carbon paper to create duplicate copies of bankruptcy filings and typing extra carefully to avoid painful corrections at Virginia Legal Aid Society.
Lynchburg’s Legal Aid Pioneer (Part I) Before Virginia Legal Aid Society opened, a smaller firm pioneered the idea of providing free legal services in civil cases for Lynchburg and Campbell County. Gorman Rosenberger, the staff attorney for that group, recalls some of the memorable cases at the Legal Aid Society of Greater Lynchburg.
Lynchburg’s Early Legal Aid Cases (Part II)
James Ghee
A Grand Vision (Part I) In the mid-1970s, a combination of national and local forces, and some motivated, visionary people, led to the creation of Virginia Legal Aid Society in 1977.
Last Obstacle (Part II)