Town Hall Meeting to learn how to improve access to legal help in Virginia

Dear Fellow Virginians,

Will you help us improve access to legal help in Virginia? We hope so!

The Virginia Supreme Court’s Access to Justice Commission and the Virginia State Bar’s Entry, Growth, and Distribution of Virginia Attorneys Study Committee invite you to attend a Regional Town Hall meeting on Wednesday, August 28 from 5 to 7 pm in the Lecture Hall at Rappahannock Community College, 52 Campus Way, Warsaw.  The Commission and the Committee welcome members of the public, attorneys, social services providers, community and political leaders, legal services consumers, members of the judiciary, and anyone interested in access to justice to this gathering.

The hosts will briefly share information about their mission and goals, but the primary purpose of the meeting is to learn about your experience in getting or attempting to get legal help for yourself, your family or your small business, and in navigating the court system if you did not have an attorney helping you.  We also want to hear about:

• what happened if you did not obtain legal help,
• any other obstacles that you might have met, and
• your ideas about increasing access to legal help or use of the courts in Virginia.

We plan to use what we learn from this and other similar meetings elsewhere in the state to develop responses and solutions.

Please note that our focus is on experiences with civil, not criminal, proceedings and situations.

If you would like to attend or speak at this meeting, or if you can’t be there but have experiences and suggestions you would like to share, register here as soon as possible.  We will use the survey responses to invite speakers and otherwise support our work.

We hope to see you in Warsaw on August 28.  We plan to livestream the meeting; light refreshments will be provided for those attending in person. Please ‘come as you are.’

Please contact either of us with any questions or comments that you might have about the upcoming event, the survey, or initiatives to increase access to justice, and share this information and link with anyone you think may be interested in speaking or attending.

Best regards,

Andrea L. Bridgeman                                                                   David Neumeyer

Chair, Access to Justice Committee                                          Chair, Virginia State Bar Committee

703.216.9310                                                                                434.238.2222

[email protected]                                                        [email protected]