The staff at VPLC just returned from the Annual Statewide Legal Aid Conference in Portsmouth.  The conference, organized by VPLC’s own wonderful Training Coordinator Danielle Manuel, is an annual gathering of 300 plus Legal Aid attorneys, staff and private attorneys who come together to hear the latest developments in many areas of poverty law.

This year’s agenda was, as usual, chock full of informative presentations on a multitude of different topics.  Wanted to know how hoarding impacts your clients?  Well, there was a session for that.  Needed to know the basics of Medicaid?  We had a session taught by our health law attorney, Jill Hanken, one of Virginia’s experts on the topic.  Curious to learn more about financial exploitation of the elderly?  There was a session on preventing just such a thing.

In addition, there was a host of other topics covered for non-lawyers.  We had a fundraising track, a technology track and a track for client-eligible Board Members who attended the conference.

For the first time this year, we partnered with the Virginia State Bar to the host the Lewis F. Powell Jr. Pro Bono Award on the first evening of the conference.  Following inspirational remarks by Virginia Supreme Court Justice William Mims on the meaning of justice throughout the centuries, the Lewis F. Powell Jr. Pro Bono Award was presented to M. Steven Weaver and Glenn Hodge of the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Bar Association and to the Legal Network for Cancer (LINC).

This year’s conference also included a tribute to Lular Lucky, a longtime Board Member with Legal Aid Society of Roanoke Valley.

Thank you to everyone who attended this year’s conference.  To find out more about the conference and how you can get involved, please visit our Training page.