Virginia Lawyers Weekly

Few members of the Virginia Bar Association practice criminal law.

William R. Van Buren III, the immediate past president of the VBA, said that might be one reason that the efforts of the organization helped win General Assembly approval of a plan that waives in some instances the cap state law puts on court-appointed attorneys’ fees.

“Sometimes it takes someone who doesn’t have a vested interest” to promote a reform, said Van Buren, a partner in the Norfolk office of Kaufman & Canoles. Van Buren certainly had no vested interest. Most of his practice involves healthcare, mergers and acquisitions and the formation of business entities.

He credits Roger D. Groot, the Washington and Lee University law professor who died in November 2005, with bringing the issue of indigent criminal defense to the VBA.

“He really turned the head of the VBA board of governors and got them involved in the project,” Van Buren recalled.

At Groot’s insistence, “a neutral party with some influence focused on this issue and was able to raise the level of attention,” Van Buren said. Indigent criminal defense thus became “a much greater cause for a greater group of people than it ever was before.”

Van Buren said he likes to think of the VBA as a trusted resource for the legislature, which may “pay a little more attention when we suggest something that’s a little out of the bounds of fairness in the state.”

The General Assembly appropriated $8.2 million to pay for raising the cap by a certain amount for most offenses when an attorney can show that a case required the extra time and effort he spent on it. The law eliminates the cap altogether in extraordinary cases.

Van Buren has long been active in the VBA, having served as chairman of its Young Lawyers Section before joining the board of governors and heading the organization during 2006. “You improve yourself by hanging around people better than you,” he said.

Work in the organization also has gives members an opportunity to effect changes, such as improvements in indigent criminal defense, and “to spread your wings and exercise some leadership skills that are not necessarily part of the practice of law,” he said.

Biography

Education: B.B.A, College of William and Mary, 1978; J.D., University of Virginia School of Law, 1981

Practice Areas: Mergers and acquisitions, formation of business entities, healthcare

Achievement: Helped lead the effort of Virginia Bar Association and other legal organizations to win improvements in indigent criminal defense
 

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