VBA establishes Shepherd award for children’s advocacy

Andrew K. Block Jr., legal director of the JustChildren Program of the Legal Aid Justice Center in Charlottesville, will receive the first Robert E. Shepherd Jr. award for excellence in advocacy for children.

The Virginia Bar Association is establishing the award in honor of Shepherd, the University of Richmond law professor emeritus and nationally recognized leader in legal issues affecting children and families. Shepherd died in December 2008.

Shepherd was the longtime chair of the VBA Commission on the Needs of Children and a proponent of standards for guardians ad litem in state courts. He was a founder and board member of the UR law school’s National Center for Family Law and headed the American Bar Association’s Juvenile Justice Committee. He received the ABA Livingston Hall Juvenile Justice Award for his contributions to children’s rights.

Block founded the JustChildren program in 1998 with a Soros Justice fellowship. It is the largest children’s law program in Virginia with 10 staff members in Charlottesville, Richmond and Petersburg.

It provides comprehensive legal representation to vulnerable young people, coordinates statewide advocacy efforts to expand and protect the rights of Virginia children, and trains and organizes parents, lawyers and child-serving professionals to become more effective and informed advocates for children.

Block is also the founder and supervisor of the Children’s Advocacy Clinic at the University of Virginia law school.

He received the ABA Young Lawyers Division Child Advocacy Award in 2005, the same year that Shepherd was given the Livingston Hall award. Shepherd helped Block secure the initial fellowship to start JustChildren and served as a mentor and advisor to Block and the program.

Block said he was “truly honored to receive an award named for a real hero for children in Virginia and across the country.”