Virginia Bar Association

Jan 20, 2012

Capital One’s Justice Server program links pro bono lawyers to clients

Lawyers and information-technology experts at Capital One are teaming up with private and public sector lawyers to streamline the administration of pro bono legal work in Virginia. Lawyers who do pro bono work find that one of the best ways to reach clients is to work through state and local legal aid organizations. Legal aid […]

Jan 17, 2012

The VBA Legislative Agenda for the 2012 session

Highlights of legislation backed by the Virginia Bar Association, the Boyd-Graves Conference, the Virginia Family Law Coalition and the Virginia Alternative Dispute Resolution Joint Committee. Rules of Evidence. The Boyd-Graves Conference strongly supports passage of the Virginia Rules of Evidence as approved by the Supreme Court of Virginia. Protection of Trustee acting at the direction […[...]

Jan 12, 2012

Bill seeks bar membership for law profs, court won’t block

Some Virginia law professors would be eligible to practice law even though they have not passed the bar exam under a bill introduced at the General Assembly. The proposal has been advanced by Washington & Lee University law Prof. A. Benjamin Spencer with the backing of the Virginia State Bar Council and several statewide bar […]

Jan 11, 2012

VBA steps up lobbying efforts in 2012

ROANOKE—After hiring a new lobbying firm, the Virginia Bar Association hopes to have a stronger impact on bills of interest to lawyers in this year’s General Assembly session. “We have ramped up our lobbying effort,” VBA president Lucia Anna Trigiani told members of the Roanoke Bar Association Tuesday. The change was calculated and set in […]

Nov 14, 2011

VBA marks Veteran Legal Services Month

It’s Veteran Legal Services Month, and the Virginia Bar Association is once again at work recruiting pro bono volunteers to help veterans with legal issues and raising money for projects that help them. Volunteer response was strong last November, during the bar group’s first push for help for veterans. But pro bono lawyers are still […]

Jul 27, 2011

Little consensus on response to decline in jury trials

HOT SPRINGS–Lawyers and judges lament the decline in the number of jury trials, but find little common ground on what to do about the trend – or whether anything needs to be done at all. “If you lose the jury trial, the system dies,” said Virginia Supreme Court Justice Donald W. Lemons, expressing a sentiment […]

May 10, 2011

Norfolk lawyer wins in Legal Food Frenzy

The law office of B. Cullen Gibson in Norfolk has won the Attorney General’s Cup for raising the most food per person in the fifth annual Legal Food Frenzy. The frenzy raised more than 1.6 million pounds of food for the state’s food banks in a competition among 177 Virginia law firms and legal departments […]

May 5, 2011

Fairfax bar executive McGhee heads to VBA

Yvonne C. McGhee, the executive director of the Fairfax Bar Association since 2000, has been chosen as the new executive director of the Virginia Bar Association. VBA President Pia Trigiani said McGhee “possesses a unique and impressive background,” that combines legal experience and association management with a record of success in membership expansion, program development, […]

Feb 28, 2011

Effort to reinstate mandatory IOLTA dies in House committee

The effort in the 2011 General Assembly to revive mandatory IOLTA is dead for the time being. Proponents of reinstating mandatory IOLTA as a tool to raise money for legal aid failed to clear the first hurdle – lifting the ban on the concept the Assembly imposed in 1995. The fight over IOLTA strained relations […]

Feb 10, 2011

A touch of grace

He probably knew it would be his last speech. Supreme Court Justice Leroy Hassell, who died last Tuesday, made his last public appearance at the Virginia Bar Association meeting in Williamsburg on Jan. 21, just three and a half weeks prior to his death. He apparently had cancer. And he had the chance to speak […]

Feb 4, 2011

Trigiani: VBA is about making connections

When Lucia Anna Trigiani entered the University of Richmond law school in 1980, she expected to return to Big Stone Gap and be a trial lawyer. But she took a summer job at the end of her first year of law school with the Virginia Real Estate Commission reviewing applications for the registration of condominiums. […]

Jan 26, 2011

Senator to VSB: So where would you say we get the money?

The Virginia State Bar may have difficulty hanging on to its $5 million reserve fund. But there still may be hope for thawing the freeze on new judges in Virginia. Leaders from a number of the commonwealth’s bar groups trooped to Capitol Hill on Jan. 25, appearing before the House Appropriations Committee for an early-morning […]