Dixon and his wife, Dorothy, were recognized for their generosity during the winter meeting of the NCBA Board of Governors and the NCBA Foundation Board of Directors. It was an appropriate setting in that the initial announcement of Dixon’s donation to the Legal Aid of North Carolina Fund was made during the summer meeting of the NCBA boards.

The LANC Fund was established by the NCBA Board of Governors in January 2007 as a named fund within the NCBA Foundation Endowment restricted to Legal Aid of North Carolina. Expansion of the fund is a major objective of the 4ALL campaign to expand the provision of civil legal services to the poor this year under the leadership of President Janet Ward Black who conducted the dedication ceremony.

Longtime law partner Stephen M. Thomas provided special remarks.

"In the past 38 years I have probably spent more time with Charlie than anyone outside of my own family, and have probably gotten to know him better than anyone outside his own family," Thomas said. "In that time he has been variously my employer, teacher, mentor, role model, co-worker, partner, companion, and most of all, my friend."

Thomas said it has been a "rare privilege" to work with Dixon.

Charles Dixon receives standing ovation.

Dixon receives congratulatory hug from granddaughter Rebecca.“Having such a person in our midst over the years at Patrick, Harper & Dixon has been enriching to all of us, in both the figurative and literal sense,” Thomas said. “It is for all these reasons that I, and we, feel this recognition today is well-deserved.

“As a fellow member of our bar once said of Charles D. Dixon, ‘He is everything a lawyer is supposed to be.’ ”

A Justice Fund is a named endowment that honors those North Carolina lawyers, past and present, whose careers have demonstrated dedication to the pursuit of justice and outstanding service to the profession and the public. One or more contributors may establish a Justice Fund to honor a colleague, family member or friend through a combined gift of $35,000.

Dixon receives congratulatory hug from granddaughter Rebecca.

Restricted funds such as the Dixon gift are fulfilled upon attainment of a $100,000 threshold.

Lawyers designated and honored by the creators of a Justice Fund receive special recognition in the form of a permanent plaque and biographical sketch maintained at the N.C. Bar Center.

The NCBA Foundation Endowment was established in 1987 to enable the foundation to fund programs and activities to better serve the public and the legal profession. As of January 2008, the endowment had awarded grants totaling $2,911,119 for 396 projects.

The LANC Fund was in its infancy when Dixon communicated to Tom Hull, director of development for the NCBA Foundation, his interest in making his gift through the tax provisions of the Pension Protection Act of 2006.

As President Black noted during the dedication ceremony, the initial goal of $100,000 was still a dream when Dixon made his gift. The LANC Fund is approaching the $500,000 mark toward its ultimate goal of $1 million.

Born on Dec. 12, 1926, in York County, S.C., Dixon began his law practice in 1952 as an associate in the Hickory firm of Patrick & Harper; he was named partner of Patrick, Harper & Dixon in 1957. After decades of service as its managing partner, he became of counsel with the firm in 2003.

A 1943 graduate of Belmont High School, Dixon proceeded to North Carolina State University (then College) where he attended classes for two years. He joined the U.S. Army in 1945 and attended Japanese language school at Yale University where he was trained as a counterintelligence investigator.

Upon his honorable discharge in 1947, he earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He attended Harvard Law School as a National Scholarship Student, earning his law degree in 1952.

A past president of the Catawba County Bar Association and the 25th Judicial District Bar, Dixon is married to the former Dorothy Lindsay. He has four children and 11 grandchildren.

Dixon was inducted into the NCBA General Practice Hall of Fame in 2003.

RALEIGH - Lawyers are guaranteed for those who could face imprisonment in criminal cases, but few resources exist for the civil half of the courthouse where adoptions, divorces, child custody battles and other issues are handled.

The state budget last year included $105 million to represent indigent criminal defendants, but only $4 million to secure civil representation for those classified as living in poverty, according to the Office of Indigent Services and Legal Aid of North Carolina.

That disparity is disturbing to Janet Ward Black, a Greensboro lawyer and president of the N.C. Bar Association, a volunteer organization with 13,500 members. She has made it a goal in her yearlong presidency to increase the amount of pro bono work done by lawyers, a practice recommended by the N.C. State Bar's Code of Professional Conduct and required in other states.

"Justice for all is important," Black said.

In North Carolina, about two of 10 lawyers regularly do pro bono work, according to Black.

Many people don't realize they're not entitled to have a lawyer for civil legal matters that could have lasting influences on their lives, Black said.

Tephanie Darden of Raleigh learned that when she tried to seek full custody of her 8-year-old daughter. The single mother of two could not afford to hire a local lawyer. Darden didn't expect to be overwhelmed by the paperwork and court hearings that took place in two states.

Darden didn't expect to be overwhelmed by the paperwork and court hearings that took place in two states.

"It's like you're not being heard," she said.

But she has been able to wade through the system with the help of Adrian Davis, a Raleigh lawyer who donated her time to help Darden.

Darden is now waiting to find out whether her request for custody will be granted.

Helping those like Darden should be a priority for the 22,094 lawyers authorized to practice law in North Carolina, Black said.

"This is our duty," Black told a group of Wake County lawyers at a luncheon earlier this month. Black said she embarked on the campaign to urge lawyers to donate their time and money to the poor because of her faith and beliefs that all people should have access to the judicial system.

The signature event of the project will be April 4, when volunteering lawyers will man phone lines for any North Carolinian to call a toll-free number and ask their legal questions. A Web site, www.4allnc.org, has been set up for lawyers to donate their time and for people to search for legal resources.

Black hopes that lawyers sign up to help the thousands who can't afford to hire lawyers and who aren't helped by Legal Aid of North Carolina. The nonprofit agency, which has a legal aid staff of 122 lawyers in offices statewide, can serve about 25,000 clients a year, but it must turn down eight out of 10 requests for help.

George Hausen Jr., Legal Aid's executive director in the state, said his offices have seen the effects of a slowing economy for years, with increasing numbers of clients facing foreclosures. Hausen suspects that the poor are also making less, increasing the burden on the court system and his office. The median household annual income for clients at the state's legal services office is $9,100 according to Hausen.

"Poverty is deepening," Hausen said.

Unmet needs

A gap in representation exists nationally as well, said Mark Schickman, a San Francisco lawyer who is chairman of the committee on pro bono work for the American Bar Association.

Schickman estimates that 80 percent of the legal needs of America's poor is unmet -- and that the problem is growing as the impact of the subprime mortgage crisis grows wider.

"We're chasing a moving target," he said.

But many are pitching in to help, including Chris Graebe, a business litigator with the Raleigh office of the Womble Carlyle firm. Graebe spends anywhere from 3 percent to 15 percent of his time working on pro bono cases, primarily focusing on helping people who have had their public housing subsidies cut off.

"The justice system doesn't work unless everyone has adequate representation," Graebe said.

"Kilpatrick Stockton is privileged to work with Legal Aid of North Carolina and its lawyers to further our mutual commitment to the provision of pro bono legal services to those in need," said Debbie Segal, Kilpatrick Stockton Pro Bono Partner. "This gift enables Legal Aid to continue its essential work in the North Carolina communities where we work and live. The Firm looks forward to continuing to work with LANC for many years."

Kilpatrick Stockton’s $25,000 donation will be utilized to provide legal support for low-income people in North Carolina in order to ensure equal access to the legal system.

“We are certainly thrilled that one of the country’s largest law firms continues to support our efforts to provide legal services to low-income people in North Carolina,” said George Hausen, executive director of Legal Aid of North Carolina. “Kilpatrick Stockton has helped us with both financial and volunteer support over the years."

Legal Aid of North Carolina’s Access to Justice Campaign is an annual fundraising drive to reach out to the private bar, corporations and the community and seek critical funds for support its efforts to provide powerful, life-altering solutions to the legal issues that confront poor people in North Carolina.

Kilpatrick Stockton, LLP is a full-service international law firm with more than 500 attorneys in nine offices across the globe: London; Stockholm; Atlanta and Augusta, Georgia; New York City, New York; Charlotte, Raleigh and Winston-Salem, North Carolina; and Washington, D.C. Kilpatrick Stockton's delivery of innovative business solutions provides results-oriented counsel for corporations, from the challenging demands of financial transactions and securities to the disciplines of intellectual property management. Collaboration among Kilpatrick Stockton's corporate, litigation and intellectual property attorneys provides knowledgeable and proactive guidance for companies at every stage of the business life cycle. For more information about Kilpatrick Stockton, please visit www.kilpatrickstockton.com.

Legal Aid of North Carolina (LANC) is a statewide, nonprofit law firm that provides free legal services in civil matters to eligible, low-income people in all 100 counties in North Carolina through 24, geographically located offices in North Carolina. LANC’s clients typically have an annual income of 125% or less of the federally established poverty levels. In 2006, LANC closed more than 19,000 cases across North Carolina.

CONTACTS:

• George Hausen (Executive Director, LANC, Raleigh, NC), 919-856-2564
  
  Debbie Segal (Pro Bono Partner, Kilpatrick Stockton, LLP, Atlanta, GA), 404-815-6167
  
  Dock Kornegay (Director, Public Relations & Development, Raleigh, NC), 919-856-2564

The Summit on Civil Access to Justice in North Carolina
Friday, Oct. 12, 2007
Keynote Address of
Gene Nichol, President
The College of William and Mary

Thank you Madame Chief Justice. That’s a phrase I’ve always wanted to say, by the way. And never been able to. I’m particularly heartened it’s Madame Chief Justice Sarah Parker. Congratulations – and congratulations to the people of North Carolina.

I’m honored and beyond happy to be here. In the state, and in the university community, and legal community that I think of as home. Though I was able to sneak back here for the first time – in too long – last weekend, to help the Carolina community pay tribute to my friend Marion Cowell. And also see the Tar Heels whip up on the University of Miami – which is God’s work if ever there was. A sort of reverse hurricane. The first time in a while, I’d imagine, that the near sellout crowd was still in the stadium at the end of the game. Not talking about waiting for basketball. It’s been a tough year for the new faces – but things are, I’d venture, looking up. Though I used to be friends with Steve Spurrier. To I would want to make predictions there.

I’d be lying if I didn’t concede that I love to come back to Chapel Hill and drink of the waters – they don’t actually need a fountain at the Old Well – talking to bill Aycock and Bill Friday and Dickson Phillips and Henry Frye and Dan Pollitt and Julius Chambers – and so many here – it’s quite an elixir. Having heroes is a marvelous thing. And even when you know you can’t live up to their standards – it at least helps to be certain from which direction the sun does rise.

I’ll admit too that I’ve been reading one of America’s great new works of non-fiction – William Blythe’s “To Hate Like This is to be Happy Forever.” It’s a remarkable source of unbiased straightforward reporting. And it reminds me that I should begin, as I still frequently do, by saying that I hope your future skies are of that perfect, ennobling, encompassing Carolina blue – not the dark and menacing shade seen just eight miles up the road in Durham County. I’m honored to be here.

I love my present job – the College of William & Mary was a national treasure even before there was a nation to treasure it. I promised myself three years ago, when I left Chapel Hill, that I was going to get myself out of the newspapers for a change. That hasn’t really worked out. I have been honored to win such hearty support from folks like Bill O’Reilly and Newt Gingrich. I’ve been listening to Bruce Springsteen’s new album – and he has a line “you’ll take comfort in knowing you’ve been roundly blessed and cursed.” I find some reassurance in that.

I’m happy, as well, to have the assignment I’ve drawn – exploring the call to equal justice. Our greatest challenge as a profession. Perhaps our greatest challenge as a nation. But I will say, thankfully, to sketch out these concerns before this legal community – here in Carolina – that in my experience believes more fully, more potently, in the challenges of equal justice than others, in what is now a long career, others I have known. I’m not surprised, though I am heartened, that Janet Ward Black has pushed access to justice so hard in her presidency. It is, for this bar – in the blood, the sacrifices, the demands, the struggles of justice. You have seen, first hand, the darkness and the light. And you have taught much, in what Dr. (Frank Porter) Graham called, the charge to build “a nobler and fresher civilization in this ancient commonwealth.” I’ll try not to preach – especially from a distant academic perch. Reminded of Mark Twain’s claim that “to do right is noble. To advise others to do right is also noble, and much less trouble to yourself.”

So let me start with the obvious. We carve “equal justice under law” on our courthouse walls. It is the literal cornerstone of our system of adjudication. We swear fealty to it every day. For decades, we’ve announced as a fundamental principal of our constitutional law “there can be no equal justice when the kind of trial a person gets depends on the amount of money he has.” But the framework in which we operate has little in common with what we say.

Think about a set of facts that we all know to be true. Lawyers cost money. Some have it. Lots don’t. Yet unlike some industrial nations, we recognize no general right to representation in civil cases. We spend far less than other western democracies on subsidized legal representation. Less than 1 percent of our total expenditure for lawyers goes toward services for the poor. Legal aid budgets are capped at levels making effective representation of the poor a statistical impossibility. Even at that, they’ve been cut by about a third over the last dozen years.

We have one lawyer for every 400 people generally, and one legal services lawyer for every 7,000 persons living in poverty; in North Carolina reportedly one legal services lawyer for every 18,000 eligible citizens. Our legal services lawyers turn away 8 out of 10 clients with actionable claims. We fence folks out even further by creating categories of unworthy poor; and placing restrictions on the most efficient avenues for representation. Study after study shows about 80% of the legal need of the poor is unmet – in North Carolina, in Virginia, in the country. The circumstance is almost as bleak for middle income Americans.

As every person in this room knows, neither the billable hour nor the possibility of a significant contingent fee cover the waterfront of American legal disputes. New York’s state bar study a couple of years ago found that we leave the poor unrepresented on most crushing problems of life – divorce, child custody, domestic violence, housing, benefits. We think it natural that a commercial dispute between battling corporations takes six month to try, while the fate of a batter child is determined in only a few minutes. What passes for civil justice among the have-nots is breathtaking.

On the criminal side, we trivialize the right to counsel we have declared. Across the country, public defenders can have crushing caseloads. Rates of compensation for appointed lawyers are often absurd. Competitive bid schemes can make them worse – leading to what has been described as “meet ’em, greet ’em, and plead ’em” defense regimes.¹ We’ve developed laughable rules of constitutional effectiveness – what Deborah Rhode calls a “jurisprudence of dozing” – ruling not only inexperienced lawyers, but drunk lawyers, drugged lawyers, mentally ill lawyers, and sleeping lawyers can pass muster. One court explained that “the constitution does not say a lawyer has to be awake”; another ruled that sleeping “might have been a strategic ploy to gain sympathy from the jury.” This must have provided only modest consolation to the convicted client.

We enthuse about access and equality rhetorically. But we don’t make serious efforts to give them practical content. Average citizens are effectively priced out of the justice system. They’re also typically barred from participating in the closed regulatory scheme that excludes them. The system we have is powerfully, dramatically, and fundamentally at odds with who we say we are.

In studying the literature – as best a university president can do – I learned that “the best available research indicates that the American legal profession averages less than half an hour of work per week on pro bono services”² Most lawyers do no pro bono work at all. Recent affluence has eroded rather than expanded support for pro bono programs. Over the past fifteen years, the average revenue of the country’s most successful firms increased by over 60%. Pro bono hours dropped by one-third.

In law schools, issues of access to justice are either missing or marginalized in our curricula. Relatively little of our research focuses on what passes for justice among the poor. Our curriculum takes the present deployment of legal resources as a given. Who uses the system is unexplored. Law firms are not topics of study or critique. Despite the marvelous clinical programs expanding across the country, unequal access to justice has not made it to the core of legal education. Only ten percent of schools have pro bono requirements—and fewer than that apply them to faculty. The greatest shortcoming of American law schools may be the failure to explore and articulate a theory of the just deployment of legal resources.

And, without intending to, we’ve added to the problems of access by our own patterns of decision-making. Tuition has risen, particularly in public law schools, many multiples of inflation. Private school tuition dramatically exceeds that of the publics. Costs per student have soared in the past two decades—with institutions competing feverishly -- for star faculty and deans, supremacy in facilities, in technology, in expensive brochures sent across the land to convince unwilling recipients how terrific the schools are— and thus, against all odds, improve their rankings in US News. None of which add much, or perhaps anything, to the quality of educational experience.

Then young lawyers graduate owing $100,000 or more while public sector jobs around the country average starting salaries of about $40. Further taxing a legal system that already excludes the poor and the near-poor from voluntary access to civil justice. Law schools, of course, didn’t cause all this. But I’m loathe to think that, completely without justification, we’re guilty of piling on.

When we survey this landscape, I think we’re compelled to say that we would have hoped for more from our nation’s justice system. More from our country. And I think we’d say as well that these are but components of a set of much larger problems—larger betrayals of the command of equal justice. Denials that we’ve gotten used to – that have become commonplace – betrayals from which we have chosen to simply turn our gaze away. We’ve gotten used to things we should never have gotten used to. And we’ve apparently been satisfied.

1. But how can we be satisfied? When the richest nation on earth, the richest nation in human history, allows almost 37 million of its citizens to live in stark, unrelenting poverty? A quarter of black Americans. A fifth of Latinos. Almost one in five of our children—13 million—even higher percentages in North Carolina—one in four—as if any theory of justice or virtue could explain the exclusion of innocent children from the American dream.

2. And how can we be satisfied, when 47 million Americans have no health care coverage of any kind? Sixteen percent of North Carolinians. Leaving us alone among the industrial nations in failing to provide some form of universal coverage. When, as Dr. King proclaimed, inequality in access to health is the most pernicious discrimination of all?

3. How can we be satisfied when over 40,000 North Carolinians every year fall prey to domestic violence—most of them with no access to lawyers—though the legal system may be the only effective avenue to save their lives? As if the most endangered of us somehow don’t count. And so sometimes don’t survive.

4. And how can we be satisfied when, 50 years after the majestic phrases of Brown v Board of Education—all over the country schools are rapidly re-segregating. Removing meaningful racial integration from our national agenda. Ignoring Thurgood Marshall’s claim before the Supreme Court that ‘these plaintiffs seek the most vital right that can be claimed by children—the ‘right to be treated as entire citizens of the nation into which they have been born.’

5. And how can we be satisfied when in Virginia and North Carolina and across much of the country we allow rich and poor public schools—not just private schools mind you, but rich and poor public schools. As if it were thought acceptable to treat some of our children as second and third class citizens. Our religions teach that all children are equal in the eyes of God. We operate our schools as if we didn’t believe it.

6. And how can we be satisfied when a new study concludes higher education is more economically polarized today than at any time in the last three decades? So that if you come from a family making over $90,000 a year, your chances of getting a college degree by age 24 are better than one in two. If your family makes $35,000 or less, the odds are one in 17. One in 17. As if intellect and character and commitment, and worth, were hereditary.

7. And how can we be satisfied when my own institution, and other distinguished universities across the nation, still have so much to do to demonstrate, in our Chancellor, Justice O’Connor’s words, that these distinctive paths to leadership are “visibly open” to all segments of society.

The frank truth is that if the exclusions and indignities of American race and poverty are right, then the Constitution is wrong.

If the debilitations of those locked at the bottom are acceptable, then our scriptures are wrong.

If these denials of equal citizenship and equal dignity are permissible, then we pledge allegiance to a cynical illusion, not to a foundational creed.

So that’s why your work triggered here—to make the promises of justice real—in the bar, in the courts, at legal services, in the law schools, in the state house, is so crucial, so defining. I hope that, together, we’ll begin to insist upon a higher calling of public obligation—a more demanding and optimistic vision of professionalism, of citizenship. One born in, dependent on, dedicated to – the foundational American aspiration of equal justice. I hope that we will declare our commitment to it. We’ll enroll our hearts. We’ll enlist our spirits. We’ll mark our lives. We’ll enlist because …

1. Somewhere we read, “we hold these truths to be self-evident that all are created equal.’

2. And somewhere we read, the ‘central purpose of America is that the weak would gradually made stronger and ultimately all would have an equal chance’.

3. And somewhere we read, that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’

4. And somewhere we read, “history will judge us on the extent to which we use our gifts to lighten and enrich the lives of our fellows.’

5. And somewhere we read, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’

6. And somewhere we read, we have ‘to believe the things we teach our children.’ Believe them and make them real.

7. And somewhere we read, that ‘whenever you did these things to the least of these, you did them to me.’

8. And somewhere we read ‘you reap what you sow.’

9. And somewhere we read that the pursuit of justice and the pursuit of happiness march not in opposite directions but hand in hand.’

10. And somewhere we read, no, we are not satisfied and we shall not be satisfied ‘til justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Thank you.

---

1. Deborah Rhode, Access to Justice, 69 Fordham Law Review 1785 (2001).

2. Deborah Rhode, Access to Justice, 69 Fordham Law Review 1785, 1810 (2001).

The Summit on Civil Access to Justice in North Carolina
Friday, Oct. 12, 2007
Opening Address of
Thomas W. Lambeth, Senior Associate and former Executive Director
Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation

An early agenda listed my remarks as “The Moral Imperative.”  That is a pretty heavy load to lift.

It sounds a little like preaching and I am no preacher. I am not even a lawyer.

Yet if I were a preacher and this were my sermon for the day I would not turn for my inspiration to the scriptures - although they are an important and inspiring source for a discussion of justice and equity.

Instead I would turn to the words of a North Carolina journalist, an English explorer and a Pennsylvania founding father.  I think what all of them wrote and how the years have embraced their words speaks to the purpose of your work. My understanding of that work, as a layman, is that you are determining whether we as North Carolinians and we as Americans will live up to our promise and the promises of our past.

My concern about whether we achieve that is driven by my own 300 years of North Carolina roots, by the two public servants whom I spent an important part of my years serving and by my involvement in a family philanthropy – someone else’s money I would note – which committed itself many years ago to helping the people of North Carolina improve the quality of their lives.

In that latter pursuit the Reynolds Foundation learned from its first grant forward that access to the benefits of citizenship was essential to that goal of a better life for Tar Heels and their families. I know that will continue under the leadership of Leslie Winner who has a lifetime of commitment to such values.

Now, to my eloquent trio: The journalist is the late Jonathan Daniels who decades ago wrote of North Carolina the following:

“The State, good, beautiful, varied, is a long way from perfection; but more than any other State in the old America, it is as it was in the beginning – with the same high hope in it, the same free people and the will to possess the same free chance. Other states possess the houses, the capitals, the preserved places, the restored buildings but the North Carolina continuity is of peoples, not of buildings, of the pioneer possibility of equality and comradeship in equality. That belief in that possibility is more than anything I know the mark of North Carolina.”

The English explorer is Ralph Lane who in September some four hundred twenty two years ago, in the first letter written in the English language from the New World to the old, reported the following:

“Since Sir Richard Grenville’s departure from us….we have discovered the mainland to be the goodliest land under the cope of heaven.”

And finally the words of Gouveneur Morris of Pennsylvania who was successful in taking  the words in the original draft of the preamble to the United States Constitution  which were “we the delegates of the sovereign states of Delaware, Georgia, etc. “  - and substituting for them, the words that are there today:

“We the people.”

Three sets of words: A belief in the pioneer possibility of equality; the goodliest land under the cope of heaven; We the people.

Now when Daniels wrote those words all North Carolinians did not share the same pioneer possibility of equality; it was a possibility deferred; and when the founders settled upon “we the people” it was clearly we  - only some of the people – it was, essentially, we the white males and not all of them; and the goodliest land spoke of a geography, not a people. Yet over the years North Carolina has moved towards the expansion of those pioneer possibilities, the nation and North Carolina have come close to making we the people, all of the people; and we in North Carolina have done much to create out of that 16th century description of the land and water and climate a new notion of what we could as a state become for all of our people.

So what of this matter of ideas and equality? Of people and possibilities? We have had cause to look at them again in our greatest modern tragedy as a nation.  Soon after the planes crashed into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania countryside, people began to speculate why the planners of that monstrous crime did not select flight times that would have had the planes hit their targets when they were at their maximum human capacity.

We have learned through the 9/11 Commission that the reason the planes that day headed for their collisions without regard to what hour would find the maximum number of people in the buildings targeted was that in their evil calculations the terrorists did not care how many people were there. They saw the buildings without regard to the human equation that proved so deadly. They saw them as symbols of our democracy.  They saw them as somehow essential to what made us who we are.

They made a mistake. They sought to bring down a nation by bringing down buildings, thinking that such an act would somehow destroy us. Yet, even if their worst designs had prevailed; for example, if they had hit the Capitol, the nation would not have collapsed. It is not the symbols of our nationhood, sacred as they may be to most of us, that make us what we are. It is the idea of freedom that does that. The idea was there before the buildings. It will be there if they are ever gone.

We sometimes forget that the founders of our nation were most often scholars. Jefferson, Adams, Rush, Madison, Franklin were men for whom liberty emerged as a great idea.

To give credibility to that idea of  liberty; to make believable that ideal of “we the people” in the 21st century, that realization of the goodliest land must belong to all of us; it must be liberty for all, it must be a shared destiny in which both the sacrifice and the celebration belong to  all of us.

And it must work in the lives of real people with real problems and real opportunities.

There is no more powerful component of that idea of liberty than the idea that within our free land justice is there for all and that it is accessible and applicable to all equally and in the same measure of impact and outcome.  When we fail to realize that ideal, when we deny justice to any, when we deny the protection of the law because of wealth or power or position or class or religion or race, we diminish it for all. More than that we rend the fabric of the compact that we have made as citizens of a free land - a compact between all of us for the protection of all of us. Justice becomes less than it should be.

And in a time when there are many enemies of our democracy, we weaken our resolve in meeting those forces at home and abroad.

The law should be empowering and redeeming in a democracy. If it empowers only some, if it redeems for only some, it loses its value to all.

Judge Learned Hand once asked of his law clerk, “to whom am I responsible? No one can fire me; no one can dock my pay. Even those nine bozos in Washington, DC can’t make me decide as they wish. Everyone should be responsible to someone. To whom am I responsible.” Then he turned to the law books in his library and said. “To those books on the shelves there above us. That’s to whom I am responsible.”

It is that idea of the written law and its majesty that lifts up all of us. To deny that empowerment to any is not only a travesty, it is a travesty that is dangerous in times which demand that we stand together in a common conviction of the worth of our nation.

It is not an easy thing that you propose to do through the work of this commission. Not an easy thing to stand for justice accessible and equitable. Those of us in the Methodist church sing a hymn that calls us to show “the courage to do justice,” that commands us to “not be afraid to defend the weak because of the anger of the strong” nor “ be afraid to defend the poor because of the anger of the rich.”

My Jewish friends read in the Talmud that “justice, equal justice shalt thou pursue” and in subsequent commandments define equal justice as exactly the same justice for the immigrant as the native born requiring a civil and criminal process that gives not the slightest preference to the rich and powerful over the poor and powerless.  Those who are of that ancient faith are ordered to pursue a relentless, never-ending quest for evidence that might tend to exculpate the accused.

Cicero said that the law “is the highest reason. It is implanted in Nature, which commands what ought to be done and forbids the opposite.” When we have taken from the law by denial of access or equal application, we have violated Nature, we have done damage to reason.

In North Carolina in 2007 we worry much about whether we are becoming two North Carolinas; one prospering and expanding, one declining.  Today the control of our legislature rests in the hands of the representatives of 15 counties; not because of any conspiracy; just because of dramatically changing demography.

Into this dramatically changing environment we add a series of gaps: an achievement gap, an income gap, a transportation gap, a mushrooming infrastructure gap and a political power gap. Will we compound an already dangerous division with a justice gap?

We need to remember that equity in the access to justice and equity in its enforcement are not only protective of those who seek such access and who are the targets of its enforcement, it is protective of those we have charged with the responsibility of enforcement.

My own experience in law enforcement – in the military police – was brief  and largely uneventful but one only has to walk once with an unholstered 45 into a darkened building with strange noises or patrol a narrow alley behind a commissary to have some sense of the awesome burden of those for whom law enforcement is a career.  The law enforcer is strengthened in that role when he or she serves a community which believes that the law belongs to all of them and that it is applied in equal measure to all.

Finally, I believe the work of  insuring equal access to civil justice is fundamental to our larger effort to bring the benefits of a global economy to all the people of North Carolina. In that effort, in this century we as North Carolinians and as citizens of the United States confront awesome odds. The numbers against which we compete -  when we look at such nations as India and China - are staggering. Nine cities in the US with a population over one million; more than 60 in China.  How can be possibly overcome such an advantage? Our best hope is just to be very smart, very strategic and integral to that is making  our democracy work so that no part of our state or nation will think that the outcome is less important to them because they are less important to the rest of us. To go into such a competitive world without the support of all is to invite disaster.

The fact is that in North Carolina we are not ready for prime time.  Each hour our state adds 21 people to its population. If we are to meet the needs that this tsunami of population increase represents the public investment will be as little as $19 billion; perhaps more than $60 billion.  We cannot achieve that kind of public commitment with a population that is divided by inequitable access to the benefits of democracy.

So, if you do not believe in equal access to justice as a matter of common humanity; believe in it as essential to economic development.

The ABA in its mandate to the Task Force on Access to Civil Justice uses language that captures your challenge best for me. It mentions “problems that can imprison one in poverty or discrimination.” That is, of course, the  reality with which you – we – must deal. That denial of access to civil justice imprisons those denied in a situation that prevents them from being all that they might be. It prevents them from contributing all that they might contribute to the common good.  Yet they are not the only prisoners when such a condition prevails. All of the community in which they live is to some extent imprisoned. We are all denied the benefits that would come from a society in which equality of access and opportunity prevail.

What you are about is important work. It is consistent with the noblest traditions of your profession and with the deepest values of our democracy. In the best Tar Heel spirit, go forth and pursue justice, equal justice; do not fear to defend the weak because of the anger of the strong; do not fear to defend the poor because of the anger of the rich.

I wish you well and I thank you for letting me be a part of this summit.

An impressive array of stakeholders in North Carolina’s judicial system, led by six members of the state Supreme Court, convened Friday in Cary for the first Summit on Civil Access to Justice in North Carolina.

Throughout the daylong event, the unmet legal needs of North Carolina’s ever-growing poor population remained in the forefront, echoing themes that have resonated throughout the North Carolina Bar Association this year under the leadership of President Janet Ward Black.

Chief Justice Sarah Parker of the N.C. Supreme Court presided. The event was sponsored by the Equal Access to Justice Commission, which she chairs, and the NCBA. Joining the chief justice throughout the day were associate justices Mark Martin, Robert Edmunds, Paul Newby, Patricia Timmons-Goodson and Robin Hudson.

NCBA President Janet Ward Black confers with Judge Paul Jones.

“For the North Carolina Supreme Court to be having its first public summit indicates how serious the problem is,” Black said. “The North Carolina Bar Association is also focused on this issue this year. There is a critical shortage of lawyers to handle the cases for the poor in North Carolina, and we are calling on our members to rally to address this crisis.”

Black, who has championed the cause of Legal Aid of North Carolina throughout the implementation of the 4ALL campaign, joined Chief Justice Parker on the opening agenda.

Tom Lambeth

Thomas W. Lambeth, former executive director of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, then delivered a stirring address under the heading of “Why is Access to Justice Important?”

“We sometimes forget that the founders of our nation were most often scholars,” Lambeth stated. “Jefferson, Adams, Rush, Madison, Franklin were men for whom liberty emerged as a great idea.

“To give credibility to that idea of  liberty; to make believable that ideal of ‘we the people’ in the 21st century, that realization of the goodliest land must belong to all of us; it must be liberty for all, it must be a shared destiny in which both the sacrifice and the celebration belong to all of us.”

It must also be applicable, Lambeth said, to the real world.

“There is no more powerful component of that idea of liberty than the idea that within our free land justice is there for all and that it is accessible and applicable to all equally and in the same measure of impact and outcome. When we fail to realize that ideal, when we deny justice to any, when we deny the protection of the law because of wealth or power or position or class or religion or race, we diminish it for all.

“More than that we rend the fabric of the compact that we have made as citizens of a free land – a compact between all of us for the protection of all of us. Justice becomes less than it should be.”

Lambeth spoke of two North Carolinas, one of which is prosperous and the other which finds itself in decline.

“Today, the control of our legislature rests in the hands of the representatives of 15 counties; not because of any conspiracy; just because of dramatically changing demography,” Lambeth said.

“Into this dramatically changing environment we add a series of gaps: an achievement gap, an income gap, a transportation gap, a mushrooming infrastructure gap and a political power gap. Will we compound an already dangerous division with a justice gap?

“We need to remember that equity in the access to justice and equity in its enforcement are not only protective of those who seek such access and who are the targets of its enforcement, it is protective of those we have charged with the responsibility of enforcement.”

Cal Adams

The Overview of Civil Legal Needs was provided by Cal Adams, immediate past chair of LANC who currently serves as vice chair of the Equal Access to Justice Commission. The morning agenda also included A Real Look at Client Stories, moderated by Jim Barrett, executive director of Pisgah Legal Services, and a plenary session addressing Concerns for Special Client Populations.

Melinda Lawrence, executive director of the N.C. Justice and Community Development Center, moderated the plenary session, which included presentations by Milan Pham of NC LEAP who addressed the Changing Ethnicity of N.C. and its Impact on the Court System; Greg Malhoit of the NCCU School of Law who discussed Child Poverty and Legal Solutions; and Martin Eakes of Self-Help who addressed Predatory Lending and its Impact on our State.

An open forum concluded the first half of the program under the direction of James Drennan of the UNC School of Government, who also moderated the afternoon’s closing breakout sessions.

Gene Nichol acknowledges standing ovation from Chief Justice Parker and summit attendees.

The keynote address opened the afternoon session and was delivered by Gene Nichol, former dean of the UNC School of Law who now serves as president of The College of William & Mary.

Admittedly “preaching” to the choir, Nichol raised familiar questions in regard to this nation’s promise of “equal justice under law.”

“I’m not surprised, though I am heartened, that Janet Ward Black has pushed access to justice so hard in her presidency,” Nichol said. “It is, for this bar – in the blood, the sacrifices, the demands, the struggles of justice. You have seen, first hand, the darkness and the light. And you have taught much, in what Dr. (Frank Porter) Graham called, the charge to build ‘a nobler and fresher civilization in this ancient commonwealth.’ ”

Nichol cited data that was referenced throughout the day, including the fact that there is only one legal services lawyer for every 18,000 eligible North Carolinians.

“Our legal services lawyers turn away 8 out of 10 clients with actionable claims,” Nichol said. “We fence folks out even further by creating categories of unworthy poor; and placing restrictions on the most efficient avenues for representation. Study after study shows about 80% of the legal need of the poor is unmet – in North Carolina, in Virginia, in the country. The circumstance is almost as bleak for middle income Americans.

“As every person in this room knows, neither the billable hour nor the possibility of a significant contingent fee cover the waterfront of American legal disputes. New York’s state bar study a couple of years ago found that we leave the poor unrepresented on most crushing problems of life – divorce, child custody, domestic violence, housing, benefits.

“We think it natural that a commercial dispute between battling corporations takes six month to try, while the fate of a batter child is determined in only a few minutes. What passes for civil justice among the have-nots is breathtaking.”

Nichol concluded his address with a stirring series of quotations affirming the participants’ allegiance to “the foundational American aspiration of equal justice.”

“I hope that we will declare our commitment to it,” Nichol said. “We’ll enroll our hearts. We’ll enlist our spirits. We’ll mark our lives. We’ll enlist because …

“Somewhere we read, ‘we hold these truths to be self-evident that all are created equal.’

“And somewhere we read, the ‘central purpose of America is that the weak would gradually made stronger and ultimately all would have an equal chance.’

“And somewhere we read, that ‘injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’

“And somewhere we read, ‘history will judge us on the extent to which we use our gifts to lighten and enrich the lives of our fellows.’

“And somewhere we read, ‘the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’

“And somewhere we read, we have ‘to believe the things we teach our children.’ Believe them and make them real.

“And somewhere we read, that ‘whenever you did these things to the least of these, you did them to me.’

“And somewhere we read ‘you reap what you sow.’

“And somewhere we read that ‘the pursuit of justice and the pursuit of happiness march not in opposite directions but hand in hand.’

“And somewhere we read, no, we are not satisfied and we shall not be satisfied ‘til justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Sen. Dan Clodfelter

A standing ovation ensued, after which the participants returned to the task at hand by discussing Solutions to the Gaps in Access to Justice. The panel discussion, moderated by ABA Past-President A. P. Carlton, featured Sen. Dan Clodfelter of Mecklenburg County who was recognized during the proceedings as the state’s and legal profession’s leading legislative voice for the provision of legal services.

Joining Clodfelter on the panel from the General Assembly was Rep. Angela Bryant of Nash and Halifax counties. Adams and LANC Executive Director George Hausen represented the legal services community and Associate General Counsel Stephen Mayo of Bank of America spoke on behalf of the business community.

The judicial branch was recognized by Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Paul Jones (District 8-A), Chief District Court Judge Joseph Buckner (District 15B) and Todd Nuccio, trial court administrator for the 26th Judicial District comprising Mecklenburg County.

The panel addressed legislative matters, self-serve centers, civil Gideon, the role of the business community, pro bono service and the impact of pro se litigants on the court system.

Concluding activities targeted potential solutions and actions items for the Equal Access to Justice Commission to consider as it moves forward with its important work. The reports from each break-out group, in conjunction with a complete record of the day’s proceedings, will be provided by the commission shortly.

Carol Spruill reports from break-out session.

The break-out groups were led by Judge Linda McGee of the N.C. Court of Appeals, Anita Earls of the UNC Center for Civil Rights, Luke Largess of the N.C. Legal Education Assistance Foundation, Carol Spruill of the Duke University School of Law, the aforementioned Cofield, Pham, Nuccio, Mayo and Hausen, and Michelle Cofield, executive director of the Equal Access to Justice Commission who serves as director of pro bono and public service activities for the NCBA Foundation.

“I am overwhelmed with the response to this summit,” said Cofield. “The Summit is over, but the work has just begun. We’re rolling up our sleeves to capitalize on the Summit's momentum. We will publish a Summit report that will be used as our springboard to move forward.”

And its lawyers are paid a starting salary of $37,500, compared to $135,000 at big private firms.

To strengthen legal services and make them more accessible to low-income people, Legal Aid and the North Carolina Bar Association are working to raise money and awareness.

"Those of us in the legal profession have a special responsibility to use our community leadership and civic influence to provide access to justice," says Andrew Spainhour, general counsel at Replacements Ltd. in Greensboro and co-chair of the Triad fund drive for Legal Aid.

Legal Aid of North Carolina in the past has raised only 1 percent of its budget from individual contributions, mainly through mail appeals to lawyers, said George Hausen, the group's executive director.

Now, its offices in the Triad and Triangle aim to expand their fundraising.

The Greensboro office, with 11 attorneys serving 2,500 clients a year in six counties, has set a goal of raising $100,000 a year in individual contributions, up from $10,000 last year, said Spainhour.

The Triangle office aims to raise $1 million over three years.

Other co-chairs of the Triad effort, which already has raised $53,000, are Janet Ward Black of Ward Black Law in Greensboro; Jim Morgan of Morgan Herring, Morgan, Green, Rosenblutt & Gill in High Point; and Gerard Davidson of Smith Moore in Greensboro.

Black, who on June 30 will become president of the North Carolina Bar Association, said increasing access to legal services for the poor will be her focus at the 14,000-member organization.

Legal Aid is producing a 12-minute video on the statewide need for legal services, and Black said she will ask the association's board to let it be screened at all continuing-education seminars lawyers are required to take each year.

The association also will support legislative proposals to increase funding for legal services to the poor using funds from court costs, and for the North Carolina Legal Education Assistance Foundation to help pay college and law school debt for lawyers willing to continue working at Legal Aid.

Law school grads can face school debt totaling $100,000 or more, she said, making it difficult for Legal Aid to retain them at their current pay.

The North Carolina State Bar, which regulates the legal profession, will vote in April to require every lawyer to participate in its program that uses money from lawyers' trust accounts for grants, including support for Legal Aid of North Carolina, Black said.

Starting with annual dues they start paying in June, she said, the association will let members designate an additional payment to benefit Legal Aid through a new endowment fund.

And for an entire day next spring, the association will sponsor a "Statewide Service Day" program that will let any North Carolina citizen phone lawyers for free legal counsel.

"Our goal," Black says, "is to increase lawyer volunteers by 10 percent a year for the next five years."

Todd Cohen is editor and publisher of the Philanthropy Journal at www.philanthropyjournal.org and a contributor to The Business Journal. He can be reached at (919) 573-4642.

For additional information, contact Ronda Collins at 336-273-3812 or  via email.

For Janet Ward Black, newly inducted president of the North Carolina Bar Association, July 4, 2007, is more than just a day to celebrate national freedom. This Independence Day marks the launch of the NCBA’s “4ALL” campaign to improve access to legal services for North Carolina’s poor.

According to the 2005 census, North Carolina has a population of 8.2 million people, which is approximately double the size of the state in 1950. Of this population, 2.9 million qualify for legal services under federal poverty guidelines. 

“Justice for all is a cornerstone of our democracy,” Black said. “'4ALL' is an updated twist on the phrase 'one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all' from the Pledge of Allegiance.”

With a year-long calendar of activities already taking shape, the 4ALL campaign will culminate April 4, 2008, with a statewide legal services day. On that day, North Carolinians will be able to call a toll-free number and ask questions of attorneys all across the state for free.

“We plan to partner with the media to make this a reality,” the Greensboro attorney added. “Newspapers, radio stations, Web sites, television stations and other information outlets will be invited to participate in the 4ALL campaign, connecting the public with qualified attorneys. In addition to the toll-free number, this connection through local media will be of tremendous importance to raise awareness of the services Legal Aid provides.”

Legal Aid of North Carolina provides attorneys for low income North Carolinians. It has 122 lawyers in 24 regional offices to serve almost 3 million people in the state.

“It is a sad reality, but Legal Aid has to turn people away because they're simply understaffed,” Black said. “The 4ALL campaign is designed to raise awareness of this epidemic and to bring the needs of Legal Aid into focus across North Carolina. This is a statewide problem that requires statewide attention.”

Legal Aid of North Carolina has enough resources to help only about 20% of those eligible for services because of inadequate staff.  The other 80% will be without legal help when facing issues such as domestic violence, child custody/support, predatory lending, and consumer fraud. The average income of Legal Aid clients is $9,100 annually.  Of the people Legal Aid is able to help, 80% are the working poor and 75% are women.

In addition to raising awareness among the general public, a major part of the 4ALL campaign will be to educate lawyers about poverty in North Carolina and the shortcomings of current Legal Aid resources to serve the population.

To this end, N.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Sarah Parker is convening the first-ever public summit on the provision of legal services to the poor on October 12 in Raleigh. “Not only will Chief Justice Parker’s summit focus attention on this important issue for the legal community,” Black said, “but it will also provide a remarkable educational opportunity for the public and North Carolina lawmakers.”

Black was installed as the 113th president of the NCBA on June 23, and has wasted no time ramping up the 4ALL campaign.

“The result of an 80-percent-unmet need,” Black said in her installation address, “is small children unprotected from family violence; parents who can’t collect child support or avail themselves of legal solutions to remove themselves from abuse. Senior citizens, many victims of predatory lending, lose their homes to foreclosure. Seriously ill children are denied medical treatment because of a mass of public benefit red tape they can’t wade through.

“Every North Carolinian deserves access to justice, not just those who can afford it.”

The campaign’s Web site, www.4allnc.org, has been activated and will be updated continually throughout the year as the 4ALL initiative grows.

==== 

For more information concerning the 4ALL campaign:

Janet Ward Black, Ward Black Law, 208 W. Wendover Avenue, Greensboro, NC 27401, 336-333-2244, jwblack@wardblacklaw.com.

Russell Rawlings, Director of Communications, North Carolina Bar Association, 8000 Weston Parkway, Cary, NC 27513, 919-677-0561, rrawlings@ncbar.org.

George Hausen, Executive Director, Legal Aid of North Carolina, PO Box 26087, Raleigh, NC 27611, 919-856-2130, georgeh@legalaidnc.org

Michelle Cofield, Executive Director, Chief Justice’s Equal Access to Justice Commission, 8000 Weston Parkway, Cary, NC 27513, 800-662-7407, mcofield@ncbar.org.

Consider the circumstances of an individual like Georgine, who makes the minimum wage of $6.15 an hour. Working full-time, she will make $12,792 a year. Paying legal fees is beyond her reach. Legal Aid is her only recourse if she faces an illegal eviction or the "domino effect" caused by the purchase of a used car that turns out to be a lemon, making it impossible to get to work or arrange child care.

By law, Legal Aid serves those in our community whose annual income is at or below 125% of the federal poverty guideline. In 2007, that threshold is $12,762.50. In North Carolina, an astounding 1.6 million individuals have incomes at or below that level. In the six counties served by the Greensboro Legal Aid office, more than 135,000 people are eligible.

The numbers become more compelling. Between 2000 and 2005, census data shows that the number of families in Greensboro living below the poverty line increased a jaw-dropping 69%. At present, Legal Aid cannot begin to meet the extraordinary, and increasing, demands of our community. Many deserving Guilford County residents have to be turned away because of a lack of resources at our Legal Aid office.

As lawyers, we believe it is crucial that our fellow citizens understand that the inability to access our judicial system has dire consequences, not just to the individual involved but to our community. To have a legal right means little if one is unable to protect or enforce that right. Individuals who cannot pay a lawyer are provided counsel only in the criminal system. Legal Aid steps into this void, performing a vital service to needy individuals and to the community. In addition to providing experienced lawyers, Legal Aid eases pressure on an overburdened court system by resolving more than 70% of its cases without going to court.

Many attorneys generously give their time to represent Legal Aid clients. In addition, groups of lawyers throughout North Carolina recently have launched "Access to Justice" campaigns to raise funds for Legal Aid. In Guilford County, local lawyers have raised over $50,000 for the Greensboro office, but much more is needed. Efforts are also underway to educate our lawmakers, other lawyers, and our fellow citizens about how we can all support Legal Aid and, in doing so, strengthen both this vital safety net and our community.

In a democratic society, the protections of the law must be available to all. If access to justice is denied to some, it diminishes what it means for any of us to be a citizen. Please help Legal Aid provide access to justice for all North Carolinians.

For additional information, contact Ronda Collins at 336-273-3812 or  via email.

Under current law and State Bar rules, lawyers who take inactive status are prohibited from practicing.

An amendment to G.S. Sect. 84-16 would carve out a narrow exception. Inactive members would be permitted "to solely represent indigent clients on a pro bono basis under the supervision of nonprofit corporations," including Legal Aid of North Carolina.

The House bill, sponsored by Reps. Dan Blue and Paul Stam on behalf of the State Bar, has drawn praise from legal services officials.

"This is a real opportunity to expand services for poor people with no real cost," said George R. Hausen Jr., LANC's executive director.

"This is a great idea whose time has certainly come," said Winston-Salem lawyer Reid C. "Cal" Adams Jr., chair of LANC's board of directors. "There is an overwhelming need for volunteer lawyers to help poor people in North Carolina. We're only serving a small portion now."

About 35 percent of the state's 8.2 million residents qualify for free legal services, but LANC officials say they're only able to handle a fraction of the eligible cases. LANC's 100 attorneys, assisted by pro bono efforts of the private bar, close about 20,000 cases annually.

Dock Kornegay, director of public relations, estimates LANC handles 95 percent of all North Carolina cases that are referred to legal services organizations.

LANC operates in all 100 counties from 24 geographically-based offices (see chart). Three cities — Charlotte, Asheville and Winston-Salem — have legal service groups that are not part of LANC.

National Trend

The North Carolina bill stemmed from a national push by the American Bar Association to tap the expertise and energy of the estimated 40,000 lawyers who retire each year.

"These pro bono practice rules make it easier to give back and stay involved in the access to justice movement," said Holly Robinson of the ABA Commission on Legal Problems of the Elderly. "If we can harness all of these retiring lawyers and have them do some pro bono, everybody wins."

In the past, volunteers were typically recruited by local legal services groups. Robinson recently targeted access to justice commissions, encouraging them to adopt rules in their respective states. That strategy has met with success.

"That is a new perspective," she said. "A year ago, no one was talking about it in these terms. And that's a good thing, because it makes the volunteer lawyers feel part of a larger effort, and it makes more resources available."

One of the groups Robinson contacted was the North Carolina Equal Access to Justice Commission, which was established in 2005 to expand access to civil legal representation for low income people. A subcommittee chaired by Jerry Parnell, a Charlotte lawyer and former State Bar president, played a key role in the North Carolina proposal.

Bars in Indiana and Colorado also have proposals under consideration. Indiana's rules would only allow attorneys licensed there to take part. The Colorado rule is broader. It would allow inactive attorneys who hold licenses in other states to participate.

The North Carolina bill, as currently written, appears to limit pro bono inactive status to lawyers licensed here.

Rules Not Enough

Robinson said emeritus rules by themselves are not enough.

"If you don't also have some sort of organized effort at the state level, then the rule doesn't get implemented," she said. "You need somebody at the State Bar owning it and at least doing some marketing and PR and establishing connections with legal services providers."

The state of Washington has developed a successful model, she said.

"There's a window of time where you have to let the bar know what your status will be," she said. "In Washington, they have a mandatory orientation for lawyers who are considering going emeritus. The Bar president shows up and thanks everyone for volunteering in what is really an access to justice effort. Then they have a providers' fair. All of the providers that might use these attorneys show up in a room for a dog-and-pony show and make the matches that will work for the next year."

Types Of Cases

More than half of LANC's caseload falls in three practice areas: family law, domestic abuse and housing (see chart). Those fields are likely foreign to lawyers who've spent their careers in business law or as corporate counsel.

"One thing we find is that lawyers will say they can't volunteer in those areas of law because they don't know anything about it," said Michelle Cofield, executive director of the Equal Access to Justice Commission. "But if it is something as simple as a landlord-tenant dispute, where you can be in and out of small claims court within an hour, bar associations can provide training through CLEs. If you're a pro bono or volunteer lawyer, you get significantly reduced rates."

State Bar Action

Although pro bono emeritus attorneys would not have to pay Bar dues or take CLE, they'd still have to comply with the rules of professional conduct and would remain subject to discipline, according to Alice Mine, the Bar's assistant executive director.

Assuming the bill is enacted between now and the Bar council's July meeting, "we would expect to present, for the council's consideration, amendments to the State Bar rules to implement the program," said Tom Lunsford, the State Bar's executive director.

Those amendments would have to be published for public comment before coming up for a final vote, possibly in October.

For additional information, contact Ronda Collins at 336-273-3812 or  via email.

While the U.S. Supreme Court has guaranteed a right to representation in criminal cases, those involved in civil cases are often forced to represent themselves, advocates said.

Civil courts issue decisions regarding matters such as housing, family law and domestic violence, Black said, and more than 40 percent of legal aid cases involve children.

Two nonprofit groups aim to help low-income clients involved in such cases in this region: Legal Aid of North Carolina has a branch office in Concord that covers four counties, and Charlotte-based Legal Services of the Southern Piedmont serves some in Cabarrus.

Leaders of both groups said their staffs of lawyers come early, stay late and work hard, yet they’re simply overwhelmed by demand, often taking cases on a first-come first-served basis.

Of North Carolina's 8.2 million residents, about 3 million qualify for legal assistance based on income, said George Hausen, executive director of Legal Aid of North Carolina.

While Cabarrus has been fortunate to have low levels of poverty in the past, Black said, the percentage of poor residents has risen.

According to the U.S. Census, 4.8 percent of families and 7.1 percent of individuals were below poverty level in 2000. Those numbers rose to 7.2 and 9.6 percent respectively in 2005.

Legal aid lawyers 'outnumbered'

Statewide, Hausen oversees 122 attorneys in 25 offices who serve between 25,000 and 30,000 people a year.

But there are about 27,000 eligible residents for each Legal Aid attorney in the state, Hausen said, compared to 460 residents in the general population for each regular attorney.

That disparity is further compounded because low-income people are disproportionately likely to need legal assistance, said Ken Schorr, executive director of Legal Services of the Southern Piedmont.

In a given year, about one in four low-income people need civil legal assistance, Schorr said.

Private lawyers also volunteer their time, but Schorr said legal aid lawyers remain "outnumbered."

As a result, low-income litigants who represent themselves often lose, even when the facts and the law are on their side, Hausen said.

While Legal Aid lawyers settle about 70 percent of cases before litigation and win 90 to 95 percent of cases that do go to trial, Hausen said, civil litigants without lawyers often consign themselves to failure.

The case of a domestic violence victim seeking protection may fall apart without representation, for example, or a resident may face premature or unjustified foreclosure.

"You really do need a lawyer to prevail in that system," Hausen said. "It's just unfair that the simple lack of a lawyer means you lose your house."

Resources lacking

Getting more resources behind the cause has proven challenging, however.

Legal Aid of North Carolina offers starting salaries of $37,500 that can’t compete with private firms' offers of $145,000, Hausen said.

Black's effort to bring more attention to legal aid includes a call for legislators to help with what she calls a "budgetary crisis."

She also hopes to "reinvigorate" the bar and educate both lawyers and the public to convince them to donate money and time.

She is organizing a statewide "Ask an Attorney Day," on which residents will be able to call for free legal assistance.

She said she hopes to reach many lawyers inspired to enter the profession by the ideal of justice for all.

"If you don't have somebody who can speak for you, you're unlikely to accomplish what you deserve to accomplish," she said. "We have the ability to help make that more of a reality, and the system is just not making that a reality."

Contact Josh McCann: 704-789-9152

Commemorating Charlie Dixon's $100,000 contribution to the newly established LANC Fund are, from left, NCBA Executive Director Allan Head, LANC Executive Director George Hausen, 2007-08 NCBA President Janet Ward Black, Dixon, outgoing NCBA President Clark Smith and LANC Board Chair Glenn Barfield.

Standing ovations at the Grove Park Inn are becoming commonplace for Charles D. “Charlie” Dixon.

Four years ago when the North Carolina Bar Association convened in Asheville for its annual meeting, the Hickory attorney was inducted into the General Practice Hall of Fame.

This year, annual meeting attendees rose to their feet again to recognize Dixon for his $100,000 gift to the newly established LANC Fund.

The biggest difference between the two events is that the Hall of Fame, while still an exclusive group, numbers more than 100 members, whereas Dixon’s gesture in fulfilling the LANC Fund is virtually unprecedented.

The NCBA and the NCBA Foundation Endowment have received gifts of this magnitude, just not in the manner in which Dixon stepped forward to help launch the new fund, which will benefit Legal Aid of North Carolina.

Established recently in conjunction with the new “4ALL” initiative that is the centerpiece of Janet Ward Black’s presidential agenda for 2007-08, the LANC Fund was making headway toward its initial goal of $100,000, the minimum amount required before a named fund can be activated.

An initial canvas of the NCBA Board of Governors had resulted in $20,000 in gifts and pledges, and dues statements containing a new charitable contribution option were making their way to the membership.

Then Dixon stepped forward and provided a grand dose of momentum to the fund, which is now capable of providing returns to LANC while continuing to grow toward previously unimaginable levels.

“We hope that lawyers and law firms from all across this state will follow Charlie’s powerful example in supporting the provision of legal services to North Carolina’s poor,” said Black. 

Dixon humbly accepted the praise and applause of the NCBA at its annual meeting, stepping forward to the microphone at the June 22 meeting of the NCBA Board of Governors and NCBA Foundation Board of Directors to receive congratulations from then-President Clark Smith.

The term “benefactor,” Dixon noted, was not something that one would generally consider in describing him. Yet the NCBA Foundation will do just that as Dixon’s gift is formalized through the establishment of the Charles D. Dixon Restricted Justice Fund, the proceeds of which are permanently earmarked for distribution through the LANC Fund.

Born on Dec. 12, 1926, in York County, S.C., Dixon began his law practice in 1952 as an associate in the Hickory firm of Patrick & Harper; he was named partner of Patrick, Harper & Dixon in 1957. After decades of service as its managing partner, he became of counsel with the firm in 2003.

A 1943 graduate of Belmont High School, Dixon proceeded to North Carolina State University (then College) where he attended classes for two years. He joined the U.S. Army in 1945 and attended Japanese language school at Yale University where he was trained as a counterintelligence investigator.

Upon his honorable discharge in 1947, he earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He attended Harvard Law School as a National Scholarship Student, earning his law degree in 1952.

A past president of the Catawba County Bar Association and the 25^th Judicial District Bar, Dixon is married to the former Dorothy Lindsay. He has four children and 11 grandchildren.

Moving forward, the Dixon gift provides inspiration to the NCBA and the NCBA Foundation on two fronts. First, there is the aforementioned LANC Fund and dreams of driving its corpus upward to $1 million and beyond, which is a distinct possibility given the potential of the current and ongoing appeal to the membership.

Second, and perhaps lesser known to NCBA members, is the manner in which Charlie Dixon funded his gift. Taking advantage of the tax provisions of the Pension Protection Act of 2006, which allows tax-free withdrawals from IRAs for direct gifts to charities for donors who are 70½ years of age and older, Dixon realized added incentive in making his gift at this time.

Better still, the big winners will ultimately be those citizens afforded legal representation through Legal Aid of North Carolina, made possible by the generosity of Charlie Dixon.

The young man begins to play his violin that January morning.  He plays for the next 43 minutes.  According to the Washington Post reporter present, he is passed by 1,097 commuters.  Almost no one stops to listen to him play.  The exceptions are primarily a few children who try to stop and listen, but they are invariably pulled away by a parent anxious to get on to life’s next activity.  The young man plays Bach, Brahms, and even Shubert’s “Ave Maria”-- some of the most exquisite music ever written for the violin.                   

The young man is Joshua Bell, who, just a few days later, will be awarded the Avery Fisher prize as the best classical musician in America, and who, shortly before, had played to a sold-out crowd at the Library of Congress. The violin he plays is a Stradivarius worth a reported $3.5 million dollars.

Joshua Bell and the Washington Post orchestrated this experiment to see whether D.C. commuters would stop, or even slow down, to hear one of the best musicians on earth, playing some of the best music ever written, on one of the best violins ever made. 

Only seven people stopped for at least sixty seconds -- seven people out of 1,097.  One of the seven recognized Bell.  Most of the rest were the children.  He collected $32.17 in donations during those 43 minutes.

We’ll come back to this story in a few minutes. Stay tuned.

The gravity of this moment in my life is not lost on me.  To stand here, knowing that 112 brilliant and innovative North Carolina lawyers have held the office I now hold, humbles me.  To be one of their number is breathtaking.

The North Carolina Bar Association, with its 14,615 members, has, for more than a century, fought for justice and the rule of law.  I will be honored to play my small part in that history, and I am grateful to you for the opportunity.  I pledge to do my best.

I am so proud to be a lawyer.  I believe that lawyers enjoy a privileged position in our society as problem solvers for the citizens of our communities.  I believe that lawyers believe deeply in the rightness of the United States Constitution and the precepts of equal justice and the rule of law.  But attacks, often for political purposes, have damaged the image of our profession, the judiciary, and the very system of justice itself.  It’s like somebody telling you your baby is ugly--it hurts.

The work of the North Carolina Bar Association is awe-inspiring to me. I wish each of you could see what our 70 committees, sections, and divisions are in the process of accomplishing just this year.  Individual lawyers, judges, legal assistants, and law students work as volunteers to make the system work better for all North Carolinians.  They are generous with their time, their energy, and their genuine concern.  We know that there are many lawyers across this state who donate untold hours as citizen lawyers, some incredible examples of which we have celebrated this weekend.  We know much good is done by our profession, but, unfortunately, that’s not what makes the news.

The heartbeat of the Bar Association now is “Momentum 2010,” our 5-year strategic plan.  Activities abound as we seek to accomplish its goals for our Association, our profession, our offices, our courthouses, and our communities.

This coming year, there will be one major focus and that is the provision of civil legal services to the poor.  Momentum 2010 establishes goals of increasing the number of lawyers volunteering pro bono services and increasing funding by the North Carolina legal community for civil legal services for the poor to the national average.  We stand now at an abysmal 43^rd in the nation.

Our campaign to accomplish this is named “4 All.”  The name is a slightly updated twist on the postlude of Pledge of Allegiance most of us recited in grade school: “…one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” 

We lawyers have been granted a monopoly to do what we do.  Those not licensed by the North Carolina State Bar cannot practice law.  Just as in any other monopoly authorized by the state, we have an obligation to serve all people.  But somehow, in the pull against us by so many good charitable causes, legal services for the poor in North Carolina has just been relegated to a role of one among many good causes.  That needs to change.

Provision of legal services to the poor is our professional responsibility.  It is our obligation as holders of these exclusive tickets to practice law.  Only we have the right to represent the members of our community before the judicial system.  Only we have the duty to represent them.

The Code of Professional Responsibility of the North Carolina State Bar recites the professional responsibilities of lawyers.  The preamble states:

“All lawyers should devote professional time and resources and use civic influence to ensure equal access to our system of justice for all those who, because of economic or social barriers, cannot secure adequate legal counsel.”

“Every lawyer, regardless of professional prominence or professional workload, should find time to participate in, or otherwise support, the provision of legal services to the disadvantaged.”

 The underlining is mine.

What is the need in North Carolina?  We have 8.2 million people; 2.9 million of those citizens qualify for legal services under federal poverty guidelines. That is twenty-eight percent (28%) of the state’s population.

Legal Aid of North Carolina, which was created by the North Carolina Bar Association 30 years ago, serves the poor of North Carolina’s 100 counties--almost 3 million people--with 122 lawyers.       

So it boils down to this: there are over 20,000 lawyers to serve 72% of the North Carolina population that can purportedly pay for legal service, and less than 200 lawyers to serve the remaining 28%.

For every two clients Legal Aid represents, it must turn away eight qualified North Carolinians because it does not have enough staff.  Eighty percent (80%) of Legal Aid clients are working poor.  Seventy-five percent (75%) of their clients are women. The median income of Legal Aid of North Carolina clients is $9,100. 

So what is the result of an eighty percent (80%) unmet need?  Small children are unprotected from family violence.  Parents can’t collect child support or avail themselves of legal solutions to remove themselves from abuse.  Senior citizens, many victims of predatory lending, lose their homes to foreclosure.

Seriously ill children are denied medical treatment because of a mass of public benefit red tape they can’t wade through.  The consequences of inadequate resources for legal services can be dire and cause the loss of shelter, sustenance and safety for those at issue. Family stability is in peril. Injustice occurs for the mere lack of counsel.

Justice denied to one North Carolinian diminishes all North Carolinians.

An unlikely source for a quote, Che Guevara, wrote in a letter to his children: “Above all, always be able to feel deeply any injustice committed against anyone anywhere in the world.”  I believe that we as lawyers do feel deeply about injustice and can put our tremendous resources and talents to work to fix it.

So what are we going to do about it? We, the NCBA, will embrace the “4 All” campaign on four fronts. 

One: Educate. We will educate lawyers about poverty issues in North Carolina, the shortcomings of legal aid to address that population, and our professional and moral obligation to act.  That campaign will include the showing of the “Equal Access” video at every CLE this year.  Lawyers can solve problems, but only when they understand that a problem exists and its gravity.  The problem of access to justice for the poor is not well understood by the members of our profession or the public.

Two: Legislate.  The Bar Association will create a grassroots lobbying effort directed toward the North Carolina legislature and executive branch about the critical needs for civil legal services.  We are retaining communications strategy consultants to put together this grassroots effort which will allow us to wield our considerable civic influence in an organized fashion, not just on legal services, but on judicial branch funding and judicial independence as well.

Third: Donate.  The Bar Association will undertake an unprecedented effort to encourage financial commitments from NCBA members.  We have created a Legal Aid fund within our Endowment and, even though the campaign starts today, we have raised significant funds already, including the $100,000 gift announced yesterday by Charles Dixon, an attorney in Hickory.  We want all our members to be “Champions 4 All.”  Opportunities to donate will include your upcoming dues statement and an event in the first quarter of next year.

Many fine lawyers spend their careers at Legal Aid.  Many others want to but cannot because of the burden of college and law school debt. The starting salary for Legal Aid lawyers is $37,500.  Lawyers’ salaries after 10 years average $41,000.  Such does not allow for much debt service.  The average LANC lawyer with school debt owes $74,000.  We hope to apply the fine minds of this organization to solve that problem.

Four:  Participate.  The NCBA, in conjunction with our Young Lawyers Division, will have its first ever "Statewide Service Day" for the exclusive purpose of providing pro-bono legal services.  This day will include a toll-free, call-in number so that North Carolinians can “ask an attorney” their legal questions for free for one day. That day will be April 4, 2008.  So the way to remember it is “4/4 4 All.”  We are already in discussions with television networks about covering this important community service day. We will also use that day to train lawyers on issues common to Legal Aid and hope to translate their one day of service into an easy transition as a pro bono volunteer. 

We recognize that lawyers often fear acting as pro bono volunteers.  We have become such specialists that we are concerned that we could not appropriately handle an issue outside our comfort zone.  We will work to train all those participating so that it will be like riding a bicycle again.  I have already challenged our 70 committee and section chairs to involve their members on this important day, and we hope to involve many of the statewide and local bar organizations as well.  We intend to show North Carolinians that lawyers are generous with their time and advice.

So, that is how we will address the provision of civil legal services to the poor: Educate, Legislate, Donate and Participate.  Our task force is being headed up by Martin Brinkley, chair of Momentum 2010, and Caryn McNeill, both former chairs of our Young Lawyers Division and lawyers with Smith Anderson in Raleigh.  I could have no better minds and hearts in charge of this campaign.  They have been preparing for months and are assembling a kitchen cabinet of visionaries to make this a reality. 

There are two other important entities also laser-focused on this issue right now.  First, the North Carolina State Bar has adopted and sent to the Supreme Court a regulation that would require all North Carolina lawyers’ trust accounts to participate in IOLTA.  Additionally, the State Bar is proposing legislation to create a “pro-bono emeritus status”, which would allow retired North Carolina lawyers to work under the supervision of a legal services lawyer without having to comply with certain other State Bar requirements such as CLE.  Both are powerful steps to address the need for additional funding and volunteers.

Additionally, Chief Justice Sarah Parker’s Commission on Equal Access to Justice will convene an unprecedented public summit for the Supreme Court on October 12^th of this year in Raleigh.  Its aim is to raise the awareness of the legal community and the State’s opinion leaders about the gravity of the problem in North Carolina.  These three powerful organizations- the NCBA, the North Carolina State Bar and the Chief’s Equal Access Commission- together are creating a “perfect storm” to shine light on this issue and make a real difference.  The time is now.  We can be a part of something bigger than ourselves.

So what was the purpose of the story of our rush hour violinist? 

Joshua Bell knew the quality of the music he played, the quality of the instrument on which he played, and the skill he had to apply to both.  But how do you think this great musician felt to be ignored and shunned by virtually every person who passed him by as he played?  Do you think he questioned, at least for that time, the value of his craft, the value of his instrument?

I think we as lawyers often feel as Bell did that day--that people just don’t understand the importance of the system of justice or the critical role our profession plays.  We know our justice system is the cornerstone of democracy.  We operate in a constitutional system, exquisitely carved, not by Stradivarius, but by a committee of volunteers over two centuries ago. Their work has withstood the test of time.  What the framers created is more valuable than that violin, and we in the profession know its value.  But our profession is often the object of scorn and ridicule. The system of democracy and the rule of law often are not appreciated by those who don’t understand what would be the consequences of their absence.

The value of the system and the delicacy and import of the balance of powers goes unrecognized except by those of us who see its fairness and its power.  The politicizing of the judiciary, the system, and the profession has harmed the faith of the American people in the third branch of government.  Much damage has been done by the phrases “activist judges,” ”greedy lawyers” and “frivolous lawsuits.”  We know that this system, though not perfect, is noble and just, and it’s worth fighting for.

This year will give us an opportunity to help the public see the value in the founding principles of our democracy--the rule of law and equal justice for all—as well as the generosity of those of us who make up the legal profession.

Horace Mann, the American educator, said: “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”  I believe that North Carolina’s legal community will take a fresh look at this issue, just as we did when Legal Aid of North Carolina was created 30 years ago, and apply our creativity, power and integrity to solve this problem.  We will educate our members and the public about poverty in North Carolina and work together as members of this noble profession to fix it.  This effort, particularly the Endowment, should allow us to plant trees under which we may not be able to sit, but others in years to come will be able to enjoy their shade.

It is for us now to act.  We should not leave this problem for others to face.  We have the talent, the ability, the duty, and the opportunity to take action.  For me, the idea is summed up in the title of Alice Walker’s recent book: “We are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For.”  We have the opportunity this year truly to be the ones we’ve been waiting for.

Our Code of Professional Responsibility also says that “at their best, lawyers assure the availability of legal services to all, regardless of ability to pay….”   I look forward to working with all of you to show North Carolinians the best of our profession and that justice for all is a promise worth keeping.