This webinar will explore a collaborative undertaking of law firms and legal departments together with legal aid organizations to mobilize pro bono volunteers to help in the most critical areas of legal need in local communities, including housing eviction defense, expunction of criminal records, and healthcare. “Triage pro bono” is creating a new and different approach to the distribution of legal services by building a second ring of legal aid comprised of private sector attorneys. The triage program is a unique opportunity for attorneys to fulfill their professional responsibility to deliver pro bono legal services, providing additional resources and support to local legal aid organizations and increasing access to justice for low-income community members. Panelists will discuss the essential elements that make the triage program a successful pro bono project and how it might be replicated in your community.
Model rules covered include ABA Model Rule 6.1.
Speakers:
Alexandra S. Fannon, Esq., Executive Director, Greater Richmond Bar Foundation
Ali Fannon, the Executive Director of the Greater Richmond Bar Foundation, is an attorney with a public service background, including former Local Government Attorney Pro Bono Chair, former Board Chair of CARITAS and Past President of the Metropolitan Richmond Women’s Bar Association. Prior to joining the Greater Richmond Bar Foundation, she served as Assistant City Attorney for the City of Richmond. She is a graduate of The College of William and Mary – Marshall Wythe Law School and Georgetown University.
Scott C. Oostdyk, Partner, McGuireWoods
Scott Oostdyk has represented businesses and corporations in contract, insurance, products and technology disputes, land use issues and a variety of pollution problems including air, water and hazardous substance cases. He counsels clients on litigation avoidance planning.
He has challenged federal agency rules before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, and defended environmental class actions. He is one of the leading experts on loss portfolio transfers in the insurance industry, and represents policyholders faced with no-pay, slow-pay or excess exposure claims.
He also practices general commercial litigation, having tried numerous cases to verdict, and argued numerous appeals. He has represented local governments in general litigation matters and has extensive experience with railroad and transportation litigation. He is a graduate of Princeton University and the University of Virginia School of Law. He served former Virginia Governor George Allen as Virginia's deputy secretary of Health and Human Resources, where he managed 12 health, social service and environmental agencies with a combined $4 billion in budget.
James J. Sandman, President, Legal Services Corporation
James J. Sandman has been president of the Legal Services Corporation since 2011. He practiced law with Arnold & Porter LLP for 30 years and served as the firm’s managing partner for a decade. He is a past president of the 100,000-member District of Columbia Bar and a former general counsel for the District of Columbia Public Schools.
Sandman is chairman of the boards of the Meyer Foundation and the D.C. Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. He is a member of the District of Columbia Access to Justice Commission, the District of Columbia Bar Pro Bono Committee, the American Law Institute, the Advisory Council of the American Bar Association’s Center for Innovation, and the Pro Bono Institute’s Law Firm Pro Bono Project Advisory Committee. He is a member of the boards of Washington Performing Arts, the College of Saint Rose, Albany Law School, Tahirih Justice Center, and the University of Pennsylvania Law Center on the Future of the Profession.
Sandman previously served as chair of the District of Columbia Circuit Judicial Conference Committee on Pro Bono Legal Services and as a member of the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service, as chairman of the board of Whitman-Walker Health, and as a member of the boards of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, the Neighborhood Legal Services Program of the District of Columbia, the International Senior Lawyers Project, the NALP Foundation for Law Career Research and Education, and Wilkes University. He also has served on the scholarship selection committee of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association.
Sandman was named one of the “90 Greatest Washington Lawyers of the Last 30 Years” by the Legal Times in 2008. The University of Pennsylvania Law School has honored him with its Alumni Award of Merit and its Howard Lesnick Pro Bono Award. He has also received the District of Columbia Bar’s Justice William J. Brennan Jr. Award, the Wiley A. Branton Award from the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Legal Rights and Urban Affairs, the Hugh A. Johnson, Jr. Memorial Award from the Hispanic Bar Association of the District of Columbia, the D.C. Commission on Human Rights’ Cornelius R. Alexander Humanitarian Award, D.C. Law Students in Court’s Celebration of Service Award, the Washington Council of Lawyers’ Presidents’ Award, the Council for Court’s Excellence’s Justice Potter Steward Award, Tahirih Justice Center’s Wings of Justice Award, and Legal Aid Society of Cleveland's Louis Stokes Paragon Award. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree by the College of Saint Rose and has received Villanova University’s Medallion Award. He has given commencement addresses at the College of Saint Rose, Villanova Law School, Rutgers Law School, and the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law.
Sandman is a summa cum laude graduate of Boston College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and received his law degree cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, where he served as executive editor of the law review and was elected to the Order of the Coif. He began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Max Rosenn of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Martin D. Wegbreit, Director of Litigation, Central Virginia Legal Aid Society
Marty Wegbreit is the Director of Litigation at Central Virginia Legal Aid Society in Richmond, Virginia, where he have been employed for more than 14 years handling a wide variety of civil legal problems for low-income people, including housing, unemployment compensation, garnishment protection, and consumer law cases. He has litigated extensively in state and federal courts, with more than 80 reported decisions.
He is a member of the City of Richmond’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund Oversight Board, the Steering Committee of the Campaign to Reduce Evictions (CARE), the Legal Advisory Board of Housing Opportunities Made Equal (HOME), the Virginia Housing Commission’s Evictions Sub-work Group, and the Virginia State Bar’s Special Committee on Access to Legal Services.
He is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School and has been a legal aid attorney for 40 years, starting in South Carolina, and for the past 37 years in Virginia. In June 1992, he was honored by the Virginia State Bar as the first recipient of the annual “Virginia Legal Aid Attorney” award. He earned his B.S. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his M.A. at the University of Michigan.
Angie Zimmern, Senior Counsel, McGuireWoods
McGuireWoods senior counsel Angie Zimmern serves as McGuireWoods’ pro bono director, expanding the firm’s commitment to developing and sustaining pro bono programs that have been recognized nationally for innovation and impact.
She has been deeply involved in some of the firm’s most successful initiatives during her time as co-coordinator of pro bono efforts for the Charlotte office. The firm has earned numerous pro bono service honors for projects Zimmern led that benefited child advocacy, domestic violence prevention, consumer matters, veterans’ affairs, tax relief and estate planning. Zimmern received the 2018 Distinguished Pro Bono Service Award, a lifetime achievement honor presented by the Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy, the Council for Children’s Rights and Legal Aid of North Carolina. In 2017, she was named to the Charlotte Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 list.
In addition to her leadership roles with the firm, Zimmern practices law in the area of business and securities litigation. She has a broad litigation practice, with particular emphasis on financial services and class action litigation, and she advises clients on matters involving business and consumer credit disputes. She formerly was in charge of the firm’s legal project management (LPM) program ClientSync and its Compass budget tracking tool. In that role, she trained and assisted attorneys on the use of LPM concepts and the supporting tools developed by McGuireWoods to efficiently and predictably manage matters.
Zimmern started her legal career practicing securities and business litigation for four years at a large global firm in New York. While earning her law degree from the University of North Carolina School of Law, she was an extern to Judge W. Earl Britt of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina.
