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ral categories: housing, health, consumer cases, family and income maintenance.
To qualify for the program, incomes must be at or below 125 percent of the federally defined poverty line: $15,875 annually for a four-person household.
“People who need legal help the most are very rich or very poor,” said Aliberti. "The rich can afford it, and the poor cannot.”
While some believe that free legal aid for the poor is an extension of the welfare state, in reality, explained Aliperti, it is just the opposite.
“Our goal is to make people independents so they don’t have to apply for welfare,” said Aliperti.
“Actually, less than one-third of our clients are actually receiving some sort of welfare,” he added.
“A typical client here is a woman with two or three small children, who is holding down several jobs and is spending 50 percent of her income just for rent," he said.
“Our goal is to get income into a household to stabilize it by getting this woman’s husband to pay proper child support or getting them established with Aid to Families with Dependent Children,” he said.
Almost half of the Culpeper office’s cases are family cases and almost 80 percent of the clients are women.
“The feminization of poverty is very much with us today,” said Aliperti. “There is a popular conception that the poor are generally unemployed men riding the rails. That is not an accurate picture of who the poor are today.”
Aliperti predicts that Rappahannock Legal Services is on its way to serving 1,500 clients in PD9 this year. “These 1,500 are just scratching the surface of the numbers of clients who need our assistance,” said Aliperti. “Plus, we are already swamped with just the one-fifth of the poor population who know about us.”
Rappahannock Legal Services has an annual budget approximately $500,000.
“Our costs keep going up, yet we receive the same amount of money every year,” said Aliperti, who personally earns $110,000 a year.
“Our small staff cannot possibly handle the work. One way we are able to give some level of service is through our pro bono panel.”
Currently, 59 attorneys in PD9 serve on the pro bono panel of Rappahannock Legal Services, mafiy of whom take three or four referrals a year. A large number of these attorneys are from Fauquier County.
Attorneys donating time are eligible to receive state tax credits through the Neighborhood Assistance Act equal to 50 percent of their donated hours times at an hourly rate that was increased to $100 per hour July 1.
Ms. Van Wambeck heads up the accelerated pro bono effort for PD9. She is recruiting more attorneys to take pro bono cases, in addition to trying to get every attorney in the PI)9 to take at least one case a year.
“If we had all these attorneys taking one case a year, service to low-income families could be expanded by more than 150 cases per year,” said Ms. Van Wambeck.
Legal services to the poor in this country dates back to the 1600s, and throughout the years has evolved in fits and starts.
Famous legal minds such as Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry felt strongly that lawyers had a duty to represent clients who were otherwise unable to pay, but it wasn’t until the late 1800s that the first legal aid society was formed in New York City.
Historically, during times of prosperity, legal aid to the poor has been perceived as unimportant. Conversely, during difficult economic times, the concept and the need gathers enormous momentum.
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