VBA President Doug Molde, President-Elect Eileen Blackwood, ABA State Delegate Fritz Langrock, Association Delegate Rich Cassidy, and I attended ABA Day in DC from 4/21 to 4/23. After briefings by the ABA Government Affairs Office and presentations by capitol hill insiders we were off to the hill to deliver messages from the ABA and VBA. The focus of our visits and lobbying efforts was access to justice. The biggest issue this year, as in years past, was funding for the Legal Services Corporation. Presently funding sits at $390 million, up $50 from last year. The ABA and the Obama Administration are asking for $435 million. This is still well below the inflation adjusted amount from LSC’s early years.
This year the additional issues are re-authorizing the LSC as well as removing some restrictions imposed in 1996 on use of the funds. The final issues we presented dealt with legal services for servicemen deployed to active duty and legal information help and translation services for detained aliens facing deportation.
We met with each of our legislators on Wednesday. Our meeting with Congressman Welch was cut short as he left the office to present his resolution honoring Captain Richard Phillips from Underhill. He spoke eloquently on the floor of the House and we could see the pride in both him and his staffers with whom we watched him deliver his remarks.
Our meeting with Senator Sanders was perhaps the most productive one we’ve ever had with him. As he has for the past two years, he said we were not asking for enough for the LSC!
Finally, we went to see Senator Leahy, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The ABA always sends someone with us to that meeting; it’s their access to the perhaps the most important senator for their issues. Well, that meeting almost didn’t happen because our senator was on the floor managing debate on a bill he’d sponsored. Between his presentation and time out for roll call votes, he left the floor to visit with us. But, we could only visit outside the Senate Chamber. None of us had ever been to that part of the building, a place we could not access without an escort. His Chief of Staff Ed Pagano brought us there and, since a roll call was in progress, we saw many senators enter, vote and exit the chamber during our meeting.
Finally, at Thursday morning’s briefing we heard from Greg Craig, the President’s legal counsel, and Senator Tom Harkin.
Richard Cassidy was honored by the ABA with a Grassroots Advocacy Award presented by ABA President Tommy Wells. At a reception at the Library of Congress Rich became one of a handful of people so recognized by the ABA. Here are the remarks of President Wells:
Richard T. Cassidy has long been active in public service, in addition to maintaining very successful law practice.
Rich is a graduate of the University of Vermont and of Albany Law School. He has been in private practice in the Burlington area since 1980 and was a founder of his law firm, Hoff Curtis.
He represented the Vermont Bar Association in the American Bar Association House of Delegates from 1999 through August of 2005 and served as a member of the ABA Board of Governors from 2005 through 2008.
He resumed representing the Vermont Bar in the House of Delegates as of August of 2008. Last year, I appointed him to a three year term on the Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services.
Over several years, Rich has worked closely with the ABA Governmental Affairs Office, ABA leaders, and Vermont Bar Association leaders in an attempt to persuade Congress to support the Attorney-Client Privilege Protection Act, which would reverse the Justice Department and other federal agency privilege waiver policies. Rich devoted a great deal of personal time to this effort, including taking time from his busy schedule to travel to Washington.
Although the legislation itself has not yet been enacted, Rich’s efforts were instrumental in Congress’s persuading the Department of Justice to adopt major reforms to its waiver policy in August 2008.
Rich is joined tonight by his wife Becky and friends and colleagues from the Vermont Bar Association.
Please join me in thanking and congratulating Richard T. Cassidy for his work on behalf of all Americans to protect the attorney-client privilege.
Congratulations Rich!
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