awarded were primarily in the family law area based on the board’s conclusion that the greatest unmet need was in that area. A bylaws committee of the VBF, chaired by Jack Wesley, recommended a complete restructuring of the VBF so that it served all licensed lawyers. The new structure had a thirteen-member board, with six elected by the members, each from a different district of the state. The remaining seven mem- bers consisted of: three from the VBA—the president, past-president, and president- elect; two appointments of the Supreme Court—at least one of whom is a justice; and two appointees of the board, primar- ily to obtain membership from the banking community. The first new board was elect- ed and appointed in March 1991, so the election could occur at the VBA mid-win- ter meeting. By that time, Kathy Stankevich had been hired as the second executive di- rector of the VBF.
In many ways the 1990/1991 design of the VBF has remained up to this time. Up until 2003, when the United States Su- preme Court decided Brown v. Legal Foun- dation,4
gram to help lawyers with relative low sal- aries in the non-competitive grant organi- zations and the Defender General’s offices to pay off school loans. The competitive grant program has continued and helped countless small organizations extend need- ed legal services. For example, since 2002, VBF has given small grants to the nation- ally recognized Have Justice Will Travel for legal services in six counties. Much of this expansion occurred under the direction of the third executive director of the VBF who assumed that position in 1996 and has con- tinued to this day.
there remained some legal uncer- tainty about the constitutionality of IOLTA. Brown upheld its constitutionality against a takings challenge. The IOLTA revenue source has proven, however, to be volatile in response to economic activity, particular- ly in the real estate sector, and the fortunes of lawyers. The Vermont revenue amount for 1991 was a peak unequaled until 1999. For a few years in the 1990s revenues bare- ly reached 50% of the peak. The decline led to retrenchment in the non-competitive grants to continue core funding for Ver- mont Legal Aid in the face of federal bud- get cuts. It also led to concerns that ad- ministrative costs were too high in relation to grants, which led to other projects, not funded by IOLTA, to share the costs of ad- ministration. The biggest of these was the Vermont/Karelia Rule of Law Project, fund- ed by the United States Agency of Interna- tional Development to provide assistance to the legal system in Vermont’s Russian sister state of Karelia. The VKROLP bud- get grew to exceed that of the rest of the VBF and separated and expanded to ten regions in Russia. It is now the International Rule of Law Consortium. The VBF board recognized that it need- ed to be more proactive with financial in- stitutions to obtain favorable rates on IOL- TA accounts to increase revenues. Many individual solicitations and negotiations, along with a better economy, brought the revenue amount of $325,000 in 1994 to $1,061,000 in 2004. With more revenues, VBF could extend non-competitive grant status to Law Line (now the LSC grantee) and the Vermont Law School Legal Clinic (formerly a competitive grantee). VBF es- tablished and funds a loan forgiveness pro-
22 THE VERMONT BAR JOURNAL • FALL 2012
Over its life, the VBF has raised and spent around $17,000,000, almost all on le- gal services for the poor through Vermont’s primary legal services providers and many smaller projects. It has allowed those pro- viders to remain strong and effective even as the federal commitment to equal justice has waned. Its funds have provided need- ed legal help to thousands of Vermonters. Congratulations to the Vermont Bar As- sociation for establishing the Vermont Bar Foundation and selling the IOLTA program, first as a voluntary effort and then as man- datory. Congratulations to the VBF for thir- ty years of success and remaining a model national program for providing legal servic- es to the poor. And thanks to the many Ver- mont lawyers and others who made all this happen.
____________________ Hon. John Dooley is Associate Justice on the Vermont Supreme Court. He was president of the Vermont Bar Association when the VBA recommended converting IOLTA from voluntary to comprehensive. Subsequently, he became chair of the Ver- mont Bar Foundation board, serving dur- ing the time it implemented the conversion and restructured its governance. He served for three years on the ABA IOLTA Commis- sion and has recently returned to the VBF board.
____________________ 1
799 (Fla. 1978). 2
Opinion 348). 3
See In re Interest on Trust Accounts, 356 So.2d See 68 A.B.A.J. 1502 (1982) (reprinting Formal
Althea recently died. The VBF owes her a great debt of gratitude for her direction during the conversion to mandatory IOLTA, the adoption of the new allocation policies and the restructuring of the governance of the board of the VBF. As a State Senator, Althea later introduced the leg- islation that brought IORTA (interest on realtor
trust accounts) to the realtor profession. 4
538 U.S. 216 (2003).
www.vtbar.org
A Short History of the Vermont Bar Foundation
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