By: Tamara Serwer Caldas, Deputy Director, AVLF
Dear Friends of the Foundation,
In this first newsletter of 2012, we write both to highlight accomplishments from the year that has just ended, and to tell you about some significant changes we are experiencing as an organization as we begin the new year.
In 2011, AVLF’s Domestic Violence Project together with the Partnership Against Domestic Violence provided legal support to 2,452 survivors of intimate partner violence. AVLF trained 81 lawyers and other legal professionals to represent and advocate for survivors of domestic violence and provided full legal representation to 186 clients. Our Saturday Lawyer Program provided legal assistance to about 40% more clients in 2011 than in 2010, and increased by 50% the number of volunteers participating in the program. During the past three years, AVLF volunteers have secured almost a million dollars in judgments and settlements for clients in housing, consumer, wage and domestic violence cases. The organization’s Dollars for Judgments Program, an innovative project aimed at collecting difficult-to-collect judgments for clients of our other programs, has referred $260,000 worth of debt to experienced creditor attorneys since the program was initiated in September 2010. AVLF’s Housing Advocacy and Resource Center, a housing advice clinic located in the Self Help Center of the State Court of Fulton County assisted over 500 tenants since it opened in May 2011. More than 300 clients received bankruptcy referrals to pro bono attorneys – the highest number in a decade. Our Wills & Advance Directives Program expanded to serve more emergency personnel than ever before, and the Probate Information Center continues to be a model of successful court-based legal assistance.
In many important ways, 2011 saw meaningful improvements and significant increases in all of the services AVLF provides to our client and volunteer communities, and for that we are most proud. Coupled with these accomplishments, we enjoyed our most successful Winetasting fundraiser in the event’s history! It was an extraordinary year.
We improved our services in 2011 despite a substantial decline in financial resources that began shortly after the recession in 2008 and from which it has been very difficult for AVLF, like most non-profits in Atlanta, to recover fully despite the extraordinary generosity of law firms and individual contributors. Consequently, we begin 2012 having made some very difficult staffing and programmatic changes driven by our desire to remain fully focused on our core programs and organizational mission. Our long-term viability and continued effectiveness for our clients are, as always, our primary concerns.
The most substantial change in 2012 is the termination of the One Child One Lawyer Program (OCOL) at AVLF effective February 1, 2012. This decision was necessitated by budget considerations, and we are very sorry to lose such an important program. The good news is that the project’s director, Lila Newberry Bradley, will continue to represent the children that were served by OCOL. She will be joining the staff of the Office of the Child Advocate in the Juvenile Court of Fulton County, where she will continue the good work of this program.
The One Child One Lawyer Program began at AVLF in 2005, and since that time Lila has recruited and trained a very eager and effective group of volunteers to represent the best interests of abused and neglected children in legal proceedings in the Fulton County Juvenile Court. Since 2008, that representation has focused on children whose parents were participating in the Family Drug Court of Fulton County’s Juvenile Court, where the primary issue is the parents’ drug addiction and its impact on their ability to take care of their children. We are delighted that Lila will be in a position to serve the same children she has served for the past seven years, but are very sorry she will not be doing so with AVLF, and that there will no longer be an opportunity to volunteer for this program. Pro bono attorneys with existing cases will of course continue to be supported through the duration of their representation.
Responsibility for AVLF’s Guardian ad Litem program will shift to the director of AVLF’s Safe Families Office, Elizabeth Whipple, who will be assisted by program coordinator, Jessica Caldas, but otherwise there are no changes in the operation of this program.
Finally, AVLF’s very successful Wills & Advance Directives Program has been suspended as we retool our office with fewer staff. We will continue our Wills for Emergency Personnel Program, through which we partner with Troutman Sanders and others to assist local fire and police departments with wills and advance directives, but we will not be accepting new requests for wills from other members of the community until further notice. We will also not train or recruit volunteers for this program until we are able to support this program in its fuller form.
The balance of the Foundation’s pro bono programs remain intact, as does our commitment to serving the civil legal needs of Atlanta’s low-income families. We continue to seek ways to improve the quality and reach of our services to the most vulnerable in our community as we strive for the day that all people have access to civil legal assistance when their most basic legal needs are at stake. We have been able to sustain the majority of our work during difficult times because of your support, and we will only be able to continue because you choose to stand by us with your financial and volunteer contributions.
Please consider making a donation today so that 2012 can be a year in which we can build and strengthen AVLF’s programs instead of being forced to consider ways to cut back further in the year to come.
As always, we appreciate your continued support!
