What is civil legal aid?
Legal Aid provides free advice and representation to low-income Virginians struggling with a range of challenges including elder abuse, financial exploitation and consumer fraud, predatory lending, foreclosure, divorce, access to education and other child issues, housing, unemployment, health and more.
The work of LSCV – and the legal aid organizations in Virginia – is supported through state general revenue appropriation, a state filing fee appropriation, IOLTA funds, and philanthropic support.
Virginia Legal Aid programs
LSCV funds and oversees the work of nine regional Legal Aid programs that operate out of 35 offices and serve every city and county in Virginia.
LSCV-funded programs also receive direct funding through an array of other local, state, and federal sources, as well as through individual and corporate giving.
Find your local legal aid office below:
Blue Ridge Legal Services: Harrisonburg, Winchester, Roanoke, Lexington
Central Virginia Legal Aid Society: Richmond, Petersburg, Charlottesville
Legal Aid Justice Center: Charlottesville, Falls Church, Petersburg, Richmond
Legal Aid Society of Eastern Virginia: Hampton, Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Williamsburg, Belle Haven
Legal Aid Society of Roanoke Valley: Roanoke
Legal Aid Works: Fredericksburg, Culpeper, Tappahannock
Legal Services of Northern Virginia: Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax, Fredericksburg, Leesburg, Manassas
Southwest Virginia Legal Aid Society: Marion, Castlewood, Christiansburg
Virginia Legal Aid Society: Lynchburg, Danville, Farmville, Suffolk
Virginia Poverty Law Center: Richmond (statewide program)
Legal Aid helplines
Call these helplines for legal support now:
Legal Aid: 1-866-LEGLAID (1-866-534-5243)
Virginia Poverty Law Center: 1-800-868-VPLC (1-800-868-8752)
Preserving housing stability
Five cities in Virginia rank in the top ten in the United States for highest eviction rate. A 2017 National Center of State Courts study found that in Virginia eviction cases, struggling families without lawyers lost their homes 62% of the time. By comparison, families represented by lawyers only lost their homes 34% of the time.
In fiscal year 2022, legal aid programs in Virginia completed 11,500 eviction and foreclosure cases, keeping many families in their homes and reducing the need for emergency shelter and services.
Jill Hanken speaks with LSCV about her experience as a Virginia legal aid attorney.
Oral histories of Legal Aid in Virginia
LSCV has an ongoing project to record the reflections of Virginia’s Legal Aid lawyers,
In these oral histories, Virginia legal aid lawyers reflect on Legal Aid’s history in the sixties and seventies, formative events in the eighties and nineties, and the system as it exists today.
Those interviewed are widely considered icons in the legal aid community. We hope you enjoy their first-hand accounts of what it was like to practice law in Virginia early in the justice movement.