Downtown law clinic could create partnership between UR and VCU

by Richard Foster
for Virginia Business
April 2006

At the intersection of Lombardy and West Grace Streets in Richmond’s Fan District stand two stately stone pillars — interesting footnotes to the University of Richmond’s former life as an urban institution before it moved in 1914 to its parklike location in the city’s West End.

But UR plans to have an urban presence once again as its T.C. Williams School of Law considers opening a dormitory and pro-bono law clinic downtown. The move could forge an academic partnership with Virginia Commonwealth University, which sprawls through much of the city’s center.
Richmond Mayor L. Douglas Wilder has been an enthusiastic supporter of the idea, trumping UR and VCU with a surprise announcement of the talks between the universities in January. “I think he did what good mayors do, which is to project a vision of things that would be good for the city and encourage others to sit down and explore that with the city,” says UR law school Dean Rodney Smolla.

Still, “no deal has been consummated” with VCU, Smolla says. The universities are discussing several opportunities for partnering, most prominently an institute that would focus on the combination of law and medicine, a growing area of law around the country. The Richmond area’s strong health-care industry presents a ripe opportunity for the possibility.
Health insurer Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield has its Southeastern headquarters in Richmond, and major health-care providers in the region include Bon Secours Richmond Health System, HCA and the VCU Health System.

VCU President Eugene Trani says law and medicine “are clearly two major strengths of the two institutions, and it could only result in better opportunities for students and for researchers and faculty” if the VCU School of Medicine and UR’s school of law were to create joint academic opportunities.

Trani, Smolla, UR President William Cooper and several VCU deans met this winter to discuss the notion. While cautioning that it is still very early in the process, Smolla says the group considered interdisciplinary training and joint degrees in fields such as medicine, family law (with VCU’s School of Social Work), environmental law (with VCU’s Center for Environmental Studies) and intellectual property (with VCU’s School of Engineering).

No site has been selected for the satellite building, Smolla says, but the university is looking at renovating an existing building. (Wilder has mentioned the old Murphy Hotel on Eighth Street as one possibility.) As UR seeks to “modestly expand” its law school beyond its current enrollment of nearly 500 students, the dorm/clinic would provide 40 to 70 housing units for UR’s law students, most of whom are from outside the state and must seek off-campus housing.

More important, the law clinic would allow UR law students to get real-world experience working for needy urban clients requiring representation in family or juvenile law matters, says Smolla.

Henry W. McLaughlin, executive director of the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society, which provides legal services in civil cases to the needy, says he thinks the proposal is “absolutely wonderful” because “the demands are great.” Most studies of the need for pro-bono legal services show that legal aid societies only answer about 20 percent of the demand. (Central Virginia Legal Aid Society has four full-time staff attorneys, a fellow from the law firm Hunton & Williams and volunteers from the Richmond Bar and UR.) It’s a natural development, McLaughlin says, because “the T.C. Williams Law School has been a major contributor to people in need of services for a long period of time.”