September / October 2009 - Sacramento County Bar Association

Community Service
A Change Of Venue And Some
Overdue Recognition
By Vicki Jacobs, VLSP
Managing Attorney
First order of business:
some overdue recognition: One day,
attorney Jay Dyer walked into the
offices of the Voluntary Legal Services
Program of Northern California,
introduced himself and said, “I want
to do pro bono work.” Now, we don't
often have attorneys walk into our
Alkali Flat offices and offer their services
with such enthusiasm, particularly
when they have been practicing
lawyers for a period of years. We
were disarmed by his energy and
eagerness to give back to the community,
and we quickly took Jay up on
his kind offer. He said he wanted to
take one case after another, so we
knew we struck gold.
For all of his pro bono work for the
indigent since that day, Jay Dyer was
awarded the 2008 June Black Pro
Bono Award at the annual luncheon
meeting of the Sacramento County
Bar Association on December 10,
2008. (This is the overdue part.)
The first case Jay took for us was an
unemployment insurance appeal.
Given the state of our economy, we have
been seeing many such cases at legal aid.
The second case turned out to be a
major project. A group of 10 people all
sought help in dealing with the same
abusive employer. These 10 clients
were employed harvesting and bottling
pears. They worked 6-7 days a week,
11-12 hours a day and were often not
paid for their work. They weren't
given any overtime pay and, when they
were compensated, they were paid by a
personal check with none of the
mandatory deductions. On top of
everything else, the employer was verbally
abusive and profane. This was
36 SACRAMENTO LAWYER SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2009
Vicki Jacobs awarded Jay Dyer Jr. with the
Voluntary Legal Services Program's June
Black Pro Bono Award at the 2008 SCBA
Annual Meeting (Photo by Ken Rabiroff)
clearly a case that needed to be brought
before the Labor Commissioner.
To make things a bit more complicated,
the primary language of all of
the 10 clients was Hmong. It would
take the assistance of volunteer interpreters
to interface between a volunteer
attorney and the clients.
Fortunately, we were able to locate two
volunteer interpreters. The question
was who was the right attorney to take
on this case. We immediately thought
of Jay who, fortunately, took up the
challenge.
Jay met with our clients at our
offices for a full day one Saturday,
interviewing them and preparing their
cases for the Labor Commissioner. Jay
has put in many hours on this case
and took it to hearing, the result of
which we are still waiting for as of the
writing of this article. Regardless of
the outcome, Jay made sure that our
indigent clients had a voice to redress
their grievances and he represents the
best of our profession.
In accepting his award, Jay cited
the quote from Winston Churchill
that says: “We make a living by what
we do, but we make a life by what we
give.” He graciously thanked VLSP for
giving him the opportunity to make
his professional life by giving back.
The June Black Pro Bono Award is
named in memory of June Black,
VLSP's first pro bono coordinator.
For 17 years, June did the intake and
referral of cases to our volunteers.
There was no one more passionate
about helping the poor receive justice
than June. Jay Dyer's work honors
June Black's spirit and VLSP is grateful
for his service to our community.
Second order of business:
our change of venue: VLSP
is pleased to announce that one of its
projects, the Civil Self-Help Center
that has been operating at the
Sacramento County Superior
Courthouse, has been relocated to the
Sacramento County Public Law Library
effective July 6, 2009. The project,
which assists self-represented litigants
with civil matters pending in the downtown
courthouse (hence, no family,
probate or traffic matters), is now a
joint project of the Sacramento County
Superior Court, the Sacramento
County Public Law Library, and the
Voluntary Legal Services Program.
We’re grateful to the Board of the
Sacramento County Public Law Library
for bringing this valuable program
under its umbrella. In 2008, the Civil
Self-Help Center helped over 6000 customers
at the courthouse. We look forward
to our association with the Law
Library in this venture. If you would
like to volunteer some time and expertise
to this project, please contact VLSPís
Managing Attorney, Vicki Jacobs, at
vjacobs@vlsp.org.