Volunteer Attorneys for People with AIDS (VAPWA) was recognized with a special award from QLaw, the GLBT Bar Association, at its annual dinner April 19. VAPWA started as an informal, volunteer-run service in 1986, at the height of the American AIDS epidemic, and was formally sponsored by the King County Bar Association in 1990. Today VAPWA serves 350 to 400 clients each year with free or low-cost legal services addressing issues of a person’s end-of-life quality, income, ability to maintain basic needs or ability to live free of harassment and/or discrimination. The program operates on an annual budget of approximately $70,000 but services that were provided are valued at approximately $600,000.
VAPWA’s founding member, Tim Bradbury, accepted the award on behalf of the original team of volunteer lawyers he persuaded to participate: Chris Rigos, Barbara Wechsler, Craig Campbell, John Forderhase, Dave Horn, Andy McKim, Bob Rohan and the late Jack Jones.
Here, Bradbury describes the founding of VAPWA during the early days of the AIDS epidemic in Seattle:
By Tim Bradbury
November 1985. “David” called. He explained that he has AIDS, is unable to work anymore and can’t afford a lawyer. But he has a legal problem and wondered if I would help him. A friend of a friend gave him my name.
David’s call was the third one that week. I realized that if I kept agreeing to do this work, I was going to drown in a sea of pro bono. Perhaps my 13 years of practice had made my name too well known. But I think the real problem was that there were not many openly gay lawyers in 1985. And the few there were got all the calls.
I searched through my calendar to find my first open appointment. The doctors treating AIDS patients told me that irreversible dementia could come without warning. So, move as fast as you can. Two days later, David’s legal problem was under control.
December 1985. The calls from the “Davids” of this world kept coming in. It was time to do something. I called around to a few lawyer friends and found one, Chris Rigos, who was willing to help me get a group organized. We pooled our knowledge of gay and lesbian lawyers and sent them all a letter asking them to join in the formation of a group of lawyers willing to donate their time to AIDS patients with legal problems.
January 1986. Seven brave souls had joined Chris and me: Barbara Wechsler, Craig Campbell, John Forderhase, Dave Horn, Andy McKim, Bob Rohan and the late Jack Jones. Together we met after work and formed our informal organization. By group vote, we named it VAPWA (Volunteer Attorneys for Persons with AIDS). I was out-voted. I wanted to name it Washington Volunteer Attorneys for Persons with AIDS, so we could use the acronym WAVAPWA and set it to music. Sometimes the democratic process is wise beyond all expectations.
We found a non-lawyer volunteer who agreed to let VAPWA use his telephone answering machine as a clearing house. He’d come home from work, play the messages and try to match each caller with an appropriate volunteer attorney.
Six months later, our volunteer coordinator quit. He found it too difficult emotionally. Maybe he had the disadvantage of talking with all those faceless voices belonging to people who would die while still young. Perhaps there wasn’t enough sense of fulfillment, though the role he filled was critical for us.
We soon were back in business with the help of volunteer coordinator John Enders, a retiree. The number of referrals grew and so did the number of volunteers. Yet the program functioned on a budget of zero dollars. Literally everything was volunteer.
In 1988, about the time our volunteer coordinator could no longer cope with the rising number of referrals, we received our first money from a combination of government sources. So, VAPWA hired its first paid coordinator, Mike Leigh, for a part-time position.
We thought that the program should be integrated with the Northwest AIDS Foundation (now the Lifelong AIDS Foundation), so that patients could benefit from a one-stop-shopping arrangement. The Foundation would assign a case worker to help put the patient’s support system in place and steer a successful course through the maze of applications for things like Social Security disability.
The other volunteer organizations with offices at the Foundation would fill in the rest. If the patient needed help with chores around the house, Chicken Soup Brigade would step in. If the patient needed emotional support, Shanti would provide a trained volunteer to be there for them. If a good massage was what the patient wanted, In Touch would be contacted. And if the patient had a legal problem, they could just walk down the hall to the VAPWA coordinator.
But all this occurred at a time when the Northwest AIDS Foundation was bursting at the seams in its existing office. New space was planned a year down the road. So the VAPWA coordinator was temporarily given a cubicle at KCBA. That turned out to be a smart move.
Joan Andersen, who then headed KCBA’s pro bono services programs, became Leigh’s supervisor. She gave VAPWA her whole-hearted assistance, with KCBA behind her. Andersen worked with other county bars to set up a referral network that still reaches many other counties.
After VAPWA’s first year at KCBA, the Foundation was in new space. But VAPWA was working so well at KCBA that the decision was made to leave it there. By then, the coordinator had become a full-time job.
Today, the funding is from non-governmental sources. The KCBA trustees gave VAPWA an important boost by formally adopting VAPWA as a KCBA program. Part of the funding comes from IOLTA, via the Legal Foundation of Washington. The King County Bar Foundation raises the rest from donations.
Today, approximately 300 attorneys actively volunteer by taking clients through the VAPWA referral system on a pro bono, reduced-fee or full-fee basis. Unfortunately, the demand for services has increased at a relentlessly steady pace. Currently, the average number of referrals is more than 30 per month. With the advent of new drugs, AIDS patients are living longer. As a result, the patient pool is increasing, as are the number and type of legal problems.
Clients require legal assistance for a variety of reasons: estate planning is the largest area of need. But work comes in from many other areas, including employment discrimination and wrongful discharge, insurance coverage, creditor/debtor, enforcement of custody and visitation rights, and housing.
So that’s the history. What’s the future? Unfortunately, current statistics seem to indicate that the average 20-year-old King County gay male has a 50% probability of becoming HIV positive before he reaches the age of 50, despite a substantial change in risk behavior. In addition, there are increasing numbers of women and people of color who also are affected by HIV/AIDS. We will continue to need VAPWA for a long time to come.
If you would like to volunteer with VAPWA, call Connie Ritchie at 206-267-7025.
Tim Bradbury became the first openly gay judge in Washington when he was appointed to the King County Superior Court bench in 1995. Previously, he served as the chair of the Young Lawyers Section of the KCBA and as a trustee for both the KCBA and the King County Bar Foundation. Today, he practices in the areas of business law, probate law and estate planning.
