WASHINGTON, DC, October 27, 2003 — The National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) is pleased to announce that Alex Gulotta, executive director of the Legal Aid Justice Center in Charlottesville, Virginia, was chosen to receive the prestigious Charles Dorsey Award, given biennially in recognition of individuals who provide extraordinary and dedicated service to the equal justice community, and to organizations that promote expanding and improving access to justice for low-income people. Recipients of this award must demonstrate a commitment to equal justice through service as an officer, board or committee member of a national or statewide organization devoted to fulfilling the promise of equal access to justice.

"Alex's reputation as a determined, ethical, spirited, optimistic, creative and devoted equal justice advocate is nationally acknowledged by his peers and colleagues," said Clint Lyons, NLADA president and CEO. "He is an advocate for all advocates, one that has refused the status quo and championed the effort to implement a model of dual legal aid providers to better serve low-income Americans in need of competent legal representation."

As the executive director of the Legal Aid Justice Center, Gulotta earned a national reputation for his tenacity and creativity in overcoming the severe restrictions put on federally funded legal aid programs in 1996 by the U.S. Congress. The government restrictions put limitations on who was eligible for services and what services could be provided, leaving millions of low-wage men, women and children vulnerable to exploitation. In addition, the restrictions forbade federally funded programs from lobbying for better treatment for the disadvantaged, challenging welfare laws, and seeking attorneys' fees, even where Congress has specifically provided for them.

For Gulotta, these restrictions served not as an obstacle, but a catalyst for change. His program was the first in Virginia to radically reorganize, serving as model of the future for legal services programs. Gulotta rallied his board of directors and staff, and they collectively created the Legal Aid Justice Center, a new program independent of federal funding – and free of the burdensome restrictions, allowing for the development and implementation of an innovative initiative to allow fair access to the justice system for more low-income people. Since then, numerous other legal aid programs across the country have followed Gulotta's lead, exchanging federal funding for the autonomy needed to help more men, women and children with no place else to turn.

Today, the Legal Aid Justice Center offers free civil legal services to low-income families throughout Central Virginia and to low wage immigrant workers statewide, while also engaging in systematic legal advocacy for all low-income Virginians. The Legal Aid Justice Center receives funding from numerous funding sources, including individuals, local and state governments, local, state and national foundations, and the University of Virginia School of Law.

In a letter nominating Gulotta for this award, the Legal Aid Justice Center's board chair and three senior staff members said, "Alex has changed Virginia. His impact, however, extends far beyond his clients, and far beyond his program. He has demonstrated time and again that with determination and optimism and devotion to a cause, in spite of daunting obstacles, he can find a way to make it work. Across the country, he has inspired other programs to try."

In addition to the LAJC's general civil advocacy work, Gulotta is also responsible for the creation and preservation of two innovative new programs for special populations: 1) the Virginia Justice Center for Farm and Immigrant Workers program, which was created and has been sustained in the face of seemingly insurmountable opposition throughout Virginia, in not only the powerful seafood and agriculture industries, but also the state legislature; and 2) the JustChildren program, the first Virginia legal aid program to begin comprehensively addressing the unmet legal needs of children in the state’s education, foster care and juvenile justice systems. This program is the largest children's law program in the state, has done nothing but grow since its inception, and with it the horizons of child advocacy in Virginia.

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The National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA), founded in 1911, is the oldest and largest national, nonprofit membership organization devoting all of its resources to advocating equal access to justice for all Americans. NLADA champions effective legal assistance for people who cannot afford counsel, serves as a collective voice for both civil legal services and public defense services throughout the nation and provides a wide range of services and benefits to its individual and organizational members.