October 1, 2024
David B. Neumeyer Receives 2024 Virginia Legal Aid Award
David Neumeyer, the executive director of the Virginia Legal Aid Society (VLAS) who has worked for justice for the underserved for almost 50 years, has received the 2024 Virginia Legal Aid Award.
The Virginia Legal Aid Award, given by the VSB’s Committee on Access to Legal Services, honors excellence in legal aid society work, recognizing those who exhibit innovation and creativity in advocacy; experience and excellence in service; and impact beyond their own program’s service area.
In his nomination, John Whitfield, Executive Director and General Counsel of Blue Ridge Legal Services, Inc., noted that even while in college at Brown University Neumeyer served as a volunteer paralegal with Rhode Island Legal Services. Later, in law school at the University of Maine, Neumeyer was awarded the Reginald Heber Smith Community Lawyer Fellowship and worked with Rhode Island Legal Services to successfully represent Black residents of Providence in a civil rights class action in federal court.
After a few years in private practice, Neumeyer began working as the chief attorney for Maryland’s Legal Aid Bureau, and by 1990 he began his career at the VLAS, where he has served Virginians ever since. In his nomination, Whitfield noted Neumeyer’s numerous innovations to legal aid, improving processes for everything from financial understanding to family stability to helping senior citizens to medical-legal partnerships.
Wrote Whitfield, “Under his leadership, the Virginia Legal Aid Society has earned a reputation, in the words of a 2008 Legal Services Corporation assessment report, as ‘a well-managed, high quality legal services program that provides advice, counsel, brief service and extended representation to eligible clients within its service area.’”
When not working with legal aid clients, Neumeyer has served on the Virginia State Bar’s Access to Legal Services Committee, and is currently chairing the Entry, Growth & Distribution of Virginia Attorneys Study Committee. He also serves as the chair of the Virginia Access to Justice Commission’s Self-Represented Litigants’ committee, where he is again providing leadership in identifying new approaches from across the nation that can benefit Virginia.
Andrea L. Bridgeman of the Virginia Access to Justice Commission seconded Neumeyer’s nomination and wrote of him, “While spending a career in the public interest is itself laudable (and exhausting!), David has committed countless hours to bettering the legal profession and his local communities—he sets the standard for integrity and character, consistently going above and beyond. In these endeavors, he has led, innovated, and labored in the trenches to help these organizations, most staffed by volunteers, achieve their goals.
“David didn’t become a lawyer to get rich: he became a lawyer to do good.”
Neumeyer will be presented with the award at the Pro Bono Conference in Williamsburg on October 16. Registration, agenda and CLE information may be found here.