WEST VIRGINIA BAR FOUNDATION
ANNUAL REPORT
JULY 1, 2009-JUNE 30, 2010

During the 2009-10 fiscal year, the West Virginia Bar Foundation’s Board of Directors spent extensive amounts of volunteer time and effort to guide the organization towards its goals of improving the administration of justice and the provision of legal services to West Virginia’s citizens.  The Board, which consists of a diverse group of fifteen lawyers from all parts of the state and all types of law practice, concentrated on the following matters:

 

• Elected new members of the policy making Board of Directors and selected qualified Officers.
• Held the first meeting of the complete Board of Directors with the WV Supreme Court of Appeals Justices to provide facts and materials regarding the mission of the organization.
• Continued its commitment to providing grants to worthwhile entities with an increase in the total funding to almost $75,000 in just the past five fiscal years.
• Received and approved the Independent Auditors’ Report for the 2008-09 fiscal year.
• Increased the total IOLTA grants since the program’s inception in 1990 to almost $13.8 million. It may have been the most successful year in IOLTA history since WV was perhaps the only state that registered an increase in IOLTA revenue during this difficult economic period.
• Held quarterly Board of Directors meetings and received reports and recommendations from the IOLTA Advisory Committee which also convened quarterly meetings.
• Continued the tradition of selecting extraordinary judges and lawyers as Bar Foundation Fellows. Less than 275 of the approximately 5,000 members of the judiciary and lawyers in the state have received this prestigious honor.
• Continued to serve as the landlord for the two Bar Foundation facilities housing the Lawyer Disciplinary Board/Office of Lawyer Disciplinary Counsel and the WV State Bar.
• Improved the bi-monthly membership communications email message, the Bar Foundation Brief, to keep members up to date on the activities and the programs of the organization.
• Made enhancements to the ever changing Bar Foundation website—-www.wvbarfoundation.org—-with a significant amount of new information and photographs regarding the group’s services and activities.
• Made presentations regarding the Bar Foundation and the IOLTA program to more than 250 new lawyers as they were admitted to practice law before the WV Supreme Court.