SmartTranscript of Senate Judiciary - 2025-01-22 - 9:00 AM

[Chair ]: Good morning. [Speaker 1 ]: It is January twenty second with Senate Judiciary. We will be doing a few introductions from the Enquire Association, the Office of Racial Equity, and then moving on to sealing an expungement bill. And so we'll just start at the top with mister Diamond. And Bob, if you wanna come up with one Yeah. [16 seconds of silence] [Joshua Diamond ]: Mister chairman, every city attorney, my name is Joshua Diamond. I'm an attorney with the law firm of Dentsy PC in Burlington, but I also have the honor and privilege to serve as the Vermont Bar Association's president this year. And I'm joined here today by [Paul Villavini ]: I'm Paul Villavini. I'm the executive director of the VBA. You know, most of you, they don't know. There. [Chair ]: Yeah. Welcome. Yeah. Yeah. [Paul Villavini ]: Thank you. Thank you. I've been in this room many times over years, so it's nice to see that. [Joshua Diamond ]: And we thought we'd take a few moments just to introduce you to what the Bar Association of Unison does and then take any questions that you may have. [Chair ]: Kind of on [Joshua Diamond ]: a a high level, we're a trade association for lawyers and benefits. There are approximately based upon August twenty twenty three data, there are approximately twenty one hundred sixty three active lawyers in the state of Vermont. We are a voluntary trade association or a bar. But then we have a very high level of participation, and we've got approximately eighteen hundred and thirty five members of of those active attorneys. So we we we think we do a good job in representing the interests of the bar. But to understand, I think, what we do, I'd like to just read our mission statement to you all because I think that gives a better flavor than just saying we're a trade association. And what the bar does is it promotes the highest standards of skills, ethics, and professionalism within an inclusive profession. It fosters an understanding and respect for the rule of law, supports equal access to a fair and effective system of justice, and provides valuable resources to its members. And at the end of the day, what I think it does as as a long time member and and an opportunity to be part of the leadership of the organization, it's about service. Service to our members so that we have, truly effective, ethical, professional members of the bar, but also service to our community. Because lawyers at the end of the day, I believe, are really one of the foundational bedrocks to a functioning democratic society. We are the ambassadors, the guardians to the rule of law. We also are critical in ensuring that there is a way to peacefully resolve our disputes in our communities. And, like many other professions in Vermont, we also are experiencing challenges that we hope we can work with you all in this next legislative session. One of those challenges is workforce development. We have an aging demographic as a result and the inability to maybe to recruit into our communities. We are finding there are legal deserts. There are rural communities in particular that may not have access to that mainstream lawyer to resolve those questions about a a real estate transaction or forming a business or dealing with the divorce seat. And also ensuring that there's equal access to justice by having access to lawyers, not just through those legal deserts, but making sure those who may have honest means can still have access to the attorney where they needed to resolve their disputes, whether it be with the state or with their neighbors or whatever. We are working hard to address those issues. We have a workforce development committee as part of one of our standing committees at Vermont Bar. We've created scholarship programs to help lead lawyers who are working in communities with limited resources or in areas of rural Vermont to help make it more important to work in those communities by offering five thousand dollar scholarships against their considerable legal ones that many lawyers have coming into the profession. We have an incubator program where we work with folks who would like to just hang out their shingle and give them the support to how to set up an office, deal with a trust account, and learn the intricacies of a practice. Well, they may not have the benefit of working with, let's say, a senior attorney or that mentorship. And we've also been working with colleagues such as, the Vermont Chamber and the Vermont Futures project as ways to maybe we can collaborate with other professions that may be seeing similar challenges in our communities, whether it be the medical community or engineering or what have you. On the equal access to justice front, we support, access to funding to organizations like legal aid and the Vermont Bar Foundation to provide for programming for those who, don't or can't afford access to a lawyer, but we also have our own programs. We operate a low loan program. So for those who don't qualify for legal aid, maybe because their meetings are above poverty but not such that they can easily write a check. We have lawyers who will work at a reduced rate in areas such as business formation, maybe representing victims of a crime. [Senator Post ]: Senator Post. [Chair ]: I'm sorry. This may be a pleasure for you, but it may also be a project for legal aid. My understanding too of legal aid is they have limited areas in which they work. So someone might be poor enough to qualify for their services, but if it's not an area they're working in, they still don't have access to a lawyer. [Joshua Diamond ]: That is correct. And and our local programs try to address that as well, like in areas of business formation. For example, or giving advice, in a a family law. So those are some of the things that are priorities for us as we've been working through, the year, and we are so fortunate to have an experienced executive director who guides and leads us as well in our organization. So I can turn it over to to Bob. [Paul Villavini ]: Thank you. Thank you, Josh. So I I guess I'm I'm responsible for the day to day operations of our association. As the chair knows, we are the largest provider of legal education other than the law school in Dubai. Most lawyers in Vermont are required to take GUE education, get that kind of training from our association. So we stay close to what happens in this building with the Supreme Court being assigned so that we can make sure our firm members are educated and our as partners as needed. We're not the type of association that that creates sort of a long list of legislative priorities, and we come in here with, you know, ahead of those things that that we wanna accomplish. You will see me in the building every day. And I'm here more as a resource to you as you explore new deals or new items come into this community. You need to know what effect this may have. Is there a practitioner who does that kind of work? Let me know. I was going to give that person back to address that issue. Sometimes you may want to hear from people on both sides of that issue, and I could probably find you prayers on both sides of that issue to help you in your deliberations. So I'm here. Happy to work with you. I we've got at least one bill that the chair introduced, s three that came from our probate and trust section. I hate to say it's a simple little bill because that always then that's a bad thing to say. But I think it's a fairly straightforward bill, and we'd be happy to to work with you and see that get passed. So welcome to by any of [Chair ]: them. Look forward [Paul Villavini ]: to working with everybody. [Speaker 1 ]: Any questions, comments with Mittie? Start Sarah Maddox. [Joshua Diamond ]: I'm just curious what average age of your members is. Good question. Good question. I think we got that survey information, but not We [Paul Villavini ]: can get it [Chair ]: to Yeah. [Paul Villavini ]: We can get it to we're on the we're on the hiring [Speaker 1 ]: Yeah. Yeah. [Paul Villavini ]: Of course. And that's why Josh mentioned legal desks. Yep. We've got we're facing with we're facing the challenges of older lawyers who should be retiring, thinking about retiring, and we're trying our best to get the other lawyers to connect with them. And, frankly, the county, right now, county are are particularly difficult areas to make that happen. [Senator Post ]: Yeah. I think so I deal with real estate a lot, and I recently lost another professional attorney I talked to all the time about real estate. He was in the Grand Isle area. I don't know how many attorneys there are at Grand Isle that do different things. I don't think there's more than five. I would say one. [Paul Villavini ]: Appears. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [Speaker 1 ]: There's one topic I was wondering if you have had some thoughts on that you could share. You know, just talking about workforce development, and we are talking a lot about the backlog in this committee, but we'll be talking a lot about it tomorrow as well. And there's the connection between the backlog, the lack of attorneys entering the workforce, which also contributes to the lack of qualified judges or applicants for judges down the road. And then can you just share some of your thoughts just on those connections there [Paul Villavini ]: Well [Speaker 1 ]: or possible solutions. You [Speaker 5 ]: I think [Paul Villavini ]: a good witness for you to hear from would be the defender general. He's talked to us at board meetings about his challenges of hiring lawyers from out of state, bringing them here Yeah. Only to find that they can't really afford to hear from you. So I I actually talked with legislative counsel this summer because they were having challenges trying to hire attorneys for the staff to be ready for renewal in January. Those are real real challenges. We'd like to keep lawyers here that go to maybe from our lawyer graduate school. And, yes, we wanna attract lawyers from other states. I sent you a a study report from the state of Kansas that is getting the legislature, the supreme court, the bar, trying to get everybody together to encourage university students to go to law school, and and to do so in in the state of Kansas with sort of loan repayment assistance promises if they practice in rural areas. So there's a lot of stuff happening nationwide, and I think we could explore something on a smaller scale for Vermont. I think it would be helpful. [Joshua Diamond ]: The the crushing load of educational debt, access to affordable housing, access to childcare, things that are factors for other professions are are impacting position. [Senator Post ]: What's that typical amount on average that renewing earnings come out of law school with or student debt? [Paul Villavini ]: I I serve on the loan repayment assistance committee at the PBA, and and I've seen minimum is a hundred thousand. But then I've seen some numbers that were upwards of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in debt, if not more Yep. For brand new words. Yeah. [Speaker 1 ]: I do have to put in the plug for the law office study program. You don't have to add that way. Not that I have any stake in that as financially or I'd like to read that process. But, no, there there's a I believe there's four states that do the law of the study program, and it's you know, you you do three years in law school. That's one track. But the lesser known one is basically being an apprentice for four years under a practicing attorney who's been licensed for I think three three years. You go through that apprenticeship, you're eligible to sit for the bar. If you pass, then you're an attorney. There's some limitations, you know, based on the inability to transfer to some states. But, you know, zero loans at the end of it. So [Senator Post ]: It's like a credit score. They're not very trades. [Paul Villavini ]: Exactly. Exactly. We we like those limitations about not being able to transfer to the states and Keeps folks here. [Speaker 1 ]: Yeah. It's maximized. Thank you. Any other questions for [Paul Villavini ]: the committee? Great. Thank you. [Chair ]: Well, thank you for [Joshua Diamond ]: your time. I appreciate it. [Speaker 1 ]: So next up, we have the office of racial equity. [Chair ]: Good morning, For the record, Susana Davis, executive director of racial equity, Garcia Vermaud. I'm joined by a colleague. I'll let her introduce herself. Good morning. My name is Anila. I use pronouns she, her, eja, and, yeah, I'm the focus of you know, research first at Yale. So it is a pleasure to be back with you all again. I know that I think most of actually, all of us have met before. So I don't wanna bore you with what you probably already know about our office, but for the sake of your viewers, we'd love to just give you an overview of what we do and what we've been working on lately. So the Office of Racial Equity, of course, was created by an act of legislature in twenty eighteen. The first executive director was appointed in twenty nineteen. That was me. And since then, we have become a team of seven, hopefully soon to be eight. And, you know, I I say this a little bit in jest, but actually completely serious. No matter how many staff we get. It appears that the workload just never never right sizes. There's always work to do. And one of the things that we have found is that if you can name a topic that impacts your day to day life, chances are there's a racial equity element to it. And so we have the privilege of being able to work not only with you all, but also with your colleagues and other communities of jurisdiction on issues of different subject matter. Everything from the justice system to housing, education, employment, land use and zoning, you name it. And so as as we were listening to previous the previous witnesses just now, there were so many themes that were struck that really speak to the encompassing work that we do. For example, we talked a little bit about the availability of housing and how it impacts recruitment to the state for attorneys from out of state. We talked about median age of the profession and the ways in which the graying profession has contributed to legal deserts. We talked a little bit about finance and the financial cost of becoming a member of the profession. These are just a few of the issues, but they all touch on some of those really core themes that we've been seeing in our work throughout the last several years. I'll back up a little bit and just talk about what what guides us. As an office, we are led by a vision and a set of values that are core to our work. Our vision is threefold. We envision a Vermont that treats its staff, contractor, vendors, and partners equitably throughout their tenure. And what that means is, yes, proper payment and wage equity, but it also means that you collect equitable representation and leadership position. We also envision a Vermont in which the state provides equitable and fair services to members of the public, that's residents and visitors. We love to talk so much about serving Vermonters and that's, of course, our primary mission. But let's not also forget those who come to Vermont, who I like to discuss as prospective Vermonters. Right? We're wooing every person who comes to visit. And the third part of our vision is that the state implements systems that make those first two things autopilot. So we don't have to be so consciously, actively thinking about tweaking every minute piece of our process to ensure that it's equitable. We just make our whole process equitable, and it becomes second nature. Now in order to, realize that vision, we operate from a set of values that includes process equity in addition to outcomes equity. It means that we don't just arrive at the right conclusion, but that we get there in a way that's also inclusive of people who are gonna be impacted by our decisions. The second guiding value that we have is transformative change over transactional change. Right? Or adaptive change over technical change. Again, it means not just making those small tweaks to make an individual problem or complaint go away, but really looking at systems level change and understanding how we can make more transformative change. And I have to say, I know people love to talk about transport. It's almost becoming one of those words that is a little bit meaningless. I'm gonna stick with it because it's what we believe in. But when we talk about transformation, we feel we are looking for a collective justice. And then, of course, the third is structural solutions for structural problems, not individual solutions. I I gave a silly analogy that if the lights in the state house were all to just shut off, an individual solution would be if the sergeant at arms were to tell us all, okay, everyone whip out your phones. You've got a light your own way around the building. That's an individual solution, but the problem itself is systemic. And so thinking about, again, what are the broad things that we can do to make sure that people in Vermont, residents and visitors, are being treated at the different best state. So that's what guides us. We find that it's so important for government to be mission driven. And by putting our mission on paper and really sticking to it, we hope to be able to serve as advisors, not only to the other members of the executive branch, but equally importantly to you all. We see ourselves as your advisers. The statute you wrote says that we are your advisers. And so it's important to us that you see us as such. If you have questions, thoughts, if you wanna run something past us, if you're looking for language or examples perhaps from other jurisdictions and such places that have done something well, then we are here at your service. We want you all to feel like you can trust us for good advice. And there are certainly gonna be times perhaps that our opinions differ from other opinions you might hear in the room, and and that's okay. There's space for disagreement. But we do think that it's important that we take principles and evidence informed, stances on the matters that have been accomplished for a decade. The last thing that I'll add is that in the last couple of years, we have a division of racial justice statistics that was added to our office. Again, that was by active legislature. And that division is a three person team specifically, dedicated to collecting, analyzing, and reporting on data related to the justice system. I think that for this committee in particular, they will be a huge help to you. So if you have questions or other thoughts about justice related data, we welcome those questions or or any feedback you have. I will add that we are taking a very broad approach to what justice related means. For example, you can't talk about recidivism without talking about housing instability. Right? There are so many upstream factors that are deeply connected to some of the outcomes you all will be deliberating on this session that our division of racial justice and specifics really does like to take a holistic look at what data are relevant that are giving us the outcomes we're thinking about. So, please don't be surprised if you wanna talk about incarceration rates, and we wanna talk to you about preschool breakfast or whatever it is, because we see parallels with a lot of things. I'll pause there. I'm talking a lot. I'm gonna ask my colleague. I'm gonna have I've forgotten everything. So now I think thank you for your time. You're welcome. Any questions? I'm Sarah Phillips. Canoius. Thanks for being here. I know it was either last year or the year's report in racial justice statistics, of course. It really rolls out. It does. Gave us a report. Is that something that's due every other year or every year? Is that something we have to request? The report is due every year. I think that this committee did receive it. What was that? The fifteenth of that week of the time. I'm happy to share it. Is it? Okay. Thank you. I'm happy to be shared. I think my statute were required into this committee. If not, we would welcome that statutory change if it's not already there. And and if you all are interested in us giving you a summary of that report, we're also happy to come in at a later date and give you a quick rundown of what it contains. Thank you. [Speaker 1 ]: Any other questions, sir? I do have [Speaker 5 ]: a few a question apropos of Monday's inaugural. So the new president has made it very clear that DEI, as he frames it, is he finds it dangerous or, you know, worthy of being pulled out at the roots, and he's issued executive orders already to do that at the federal level. I'm just wondering if you see any any way by which the federal government could interfere with our programs, your office. They will certainly try. Anything that we can be on the lookout for in terms of areas where we're vulnerable. [Chair ]: Yes. I think first of all, thank you very much for that question. I think one of the most effective manipulation tools the federal government can, have, and will use is funding. Vermont is not a stranger to the federal government threatening it with removal of funding for not complying with what we see as racially and ethically discriminatory policies. And so one of the big things that this state should be on the lookout for is not just executive orders that cover the conduct of federal employees, agencies, and contractors, but also those that are extended to cover any entities that receive federal funding. It's gonna be really important because that means municipalities, not for profit organizations. We know Vermont has military capital and anywhere else in your country. And then, of course, state level governments as well all receive federal funds. [Paul Villavini ]: And [Chair ]: so that's gonna create a chilling effect, likely already have because this happened under the same person's administration a few years ago. We're gonna create a chilling effect and make people shy away from equity and inclusion work. That's one thing. Another thing is the use of rhetoric, the watering down of language, the manipulation of language is really, really important. And so when you start to see rhetorical linkages between words like equity, inclusion, diversity, etcetera, being linked with things that are being purported to be harmful to society, it's important to take a step back and remind ourselves what is actually the core of what we're doing. You could call this work anything. Right? You could call it civil rights, human rights, DEI, whatever the new acronym is at its core. We're talking about making sure that the local, state, and federal government live up to the promises that it holds in its various institutions. So thinking a lot about how the use of rhetoric and the use of money are gonna be weaponized against states and municipalities It's gonna be really important. I will say that I am proud that Vermont has, in the past, found creative ways to support people, particularly Vermonters of color, in the face of those kinds of threats. We're gonna have to step up and do it again, and it's gonna take a lot. But I think that if we as a state are as committed as we say we are to justice, then it should be a no brainer because we can't shrink justice to meet the whims of people who are hostile to it. And that's hard. And we're gonna be presented with really difficult choices, but I again, it's one of the reasons that I print our mission statement on the back of our folder is because we have to understand what's really guiding us, and we we, I think, have to be able to show the urge to to stick to it. [Speaker 5 ]: I appreciate that. If if there should turn out to be something specific that you see coming, letting my office know as quickly as you can, [Joshua Diamond ]: I appreciate that? Absolutely. Thank you. [Speaker 1 ]: Any other questions? So thank you. My question I have, you had mentioned process equity, and that's something that I'm trying to keep in my mind for the remainder of the session. Well, actually, just, you know, I'm I didn't it'd be good. My question is, you know, in order to get your perspective as often as we can or as as applicable or as relevant to, you know, whatever we're discussed, what is you know, instead of just sending you a long list of bills and saying, give me your opinion on every single one of these bills, is there a more streamlined way of making sure we have good communication where, you know, we can get your perspective on things that, may or may not have a racial equity lens. And, you know, for example, the s three, the bill that was briefly mentioned in the from the previous witnesses related to probate and trust, you know, my my first reaction is, you know, there's probably not a racial equity component to that, but, you know, but there probably is. I I just don't know what it is. So that's that's kind of my tirade or not tirade, but my my thoughts. Do you have any input on, you know, how how we could proceed further, make sure that you're able to be here and share your thoughts? [Chair ]: Yes. Mister chair, if you sent us along with the bill that said give us your thought, we would be pleased with that. Okay. Like I said, we're your advisers, and we wanna operate in a way that works for you all as a group. And, also, we do wanna push you to being inclusive of not just our voices, but also those from the community. So I would say that in terms of getting the Office of Racial Equity's input, we would be pleased with if you just have a list of pills in an email or if you wanted to speak to somebody on the phone from our office or just have a chat. We're available to you all. Angela is our legislative appoint person. Let me ask something. I'm watching all of those already. Mhmm. So everything is YouTube streamed. So I will send you emails to your committee or other committees if we believe that [Paul Villavini ]: it would be you to [Chair ]: testify in some bills or to give our opinion or to make things better and more equitable for everybody. So that's already happening. That's perfect. Mhmm. [Speaker 1 ]: And okay. Yeah. That sounds good. Any additional questions? Follow-up. Great. Well, thank you for coming in. I'm sure we'll see you again. And, yeah, nice nice meeting you as well. [Chair ]: Yes. Thanks. Thank you. Same. Yeah. Same. [Speaker 1 ]: So next up, we'll have Michelle at nine forty five. So we've got we'll take a break until then. Folks can show up a few minutes before nine forty five. We can still watch.

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SmartTranscript of Senate Judiciary - 2025-01-22 - 9:00 AM

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