Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 24, 1992 TAG: 9203240351
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG HIGHER EDUCATION WRITER
DATELINE: ALDERSON, W.VA LENGTH: Long
A long way, too, between the students who visit these halls once a week, and the inmates who every day must stay here.
But they come together, every Thursday but Thanksgiving, as they have since 1968: the students, future lawyers; and these inmates, struggling to pull their lives together before they are released.
For 10 students each semester, W&L's Alderson Center, which provides legal aid to the women's prison, is a chance to help those who are getting little help at all.
But more simply, it is a chance to practice, a chance to learn.
\ The first time Kim Wood checked in at the visitors station and walked to Wilebrant Hall to meet a client, she was nervous.
"I felt totally incompetent," she said, pulling a can of Diet Coke from her briefcase. "I wanted to help. But I wasn't sure I knew enough."
She let the inmates know she was new at this. "They were very patient and understanding," she said. "They treat us like attorneys. They just want help and we're reaching out. They need someone on the outside."
Most of the 850 inmates are here on drug-related charges, fraud or embezzlement. Most want to get their lives in order, the IRS off their backs, their debts paid before they get their freedom.
That's where the students come in.
They can draw up simple legal documents, file papers, and generally, serve as contacts with the outside world.
"Sometimes all the inmates want us to do is just explain what happened, how they got here," said Scott Green, a third-year student from Maryland.
The students spend two semesters in this program. Their terms are staggered, so there always is a student who's had some experience.
Wood is one of the new ones. A second-year student from Texas, she started the program in January.
"Alderson is one reason I came to W&L," she said. "When I was getting a tour of the school, they showed me the program. I thought it would be neat to help people already in prison."
The time it takes to help the inmates varies.
Most of the successes Wood sees now come from cases that were started last semester, cases she has taken over.
A reduction in sentence will come through, but "I wasn't the one who filed the papers in the first place. I think I'll see more of my own successes next semester."
Still, there is some quick gratification: helping arrange for someone to get to a halfway house sooner, or drawing up a temporary custody agreement.
"It means a lot to these women, for them to know someone is looking out for their children," said Mary Andrews, a third-year student from West Virginia.
But perhaps most of all, the program gives the students confidence. Most leave here knowing they can be lawyers.
And they leave knowing a little more about what type of law they can go into.
The first time Green walked into the prison, he was surprised. This wasn't a thing like television.
"It was a real shock," he said. "I was thinking there would be bars on the windows and security everywhere. But there weren't. It was more like a camp."
"It looks like Hollins College," said Michael Moore, a 26-year-old from Richmond. "I don't mean that as an insult or anything."
Cottages and classrooms cover the prison grounds. And the joke around here is that the fence that surrounds the facility was put there to keep the deer out.
\ Green said he stumbled through his first sessions with the inmates. "I gave them the standard, `I'll have to go back and research this,' " he said. "But now, about 60 percent of the time, I know the answers."
That's partly because he's experienced now, partly because the same things come up, again and again.
"Like how many days they can get off for good time," Green said. "The first time I was asked that question, I had to look it up. Now, 54 days [per year] is stuck in my mind. They'll hear rumors, that it's changed to 108 days or something. But we get the newest updates on legislation. If that ever happened, we would know."
Victoria Sanchez, who has been in this prison for 16 months, has made several trips to the third floor of Wilebrant Hall.
She looks toward a classroom where a student is meeting with one of her friends.
"I guess we don't look at them as lawyers, exactly," she said. "But they are students who will become lawyers and they're helpful. They helped me get temporary custody for my daughter. And they've helped with some other things. It seems like they want to help. They sound like they know what they're doing. And they sound caring in a way."
Not everyone is satisfied. Rosemary Scott comes back to these offices every time there's a new face, hoping someone can help knock a charge off her record.
"They're students," she said. "But they are trying to help. I'm trying a new one today. I'll see what he does."
Some of the inmates appear disappointed when Roger Groot, who heads the program, isn't there.
"But he looks at everything we do," said Moore, a third year student who plans to work for a judge in Norfolk when he graduates. "It's not like we're flying solo. They see someone like me, who looks 18, and they think professor Groot will be more aggressive."
The inmates who have been in the compound for a while, the ones who know everybody, look at the new students as rookies, Green said. "But they're all respectful, pleasant, and patient.
"They know we're not doing it for money," he said. "They really seem to trust us."
\ By the time the morning is over, the students have seen anywhere from 30 to 40 inmates.
The cases have been pretty typical: a mother with a sick child wants to let the judge know, hoping he'll be sympathetic. Another wants a temporary custody agreement drawn up so her friend can better discipline her child.
At 12:30, the students stack up their folders. At home later, they will read over transcripts, looking for errors.
And now, as they drive back to school, past the Big Wheel family restaurant where they sometimes stop for lunch, past what there is of Alderson, past the Gotta Stop Food Mart, they talk about their cases, preparing for a debriefing with Groot.
The chairs in the Alderson Center are made from a bright orange fabric, a far cry from the plush leather in some law offices. But Groot, dressed in yellow suspenders, round specs, close-cropped hair, looks like he could be a part of some high-powered firm.
He meets with the students before they leave for Alderson, around 7 a.m. And he is here at 3, when they return.
He guides them, lets them do some of the problem solving and steers them in the right direction, they say.
A few weeks ago, Joe Hayes, a student from Michigan, agreed to file a tax return for his client.
"Um," he told his professor, "I don't know anything about tax returns."
Groot just smiled. "It's time you learned."
But there are certain things you have to be careful about if you're helping an inmate prepare a tax return, especially one who's in on drug charges.
"Drug money is still income," Groot said. "You have to pay your taxes. Same goes for embezzled money. Really."
When the debriefing is over, so is the work day. The next Thursday - every Thursday but Thanksgiving - a group of students will return to their prison, armed with classroom experience.
The classroom is OK; It teaches you theory, Andrews said. "But it can't teach you how to deal with people. This does."
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.