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In the latest edition of your great magazine there was a fine letter of appreciation from Corban A. Klug ’04 for his 2006 VLFP (Virginia Loan Forgiveness Program) disbursement.

I recently received a letter from DaLesia Boyd, Class of 2006, thanking me on behalf of my class— ’37—for our scholarship, and stating “the legacy of each of the class members will live on through our work within the legal community and our services to others.”

Such letters make our efforts worthwhile.

Respectfully yours,
William G. File, Jr. ’37

I would like to say how delighted I was by the spring 2006 edition of the UVA Lawyer that focused on public service. I am the executive director of the Mississippi Delta Grassroots Caucus, a nonprofit that fights poverty and the legacy of Jim Crow in the Greater Delta Region, stretching from southern Illinois down to New Orleans. Formerly I was a White House appointee in the Clinton administration working on anti-poverty issues, after doing a judicial clerkship in the federal court in Arkansas in 1993-94. I am also the author of J. William Fulbright and His Time, a biography of the late Senator Fulbright (with a foreword by President Clinton), and substantial portions of that book were written in seminars in my second and third years at UVA Law, and subsequently expanded when I was doing the judicial clerkship (talk about a heavy workload!)

I am based in Washington, D.C., although I spend substantial amounts of time each year in Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and other parts of the region. The Delta Grassroots Caucus lobbies Congress and the national executive branch to do more to fight poverty in the Delta, America’s most impoverished region. I am glad to see that the University of Virginia alumni and the Law School show such a strong interest in UVA Law grads who pursue careers in the public sector, nonprofits and careers in related fields. I will never get rich in this line of work, but it is deeply rewarding.

We have been very depressed by the impact of Hurricane Katrina. I personally volunteered to work down there, to practice what I preach, and we have generated many hours of volunteer work, in addition to efforts to reform FEMA. We work on a variety of issues regarding poverty in the region.

I have been very busy but would like to reconnect better with the UVA Law community, and any suggestions you may have on how I might do that would be great. If there are other contacts in the alumni network or the law school that would be good for me to get in touch with, that would be great.

Thanks—
Lee Powell ’93