WPDN partner Stuart Day was recently re-elected as the President of Equal Justice Wyoming.
Equal Justice Wyoming is a state-funded civil legal services program working with Wyoming legal aid providers and community organizations to help people with limited income find help for their legal problems. This program was created about 5 years ago as a way to “give back” to the community and create opportunities for people who may not otherwise have them. Stuart Day was recently re-elected as the President of Equal Justice Wyoming and it is an honor that cannot be understated.
“[Wyoming Legislature] didn’t have any funding for civil legal aid,” Day stated. “If you have a criminal matter, an attorney is appointed for you, but if you have civil matters, that’s not the case. So, we worked to lobby the legislature to create an add on to criminal citations of $10 each that would fund an organization to raise funds to provide civil legal aid.”
Equal Justice Wyoming provides just that- equal justice. Through various grants and other forms of fundraising, this non-profit organization can provide legal aid to countless individuals who may not have otherwise had representation.
Mr. Day was elected to a 2nd term as the President of Equal Justice and it’s a position that he takes very seriously.
“I had been part of the State of Wyoming Bar Foundation for a number of years before [the creation of Equal Justice Wyoming],” he said. Part of the Bar Foundation’s job was to do [what EJW does] on a much more limited scale because there was less money available and involved.
“With Equal justice, Wyoming, I was involved in the lobbying to create the funding source and I started off on the initial board and have been there ever since. Now we grant typically a little over a million dollars a year to various entities for those civil legal aid projects.”
Acting as a precursor to Equal Justice Wyoming is the Wyoming Access to Justice Commission- an organization that Mr. Day was also recently reappointed to for another term.
Mr. Day stated that the Wyoming Access to Justice Commission was created “as a way to kind of try and identify issues regarding [citizens’] access to justice. The Constitution talks about everybody having access to it and a number of judges have said justice delayed is really justice denied. So that was created as an umbrella organization to try and identify issues to help remind all citizens of Wyoming with access to the courts.”
Equal Justice Wyoming, as well as the Wyoming Access to Justice Commission, relies on several individuals that ensure its success. Mr. Day is proud to offer his skills and experience to a team dedicated to bringing equal justice to the community.