Weekly Edition

Letter to the Editor

Suffolk PD pays tribute to the late Jay Underwood

Dear Editor:

John H. “Jay” Underwood II, founding Public Defender for the City of Portsmouth, recently lost an 18-month battle to pancreatic cancer, a fight he took on as strongly as he took on prosecutors seeking to convict his clients. (See obituary, Virginia Lawyers Weekly, March 10, 2008).

Jay opened the Portsmouth Public Defender’s Office in 1986 with just himself and one secretary. Some might say his greatest professional legacy is the current public defender office which has grown and thrived under his leadership, or the many alumni lawyers who moved on to other practice endeavors. From its humble roots with one lawyer and a minimal support staff, the Portsmouth Public Defender’s Office now consists of 16 lawyers. Alumni of Jay’s office went on to become public defenders for other PD offices, and one alumnus, who got her start representing juvenile clients in Portsmouth, is now a Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court Judge.

While those accomplishments reflect well on Jay, perhaps his greatest legacy is incalculable, but ever present. We who still battle on the good fight with Jay’s example to guide us see his legacy around Portsmouth. We see it in the auto mechanics who fix our cars, the cashiers in our grocery stores, the construction workers on the job site. In short, we see Jay’s legacy in the faces of ordinary people who’ve made mistakes in their lives, done bad things in their lives, but put those things behind them to go on to lead productive law-abiding lives.

In 2001, Jay was instrumental in working with judges of the Portsmouth Circuit Court in founding the Portsmouth Drug Treatment Court, a sentencing and treatment alternative for non-violent offenders with substance abuse problems. Like many cities in America, Portsmouth struggles with far too many of its citizens addicted to crack cocaine and heroin. Jay’s clients weren’t addicts, they were people with addictions. A semantic distinction, but one Jay impressed upon all of the lawyers in his office. He expected and demanded that we all treat our clients with utmost respect. Jay’s theory was that at that stage in their lives, we might be the only person who addressed that client by sir or ma’am. At a drug court graduation in the summer of 2007, Portsmouth Circuit Judge Johnny E. Morrison referred to that class of graduates as “living, breathing miracles” for how they had turned their lives around from drugs and addiction. Jay Underwood was involved in nearly 100 of those human miracles over the later years of his career. In 2007, Jay was awarded the Unsung Hero Award by the Portsmouth Drug Treatment Court and the Portsmouth Circuit Court for his years of contribution to and advocacy for the drug court program.

Two other areas of Jay’s practice which set him apart were his special rapport with mentally ill clients, and the satisfaction he took in mentoring and training new lawyers. Jay taught us you could be tough as nails and still civil, agreeable without conceding anything, and most importantly, compassionate in dealing with clients without sacrificing professional detachment.
In his last 18 months in practice when Jay was juggling the demands of work and the simple time demands of cancer treatments, he steadfastedly clung to those remaining few clients who had been found not guilty by reason of insanity and insisted upon them representing them in their annual commitment review hearings.

On behalf of all of us who were privileged to work with Jay over the years, we bid a respectful and admiring farewell.

Jim Grandfield
Public Defender
City of Suffolk

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