a paragraph on “Don’t ever let school get in the way of
your education.”
Answers
So back to the Tacoma pro bono program….between 2002 and 2010 we've moved from helping 200 clients annually to opening more than 2,000 cases per year, from one clinical advice program to seven. We have developed family law and landlord-tenant information published on the program's website (www.tacomaprobono.org) which last year was viewed by more than 500,000 people. Our budget has quadrupled, as has the number of active volunteers working through our program. We've moved from a too-small-for-more-than-one-person subterranean room to a 4-office suite co-located with the Tacoma offices of our legal services colleagues Northwest Justice Project and TeamChild.
I learned through that development process that getting something done in this kind of work requires a surprisingly wide variety of skills and human experience, along with the ability to wear many hats at all times. What distinguished this particular job for me from other positions with similar challenges, though, was realizing a deep need to find the best and most powerful things in myself and use them to make the program better, because – literally -- the lives of so many people depended upon us.
The need for civil legal services for people who couldn't afford to hire an attorney was something I'd been peripherally aware of while working in law firms and law schools. I knew there was government-supported legal aid out there. I knew there were accessible personal injury firms dedicated to recovering damages for regular people who had been harmed by corporate crimes and professional negligence. I supported clinical programs in the law schools, where I first saw the great need for help with family and immigration issues. I learned about inspiring programs like the Innocence Project and Defender Association, patiently and passionately working to find real justice in the criminal justice system. What I didn't know was that the existing civil legal aid system was to be dismantled during the 1990's, while the need for services – and the complexity of laws and procedures – continued to increase. I came face-to-face with that disaster when I took this job.
The need is overwhelming. The Civil Legal Needs Study done for the Supreme Court in 2006 told us that 85% of low-income people who need help with civil legal issues affecting basic human needs don't get any help at all.People who need and don't get help will live with the consequences, which can far too easily become life or death situations – returning to an abusive relationship because you don't have the money to get a divorce; becoming homeless because you lose your job, can't pay the rent, can't get help to respond to an eviction summons and can't rent another place because of the eviction on your record; losing your driver's license and ability to find a job because you were laid off, owe back child support and don't know how to get it modified; etc., etc. Perhaps the reason being confronted with this kind of reality is so crushing, is the quickly reached understanding that these things could easily happen to ME – and to anyone who doesn't have the resources to find a way to negotiate a civil legal system which does not reach out to help those who are drawn into it, but in fact maintains a protective and inscrutable public face. Many years ago, my family was named a defendant in a civil lawsuit over a property issue in Seattle (in which we eventually prevailed pro se). I will never forget the clerk in the King County Courthouse, when I asked him into which unlabeled box on the counter I should put my paperwork, saying, "I can't give legal advice." Legal advice? I just want to know which one is the 'in' box! As I learned later, that answer, if given, would have been legal advice. Something as simple as knowing where to go in the courthouse and who to call for help may be all the 'legal advice' someone working through a civil case on their own may need to move confidently from one step to the next.