Almost four years ago as an undergraduate, I had the incredible opportunity to fulfill a long-standing dream I had since high school: to study for a year at the London School of Economics (LSE). In fact, the opportunity to spend a year at LSE was one of the primary reasons I chose to attend Northwestern for my undergrad studies. That dream almost did not turn into reality, but I made it happen, and soon enough I was off to spend a year in the UK. This may sound cliche, but it was a life-changing experience. Not only because London was an incredible city with so many cultural offerings; not only because of the stimulating educational experience learning about development economics, political theory, and economic history from one of the best economics schools in the world; not only because of the wonderfully diverse, brilliant, creative fellow students I met who taught me so much; but also because of what I learned about myself and my passions.

In the London Eye, fulfilling my first dream all those years ago!

London was my dream opportunity, and it led me to my next dream – one which I am finally beginning to realize today.

While I was in the UK, I took a trip with the International Criminal Court Student Network to the ICC in the Hague. We met with the Chief Prosecutor and officials from the Special Court for Sierra Leone; we sat in on the trial of Thomas Lubanga. Watching a video played in court of Thomas Lubanga brainwashing child soldiers — and then seeing the man himself sitting before our eyes — was quite an unbelievable experience.  That week we did a whole lot of debating about international justice and we all came away impacted in some way. I left inspired, with budding ideas for my senior thesis — but also with a nagging feeling that something was missing.

Posing in front of the ICC, in the Hague!

Soon enough, I found this missing piece. I stumbled across International Bridges to Justice (IBJ), a non-profit that was training criminal defense lawyers to provide critically needed legal aid to people accused of a crime and languishing behind bars in Cambodia, China, India, Rwanda, and Burundi. I realized then what was lacking: while we were providing high quality legal services to perpetrators of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity, ordinary people from the same countries were not getting the legal assistance they deserved. I applied for an internship with IBJ and moved to Geneva for the summer to work with them.

That summer, I fell in love with this seemingly unmet need, this clear injustice I saw before me. The rich & powerful were provided with excellent legal counsel (even after committing the most heinous atrocities), but the poor were most often not (even for just stealing a piece of bread– or being a rape survivor). This concept had previously been clear to me in my classes on law & society in the U.S., but I only then started realizing how this was amplified — and sadly true — on a global scale.

I began delving into the ideas of legal empowerment, the growing movement to provide high-quality legal services to people across Africa, Asia and Latin America. I began nurturing the beginnings of a new dream — the vision of working with non-profits and organizations to strengthen the rule of law in emerging legal systems, to work to expand access to compassionate lawyers & advocates for the poor. The dream of spending time abroad to do this work. The dream of becoming a lawyer to provide representation myself.

It’s taken many years, innumerable tears of frustration, many moments of confusion and internal debate, and many late nights hitting the books, but I am finally on my way to my transforming these dreams into reality.

More than a year ago, I started reading about BRAC and was amazed by the extent of their programmes, and particularly by the unique method of training shebikas or ‘barefoot lawyers’ – women who help identify and take action on legal cases (especially related to violence against women) in their own communities, thus acting as leaders and helping to bring critical assistance to survivors of violence. BRAC has the largest NGO-led legal aid program in the world, and I was inspired by their model and their grounding in the community despite (or perhaps because of) their size.

BRAC's Human Rights and Legal Education classes help raise awareness of basic human rights among women in Bangladesh

This summer, I finally have the chance to work on my dream project – doing research on legal empowerment with BRAC’s Human Rights & Legal Services program in Dhaka.

And this fall, I will finally be starting at my absolute dream law school.

I can’t say I deserve this, any of this. All too many around the world are smarter than me, more hardworking than me, more kind and compassionate than me, but have not been given the same opportunities to follow their dreams due to poverty, disability, violence, chance or circumstance.

I can’t say I deserve this. But I can say that I am thankful, and eternally grateful for the chance to chase these dreams.
To finally begin turning them into reality.

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International development work is often difficult, exhausting, and isolating. Many people who seek to serve and live abroad often become burned out by the overwhelming nature of their work. In isolated places, often the only people you can turn to for support are your boss or your partner. For various reasons, neither of these are a good choice.

However, we know that the support of a peer is an easy and effective way to reduce stress, burnout and, just as importantly, have access to someone to bounce ideas off.

This is why we, at whydev.org, have decided to build an online platform where international aid volunteers and workers can connect and discuss their challenges and experiences, allowing them the opportunity to support others across the globe who are also making a difference. Knowing that the world of aid and development is under-resourced as is, we think our idea fits well. This service does not require more resources to be added to the sector (in the form of professional mentors, coaches or counselors), but rather, builds on existing resources that are not connected.

We would like to think that it’s the first of its kind – an international support network for isolated aid workers.

Luckily, we’re not the only ones who think this is a good idea. Since asking for expressions of interest earlier this year, we’ve had over 320 people sign up to our pilot program. This is great news for everyone involved, because the larger the pool, the more likely we’ll be able to achieve a good match.

One international aid worker said, “I feel isolated, uncertain and a little forlorn about finding my way into development-related work, and would like to have someone to share my experience with, who is perhaps also experiencing the same thing.”

It is perspectives like this that make us want to keep working towards creating this platform. But, this is where we need your help. We’ve launched a crowdfunding campaign over on StartSomeGood where people can chip in amounts of money, small or large, to help us get this project going. If you are reading this post, chances are you’re either working, studying or are at least interested in aid and development. Therefore, you’re probably the right demographic to understand the difficulties that aid workers can face across the globe.

Jennifer Lentfer, of How Matters, writes that having self-awareness of your own qualities and needs is crucial in becoming an effective aid worker. If you want to help us to build a future that supports the needs of aid workers across the globe, then this may be a worthwhile campaign for you.

If you are a frequent reader of Journeys towards Justice, then you would be familiar with Akhila talking about the need for sustainability, no doubt. So, just how sustainable is your funding? Good question! Once the platform is built, we think that we can keep the service running by adding in a tiered system of participation, so that it is self-sustainable.

Our vision is that peer coaching should always be accessible at no cost, as we promised right from the start. That option will remain, and people will still be able to be linked up to suitable peer coaches around the world at no charge. However, we think that people may also be willing to pay a small amount of money to get a value-added service. As such, we’ll be adding in different levels of participation so that those who are willing to pay a little extra will get a little more out of it. Whatever we make from this can then be fed back into the project to account for running costs. That’s why seed funding is so vital for us – the major outlay is not running the program, but getting it off the ground.

We’d appreciate it if you would consider donating whatever you can to our StartSomeGood campaign here, and spreading the word far and wide about what we’re trying to achieve.

If you have any questions at all about our campaign, please do not hesitate to contact either Brendan or myself. We’d be more than happy to answer any questions.

For the final word on the topic, here is Brendan, speaking from Ghana:

Click here to view the embedded video.

About the Author

Weh Yeoh is a current job-seeker based in Cambodia. He is a professionally trained physiotherapist who has completed a MA in Development Studies at the University of New South Wales. With experience in the NGO sector both in Australia and in China, with Handicap International, he hopes to combine his interest in development and passion for visiting far-flung destinations in the future. You can view his LinkedIn here and follow him on Twitter here.

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3. Beyond the Boardroom: Knowing When You’re Ready for a Nonprofit Path (Guest post by J. Jacobs)

Most of my biggest accomplishments and most enjoyable moments have been things I’ve done for free.

I wasn’t paid to start volunteering with Justice for All Afghanistan, to spend hours of my free time every week to help them raise funds for their programs. As a volunteer, I put my time towards what I believed in. I wasn’t held to expectations or forced into a role I disliked. I was able to fully utilize my skills, build on my strengths, make suggestions, and say ‘no’ as needed. In the past two years, we have raised enough funding to open legal aid centers in two new provinces, train hundreds of women on their legal rights, and conduct an advocacy program to push for changes to the Violence Against Women act in Afghanistan. I was only able to be a part of this by leveraging the power of free.

I’m not paid to write. To write reams of poetry that sit inside my bedside drawer (okay, inside a special folder on my computer, but I digress…). To tweet. To write this blog. I’ve tried putting ads on this blog, but trying to monetize it made me deeply uncomfortable. I realized that this blog was a labor of my love, and I wanted to keep it free - for both writer and reader. Having this space as an outlet has made me a better writer, allowed me to forge so many meaningful connections, and grow as a person by forcing me to have opinions and defend them. Can’t put a price on that.

Seth Godin has noted, very aptly:

At zero, at the place where no money changes hands, we see volunteer labor and free exchange. In these situations, sometimes we see extraordinary effort, the stuff that wins Nobel prizes. Just about every great, brave or beautiful thing in our culture was created by someone who didn’t do it for money. We see the local volunteer putting in insane hours even though no one is watching. We hear the magical song or read the amazing poem that no one got paid to write. And sometimes, though, we see very little, just a trolling comment or a half-hearted bit of commentary. Remove money from the story and we’re in a whole new category.

Here’s a taste of the amazing: Nilofer Merchant recently pointed out that a game called Fold It, “allows any individual to work with sequencing amino acids to figure out how that protein is going to fold. This particular work is very important to research and medicine, and is usually conducted by scientists with PhDs.” But after looking through their data, Fold It found that the best protein folder in the world was not a scientist or a PhD. It was a woman who was an executive assistant by day, and folded proteins for fun at night. And she was the best in the world at something that normally required an advanced degree. As Merchant notes:

This individual, driven by her own skills and passions, is not being assigned the work, nor being vetted to do the work, but is simply doing the work.

When you do something for free, you’re being driven by your heart, your passion, and not the paycheck at the end. When money enters the equation, however, something is lost. You suddenly feel obligation. If you write a blog post out of your interest, that’s one thing. But if you’re paid by the number of hits/comments/blog posts you churn out? It starts to feel like a job, and you start to lose some of the love for the work. You feel forced to do it; your choice is eradicated.

And this is the dilemma, isn’t it? At the end of the day, we all do need that paycheck to survive, to care for ourselves and our loved ones. We can’t dedicate our lives to doing things for free. At some point, money needs to enter the equation. Perhaps one solution for fostering better workers is for companies and non-profits alike to make jobs more like volunteer positions. Add some choice and independence back into the equation. If you really like a particular type of work that is your strength, jump in. If you really hate a task you’re assigned to, feel free to speak up — perhaps someone else enjoys those tasks and is willing to exchange. If you have an idea that excites you, tell us. Google allows employees to spend 20% of their work time pursuing personal projects that speak to their passions, interests, and innovative ideas. By reducing obligation and increasing choice, perhaps work can be made all the more fun. Like free.

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Often, people have been in prison for up to 10 years (!) without ever having met a lawyer or seen the inside of a courtroom. On top of this, prison conditions in many countries are so wretched that many prisoners – convicted and pre-trial alike – never get out. Tuberculosis, malaria, and other infectious diseases, combined with poor sanitation and lack of space in many cases leads to illness or death. The number of lawyers in several countries is grossly inadequate compared to the need for legal services. So, it is clear why states must begin instituting public defense systems to ensure those charged with a crime can be adequately represented.

Enter the UN Principles and Guidelines on Access to Legal Aid in Criminal Justice Systems, adopted by the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice.  This is the first international instrument on legal aid, so it is truly groundbreaking. According to a great blog post by the Open Society Institute:

The genesis of this resolution was the 2004 Lilongwe Declaration on Accessing Legal Aid in the Criminal Justice System in Africa. In 2007 ECOSOC called on the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to develop a global instrument. Since 2009 groups of experts, from all continents, including the Open Society Justice Initiative, have gathered several times in Vienna to draw together best practices and develop a draft that was reviewed by the Member States in 2011. The result is a practical document that traces the criminal justice system from the pretrial to post-trial stage and highlights a number of important components:

• Prompt access to legal aid at all stages of the criminal justice process.
• The involvement of a diversity of legal aid providers including lawyers, university legal clinicians and paralegals.
• The development of a nationwide legal aid system that is sufficiently staffed and resourced.

Namati also has a good overview. This is deeply exciting and inspiring news: the world is finally beginning to recognize the importance of basic legal services for the poor. Of course, now begins the hard work of implementation, but this instrument can provide a basic foundation and blueprint from which governments and civil society groups can start. And with an eye to legal aid issues related to gender: I also hope we can eventually move towards similar resolutions relating to legal services for survivors of gender-based violence as well as asylum seekers, populations who are also in dire need of basic legal services, and who are frequently in life and death situations to boot.

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• So you’re helping people with no skills…? Daniela Papi nicely destroys the rhetoric about poor people having no skills.
• Marianne Elliott has a beautiful series of posts chronicling her current journeys, re-visiting Afghanistan.
• A beautiful piece of writing by Jhumpa Lahiri, on writing, reading and her Indian identity growing up.
• The UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice has just adopted at a meeting in Vienna a ground-breaking resolution on “access to legal aid in criminal justice systems”. The OSI has a great post on it. I am so excited about this!
• Study Shows ‘Executive Mean Girls’ Are Keeping The Glass Ceiling Intact – Very depressing, but unfortunately seems grounded in some truth.
• India is embarking on a truly ambitious national identification scheme. Very exciting and I can’t wait to follow this program’s progress!
• Sarah Pierce analyzes the proposed version of the VAWA bill by House Republicans, which removes the ‘controversial’ updates included in the version of the bill that passed through Senate, and identifies important flaws. Contact your state representatives and let them know what version of the bill you support & want passed!
• Are export processing zones the new sweatshops, or drivers of development? A great Guardian article exposes some of the potential downsides of economic growth and development.
• Fact Sheet on the U.S. & Afghanistan’s newly signed Strategic Agreement. Big news that heralds the end of the Afghan war.
• Have you read “Why do they hate us?” by Mona el Tahawy? In my opinion the piece tried to simplify the whole gender equity debate into the fact that “men hate women” across the Arab world, but I feel that is an overgeneralization, not fully true, and does not include the historical context as to gender inequality. Not to mention, it reeks of orientalism.
• How not to write about Africa, by Laura Seay @texasinafrica. Great article on why we need more & better coverage on Africa.
• And finally, a huge international justice story recently – Charles Taylor’s conviction by the Special Court for Sierra Leone. I used to be a huge int’l justice junkie, but am less so now. Still, can’t help but recognize this momentous decision. And is the conviction of Charles Taylor seen as double edged? Find out here.

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Pashtun poetry has long been a form of rebellion for Afghan women, belying the notion that they are submissive or defeated. Landai means “short, poisonous snake” in Pashto, a language spoken on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The word also refers to two-line folk poems that can be just as lethal. Funny, sexy, raging, tragic, landai are safe because they are collective. No single person writes a landai; a woman repeats one, shares one. It is hers and not hers. Although men do recite them, almost all are cast in the voices of women. “Landai belong to women,” Safia Siddiqi, a renowned Pashtun poet and former Afghan parliamentarian, said. “In Afghanistan, poetry is the women’s movement from the inside.”

[...] More recently, landai have taken on the Russian occupation, the hypocrisy of the Taliban and the American military presence. One landai that came into circulation during the Russian occupation is still uttered today: “May your airplane crash and may the pilot die/that you are pouring bombs on my beloved Afghanistan.”

Like most folk literature, landai can be sorrowful or bawdy. Imagine the Wife of Bath riding through the Himalayan foothills and uttering landai so ribald that they curled the toes of her fellow travelers. She might tease her rival: “Say hello to my sweetheart/If you are a farter [tizan, one who farts a lot], then I can fart louder than you.” She might make a cutting political joke: “Your black eyelashes are Israel/and my heart is Palestine under your attack.” She might utter an elegiac couplet: “My beloved gave his head for our country/I will sew his shroud with my hair.”

“A poem is a sword,” Saheera Sharif, Mirman Baheer’s founder, said. Sharif is not a poet but a member of Parliament from the province of Khost. Literature, she says, is a more effective battle for women’s rights than shouting at political rallies. “This is a different kind of struggle.”

The above excerpt is from an absolutely beautiful New York Times article, “Why Afghan Women Risk Death to Write Poetry,” by Eliza Griswold. I highly recommend a read; the article balances culture and women’s rights, made me laugh and cry, and moved my heart. Most importantly, Griswold did well by highlighting the talent, resilience, intelligence, and dry wit of Afghan women by portraying their words, their journeys, their decisions, their culture, their difficulties, and their writing. It’s time that Western media wrote more such stories to celebrate women and their spirit rather than portray them as oppressed, voiceless, and without agency. Yes, Afghan women are struggling. But they, too, have a voice. They, too, are a force to be reckoned with.

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When I got into the top law school of my choice back in December, I celebrated my accomplishment briefly — but within a couple of days, my mind started spinning into action. My thoughts started moving on to the ‘next big thing.’ I started thinking about planning a summer internship abroad prior to law school; then, my mind moved onto pondering fellowships to work internationally for a year, potential joint degree programs, and scholarships for law school. I started researching JD/MPP programs, LLM programs, fellowships to do an M.A. in human rights in the UK, opportunities to travel and do research in Asia…you name the opportunity, I had probably considered it (well, other than medical school – sorry Mom and Dad!).

I simply couldn’t live in the present and bask in the moment for too long. Even though I had just achieved something that I had worked towards for years, my mind had immediately moved on to the next thing I could achieve. While studying for the LSAT, I had imagined what it might be like to get into one of the top law schools: I’d be overjoyed, things would suddenly be perfect, I’d have achieved inner peace and be totally zen about life. But in reality, none of those things happened. I was thankful, joyful and thrilled. Yet I didn’t suddenly rest and relax. I kept worrying about the next accomplishment or life goal to tick off my list.

My dilemma is perfectly summed up by Gretchen Rubin over at The Happiness Project:

A common happiness hurdle is the arrival fallacy. We think that we’ll be happy once we arrive at some destination: a new job, a new apartment, a promotion, whatever. But often, arriving doesn’t make us as happy as we expect. [...]

Too often, I don’t take the time to experience the satisfaction that comes from finishing. I turn immediately to the next thing I need to do, or the next finish line I need to cross, without pausing for a little moment of triumph.

Instead of turning to the next finish line, we need to learn to immerse ourselves in the present. Life has to be more about the process, the journey — not just ticking off endless items off our life list. But it’s easier said than done. 

Since arriving in California about a week ago, I’ve found myself being far more present than ever before. It’s because I’m doing things I’m excited about: I’m getting to volunteer with the Global Fund for Women and Asylum Access. I’m also finally getting to spend time with the person I love. And of course, the weather is beautiful and I’m spending my free time exploring the bay area and going to Palo Alto, Lake Tahoe, and Sausalito on weekends. Life is full and enjoyable and pretty much perfect, so I don’t feel the urgent need to keep researching future options and possibilities. In fact, I don’t really want to leave.

For me, at least, I’ve come to realize that constantly plotting my next step comes out of not fully being happy where I am in the present moment. If I work towards a situation where I’m in the place I want to be in life, of course, I don’t need to satisfy myself by trying to cross the next finish line. But the challenge for me – and I suspect for you too – is enjoying the moment even when the moment isn’t picture perfect. For those times, Gretchen Rubin suggests taking a moment to step back and appreciating each of your accomplishments. I’ll add: spend a few minutes each day writing down three things you’re grateful for, and three things you enjoyed about the day. Take a few hours each week to simply do something you enjoy, regardless of how busy you are. Only then can we keep enjoying the process, and thus, enjoying life before it passes us by.

Are you enjoying the present, or constantly moving on to the next thing? How do you make sure to savor the current moment?

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What would you (yes, you) do if no one was watching?

Would you work in non-profits, in international development, in social entrepreneurship, in community-based NGOs around the world? Would you spend long hours every week furthering a cause you believing in, working on social justice movements?

Would you campaign, mobilize, organize, write, webdesign, and fundraise for social justice issues and organizations? Would you volunteer countless hours and spend your own money on behalf of non-profits you believe in? Would you write blog posts about development, human rights and aid?

Would you start non-profits that pioneer innovative approaches to age-old problems? Would you travel to work on international human rights, even if it meant less time with your family and friends?

What would you do if you received no recognition for this work?

Would you still do what you’re doing now?

I bring this up after many conversations & thoughts about power and privilege in the social justice field. With the advent of increasing numbers of organizations to fund social entrepreneurs such as Echoing Green and Unreasonable Institute, it has become somewhat fashionable to start your own NGO or push forward an innovative approach to solving social justice and human rights problems.

In many American universities, more traditional measures of success such as the Rhodes, Cambridge, and Marshall fellowships remain highly attractive opportunities for young people, many of whom gain recognition for their social justice initiatives through these prestigious scholarships.

I know that many young people genuinely feel a sense of duty and obligation, and their intentions in entering social justice and human rights work are genuine. However, I also question whether many of them — of us – are utilizing in some ways (however small) their public service activities as a method of also obtaining success and recognition. I wonder whether all of us would do the same work, with the same depth of commitment, if we closed off the possibility of achieving prestige and fame through such efforts.

I certainly don’t exclude myself from this category: daily, I question myself — am I making this choice in part because of my desire to obtain recognition or tell a compelling story about my life? Am I doing the right thing for the right reasons? Sadly, the answer does often makes me disappointed in myself; but the questioning process forces me to at least think more critically about the work I am doing, and why I am doing it.

Some of you might say that perhaps the motivation does not matter: only the results matter. But don’t motivations affect your results? I believe so: the desire to gain recognition, however subtle, can influence your steps. You might be more motivated to start your own non-profit rather than work as staff with an existing, effective organization that matches your vision. You might be more inclined to push yourself into the limelight, rather than a “local” staff member or Executive Director. You might feel the pressure to take a leadership role or create an innovative program, even in a situation where, perhaps, you’re not the best qualified to provide such direction.

Motivation does matter, and each decision made and step taken has the potential to change things for the better, or unfortunately, for the worse. Ultimately, we – privileged young people – must question ourselves and our motivations if we are to truly do good and to contribute to bettering, not harming, the world we live in.

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I loved this TED talk by Sherry Turkle on being connected, and yet, being alone. She talks about how we have become so used to texting, rather than talking, because having a face-to-face conversation is in real-time. Conversations can be messy and confusing; you might say the wrong thing. You can’t edit yourself to perfection, the way you can in email, texting, tweeting, or Facebook. Through technology, we can present a fake, edited, retouched, perfect version of ourselves. Not in real life.

We are afraid to be alone, so whenever we find ourselves with free moments we turn to our devices. But is this healthy, and is this real connection? Turkle argues that technology is no substitute for real life conversation, because human connection – the experience of truly understanding others – can only be found in the real world. And only through having such rich interactions with others can we reflect and learn more about ourselves.

I agree with her, and with elements of this fascinating Atlantic piece “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?“

Technology makes us unhappy through the evil of comparison. On Facebook, as Turkle observes, we edit our lives until they appear perfect from the outside. Fake as it may be, logging on to Facebook forces us to constantly confront the fact that everyone’s life seems perfect, except our own. Photos of exotic travels and families and happy pets and parties makes us feel like our own lives are sadly inadequate.

The people who experience loneliness on Facebook are lonely away from Facebook, too…on Facebook, as everywhere else, correlation is not causation. The popular kids are popular, and the lonely skulkers skulk alone. What does Facebook communicate, if not the impression of social bounty? Everybody else looks so happy on Facebook, with so many friends, that our own social networks feel emptier than ever in comparison.

Ultimately however, it is up to us. The article and Turkle’s talk both conclude that we have a choice. Facebook is not truly making us lonely; perhaps lonely people gravitate to Facebook. The way you use social media might simply reflect the type of person you are. Social media can be a fantastic tool if we use it as a way to connect with those we care about offline, to have face-to-face conversations with others. But if we reduce our interactions with those we love to spend time online, alone? If we move our lives online and give up the offline? That’s not healthy, but the good news is it’s within our control to change.

Turkle suggests: encourage conversation at the dinner table; set certain areas of your home and life as technology-free and conversation-full; set time aside for solitude. I’ll add: pick up the phone and call someone instead of sending a text; spend time with your family instead of on Facebook; and write in a journal rather than in a blog. I’m guilty of a bit too much social media time, and less real people time, and it’s a constant struggle of mine to change this around. But I know it’s a worthwhile struggle!

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Alexander examines the failure of civil rights organizations across the U.S. to really address the issue of mass incarceration, and in doing so, she identifies some of the biggest problems that I too have noticed in the modern day civil rights movement. She helped me better articulate a lot of my own experiences and observations into words.

With all deliberate speed, civil rights organizations became “professionalized” and increasingly disconnected from the communities they claimed to represent. Legal scholar and former NAACP Legal Defense Fund lawyer Derrick Bell was among the first to critique this phenomenon, arguing in a 1976 Yale Law Journal article that civil rights lawyers were pursuing their own agendas in school desegregation cases even when they conflicted with their clients’ expressed desires. Two decades later, former NAACP Legal Defense Fund lawyer and current Harvard Law School professor Lani Guinier published a memoir in which she acknowledged that, “by the early 1990s, [civil rights] litigators like me had become like the Washington insiders we were so suspicious of…We reflexively distanced ourselves from the very people on whose behalf we brought the cases in the first place.”…Instead of a moral crusade, the movement became an almost purely legal crusade. Civil rights advocates pursued their own agendas as unelected representatives of communities defined by race and displayed considerable skill navigating courtrooms and halls of power across America.

This shift is truly noticeable today, and unfortunately, many organizations with the goal of promoting civil rights have lost much of the compassionate and community-oriented approaches that defined this movement in the first place. Whatever happened to truly being part of the community, and pursuing whatever approaches needed to bring the change demanded by those who are struggling?  Whatever happened to putting clients first, above all else?

As Lani Guinier wrote in her excellent memoir “Lift Every Voice: Turning a Civil Rights Setback into a New Vision of Social Justice” (which I am yet to read, by the way):

In charge, we channeled a passion for change into legal negotiations and lawsuits. We defined the issues in terms of developing legal doctrine and establishing legal precedent; our clients became important, but secondary, players in a formal arena that required lawyers to translate lay claims into technical speech. We then disembodied the plaintiffs’ claims in judicially manageable or judicially enforceable terms, unenforceable without more lawyers….As lawyers and national pundits became more prominent than clients or citizens, we isolated ourselves from the people who were our anchor and on whose behalf we had labored.

Finally, Alexander concludes by writing that the grassroots movement for civil rights had largely turned into a legal campaign, and “lawyers have a tendency to identify and concentrate on problems they know how to solve — i.e., problems that can be solved through litigation.” Unfortunately, many civil rights challenges require different approaches that expand beyond litigation. Alexander’s conclusion mirrors mine, and I have a stronger belief after my own experiences that many social justice issues cannot be solved with simply a legal approach. Ultimately, civil rights organizations must find ways to re-connect with the community they claim to represent. Unless organizations become (1) truly grounded in the communities we purport to serve, (2) fully client centered, and (3) willing to do whatever it takes [whether this fits into a legal approach or not], civil rights will not be achieved in this country.

Related posts:

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