This is the year.

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor" ( Desmond Tutu) As I'm nearing the end of my summer, many people have been asking what I want to do after I graduate. Here are my thoughts.  I came to law school to learn new tools to address the structural causes of poverty, inequality, and injustice. I have been deeply committed to working on these issues both domestically and internationally throughout my life, and continuously strive to learn ways of engaging with the work I care most about in more effective, creative, and sustainable ways. Many paths converged to bring me to the realization that I wanted to practice as a “movement lawyer,” and more specifically, as a movement lawyer supporting immigrant and low-income African American community empowerment. My experiences in international human rights work, both in Uganda and Myanmar, illuminated the variety of roles lawyers can play – as representatives, advocates...

I just finished my first week in New Orleans and wanted to reflect a little and share my initial impressions about this city. I'd never been here before so I've tried to experience as much of it as I can this first week. I'm spending this part of my summer working at the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice - a really incredible set of grassroots organizations and team of lawyers. Outside of work, I've biked around much of the city, attended organizing meetings, hung out in Mid-town, the French Quarter, and Frenchmen St., and today went on a tour of the city led by STAND (a grassroots organization of low-income residents and workers in New Orleans).   New Orleans is a beautiful, but also incredibly unjust city. I use the word unjust as opposed to unequal because there are so many barriers stacked against the majority of the residents here that the problems run so much deeper than inequality. Just to throw out a few numbers: 52% of the bl...

Hello from New York -  I'm on my way back from visiting "home" for the weekend - in whatever sense that word continues to hold. As I spend this summer trying to figure out where I'd like to go after law school, the concept of "home" seems nebulous. I have now come to know so many wonderful people all over Canada, the United States, and the rest of the world that many places hold different conceptions of home for me. In a sense, moving around every few months and spending time across borders has kept me in a constant state of displacement. One way I cope is by writing - both to keep in touch, and to keep grounded.  As I near the end of my time in New York, I thought this was as good a time as ever to reflect - reflect on New York City and the prospect of working for social change here and well as the general nature of this work.  I generally love the work I do. I've loved it since I realized that the most effective way I could promote the cha...

The way we frame issues can make all the difference. A woman is being evicted from her property. She is a single mother and has 5 young children. She lives in subsidized housing. She is facing imminent eviction because her son, who no longer lives with her, was caught engaging in drug-related activity near the property. By the letter of the law, she breached the terms of her lease, and the eviction is legal. The landlord’s attorneys argue that the government should not be providing housing to criminals, to those in the population who do not want to follow the rules. The court rules against the woman. The judgment against her means that she has lost all future ability to live in subsidized housing, and her family may soon be homeless. How do we justify stories like this? How do we accept the legitimacy of the law when it can have such perverse effects at an individual human level? One way is through framing. When we place blame on individuals we are more likely to suppo...