The Face of Public Interest Law
For some lawyers, providing legal
services to unrepresented or underrepresented individuals or groups is
exactly the kind of legal work they always wanted to do.
Sidebar
By Dianne Molvig
few years ago Madison attorney Bob Peterson appeared before the State
Bar's Board of Governors to advocate for creating a new Bar section for
public interest lawyers. A debate ensued. Some board members questioned
whether a new section was warranted. Others pointed out that public
interest attorneys already were members of other Bar sections in their
specific areas of practice. And one attorney posed a question to
Peterson that perhaps was on the minds of many in the room: "Just what
is public interest law, anyway?"
"The room burst into laughter," Peterson recalls. "My attempt to
present a definition was halted in its tracks."
Bob Peterson, chair of the State Bar's newly created Public
Interest Law Section, established and is executive director of ABC for
Health Inc., a nonprofit public interest law firm based in Madison that
focuses on health care access issues, such as appealing insurance or HMO
claim denials, for families across the state.
Another board member piped up, chiding his colleague, "It's not what
you do!"
Public interest law does have a certain "you know it when you see it"
- or don't see it - element to it, Peterson acknowledges. Nevertheless,
he's willing to take a stab at defining it. "I think it's the legal
representation of unrepresented and underrepresented groups and
individuals," he says. "It's for that part of society that generally has
a difficult time getting the services of an attorney."
Peterson ultimately prevailed in winning Board of Governors' support
for creation of a Bar committee, which later became the Public Interest Law Section. Peterson is
section chair. Among his fellow section members are law students and
attorneys who work in diverse settings: government offices, legal
services agencies, other nonprofit advocacy organizations, and private
practice. Their fields of practice are even more diverse: elder law,
consumer law, family law, environmental law, Indian law, public defender
work, and more.
Working for agencies that rely upon government funding, grant
support, and what little fees clients may be able to pay usually
translates into salaries that are at the low end of the spectrum.
Lawyers who choose careers in public interest law know they won't
realize the earning potential of their colleagues in traditional law
firms. What motivates them to head down this career path? What are the
drawbacks and rewards? What advice would they offer to others
considering public interest law as a career? Here several attorneys
present answers to such questions.
Opting for a different pace
Eleven years ago, Bob Peterson wrote a short story that opened with a
description of lemmings racing toward a cliff's edge. It was no
coincidence that Peterson also was nearing his law school graduation. He
looked around him and saw his classmates driven by a competitive frenzy.
"But no one knew where they were going," he says.
Despite the peer pressures and the usual
now-what-are-you-going-to-do-with-your-law-degree questions asked by
relatives and friends at graduation ceremonies, Peterson decided to step
back and out. He bought a one-way ticket to Europe, where he traveled
for six months, living out of a backpack and a tent - and thinking about
what to do next. "I ended up in London," Peterson says, "and wrote a
letter to a friend and law school classmate, saying if I could be a
staff attorney at the Center for Public Representation, I'd be happy."
While in law school, he had worked at CPR in a clinical program
assessing the medical needs of the rural uninsured in Polk and Barron
counties.
"I think public interest law is the legal representation of
unrepresented and underrepresented groups and individuals. It's time for
that part of society that generally has a difficult time getting the
services of an attorney." -- Bob Peterson
He also knew job openings at CPR were infrequent. When he got back to
Wisconsin, he took a job delivering plants. Many a time on his delivery
routes he walked through the doors of law firms, wondering if law would
ever be his career. His resolve to wait for the right job was being
tested.
Then one day Peterson stopped by CPR to say hello. Director Louise
Trubek greeted him with the news that CPR had just received a grant to
follow up on the project he'd begun as a law student. She encouraged
Peterson to apply for the job; he eventually was hired. "I've never felt
such a sense of fate," he says. "The pieces just fell into place. I tell
that story to law students who are discouraged, because what I learned
is to maintain your passion and be patient. Wait for your door to open.
If you hang in there, it will."
Today, Peterson is executive director of ABC for Health Inc., a
nonprofit public interest law firm based in Madison, which he
established five years ago as a spinoff of his work at CPR. His agency
focuses on health care access issues, such as appealing insurance or HMO
claim denials, for families across the state. "We pulled together this
organization for a lot less than people thought it would cost," he says.
"I had contacts with funding sources, and I used some of the
resourcefulness I learned living out of a tent and a backpack."
He is, he says, where he belongs. "I have down times when I feel
discouraged," he admits, "such as when you work hard on a grant and get
notice it wasn't funded. But then you have a day when you represent a
client before a hearing with an insurance company. The client needs a
transplant, and later you get a call from the client saying the
insurance company is going to cover it. You've changed that person's
life. That's very rewarding."
Public Interest Law Groups
Changing people's lives for the better is one of the key rewards
Jennelle Joset cites about her job. She knew she wanted to be a public
interest attorney before she entered law school. "I saw that people who
can't afford attorneys very often don't get justice," she says. "But
everyone is entitled to the same justice."
After finishing law school three years ago, Joset became staff
attorney for the Center Against Domestic and Sexual Abuse in Superior.
"The pay is low," she says, "but we don't have the hectic rat race of a
large law firm. It's almost like a family atmosphere here. It's a very
supportive environment."
The job does, however, bring a harried tempo of its own. Joset and a
paralegal make up the entire legal team, representing clients in four
counties. The agency has a long waiting list. While there's no push to
accrue billable hours as in a private firm, the pressure is still on.
"You have to spend this many hours because all these people need
services," Joset explains. "And you're the only one here to serve them.
So it's hectic in a different way."
What's more, the work itself is draining: dealing with cases of
domestic violence, child abuse, and sexual assault. "It's the worst of
the bad," Joset notes. "But we have a relaxed work environment, which
helps. And as an agency, we spend time taking care of ourselves. We do a
lot of stress management and healing-type things." Yoga, massage,
retreats, and ample vacation allowances are some of the wellness
techniques Joset and other staff use to fend off burnout.
Besides the supportive work environment, Joset points to another key
benefit of her job. "I've been running the legal program here since I
started," she notes. "It's experience you wouldn't get in a large firm
in your first two years out of law school. You'd be buried in the
library doing somebody else's research. You wouldn't see clients or a
courtroom. So this is great experience."
Law partners Carol J. Brown Biermeier (right) and Alysia E.
La Counte (left) formed the Madison private practice firm of Brown &
La Counte, which exclusively practices Indian law. Jennifer Wertkin
(center) works with the firm's public interest clients and holds a
Judicare contract to serve members of the Ho Chunk Nation in Dane and
Sauk counties.
Plus, she knows she's giving clients what they couldn't get anywhere
else. "It's very difficult in our system to file an action (against an
abuser) without an attorney," Joset says. "When you can't afford to hire
an attorney, and you don't qualify for legal aid, you're left with no
options. You're stuck in a relationship that is emotionally, verbally,
physically, or sexually abusive with no way out."
The gratification for Joset is helping people find a way out. She
thinks about one of her recent clients, a severely physically disabled
woman who was regularly beaten by her husband. So was their child. "The
divorce will be finalized shortly," Joset says. "She and her son have
gotten out. They're able to live abuse-free lives, which otherwise they
would not have been able to do."
Practicing "real" law
Three hundred miles to the south, in Dodgeville, Chuck Kreimendahl
works on survival issues of a different sort as managing attorney for
Western Legal Services, where he's worked for 10 years. His core areas
of practice include housing issues, family law, public benefits, and
consumer law. "It's essentially about keeping a roof over people's
heads," Kreimendahl says. "We cover six counties and have two
attorneys."
Kreimendahl was drawn to public interest law even before he enrolled
in law school. With a science background, including graduate studies, he
initially did volunteer work in environmental law for the Department of
Natural Resources and Wisconsin Environmental Decade as a law student.
But a poverty law course at U.W. Law School steered his interest to
doing legal work for poor people. He, too, had to wait to find the right
position. After graduation, he worked for a year in a small firm in Park
Falls before landing his current job.
"I have days probably all lawyers have when they wish they weren't
lawyers," Kreimendahl says. "But to me there's a satisfaction in getting
results for poor people. They don't get evicted, or they get the public
benefits they're entitled to, or they resolve some sort of crisis
custody dispute."
He finds as much, or more, satisfaction in that as he would landing a
big client in a private firm. "There's this chasing-the-big-dollar thing
that's evident in law school, in competing for jobs, and in law
practice," Kreimendahl says. "It's refreshing not to have to contend
with that kind of picture."
"And frankly," he adds, "this job offers opportunities a lot of
general practitioners in small firms don't get a chance to do. We deal
with elaborate, or at least interesting, legal issues - constitutional
issues - that have to do with administrative law or public
benefits."
"There's this chasing-the-big-dollar thing that's evident in
law school, in competing for jobs, and in law practice. It's refreshing
not to have to contend with that kind of picture" -- Chuck
Kreimendahl
Still, the attitude pervades the legal profession, say many public
interest lawyers, that they're not practicing "real" law. Kreimendahl's
response to that is two-fold. "First, our clients see what we do as the
practice of law, and they're grateful," he says. "And the other thing is
that if you do this type of practice for a while, you find other
attorneys turning to you with questions they get. They don't practice in
the areas we practice in. Judges and hearing examiners also see us as
being somewhat expert in the fields we handle. So that counteracts any
general sense that we're a different class of attorney."
The image of public interest lawyers as a separate breed is
understandable, says Cindy Haro of Wisconsin Judicare in Wausau. "I'm
not an attorney other lawyers see around the courthouse very often," she
points out. "When I go to a local bar meeting or social function, they
have no idea who I am or what I do."
Not only does her work differ from what private practitioners do, but
public interest lawyers themselves have diverse jobs, Haro says. "What I
do in my job probably bears little resemblance to what an attorney for a
mental health project in Madison does," she says. "I doubt our days are
much alike at all." Nonetheless, Haro values her connection to
colleagues through the Bar's Public Interest Law Section. By meeting
other public interest attorneys, she sees commonalities between the
problems of her clients, who live on rural Indian reservations, with
those of people living in urban areas.
For eight years, Haro has worked in Judicare's Indian law office,
serving 10 reservation communities in 33 counties. She came to Judicare
after running a similar program in northern Minnesota for more than four
years. "One of the good things about a public interest law career," she
says, "is that it's easier to find role models and mentors. And you get
immediate experience. In the part of our office that does regular
poverty law, if you want to go to court the first month you're on the
job, the supervisor will make that happen for you. And work with
you."
Haro's attraction to public interest law predates law school, back to
when she was working as a claims processor for the Social Security
Administration. "I saw that clients who had attorneys tended to get
better results at their hearings," she says. "When I was trying to
figure out what else to do with my life, I decided to go to law school
and work for legal services." While a law student at the University of
Montana Law School, she worked in the Indian Law Clinic. "That
solidified my career choice," she says.
It's a choice she's never regretted, even though she says on this
particular day she's had one of those "bureaucracy mornings," her least
favorite part of the job. Much of her time goes into special projects,
such as setting up a training program for tribal court advocates, or
developing a tribal-specific juvenile justice system - "infrastructure
building," as she calls it. "But I always make sure I also have at least
a small client caseload," she says, "because that reminds me why I went
to law school and why this is a great job. I would definitely do it all
over again."
Going private
Jennifer Wertkin always knew she would be in public service someday,
but she thought it would be as a social worker. After earning a master's
degree, she took a social work job in Philadelphia. "I saw a lot of
people's rights being infringed upon," Wertkin says, "and I had no
ability to advocate for them legally because I was part of the system. I
decided to go to law school to become someone who could advocate for
people who didn't have a voice."
After graduating from U.W. Law School in December 1997, Wertkin set
her sights on a legal services career and sent out "a million resumes
all over the country," she says. She ended up, however, in private
practice, working in a Madison firm that exclusively practices Indian
law. Much of Wertkin's work is with the firm's public interest clients,
plus she holds a Judicare contract to serve members of the Ho Chunk
Nation in Dane and Sauk counties.
Now with a year of experience under her belt, Wertkin acknowledges
that a major portion of her paycheck goes to repay law school and
graduate school loans. Has that stirred second thoughts about pursuing a
public interest career? "Nope," she says emphatically. "Not in a million
years would I want to work in a large firm. I can't imagine being
comfortable in that environment. I don't want to burn out."
Granted there's a certain burnout factor, too, in struggling to repay
student loans while holding down a lesser paying job. "But," Wertkin
maintains, "I enjoy what I do. That's the big difference." Even as a
first-year lawyer, she's able to plunge into hands-on legal work and
deal directly with clients. "I knew when I got out of law school that
any job I took would have to involve a lot of client contact," she says.
"One of my strengths is working individually with people, making a
connection, and helping people feel that things aren't hopeless."
Like Wertkin, Darcy Haber aimed for a public interest law career when
she graduated from U.W. Law School in 1995. But, thanks to Congressional
cuts in legal services funding, job options were slim. "Not only were
there no jobs," Haber says, "but some of my friends who'd graduated the
year before were being laid off."
Instead of seeking a legal services position, Haber set up a sole
private practice right after law school, emphasizing consumer and
tenants' rights law. "I try very hard not to turn anybody away on the
basis that they can't pay," she says.
Haber knew many fellow law students who felt drawn to public interest
law careers. "But I can't name a handful who are doing it now," she
says. The primary obstacle? Heavy debt load from loans for law school,
perhaps also for college. The lower salaries in public interest law
scare off many new lawyers who face loan repayment bills of several
hundred dollars a month. "That's why," Haber emphasizes, "we need loan
forgiveness programs," in which students get a portion of their
loans repaid in return for entering public interest law work.
As for Haber, she says she was lucky to graduate without building up
debts. Otherwise she may have abandoned her chosen career. "I wouldn't
have been able to sleep at night not knowing if I was going to be able
to pay an extra $500 a month in loans," she says. "Your sense of
security goes right out the window."
Fortunately, Haber didn't face that dilemma and was able to pursue
her passion for public interest law. She says she can't imagine doing
anything else. "I remember why I'm in this," she says, "when I get
another attorney on the phone and say I'm representing so-and-so. They
say, 'What?!' They never expected this person to get an attorney. Then I
think, 'Okay, I'm doing the right thing.'"
Editor's Note: Members interested in joining the Public Interest
Law Section can do so simply by checking the appropriate area on the
State Bar dues statement, to be mailed in June. For more information
about the section, please contact Bob Peterson, chair, at (608)
264-6950; or State Bar staff liaison Jennifer Roethe Kersten at (800)
444-9404, ext. 6171.
Dianne Molvig operates
Access Information Service, a Madison research, writing, and editing
service. She is a frequent contributor to area publications.
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