Learning about the rest of the world, via volunteering

Yesterday I mentioned that volunteering can be a side-effect of free CLE's.

Volunteering, in itself, can be rewarding. You learn something new about an area of law and meet new people. For those of us who grew up as spoiled Americans, it can be shocking to learn exactly how spoiled we are. Anyone with a middle-class upbringing (even lower-middle-class like mine), is spoiled rotten compared to much of the world, and many people in the US.

If you felt deprived in comparison with classmates from your high school, for the most part, food, clothing and shelter still weren't an issue. You might not have had designer clothes, may have bought everything on sale, only got new clothes at the beginning of school, for Christmas and when you went to camp, shopped thrift stores or got hand-me-downs, but if you had a closet full of clothes as is typical of Americans, you had much more than Americans living below the poverty line and people from much of the world.

While I know poverty isn't limited to other countries and that particularly in inner-cities, people don't always have enough food, there are programs in our schools that ensure kids get breakfast and lunch. In some countries, none of that exists; not the required schooling, not breakfast, not lunch. Even if you think you're poor because you can't afford to go out to eat or can't afford anything but Denny's or Waffle House? You're not poor. Even if all you buy is PB&J and Ramen products. You're still not poor. Especially if you think you're poor but still drink pop out of 20-oz bottles. Even if all you buy are the 2-liter bottles.

Meeting people from other countries can be a revelation; I once worked on a project with men from an African country. I swear to you, their objective was to create a non-profit in the US and use it as a method of overthrowing the current government in their country. These men had great, grandiose, all-encompassing ideas for their organization, which would've dwarfed the Red Cross and United Nations combined. They couldn't help it, most of them had worked for one of the former governments in their country. Which is one of the reasons they came here. They had some great ideas but no concept that they needed to start small because they needed to get funding. I guess they just assumed that great amounts of funding were readily available, since that's what they'd had before their leader was deposed.

Most volunteering won't involved groups like that, just one person who has a problem whether it's criminal in nature, they've been a victim of a crime or are in need of assistance in getting their asylum application or refugee status approved, or a common, garden variety of immigration law question. In any case, you won't be left on your own and will have the opportunity to gain mentors, experience and feel relevant to society by helping someone else.

Other Benefits of Non-Profits

There are many social justice non-profits out there with a need for attorney volunteers. To that end, many of them host free CLE's with the caveat that you agree to take at least one case for them.

These organizations can range from your Bar Association's volunteer lawyer arm and the local legal aid office to immigration organizations, The Innocence Project in your area, human rights advocacy organizations, anti-torture advocacy groups, immigrant group organizations (designed to generally help a group from a particular part of the world with its resettling in your area) to church groups.

If you attend their CLE's, many of which are half-day classes, you're expected to take on a case. Fear not, baby attorneys and neophytes in these areas of law, you will be paired up with a mentoring attorney, who will not do the work for you but who will work with you, answer questions and point you in the right direction.

This is a great way to make contact with working attorneys and actually feel relevant to the world at large. While it won't help pay the rent or your student loans, it will help you feel like you're actually making use of your law degree as you do whatever else it is you're doing to to facilitate the care and feeding of your student loans.

Non-profit Organizations sometimes have lunchtime CLE's

Non-profit organizations sometimes have free CLE's, most commonly at lunchtime. They're usually hosted by a law firm that provides a free lunch. Lunches will vary by firm and can be: box lunches from Au Bon Pain, wraps and chips with brownies, or really nice catered lunches with china.

The program is typically related to the Non-profits area of expertise and are sometimes very interesting. I've attended several put on by two different programs of the same non-profit.

Program A takes place at a firm that has filed for bankruptcy and will have a giveaway item, such as a tin of firm-labeled mints or firm-labeled lip balm. I'm currently using the firmbalm and really like it. I wish I knew who made it so I could find it in the store (or the private labels it's made for). They also have firm-label water, but it seems like everyone has that these days.

Program B takes place at a different firm and has more involvement from that firm; I think they have an associate who is a board member of the NP. Their topics are more interesting than those in Program A, but they had wraps, which were fine; great salad; fabulous breadsticks and really boring brownies.

Neither of these is as nice as the lunch I went to for the Freedom Project, which was a catered lunch at a big firm. Great program and the best lunch ever. The Freedom Project has a great forensics CLE coming up in MN, which takes place at the BCA. If I hadn't already reported I'd spend the money on this. I'd love the Firing Range Breakout Session!