As a participant in the 2010 National Pro Bono Celebration, I want to share just a few thoughts on the broader implications of pro bono work. Of course, usual disclaimers about the fact that, as a law student, I do not have a ton of experience must apply. But I do not think I need a ton of legal experience to know the difference that the work of pro bono attorneys and others providing legal services to those who cannot afford it can make in someone’s life.
This summer, on an early Sunday morning, I was listening to the public radio show Speaking of Faith (now renamed as Being). Krista Tippett, the host, was interviewing a physician who was speaking about her own experiences living with illness and helping medical students learn to be really, authentically present with their patients, in an effort to better treat them. The parallels to working with clients in a legal setting are obvious. Here is some of the conversation I heard that Sunday morning, where Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen is talking about her work with medical students:
Dr. Remen: What we teach the students is something very simple.
Ms. Tippett: The medical students?
Dr. Remen: Yeah. We teach them the power of their presence, of simply being there and listening and witnessing another person and caring about another person’s loss, letting it matter. Letting it matter. We do six hours on loss, two three-hour sessions, and the students have a very simple instruction, which is, they are asked to remember a story of loss from their own lives, and loss — let’s put it differently — a time when things didn’t go their way, when they were disappointed, when they lost a dream or a relationship or even a family member, a death, you know?
Ms. Tippett: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Remen: They get to choose that, and then they spend six hours in small groups talking about their loss. And the group has one instruction: Listen generously. Now, prior to this exercise, we do another exercise with them where we ask them to remember a time of disappointment and loss and to remember someone who helped them. What did that person do? What did they say? What message did they deliver that was helpful to them at a hard time in their lives? And they write these things down very concretely. And then we ask them to remember a time of loss in their lives and remember someone who wanted to help them but was not of help to them. What did that person do and say, and what message did they deliver, and how did they deliver the message? And they write that down.
And then we make a big list. ‘What are all the things that helped?’ Right? ‘Listened to me for as long as I needed to talk.’ ‘Talked to me in the same way after my loss as they did before my loss.’ Right? ‘Sat with me.’ ‘Touched me.’ ‘Brought me food.’ Right? What were the things that didn’t help? ‘Gave me advice without knowing the full story.’ Right? ‘Made me feel that the loss was my fault.’ So we gather up the wisdom about what helps loss to heal from a group of about a hundred students and faculty, and it’s all very simple stuff. And the only instruction is: Listen generously.
This section of the the interview made me think immediately about my summer internship. As an intern at an agency that connected clients with pro bono attorneys, I spent a good deal of time interviewing clients who were in bad situations, wanting any kind of assistance they could find. Often we had to turn down cases that were not appropriate for us to handle, or for which we didn’t have the right number of lawyers to help out. And as a law student, my own ability to help people was quite limited. But what I could do during those conversations was listen, try to find out what was going on, the reasons behind someone’s need for help. Above all, I could do the things that Dr. Remen encouraged her students to do:
- Simply be there.
- Let it matter.
- Listen generously.
Even as an assistant, fresh out of college, at a national refugee resettlement agency in Baltimore, as part of the Lutheran Volunteer Corps, I grasped the importance of this, when I spoke on the phone with people needing help or information about immigration or trying to find a relative in immigration detention. The simple act of listening and caring about someone’s problem confers a small, but vital, amount of respect on someone else. Respecting the dignity of others — and showing that respect by listening — is perhaps at the very core of working with others to help them solve their problems — and it’s something I hope someone would do for me if I was ever in a situation where I needed help.
