Life as a Public Interest Lawyer: Lauren Hansen, J.D. ‘09

Ed’s note:  This is the first in a series of posts we will run about life as a public interest lawyer.  Our first post is by Lauren Hansen, class of ‘10,  who works as a legal aid lawyer in a rural community in California.

As a recent alumna who is now working in the public interest world, I thought I might write a blog entry about my experiences as a young legal aid attorney.  Any questions or comments can be directed to lehansen@gmail.com.  

 I work in a branch office of Legal Services of Northern California.  There are 15,000 people in the town I work and live in, and approximately 85,000 in the main county we serve.  About 15% of the county’s population is poor, which means that my potential client base includes around 12,750 people.  After a couple of weeks away at various trainings on substantive law, I started taking cases under the direction of more senior attorneys in the office.  One of the clients we work with is a full-time community college student who works part time at a restaurant.  She is also homeless.  She applied for food stamps over nine weeks ago, and the agency still has not responded to her application.  Another client is being evicted from his apartment for non-payment of rent.  However, his employer—the housing complex from which he rents—hasn’t paid him his wages since late August.  Although he tried to come up with a solution with the landlord, the landlord served him with unlawful detainer papers (fancy name for an eviction).  Right now, I’m channeling Prof. Wetlaufer’s negotiations class and will try to negotiate an agreement with opposing counsel so that my client does not become homeless.  However, I’ve run into a problem:  opposing counsel won’t return my phone calls.

It’s been an interesting transition moving from Iowa City to a very rural area of California.  On my first day at the local Mexican restaurant, some guy showed us his less-than-stellar breakdancing moves. The next day I went to a meeting on mental health services in the county.  The guy sitting next to me told me how wonderful it is that they let women go to law school, and that I’m really lucky.  He said that he hopes more women can go to law school because women really need to start learning about things.  Then he told me that Reagan invented SSI in 1973 when he was president.  I told him that Reagan wasn’t president in 1973.  He told me I was wrong, and that it’s too bad I don’t know my history.  He then informed me that Arabs are coming into the country and taking our jobs.

So far, the biggest challenge I’ve faced is trying to absorb law and procedure as quickly as possible so that I can help my clients.  Another challenge I’m facing is getting people in the community to take me seriously.  I have been called “young” or “young lady” by more than one individual.  I’m exceedingly polite and friendly, but I’m looking for ways to establish myself as a force to be reckoned with…or at least a force that requires opposing counsel to return my phone calls.