By Katie Moran* on April 19, 2023
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It all started with a single cup of coffee in November 2021. My good friend and fellow University of San Francisco School of Law (“USF Law”) alum, Jerome Hawkins, and I were talking about his new business, Hawkline Video, where he directs and produces documentary interviews with highly successful attorneys from all over the country.[1] Jerome was telling me about the similarities in what made many of the lawyers great.
By Judge Lynn Duryee* on March 7, 2023
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The practice of law is hard. The workload, long hours, demanding clients, competition—all hard. Being a judge is not quite as hard, yet it has its challenges too: vexatious litigants, extreme isolation, courthouse politics, and the ethical mandate to act with dignity and courtesy at all times—a feat achievable only by superheroes, in my opinion. The time when dissatisfied family law litigants initiated a recall campaign against me—that was a rough patch. And yet, after forty-two years in the law, I am still energized and excited by my chosen career.
By Slater Stanley* on January 6, 2023
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Introduction
To find your place within a system you need to understand it, and yourself in relation to it. The purpose of such an evaluation might be productivity, survival, comfort, power, or a combination thereof. Growing up in a conservative environment as a queer[1] child without queer role models, I am not unfamiliar with suppressing characteristics and desires that feel natural to me to fit more neatly within hegemonic heteronormative[2] expectations. I applied to undergraduate universities—and later law schools—with this in mind: I want to be somewhere socially liberal.
Continue reading “Lifestyle Balancing: Queerness and the Practice of Law”
By Annie T. Le* on November 8, 2022
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“The raging river is the client’s life . . . . The boulder falling is the trauma occurring. The image of secondary trauma is a lawyer standing in the river. They don’t get hit by the boulder, but they feel the ripple effect.” – Jean Koh Peters[1]
California Rule 1.1 of Professional Conduct requires a lawyer’s competency, not just education and skills, but also “mental, emotional, and physical ability.”[2] Stress can negatively affect mental and emotional ability, and a high level of stress is known to be associated with the legal profession.[3] While being invested in the clients’ cases and showing empathy, lawyers sometimes absorb clients’ suffering. Over time, repeated exposure to the first-hand traumatic experiences of others may lead to secondary traumatic stress, also called secondary trauma.[4]
Continue reading “Addressing Secondary Trauma in the Legal Profession”
By Bill Ong Hing on September 25, 2022
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Thirty-five years ago, I was fortunate to be part of the litigation team that won big before the U.S. Supreme Court in Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Cardoza-Fonseca,[1] the case that established that asylum applicants “need not prove that it is more likely than not” that they will be persecuted in their home countries in order to prevail.[2]
Continue reading “Turn Asylum on its Head and Presume Eligibility”