What I’ve learned by stepping outside with pro bono work

About a year and a half ago, our law department hosted the Georgia Justice Project, along with one of our outside counsel firms. We listened to them explain their pro bono program, their needs, and their capabilities. The work that this team does is important, they are extremely passionate and educated about it, and they are well organized for success.

Earlier in my legal career, I did a handful of pro bono criminal cases and I thought this was a good opportunity to get involved again. What’s great about the Georgia Justice Project is that the team has already prescreened and met with the potential clients in advance, and they have already determined that those clients are eligible for some form of record restriction under the state statute.

There’s the potential to have a significant positive impact on another human being’s life. I have had three clients since last March. There’s always a vulnerability to the first meeting, as clients share intimate details about moments when they were at low points in their lives.

I felt an immediate connection to the first client. We were both mothers of newborns. She was living in a shelter with her youngest, a 6-month-old daughter, who joined us at the table. She explained that she was working part-time, trying to get a better job to support her kids, something that she felt she could not do unless she got her criminal record restricted.

It took about two months to get a hearing after filing the necessary paperwork. She still needed to pay some $600 in restitution under the terms of her sentence, but she was not sure whether she would have the money in time for her court date. Just be at the courthouse, I told her, and we would work through it.

She brought her baby daughter again that day. In court, I was moved that the judge wanted to hear her story and granted the relief without making her pay the fee. From there, my responsibility became more administrative – making sure all relevant local and state agencies and national criminal records databases have the court order – and my client was with me every step of the way, making sure we could clear her record and her pathway to a better life for her family.

I’m helping another gentleman who made a mistake when he was in college and had a charge on his record from Alabama, where he has been able to get it restricted. But in Georgia, he has been denied several job opportunities because of it. He paid the restitution, did the probation, went on to get a college degree, is married with two kids and moved his family to a new city for a managerial position with a well-known restaurant chain. But when the new employer’s background check revealed the record, he lost the job.

He was overcome with emotion as he discussed the weight of his personal situation: helping his son who has type 1 diabetes, a chronic autoimmune disease, trying to build a better life for his family, getting an opportunity to be a manager and then losing it because of a decades-old mistake.

My immediate goal is to get this gentleman's record restricted on that charge, so that it will open doors for him. I've got a third case with a client who started a business with her husband since she was having trouble finding employment.

Through working with the Georgia Justice Project, I meet and hear about so many people who are struggling to build a better life today because of mistakes they made years ago, for which they’ve already done their time but are still facing life-altering consequences. Fortunately, at Georgia-Pacific, I’m encouraged to make a difference by taking on pro bono work, stepping outside of my everyday world and helping people break down the barriers holding them back from reaching their full potential.