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Hello, you've reached the Storied Human podcast hosted by me Lynne Thompson. Each week I share a story, either an interview with someone fascinating, or a short solo from me. I love your stories, and I learned so much from them.
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Hopefully you will too. So welcome. If you are new here, I'm so happy to have you. If you are a returning listener, many thanks. So here it is the next episode of the storied human.
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Hello, and welcome to the story of human. This is Lynne Thompson. I have another great interview for you today. today.
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My guest is Amanda DuBois. She's the founder and Managing Partner of Dubois law Vyas Law Group.
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It's a woman owned boutique family law firm on Lake Union in Seattle. Prior to becoming a lawyer, Amanda was a high risk labor and delivery nurse at University of Washington Medical Center. She's also the author of The Camille Delaney mystery series. The complication was published in spring 2022 and deliver them from evil was published in March 2023. She won awards for her books and is currently working on on the third one. Amanda is also the founder of of civil survival project, an organization that teaches advocacy skills to former formerly incarcerated individuals. Civil survival projects mission is to educate, motivate and liberate people who have been directly impacted by the criminal legal system. Civil survival also provides civil legal aid to an individual struggling with the consequences of incarceration, and helping them with reentry. For the past several years, Amanda has mentored Tara Simmons, who is a formerly incarcerated lawyer, and the executive director of civil survival project. Amanda recently founded the full circle scholarship at her alma mater, Seattle University's School of Law. The scholarship helps fund tuition for students who have been directly impacted by the criminal legal system. Amanda was recently awarded the Sally P savage leadership and philanthropy award from the Washington State Bar Association and the Washington State Bar Foundation. Amanda is the Vice President of the Board of purpose dignity action in Seattle, which advocates for criminal legal system reform and develops alternatives that shift from a punishment paradigm to a system that supports individual and community health. She's also a board member of freedom education, Project Puget Sound, which provides post secondary education to women inside Washington correction Center for Women.
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She is the past president of the women's funding Alliance, and has served on a number of community boards and is currently a member of the Seattle chapter of the women's presidents Association.
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I think you've been busy. I'm very honored to get to talk to you.
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How do you find time to do all these things? It's very, very cool that you are so involved with so many wonderful worthwhile projects. And welcome, welcome, Amanda. Thank you for having me. It's so fun to be here. It is fun. Can you get me started, like you first became a laborer at the high risk labor and delivery nurse that was your first career. And before that, back in the day when I was in nursing school, which is really long time ago, and labor and delivery was a place that wasn't super friendly. I don't know.
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You know, I'm sure people in my generation can remember back was kind of cold and sterile and achy. And so I was involved in actually creating the first alternative Birth Center, which is where we were delivering babies outside of the hospital in western Washington, back a million years ago. So I did that for a while where because it was like you wanted a comfy place to have a baby and other than the hospital. So we were doing on the outside and they're like, wait a minute, we could be a little more friendly inside. So and then I went from there to University Hospital do high risk labor and delivery and then I made the jump to law school.
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That's an unusual jump. How did you decide that? Or what occurred to you to make that I mean, it's a lot of schooling on top of what you already did to be a nurse. Well, I when I was a nurse, I decided I thought I might want to go to medical school. So I went back to school and took all those crazy hard science classes like organic chemistry and biochemistry and histology. And I The list is endless, but I didn't really like it. So I was trying to figure out what to do next. And I thought, well, maybe I'll be a midwife. Maybe I'll get an MBA, I was all over the board. This is true story. I went to the University Bookstore at University of Washington, and I was gonna go buy the book to get to you know, the GRE book, which is to go to graduate school and the GMAT book, which was to go to business school. And right next to that was the LSAT book, which is for law school. And so I bought all three books and I went home and I sat on my deck and I had a beer. And the GMAT book was super Are math oriented like, and I was like, Oh, this is not good.
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So then I got another beer and I had an I got the law school study book. And I did better at that than I did at the other books. So by the time my husband came home from work, I said, I'm gonna go to law school, and he goes, What are you talking about? And I said, Well, I've got these three books here. And I'm not good at these two. And I'm really good at this one. So it must mean I'd make a good lawyer. And that was the beginning of my complete career was just a fluke, total. That's a crazy way to choose. But it kind of makes sense because you exposed yourself to what was expected. And you said, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this give me a really unique perspective on law school, because so many of the people that I went to law school, and I was sort of second career personal net wasn't quite as popular. Nothing. A lot of the stuff in law school didn't make a lot of sense to me. And because I hadn't come up from the Poli Sci, and the history and all the pre law and all that stuff. I was coming in from such a different perspective. I was like, Well, this is I felt like a stranger in a strange land.
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And I think it made me a better lawyer, because it made me question things. Yeah, that makes sense. It would, wouldn't it? Yeah. Because you're not already indoctrinated in that sort of series of courses that everybody else had. That That to me is so cool. So went through law school, and where did where did you start? What was your first job at a law school? Well, the reason I went to law school was when I was a nurse. Well, when I got into law school, I realized that, you know, I wanted to defend doctors, like I thought doctors were being improperly sued. And I was gonna go and work for the insurance, defense law firms that were defending the doctors. And so I got a job my first summer of law school, working at an insurance defense law firm. And I, lo and behold, some of the doctors weren't so good. Like the ones I was working with the University of Washington, and I was horrified. And I'm like, Oh, my God. And I would go to the My boss, and I would say, you know, you got to settle this case, as the horrible look what they did to her. And he would say, well, we can't settle it now. Because we have to litigate it and make a bunch of money. And we it's not time to settle it until we can charge a bunch of fees for all this anyway, was crazy. So I then I decided I can't do this.
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So I decided to become a plaintiff's lawyer, which is where you're suing doctors.
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Well, my husband's an OB GYN.
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And that didn't go over super good with him because I started suing OB GYN because I was a labor and delivery nurse. And so we spent several years in this sort of funny, no man's land where I was suing all the doctors in town, and he was trying to downplay it when he would go to the doctor, dinner parties and stuff. And it was a whole funny thing. But I did that for I don't know, maybe five years or so. And then I ended up I didn't like working against insurance companies, which is what my first two books are about, honestly. Oh, cool.
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Yeah. Because I just felt like there, I just didn't like it. So I got because it wasn't a person on the other side, it's just you're representing an injured person. And the other side is a institutional corporation who doesn't really care about the person. So I stumbled into family law, which is where I've spent the last 25 years because there's people on the other side, and I like that much better. So. But the first two books I wrote, are about the inequities in the civil justice system around issues around malpractice, and what happens when people are injured, and how we value their lives. So you really learned about it, and then wrote about it, but in a fictional setting so that people can, I noticed, you know, whenever we read fiction, we just are open to it in a different way. And we learn from it. I think that's cool. That you that you made it fictional, right. So when I was in the middle of that, honestly, I wrote my first two books 20 years ago, when I was in the thick of 25 years ago, when I was in the thick of being a trial lawyer. And the thing that was really, on my mind then was how we value human lives in our civil justice system, because I had been a nurse. And when you're a nurse, or you're in medical world, whoever comes into your hospital, you treat them just like anybody else, like, rich, poor, old young, everybody has value. And then I land over here in the legal system. And that's not that way at all. It's like, you have value. If you make a lot of money, and you have value if you, you know, or a younger, a young wage earner. But if you're an older person, in our legal system, and you get hurt or injured or die, you're considered to have way less value than a young wage earner.
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And if you're a child or a baby, you don't have any value because you don't have any wage loss. So that made me crazy. And so that's, and I thought, Oh, I'm gonna write about this. And I thought, well, nobody really wants to read like, what am I gonna write an article and like, Newsweek or something? It'd be stupid. So I decided to write fictional books about that very issue. So in the first book, it's an older guy who dies. And in the second book, it's a baby who dies. And the books are it's a mystery, and it's an exciting story. But at the end of the day, the whole question that you should be left with hopefully, is how do we value lives in our justice system? And is that right? Yeah. So you do have that sense of injustice. You you have that antenna, you know, that's what I I love about reading your bio, there's this feeling that no matter what, that's what gets you going, you know, that's what you recognize. And that's what you talk about work, you know, work on. Now, where does that come from? That's what I'm wondering. Well, I think it came from like I said, I, you know, I hadn't thought too much about this. But I know, when I was a nurse, it was just there was no question you just valued people, people were equal. And like I said, if anybody comes into your hospital, as you know, we've dealt with all kinds of different people have a women having babies young, old welfare, not welfare, rich, you know, and it didn't matter you can they got the same Cadillac treatment no matter who they were. And then when I landed over there in the legal system, I realized it was a different way of looking at things. And my, and then I just started, I just didn't think it was right.
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So I, you know, I fought really hard for my clients. And the book scene, both of the first both the books that I wrote, The first scene in came from their fictionalized versions of real cases. So there's an operating room scene that starts the first book, which is something that happened to a client of mine who was an older guy, and he died.
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He wasn't my client, his wife was. And then the second book, there was a horrible situation, and labor and delivery, that's pretty graphic and scary. And that baby ended up passing away.
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So when I was a lawyer, that younger lawyer, sort of in that world of trial lawyers, I just the whole, it just didn't sit right with me that people were treated differently depending on who they were. So that kind of then propelled me forward. And then it was just like, every, it was like radar out there looking for where were the injustices.
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So it set you on your path that see it feels like your true path. But I love that comparison. Because you're right. You can be anyone from anywhere, you go into a hospital, you're treated equally, and fairly. And, you know, there's no judgement, nurses. I mean, some of my most wonderful experiences are with nurses. I mean, I just, I don't know how I would have taken care of my child without a nurse. So I love that, that you want to get the legal field more like what you experienced as a nurse like that's, to me a wonderful goal. So how did you get involved? What did you join first, like, what did you do your civil project first? And how did you meet Tara, that's what I would really like to know, let's see, well, about maybe 10 years ago or something.
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I don't know what the 15 some period of years ago, I was sort of trying to figure out what I was going to do sort of my next little project would be, and I'd been on a million boards and done sort of the typical charitable, you know, like being the president of this board. And that. And then I thought, well, the best time had been a lawyer for a long time. And I was noticing that people would come into my office, and they would have made some really bad mistakes that put them in a bad legal position. And so I decided I was going to write a series of books to teach people about their legal rights and responsibilities. So I went deep into reading these was actually I wrote it as a law as a high school curriculum. And I wrote it at a time I wrote it as an online curriculum. And then I tried to sell it. And no one had ever heard of an online curriculum. They're like, What are you talking about? You're ahead of your way. And so I just kind of threw up my hands because I didn't know how to sell something to high schools.
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Because I was competing with textbooks. It was a whole big, you know, things so. So I kind of put it to the side, but then it kind of resurfaced again. And I thought, well, I'll just turn this complicated, high school legal curriculum that was online into books, I did the backwards way that a real student. So I made him into books for people that was more of a low litoris, the more simplistic and one thing led to another and through life circumstances, I ended up teaching these books to this group of men, mostly men, who had recently come out of prison.
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And they were super involved in weird learning about how to rent an apartment. And we were learning about how to be good employee and all the legal things around, you know, leases and employment law, and they're paying attention and stuff. And we're, you know, building relationships with family, one, this guy's raised his hand, it goes so helpful, and we're so grateful that you're helping us with this, but there's only one problem and I said, What's that?
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And he goes, we can't get a job.
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And we can't get a place to live because we're all felons. Oh, my God. I said, What are you talking about? Because I'm like a privileged white lady. I've never had any kind of, you know, interaction with the criminal legal system other than very peripherally, maybe with a client. They then started to pour their heart out to me and tell me about what it was like to come out of prison and I had, you know, like I had this big black guy sitting in my office who was just crying. He said the scariest night of my life was my first night life night out of prison after being in there for 15 years because I didn't know where to go and I didn't know what to do and I didn't have anybody to help me and they just started telling me these really sad and I just wanted to get an apartment and I wanted to reunite with my child and I wanted to be a You know, get a little job, like I don't really want much. I just want to move on with my life.
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And I started learning from them about all of the laws and policies that we have in our system that make it impossible for people coming out of prison.
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It must be overwhelming, I can't even imagine. Stunning it is yes. Well, I was blown away. So I thought, well, this is messed up. So and I had been, I'd spent a lot of time I was on the board of governors of our straight state trailers association. So I'd had a fair amount of experience in legislative steering committees and that kind of stuff. And I thought, Well, the problem is, is that nobody is there to lobby for these people. Because, you know, there's a lobby for Boeing, and there's a lobby for Starbucks, and there's a lobby for the travelers and, but nobody lobbies for people that have been coming out of prison. So I took it upon myself to put together a program for my new friends, to teach them how to work with legislators and policymakers. And I did that by creating a workshop. And our first workshop was in, I say, 2016, or 2017, or something. And we had 75 formerly incarcerated people. And I hired a guy who was a workshop facilitator for a local union that I knew, and he was a really good facilitator.
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And we put together a workshop and we talked about the power of organizing, we talked about, like women's suffrage and civil rights and marriage equality.
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And all the times when groups of people got together to organize.
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We talked about the importance of telling a story. We talked about how a bill becomes a law, we talked about the legislative process. And then we had the participants get into small groups and share their stories about what they would want to see differently from a policy perspective. And then we invited in some legislators and people that were in the policy world to come in in the afternoon and to listen to the stories it like exploded in a way that I can't even tell you. It sounds so wonderful legislators, you know, the first one, we had a woman who's running for office, and we had this guy from Patty Murray's office, who's our US senator who I've known for a long time. And he said, I've been working for Patty for a long time and never seen anything like this before I was when she told me to come and do this on a Saturday afternoon.
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I was like, Yeah, great. Thanks.
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But he was very inspired. So and Tara was in that first workshop, and she came up to me, she was a law student. And she came up to me afterward and said, I want to like what can I do to help this work move forward. So we came over and we did a workshop in her town, which is Bremerton, which is across the water from Seattle and where you're from, but it's sort of very right away. And then Tara got really involved in you know, took a great leadership role. And then we started doing workshops all up and down Puget like Olympia, and Tacoma, and Seattle and Skagit Valley, we even did one in Atlanta, Georgia. And they were very, very well received. And now we started to build this community of people that had been in prison. And my hypothesis was that people who have been in prison don't have access to their legislators. But if we could build relationships between the legislators and the people in prison, then they would, you know, they would care about them, and they would, you know, want to help them and it turned out to be really, really true. So, before I know it, we got the mayor of Bremerton over there, we got Senator Rothfuss was a senator over on terrace side, we've got the prosecutor, they're coming to our workshops, they're crying, they can't believe you know, all the traumas that these people have gone through coming out of prison. They're now calling my new friends and asking them for advice on how to work, how to change policies. They tried to hire one of my people to be a policy director and a local county, physician, I can't remember one thing led to another. And as this is all unfolding, it became really obvious to me that this was not my work to do like I don't belong, running an organization to empower formerly incarcerated people that has to be done by the people who've been coming out of prison. So I, detention, to mentoring Tara and a bunch of other people that were coming out of prison to be able to take over the organization because and then, and the whole thing was the funny thing is not funny thing.
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When I was when this is all sort of rolling out. I'm a privileged white woman, right? And so we volunteer. That's what we do, like, Oh, something needs to be done all volunteer. Well, I quickly learned that this is not a demographic of people who can volunteer because they can barely pay their rent. They can't. Like Exactly. So I started to pay them. So pretty soon, I'm paying full time salaries to Tara and you know, a couple of other people that are working full time on this now and part time and it's getting more and more and more. And then at some point, my brilliant mind, I thought was putting this into a nonprofit because I'm spending a lot of money. I was gonna say was it a nonprofit?
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Yeah, I didn't even think of it.
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I was just sort of was just unfolding and it was like doing the next thing, that sort of thing, right? Like, I'll just pay salaries to people and pay the facilitators and be able to put more attention on it because they're being paid for it. And then somewhere along about two years in, I thought I should probably turn this into a nonprofit because I'm just like paying a lot of money to these. Wonderful, amazing. I love it though, because you just, you know, you just let things unfold. And you see where the need is, and you see what you should do next, and you do it. And I just love that.
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You figured that out. And as you were talking, you know, what this reminds me a little bit of, is the stories I've read about children coming out of the foster care system, and there's no provision for how they'll transition or what they'll do.
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They're just so you know, they end up they end up with my friends. There's a connection there. Yeah, it's it. And I did.
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I haven't read a lot about this.
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But I have read that when you get out of prison, they go, here's some money. See you, you know.
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I mean, who could make a life out of that? You know, it's just like they said, they can't get hired, I mean, the basics. So it's just so wonderful that you connected those two groups of people, that people that can actually do something about it.
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And the people that have the stories? Yeah. And would you tell the police something about starting to do things about it, and pretty soon before I know it, Perez, the executive director of civil survival, I'm sort of the cheerleader, she's now you know, gathered together other people who have been in prison who are now our very dear friends, and they're down in our local, you know, limpiar State Capitol in and they're they changed, I don't know, like six or eight laws the first year or two out and like they just started pounding through changing laws and changing hearts and getting people to listen and believe in redemption. Then Tara ran for office and then put that in the bio, but Tara is now a state legislator. No way. That's so beautiful. What a great story.
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legislator in our state. Now she's running this brilliant, she's just, they have this huge budget. Now they're getting all this money from the state for civil legal aid. She's got Ivy League lawyers on her team that are helping, you know, work on helping people get their records vacated, and, and they're changing the way that people decide, I think, honestly. And then they had this there's this thing, what happens when you come out of prison, or you get go into prison, it's in our state, it's called LFO, legal financial obligation, which I knew nothing about, of course.
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But it turns out, when people get sentenced to prison, the judge sort of has this sort of arbitrary way. They can say here, you just have this fine, like, you got a $2,500 fine.
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Well, if you sit in prison and accrues interest at something like 12%, or something, something insane. So I have friends that went into prison with like a $3,000, fine, and they get up 15 years later, and it's like $25,000, that's in order to stay out of prison, they have to be making payments on these on these fines. And anyone's this whole big, crazy thing. So Tara got this brilliant idea to have this, she has these things called LFO days where she'll go into a county and work with the prosecutor and the judge. And the first time we did it was over in Kitsap.
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County, which is outside of Seattle, that just word of mouth, you know, if you have LFOs, come to court next Tuesday, and we're gonna have judges, they're prepared to waive your LFOs because we're doing this mass motions for everybody. It's like 900 people showed up was like, down though, you know, all the way down the street, people waiting. And they waved something like two or $3 million worth of LFO. So imagine you're a nurse, and you have$20,000 Fine, and it sticks with you, right? They garnish your wages, and they don't, you know, they just keep following you.
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And you go in. And one day a judge just waves a magic wand and says You no longer have that data. I mean, people were, it was life changing for people. So I kind of what I think is so cool is the ripple effect, like this idea. And then Tara took it on, and then all the people went after Tara, and then the lawyers are doing it. And then the judges are doing it. And now it's a statewide movement. And I think they just passed a law this past legislative season where they're not even having all of those anymore. So it's just been, this is great. Most of us haven't heard of LFOs. And it's so unfair, reminds me of student loans, quite frankly, some of the student loan things that happen except for the people, they don't make their LFO payments, they can go back to prison. That's horrible. And the fact that they would let someone incarcerated sit there and have interests packing, I mean, I just can't even imagine.
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So it's, it's a great cause to it's so cool that you were able to be part of that and that they got rid of them now have have other states noticed what you're doing have other well, terrorists come up here. So she when she graduated from law school, she graduated with top honors and she got this thing called a Skadden Fellowship, which is a fellowship given by a New York law firm, to very few people they've never given one to anybody in Washington State they've never given when they went to our law school. She went to my law school and they've never given one to a formerly incarcerated person and they gave her this fellowship that we use to for her to launch civil survival you know, that pay part of her salary but anyway, she was this like she one student of the year she had medical It blah, blah, blah. So in order to sit for the bar exam, you have to go through this thing called the Bar Association character and fitness committee.
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Well, which means that you have to show that you have the good character to become a lawyer.
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Well, she went through the character and fitness committee and they decided no, she did not like, everybody, we freaked out, she freaked out. And, and the only way to appeal that is to go state to duck to the state Supreme Court. So she did.
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And we have a friend whose name is Shaun Hopwood who you should look up sometime. He is a he's formerly incarcerated guy, and he's now a professor of law at Georgetown University. He's a good friend of ours. And he agreed to come out and argue terrorists case. And so we all went down to Olympia, the state Supreme Court. And Sean came in and argues terrorists case. And usually, when there's a Supreme Court case, like they give you a ruling in three months or something, well, they call that afternoon and said, Go get started studying, you're taking the bar exam, but we're gonna take time to write the opinion.
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The opinion came out and it got picked up all over the country.
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And pretty soon Tara was all over the place. So it's a long answer. She has been speaking in law schools in Washington, DC and all over the place. So she's very nationally well known. And I think the work that she's doing is becoming not my work anymore. It's just was my sort of like, I threw the pebble in this in the pond. Yeah.
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Yeah. It's so good. I think the key is knowing when it's not your work to do. And I think a lot of people in our position who have privilege, you think you get this idea that you're going to do something and then you want to sort of be the figurehead or something? And I think that's not right. I love that you were able to step back, you know, because I think that's hard. And like you said, Knowing when, right, and the people, the people that really know, the situation are the people that carried it forward. I love that.
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Well, you've done a lot of good in the world. That must feel wonderful, you know, you really have a ripple effect. So yeah, had an impact. I didn't have to do day to day stuff of it. But certainly, you know, coming up with the idea and coming up with the money and getting it all launched, and then turning it over to these amazing activists who are just doing such good work. It's been a joy. So it's not easy to do what you do. But what I love is that it starts with this very simple thought like, this isn't right. This, Why is this here? I do love that about this story. You're just, you know, you notice, you notice when things could be better? I think we all do. Yeah.
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But you need to do something about it, you.
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That's what I would love to find a way to try to teach people that or something because it's not that complicated. It's really doing the next thing like, you know, and then I decided to write books. And now my third book is about women coming out of prison and the importance of reuniting them with their children, because they now have all these friends, lots of friends who have done a lot of time in prison, and I'm starting to see, I don't know about that. And like you don't either, like we just don't write, we don't we don't eat.
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Although, did you know that there are 100 million people in our country, that's about one out of three or four that have a criminal record that impacts their ability to get jobs and housing. So it's a big problem.
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Yeah, it's not a. So we also don't know anybody who has been in prison or who's had trouble, you know, not necessarily be in prison, but had some sort of interaction with the criminal legal system that is, you know, clouded their personal record or something, it's more common than we think. And once you once the people, you know, like, I have a lot of friends who are really embarrassed about having been in prison. And once we started to make it normalized that it's like, I mean, we're that Bryan Stevenson. I don't know if you've ever read his books, but if you haven't, you should. He says, something like, we're better than the worst thing we've ever done, like, Oh, yes.
00:28:53.609 --> 00:29:06.990
Love that. Yeah, mistakes. And, you know, and a lot of the women in prison are just, they're survivors of horrible abuse and violence and trauma.
00:29:08.250 --> 00:29:14.819
You know, they don't belong in prison, they belong and, you know, some sort of therapy or some care for what has happened to.
00:29:15.900 --> 00:29:51.390
So that's my third book is about trying to make people think a little bit about why we're putting women in prison has gone up by something like 700% in the past five years. I Gosh, that's terrible. So what I'm getting to is that if you could teach people this, maybe people, you know, a lot of people do recognize things that they wish they could fix, but they don't feel empowered to do that. So I think that that's what's missing is that you, you feel empowered to step forward. I think, well, you know, maybe if more of us felt that way. There'd be more change.
00:29:52.559 --> 00:30:34.289
What kind of comes from privilege. Like once you realize how lucky like for me personally, like I came from You know, I've got a good education, I came from a middle class family, like I have a lot of things that my friends don't have. And once you realize that to me, when I started really getting to know, a lot of my friends who didn't have those type of because you live in your bubble, right, and you just don't really give away. And Bryan Stevenson actually, that same guy talks about it too. And I did it before I ever heard his book. But when he said it, it resonated with me, you have to get proximate, like if you think something is wrong, or something could be different, you need to get proximate to the people who are impacted.
00:30:36.119 --> 00:31:04.079
And then it becomes really clear, and it doesn't have to be something huge. It can be something little, it could just be one thing that you have the you know, because you have an education or because you have the ability to volunteer, you have the university doesn't own a law firm like I do, and they don't necessarily have the resources to start paying people arbitrarily, because but we all have, we've got that privilege. And we all have that place where we know we could do something to make a difference.
00:31:04.079 --> 00:31:13.410
And once to me, once I started realizing what was going on there, I couldn't not do something about it. And I think we all have that in our heart.
00:31:10.410 --> 00:31:24.690
Sometimes I think we do. I think we do. And I think I think it's a matter of maturing where you realize, wait a minute, this is not totally due to my hard work, where I am, you know, I had a lot of help, I had a lot of support.
00:31:25.859 --> 00:31:53.099
It's really good to realize that and then not to judge people who maybe, you know, they're they're not defined by the worst thing they ever did not judge people that there's a judgment thing going on. Sometimes that doesn't do anyone any good. And I was what I really love about this whole getting the legislators involved is I actually did, I went to Capitol Hill, because my mother had a disease that I wanted.
00:31:54.210 --> 00:32:01.799
I, you know, I worked with the foundation to get more awareness. And you know, people are horrible about politicians.
00:32:01.799 --> 00:32:20.039
And you know, they're not, some of them are not the nicest people. But when you give them those human stories, they kind of remember like, why they wanted to do this in the first place. And they realize the change, and maybe some of it is oh, I'll look good, that's fine.
00:32:16.440 --> 00:33:22.109
But they realize the changes they could make, that they're in a position to make those. And I really love that the local and the state. And those are just neighbors like those are just, yeah, you know, but that's that kind of privilege thing also applies even to the politicians, because I have a friend and she's a woman of color. And she was a state senator. And she was she and I became really good friends. And she left and she said, You know what, this is not set up for women of color, or people who don't come from money because state legislators, they only work three months, a year, whatever it is, whatever state you're in, and who has a job. A regular person has a job that can just say, Oh, I'm going to be down in Olympia for a few months. See you later. And so she just said I was I couldn't support myself. And a lot of my friends down there who were women of color, we all just left because it's sort of a rich person's place. Like it's mostly it was, you know, rich white men who maybe own a car dealership or a corner store. And they can take off and go down to Olympia.
00:33:22.650 --> 00:33:25.950
And it's a really good point.
00:33:22.650 --> 00:33:37.500
Yeah. It's like, definitely, I heard it. But it wasn't until I was proximate. I never thought about it. Right. And right. Well, you say it's open, right? It's open to everyone.
00:33:37.500 --> 00:33:41.460
But she's telling you it's really not? Yeah, a lot of things.
00:33:43.410 --> 00:33:51.930
You know, they can get elected these, because they're brilliant, and lovely. And they've got great ideas, but sustaining that as a lifestyle.
00:33:48.900 --> 00:34:48.090
It's really, really, really, oh can do that. And I think about that a lot because I felt like when I was in the corporate world, like I had to squish myself into this old man framework, old boy network, and, and I said, Why do I have to squish myself into this? Why isn't this you know, it's better now. I mean, they are making lots of changes, but I had kids, you know, a while ago, my kids are 27 and 25. And I ended up you know, when my industry tanked, I just ended up staying home for a while. And that wasn't easy. I mean, we didn't. We needed both salaries, but we just kind of toughed it out. Because I just couldn't figure out a way to make what everyone else was doing palatable to my my, you know, values like I couldn't, I said it's great and maybe because they were younger, they could do it, you know, then were energy, they could work. They could have daycare, maybe they had family help. I didn't have family help.
00:34:49.170 --> 00:34:56.760
And I didn't see the point of paying all that money, especially when I my industry tanked so I couldn't get a job in my industry for like five years.
00:34:58.559 --> 00:35:59.099
So I understand A little bit of what that feels like, like, this isn't built for me. You know, I had that. And I've been working for 15 years, I'd been fine. You know, I didn't get it. And then I had kids and said, This really isn't built for me. And this isn't where I belong. So I was, I mean, I was very privileged because my husband got a job or he could be home and he worked for a while and I, you know, we, we juggled. But what I thought about a lot was women that didn't make much money, like, that's when it really came to me that if this is hard for me, I can't imagine how much that passion in your heart and you know, you can change things. And you know, you are, you know, my ever really good friend, his name is Glenn Marchan. And he's a activist in the criminal legal system in New York City. And he says, those closest to the problem are closest to the solution, but furthest from the power and the resources. Well, that's so true.
00:35:53.789 --> 00:36:04.469
And that's exactly, you have these young, enthusiastic women who have great ideas, they're very close to the problem. They know what needs to be done.
00:36:04.469 --> 00:36:21.239
They've got all the passion in the world. But we and then we say run for office run for office, and then we put them over in the situation. It's just not, I don't know what the solution is. But I see the problem. Yeah. Well, given your history, I'm sure you'll figure out something to do about it.
00:36:23.280 --> 00:36:29.429
So I've enjoyed talking to you so much. Thank you for coming on. Is there anything else that you want to tell my listeners?
00:36:29.489 --> 00:36:37.079
Is there anything else that you would maybe just what you've learned, through all this piece of advice?
00:36:40.260 --> 00:36:59.280
I think what I've learned is, maybe we limit ourselves too much. We have limited thinking like, you know, I think what I've learned honestly, here's what I think I think we have phases in our life. And I think when I was when we're younger, we're building a career, we're getting educated and stuff. And then we have a family. And then we're in this generative place.
00:36:59.280 --> 00:38:22.349
And for me personally, once I had my kids grew up, and I became already as a good lawyer, you know, you get, like, I think maybe we're a little too hard on ourselves that we think we should do everything starting back in our 20s or 30s. But it's a it's a gradual process. And all along the way. We're learning and paying attention and gathering ideas. And what I think about this a lot, actually, I think when I you know, I'm at a point in my life, where I had a lot of ideas, and I planted a lot of seeds, right as I was going, like, I think I should do this. And I think this will be a good idea. And now I look back at turn around. And it's like I have a forest of oak trees behind because all of those, and they're all intertangled. Right? So yeah, maybe I would say be gentle with yourself. If you think you want to change something, or you're not doing enough, you probably are because it's a generative process. And it just, it builds over time. And you get into this lovely place where your kids are grown, and you've learned things and you become your you've got your, you know, whatever you do, you've got your lawyering or teaching or you know, whatever you do, and your craft, you've got your craft sort of in a place, and then all of a sudden, things just start opening up in a lovely way. Because you've you've you've given thought to this over the years, but to force yourself into thinking I should be doing something, you know, to change the world right now. And I'm 35 years old or something, be be gentle with yourself. I think that's lovely.
00:38:19.199 --> 00:38:29.880
And it reminds me of that quotation, you know, women can have it all, but not all at once. Exactly, you know, there's a, it unfolds, there's phases.
00:38:30.150 --> 00:39:12.119
And I do like the idea that you can plant seeds, even if you don't know how to solve a problem, you can plant the seed, and it will grow. So I think that's great. I know people will see the thing is you never know who's going to who needs to hear this. You know, that's what I love about having a podcast, somebody will hear this and go Yeah, you know, get your resume, get proximate, like go right in there. Me there and get to know the people and build relationships with the people that you think you might be able to learn from and make an impact with. And there's a lot of naysayers out there just wouldn't listen like, Oh, they're told me people told me you're not smart. You know what, here's what I would tell you.
00:39:13.559 --> 00:39:28.530
When I was leaving my law firm, I was a trial lawyer in this law firm, and I was going off on my own. And I was maybe about 35 or 40. I don't remember. But anyway, my law partners who didn't like me because I was sort of becoming more out there.
00:39:28.769 --> 00:39:38.070
They wrote in the mediation letter when we were having an argument about money that I was a diligent doctor's wife dabbling at the law. Ouch.
00:39:34.440 --> 00:39:38.070
Right?
00:39:39.360 --> 00:39:54.690
that in a nutshell there to build a really very, very successful family law firm that's really well known. And we sort of like sometimes you take those things that people poke at you will try to hurt. We use them to motivate you to like, oh, yeah, yeah, take that.
00:39:57.599 --> 00:40:01.019
So be gentle with yourself when people criticize you retire, you can use that.
00:40:02.820 --> 00:40:06.389
I'm so glad you shared with us.
00:40:02.820 --> 00:40:08.340
Thank you so much. Well, thanks for inviting me. It's super fun.
00:40:06.389 --> 00:40:08.340
It was great.
