Episode 83: Jennafer Wagner & Erin Smith
Executive Director and Director of Programs at Family Violence Appellate Project
00:50:30
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Show Notes
Erin Smith and Jennafer Wagner both attended law school to advocate for change. Jennafer is now the Director of Programs at Family Violence Appellate Project (FVAP), where Erin is the co-founder and Executive Director. FVAP is dedicated to helping domestic violence survivors and their children appeal trial court decisions in their cases, and thereby shaping the law in a favorable way for other domestic violence survivors. The success of their model, which thrives on partnerships with law firm attorneys who donate their services for free, has caused them to expand to other states beyond California.
Relevant episode links:
Family Violence Appellate Project, Parable of the Sower, The Murmur of Bees, Nancy Lemon, Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits, Joanna McCallum – LinkedIn
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About Erin Smith
Erin Smith
Erin Smith is the co-founder and Executive Director/CEO of Family Violence Appellate Project, the only organization in California and Washington State dedicated to appealing cases on behalf of domestic violence survivors and their children. Erin has led the organization since its inception in 2012 to its current status as an established statewide legal services provider with an impactful appellate practice in two states.
Erin has spent 20 years working on behalf of domestic violence survivors, as appellate advocate, trial lawyer, legislative and policy advocate, and community partner, actively participating in domestic violence-related speaking engagements, committees, and community activities. From 2006-2012, Erin acted as lead counsel representing an incarcerated survivor of domestic violence in a challenge to her criminal conviction with a habeas corpus petition. Erin successfully secured the client’s release from prison after more than 27 years of incarceration.
Previously, Erin was an associate at Covington & Burling LLP in San Francisco, where her practice focused on complex civil litigation in federal and state courts, as well as in arbitral tribunals. In 2008, she received the Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year award for her representation of a survivor of domestic violence. Erin also was Of Counsel at Hoge, Fenton, Jones & Appel in San Jose, where she practiced family law and civil litigation. In 2011, Erin successfully briefed and argued a family law case before the California Court of Appeal after a victory at trial, obtaining a unanimous published decision affirming the trial court’s award of a substantial amount of child support to a mother of four children. Erin graduated order of the coif (top 10%) from UC Berkeley School of Law in 2004. While at Berkeley Law, she served as editor-in-chief of the Berkeley Women’s Law Journal.
As part of the Domestic Violence Practicum, Erin wrote an amicus brief to the California Supreme Court, which cited the brief in its decision establishing an important principle in domestic violence jurisprudence. Erin also completed internships at the California Alliance Against Domestic Violence and the Domestic Violence Unit of the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office. After graduation, Erin clerked for the Hon. Gary L. Taylor of the USDC for the Central District of California. Erin received her undergraduate degree in Public Policy Studies from Duke University, where she graduated magna cum laude.
About Jennafer Wagner
Jennafer Wagner
Jennafer Dorfman Wagner is the Director of Programs at Family Violence Appellate Project (FVAP). She has been a legal services attorney since 1997, including over 20 years in a supervisory or managerial role. She has practiced in diverse geographic regions and in multiple subject areas in previous positions at Mental Health Advocacy Project (a project of Law Foundation of Silicon Valley) in San Jose, California; Legal Action of Wisconsin; Washington (DC) Legal Clinic for the Homeless; and Nevada Legal Services.
Since February 2013, her practice has focused exclusively on domestic violence appeals and includes supervising pro bono co-counsel, paid and volunteer FVAP attorneys, and fellows. Ms. Wagner has been intimately involved in identifying the legal issues facing survivors across the state and developing the appellate legal strategy to address those issues, including the on-the-ground training and technical assistance necessary to preserve the issues for appeal. She was honored for her work in 2018 with a CLAY award (California Lawyer Attorneys of the Year, selected by the Daily Journal) for family law.
Along with her colleagues at FVAP, her work has resulted in 39 published appellate opinions interpreting California’s domestic violence laws. She also co-authored an article for Family Law News, summarizing FVAP’s 2016 statewide survey of domestic violence advocates. Ms. Wagner has a Juris Doctorate from Columbia University, and graduated from Mount St. Mary’s College, Los Angeles.
Transcript
I'm thrilled to have on the show two of my favorite folks from the Family Violence Appellate Project, Erin Smith and Jennafer Wagner. Welcome.
Thanks so much for having us.
One of my favorite things about the show is highlighting some impactful public interest work that's being done by wonderful organizations like yours. For two reasons, one is to highlight for those who might be interested in doing pro bono work some great organizations for them to work with and partner with but also to talk about the journey to a full-time public interest career.
Also, in your case, like Antoinette Balta from VLI who joined us in an earlier episode, Erin, you have a unique circumstance from that year. You founded a nonprofit, saw a gap in the legal services market and filled it. Part of your journey is not just a journey in public interest and impact work but also as an entrepreneur of sorts as well. There’s an interesting part to your journey in that regard. First, I wanted to start at the beginning for both of you. Maybe we can start with Erin and then Jennafer on this, which is your journey to the law. How is it that you decided to go to law school and thought that the law would be something for you?
Thanks, MC. I've been reflecting on that in preparation for this episode. As I was doing that, a lot of things were coming back to me from ancient history. I recall growing up and coming through secondary school, high school, feeling not very empowered as a girl and having experiences, abuse that people that I knew were going through. There was an incident when I was in a history class and I asked a question. After class, one of my male classmates mocked me, laughed at me and made fun of my question. Even coming back to things like that, I knew I was smart and I had good strong opinions and voice but I feel like they were valued. I felt a sense of disempowerment.
Going through college, I started to see a lot of domestic violence firsthand. One of my college roommates’ boyfriend committed abuse against her right in front of me in our college dorm room. He pushed her across the room, slammed her into the wall and her head hit the wall. I had screamed at him to get out. This is in my dorm room at that time.
A later college roommate I had, her mother was a survivor of abuse at the hands of her father. Seeing sexual assault on campus in college also, firsthand. There were a lot of formative experiences before I decided to go to law school where I was forming a very deep passion for the rights of women and girls to be empowered, not be abused, have a voice and be able to be strong.
After college, I started thinking about law school as maybe that could be a career path or a venue where there's a little more of a level playing field where people would be quiet and listen to what I'm saying for its content. I'm making good points and not because I'm a girl or a woman. That was my hope. As I was thinking of going to law school, I decided to be a paralegal first and check out the illegal environment. That did solidify my belief that it would be a good career path for me.
At the same time, I still experienced sexual harassment there. I had a named partner in a law firm as a paralegal. I was probably 22 at the time. He looked me up and down, head to toe and say, “I could see how someone could be into you.” This is in the 2000s. I knew that I wanted to go to law school. I had this deep passion for fighting for the empowerment of women and girls.
There are a couple of things from there in terms of threads that I've heard across other podcasts too, in terms of the law as a platform for problem-solving that it's an empowering way to address issues that you see or solve problems. You came to it with some pretty particular ideas about what those problems were that you might want to solve, which isn't always true for people. Sometimes they will go to law school and the original particular impetus for going to law school ends up not being what you would do in practice. Being open to change in that regard is helpful sometimes too. Jennafer, what about you in terms of law school?
It was interesting to hear Erin’s path to law school. I have to say mine is different. I had the extreme privilege of growing up, not just White and middle-class but in a place where we had great private boys’ schools and not an equivalent to girls’ schools. In my high school, especially on the gifted track where other folks of less privileged backgrounds were kept out, which is awful, I was mostly in classes with other girls and felt very much listened to.
I realized looking around me that society was off-kilter and wanted to do what I could to fix that. I went to a women's college where I wanted to do education policy because if we could fix the schools, get rid of those tracks, integrate everybody and make the school the launching point for everyone, society issues will all be solved.
In my first year of law school, I interned at the Department of Education and realized that was not going to be the way to make a change for me. Certainly, lots of good work is done there but nothing felt like I was making a direct impact. I quickly had to look around and figure out, “At this law school, I'm going to have this degree and make an impact. Where can I do that?” I was honored to take some amazing civil rights courses and realized that as a White person, I should not be involved in trying to lead a racial justice movement because the voices of the folks who are impacted should be leading.
I was like, “What do I do?” I ended up working in mental health because those are folks who often are not empowered with their voices but a lawyer can give them a voice. I started in the public interest. I've had a lot of public interest career and was very lucky, not based on my work in gender-based violence or domestic violence but because I know legal services and have worked a lot with law students to come to Family Violence Appellate Project, where we work hard to give law students a fantastic way to use what they're learning to make an impact. That's how I ended up where we are.
That's another way to have a journey to law school, which is to have one initial sense of how you want to have an impact and realize, “Either that isn't a good fit for me or it isn't the kind of impact that I thought I would have in that area,” and then moving beyond that. I wanted to talk about the organization's work but first Erin, maybe you can talk about this. It’s one thing to say, “There's a particular reason I wanted to go to law school and make a difference for women and girls.” It’s another thing to say, “I'm going to fund an organization that does that instead of joining another organization.” How did Family Violence Appellate Project come to be? How did you reach that conclusion, “I need to be a legal entrepreneur to do what I want to do?”
It was a long journey over many years and somewhat accidental. I have a clear and deep passion for fighting for women and girls and against abuse but it would be too far to say, I knew going into law school, I was going to commit my career to that or I was going to fund an organization. That was the farthest thing from my mind.
Coming out of law school, I clerked for a federal judge where we did know domestic violence or family law whatsoever, some civil rights, a lot of patent work and nothing related to what I'm doing. I went into private practice. I didn't know yet. It’s like when you come out of law school, you've got some debt and you're trying to figure out the landscape of the profession and what all the different routes are.
People who believe in you really help lay the path, and that’s fantastic.
Unfortunately, coming out of law school, you don't know no matter what the law schools or their career offices, how much they try to show you. You can never get a sense of what all the options are. There tends to be a lot of focus on private practice in law firms. They offer great training and mentorship. I had a wonderful experience at the first law firm I went to. I did realize over time that it wasn't my passion. I had this passion to work with women and girls. I did pro bono work there for a survivor of domestic violence who was incarcerated for 27 years and was able to get out of prison but I just wanted to do it more.
I also thought that I wanted to be in trial court more than I was. I made a shift to another type of private practice to a small firm doing family law, which I thought would give me the opportunity to be in trial court more. That was true in court all the time. Also, to do some domestic violence work. That was true as well. That was a great experience learning this area of law, which I'm practicing but I still had that nagging sense. I know what my passion is. I wanted to do it full-time. I was searching at that point. I was still working at this firm and I didn’t know what was next but I knew it wasn't this forever.
I had fortunately stayed in touch with Nancy Lemon, who's a Professor of Domestic Violence Law at UC Berkeley, where I went to law school. She knew I was a little unhappy with where I was, wanted to do something else and I was incredibly passionate about domestic violence law. I was in the right place at the right time. Nancy called me. I answered the phone and she said, “Do you want to come over to Berkeley and hear about this idea that two of my law students have to start a new domestic violence organization?” I said, “Sure.” We had breakfast over in Berkeley on a Sunday. I heard about it from these two incredibly passionate two Ls at UC Berkeley at the time.
This idea was that they had to start an organization specifically focused on the appellate level for domestic violence survivors. Instantly, I knew from my experience being a trial-level practitioner in family law and domestic violence for the past few years, as well as the years of pro bono and going back to working with Nancy in law school, that that was a need. There are legal aid organizations around the state that do trial-level work and represent survivors of abuse for free, not even close to enough but they're there that there was no one at the appellate level.
In 2011 and 2012, you had two excellent domestic violence lawyers at legal aid agencies who are primarily doing trial court work, who happened to be interested in taking one of their cases up on appeal from time to time when they had time, which was rare. That was it. That was the statewide plan for appealing to domestic violence survivors and family law cases. It’s not a good plan.
One of the things I enjoy as an appellate lawyer that you've leveraged for a population that was not served by that at all previously is you can make a difference with 1 or 2 cases. In the trial court, you're applying a particular set of facts and law. You make an impact on that one person. If you can get a favorable appellate decision in terms of the law, then you can have a ripple effect on so many people in the system. There's such a huge impact that you can have even taking a few more appeals than the two people who were doing it already.
When you've got a full partnership like you do with a lot of attorneys at firms doing pro bono work with you, you can have a very significant impact on the law in the state, where you're then helping downstream several people and helping the people at other public interest organizations who are doing the individual representation at the trial level accomplish their goals because you're changing the law with your cases.
In addition to the fact that no one was out there doing appeals at the time, that is exactly why to me, it was crystal clear why this is a smart strategy. There's a need for it. Even as a fledgling organization with just one person, we could have this huge impact. We've tried to do back-of-the-napkin calculations to figure out how many people we think are being impacted by our cases.
At this point, we've added over 50 published cases to California law on domestic violence topics. Knowing how many people go through the California court system, the state of 40 million people, how many people go through the family court system each year and estimating how many of them have domestic violence issues, we think that we are helping over 230,000 Californians every year with our published case law. We're having a large impact.
That's 50 published cases in how many years?
2022 is our 10th anniversary.
That point of scaling up is always an issue in terms of nonprofits, legal nonprofits, in particular, funding, how many staff you're able to have and then how much of an impact and individuals you can serve. The point you made is like, “We could be shoestring and have 1 or 2 people as long as we have strong partnerships with others. We got 1 case that creates new law, much less 50. We'll be punching above our weight in terms of the impact we can make on the law in the state and helping women and girls.” Jennafer, at what point did you come into this equation of the 50 published cases? How long have you been with Family Violence Appellate Project? What has been your role?
It's years that I have been with FVAP. It’s fortuitous. They needed someone to come in part-time and work mostly with the law students who are the basis of our work. They help us do our case intakes, screen our clients and figure out what the issues are. I had that experience and the work seemed valuable. I was happy to jump in. It’s not quite the beginning. About a year after FVAP was founded, I was able to come in and see the organization grow from the grassroots up. We leverage not just the law students but those pro bono attorneys who work with us on these appeals. That's how we're able to make a huge impact as a small nonprofit.
There’s another need or gap that's filled by the organization too, which is those of us who are appellate lawyers can often find it difficult to find a match for our skills. If we want to do pro bono work, if we're going to go to a local public interest organization or legal aid, they're going to have different types of work. They don't have that many appeals typically. You generally need to move outside your field to help in that degree. Here you have a range of people ready, willing and able to help those who don't have other outlets to help them to use their best skills. You also did a service for those appellate lawyers who want to engage in pro bono work and give them a good outlet for doing that.
Another gap that is filled in this way is that we often work both with pro bono attorneys and a legal aid organization that doesn't do appeals. Those appellate lawyers working with us get to pass on that expertise to the public interest attorneys. They may not use it in their appeal later on but it makes a much stronger preserving their record on appeal and doing things that help their clients.
Overall, it's a symbiotic and great relationship with the pro bonos, the legal aids, the law students and us all working together towards getting hopefully a great published opinion that doesn't just help our client but goes on to help other people, even people representing themselves, because the judge knows the law.
You’re building bridges and connections. Sometimes, there can be some turf warring within even public interest organizations if they're overlapping with each other but you are an opportunity to bridge the law students, private lawyers and then other public interest organizations to give them some exposure to the appellate questions and have a better understanding of how they might preserve records in their cases, even if they are not going to be doing other appeals that they would partner with FVAP for the appeals. At least they're thinking about those things earlier in the case and serving their plans better as a result of that too. Are they Nancy Lemon’s law students at Berkeley or they’re at different institutions?
When you're in the trial court, you can make an impact for that one person you’re representing. But if you can get a favorable appellate decision, you can have a ripple effect on so many people in the system.
All over. With COVID, it's been interesting. We've been remote for a few years. It used to be, over the summer, maybe we'd have someone come from Michigan or New York and spend the summer with us. Now that we have been remote these past couple of years, we have law students each semester who are from everywhere. Certainly, Bay Area-heavy, Los Angeles area-heavy but open to anybody who can get on a Zoom call and do the work. It's been great.
That's not done through individual clinics at the law schools. They're doing outreach to you or you're doing outreach to them.
They work directly with us. We have a robust training program and mentorship style. We work hand in hand with them on the principles of family law, appellate rules and domestic violence principles. We have them review our cases and write us memos about what the issues are and whether it's a good appeal. They also do a lot of research for our cases. They have been drafting our pro bono calls. That's a fun thing for them to take the memo about the case they think would make a good appeal, reach out to our pro bono network and say, “Are you interested in helping with this?”
I hadn't realized all the rules that the law students played because I just see the part involving people who want to contribute their law practice expertise. That's neat. I know you do moot courts to help prepare people for arguments in their cases. More junior attorneys will do some of the pro bono cases with you. They get that opportunity to argue in an appellate court. You support that work by doing some pretty rigorous moot courts and having other volunteer attorneys be the judges in those moots.
One of the main prizes for partnering with us on a case is that our pro bonos get to do the oral argument. It's a great opportunity for folks who, for paying clients, aren't going to get that opportunity for probably a few years down the line. We do work hard to prepare them so they are stellar when they go in front of that appellate panel. It's fun and a great short-term pro bono project for someone to volunteer, be a moot judge, spend a few hours at the briefs and come up with hard questions. It's amazing but I have yet to have an actual appellate judge throw one of our arguing attorneys off balance with a question that one of our moot panels didn't come up with.
That’s quite a commitment of people in your network to be willing to participate. If you're going to do the moot court seriously, it takes a certain amount of time to prepare and think of the tough questions but it builds good teamwork and comradery across the different firms that do contribute to your efforts because we're all working together to help someone prepare and do a good job. Also, helping train the next generation and other law firms, not just our own.
I like that continuum you have in terms of the law students have opportunities through from more junior practice to more senior practice as well. That's a nice little ecosystem you've built and also with other public interest organizations around the state. Erin, you started with a few folks and then Jennafer joined. Where are you at in terms of how many people you have in the organization? What else you've been able to do?
The biggest thing is that we expanded to a second state. We are in Washington. We're in two states with the same model, ideas and strategies. We've been gratified to see that it's working, just like it did here. In Washington, we are up to four employees. We had a couple of new people who just started. We're at 17 or 18 employees across the organization, both California and Washington offices. What just started as me and then Jennafer and me to a medium-sized nonprofit in two states. It's been such a thrill. What a ride.
How did you choose Washington State? Did it choose you in terms of somebody reaching out to you or is there something to the calculus of deciding Washington?
It's a little bit of both. At about the five-year mark back in California, we started getting calls from people from around the country saying, “We don't have anything like you out here. Can you come? Can you teach us how to do this? Can you mentor us on your appellate strategy and how it's worked?” We had a law student from Indiana come to California for a week and observe. We mentored her. She wanted to start something similar there.
Unfortunately, she was not able to get that off the ground because it is hard work and you need the stars to align. We recognize that there's this national need for us to be in other states. Years ago, we started taking a hard look at that. We were fortunate to be at a point in our fundraising and capacity where we could start to think about expansion. I tasked one of our Senior Managing Attorneys, Shuray Ghorishi, who's been with us almost as long as Jennafer.
Maybe you worked with her, MC, in one of the early cases. I tasked her with a fellowship program she was doing where they had an in-depth project to cap off the year looking at this. What Shuray started with is identifying the factors in California that had made us successful and that we would like to see in another state to have the greatest chance of success. That was valuable to think about it. How have we succeeded in coming this far? In a nutshell, some of the factors are good statutes already in effect that the state legislatures have already passed because if you don't have good laws, then you don't have good appeals.
Also, the system of being able to take unpublished appellate decisions, publish them and have them be statewide precedent resulting in this outside leverage effect of one key affecting so many more is ideal in terms of having the greatest impact. A robust private sector, like you were talking about pro bono partnerships, is something in California that helped us do even more cases than we could have if we were doing them all in-house. Community partnerships, you were speaking about the legal aid organizations that we support, they are critical community partners. They're representing these clients in trial.
We can have a nice symbiotic relationship with them. We get them information. They get us information and referrals. We can work together collaboratively to get the best legal outcomes for survivors. There may have been 1 or 2 other factors but those are the main ones. We looked at five states, including Indiana and Washington that had reached out to us, also Oregon, Georgia and Illinois.
Washington rose to the top by meeting all of those factors that I mentioned. Maybe someday we'll be in those other states too. Even more, maybe someday it will be in all 50. We thought Washington would be the best starting point where we would have been able to hit the ground running and have some successes. We have seen that in one year or so that we've been up and running.
In terms of a robust appellate practice that you could draw on, I was thinking Washington, California, Texas and Florida have that in terms of at least being a bar that's specialized and would be interested in doing that kind of work. Something is interesting in that, aside from the value of the work that you do and it's unique in terms of focusing on appellate work. I thought it was interesting to have you on too for the reason that you are creating, running and growing a business as well, to some degree.
It's a nonprofit but in service of others. Having that kind of intentionality about how you're going to grow, where are you going to grow and to look back in terms of, “We might think we know what made us successful,” or a number of these things might have come together and align in this particular state but if we're going to look back and say which of those things were essential building blocks of our success and being able to have a major impact on the law, these are the factors that needed to be there.
If you don’t have good laws, then you don’t have good appeals.
That's a part where what you're doing is legal but extra-legal from that regard where you're trying to figure out organization-wide. What is it that makes us successful internally and externally? What things do we need to have in place? That's a different skillset than we think about when we go to law school. These aren't things necessarily that we'd be thinking of.
I'm trained as a lawyer. I went to law school, not business school. I feel like in a lot of ways, the last several years have been business school, maybe nonprofit business school. We do try to be very smart, strategic and introspective because we want to be responsible stewards of public funds and our donors’ support and have every dollar that we have, have the biggest impact that we can and not waste a single dollar because they're all so precious. They all can help survivors. We want to stretch our funds as far as they possibly can go. We do take a thoughtful, careful approach.
What a great thing too, Erin, in terms of growing your team in that regard because having Shuray do that, think about those questions, having everyone, I'm sure roundtable and go through it, you are entrusting her with looking at the recipe for success. That helps the organization grow too because you're empowering her to grow also.
It was so much fun to work with her on that project. She'll even say that she was a little surprised when I said I wanted her to do it. She presented me with a few different options for that project and didn’t expect me to accept. She wants to do the expansion project and then she did. She also said, “I also didn't think we would do it because it was a huge leap.” It's been a lot of fun to be on the journey with her.
Jennafer, from your perspective, you work a lot with the law students and grow them in their skills. Do you see some of them going into public interest work afterwards or incorporating that into their practice in terms of pro bono?
We have seen quite a few folks go on to do domestic violence legal aid work. Our very first fellow, Cory Hernandez, after a few years in legal aid practice, has come back to be our second most junior staff attorney. They are very interested in appellate work and going on to be a judge. We partnered as co-counsel with somebody who was a law clerk with us and is at a private law firm. We see those relationships grow and extend. That's the idea, to train the next generation, understand domestic violence and appellate law, go out and spread the word. Whatever our law clerks ended up doing, we hope that it is bolstered by what they learned from us.
Honestly, that's a recipe for your success as well, in terms of you touching several different arenas and from law school forward in terms of experience. You have a lot of different spheres of influence in the legal community as a result of that. You have this longer-term play in terms of the law students and what they might end up doing with their degrees. Also, impacting the roles that current practicing attorneys have. You have a longer reach as a result of that and a bigger impact also. You're not doing it for that reason. You're doing it for growing these people and giving them opportunities but the collateral effect of that is that the organization itself has some pretty deep roots in the existing and future legal community in law school.
That's pretty neat. Sometimes we don't always know in decisions we make. Sometimes we have to make them because of funding or however we're organized but afterwards, you go, “That's great. It has all these other positive impacts also.” Some thought we do it that way. It's neat to see the people coming back to you, boomeranging from law school to a staff attorney, a fellow position or taking on pro bono cases in practice. It must be gratifying.
We love to see our acolytes spread out across the country and bring their domestic violence awareness, legal skills and appellate knowledge to wherever they land. Whether they're in private practice, legal services or working at the court, they can bring awareness of domestic violence to their work and do pro bono with us, someone else or represent someone directly in appeal, who wouldn't have otherwise had counsel. The more, the better.
That was another interesting point too. They've had exposure to the issues. In some of these cases, the judges or the law clerks will say, “We weren't familiar with that particular area or domestic violence issues. We didn't know which questions to ask or what things to follow up on. Here, by having people with that knowledge sprinkled throughout the system, they might help people to ask the right questions and think about different issues that might not be entirely apparent at first blush.” You have an impact on the overall system in that regard too by having people there who have dealt with the questions before and know which ones to ask.
It's important because one of the challenges we see in California with domestic violence law at the trial level is there are a lot of turnovers on the family bench. The judges might come in for 1 year or 2 and then rotate out. Most judges appointed to the bench or elected to the bench were not family law lawyers when they were practicing. They're coming brand-new to it. It's quite a complicated area of law, especially the full array of family law. They don't know it very well.
They try to learn it as they go, got off the bench and then we've got someone new. The more lawyers in this system present the laws and educate the judges about what the statutes are, people working at the court as well, honestly, clerks and all of that and all those port staff positions, the more people we have in the system with that knowledge, the better to help the judges do the best job they can do, even if they're not previously familiar with that area.
You don't think about it right away. It's a little more invisible in terms of your impact but it is being in the room with certain decisions. That's an important point too in terms of judges in California in the state courts where trial judges rotate through different assignments. They move from family law to criminal to civil assignment. It might be that someone is on the other side of the learning curve, right at the point when they move to a new assignment and then you have somebody either new to the bench or family law being in that assignment and to some degree, starting over in terms of education and for them, getting up to speed in that area. That is an additional challenge.
One thing that the organization and both of you serve is in a mentoring role. It sounds like for your law students and also your newer attorneys and even the pro bono attorneys, at least the newer ones, have you had mentors or sponsors who have helped you in your career? What kinds of things have they done for you? Erin, it sounds like Nancy Lemon to some degree is an important mentor in that regard because she reached out to you with the opportunity and is quite well regarded in this space. It’s one mentor I have heard but I'm just wondering, what kind of support and mentoring both of you have had in your careers? How has that's impacted them?
Nancy has been a guiding North Star in my career. In addition to calling me at the right time, another thing I enjoyed about Nancy is her deep passion for helping survivors and her optimism and upbeat outlook on life after decades of working in a difficult area, hearing a lot of difficult stories. She is the most cheerful person I know. She’s admirable in a lot of ways. There have been several people back in the law firm days. As I've been involved in some state bar committees and professional associations, there've been other women, honestly, who had gone out of their way to elevate me or my profile.
As a result, the Family Violence Appellate Project profile. Some women were on an appellate courts committee that you were also on, MC, with me at the same time who invited me onto the officer track. After joining that track, I ended up chairing that committee. That opens up new opportunities and awareness in the legal community and then the public eye about it's not about me. What I care about is the Family Violence Appellate Project, survivors in our cause, our work and all of that. Me being in that position enabled me to have that platform. You know who you are. Thank you.
It's nice to have people invite you to opportunities and maybe opportunities you hadn't considered or might not have done if somebody hadn't suggested that you apply for them. I put those in the category of little angels, aside from mentoring but they're like little angels that come in at the right time to give you that little niche that you might need to apply and put your name in the hat for something. Jennafer, what about you in terms of mentors or sponsors in your career?
It's my first boss, Kyra Kazantzis, the CEO at the Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits when she was directing the Mental Health Advocacy Project and hired me and some of my other still best friends. It was a fantastic opportunity. I got to see a woman boss and be uplifted by her. She's always been a great mentor. At FVAP, the folks who have tried to lift our presence are Joanna McCallum, who is on our board and nominated us for a big award a few years back, which helped raise our profile, especially in the pro bono community and people like you, MC who lift our voices and send people our way, for sure.
Everyone deserves to be treated with kindness and respect.
I will also give a shout-out to my women's college, Mount Saint Mary's, which is now Mount Saint Mary's University in LA. There are a lot of things to be said about a women's education that never would have occurred to me as a scholarship student to apply to an Ivy League Law School. They were like, “You should do this. You can do this.” It turns out I could. People who believe in you help lay the path. That's fantastic.
The way to express gratitude for that is to pay it forward and do the same thing for others. Both of you and FVAP are doing that organizationally. It's part of your DNA. It's good to see. It's nice to honor those who have helped you in that regard and to recognize them. Sometimes, some help us who we may never know. Some people say the right thing in the room to give you an opportunity and you may never know who they are. It's nice to know that the ones you do know and you're able to thank and honor, that's a nice way of being able to at least express some gratitude for the new people.
Thank you so much for sharing your journeys and FVAP’s journey, which overlapped with both of yours. It's such an interesting story in terms of a nice nonprofit organization that's had such tremendous impact in a relatively short amount of time and then in terms of growth but also because of the work you do. It's important to highlight that too. You've focused on appellate law so you're able to have such significant downstream impacts that are unique to obtaining favorable published appellate decisions.
You’ve got a great recipe that's had some major impact and I know will continue to have a significant impact. I hope that you do continue to grow beyond Washington State and to other states. That would be amazing. To close, I usually do a little lightning round of various questions. Which talent would you most like to have but you don't? I want to start with Erin.
Probably singing. You don't want to hear it.
Jennafer, what about you? Which talent would you like to have but don’t?
It’s a musical instrument. If I could play that, that would be fantastic.
This one's a two-parter. Which trait do you most deplore in yourself and then which trait do you most deplore in others? We'll start with Jennafer on that one.
I am judgmental. You would never guess that. I deplore narrow-mindedness in other people.
For me, probably I'm too much of a perfectionist. I just need to let some things go. In others, unkindness or disrespect. Everyone deserves to be treated with kindness and respect.
Who are your favorite writers? I’ll start with Erin on this one.
A number but I'll say what I’m reading and it’s Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower. It's the first book by her that I'm reading. It's fantastic. In 2022, it's a little too close to home. It's not a realistic story but it feels that way sometimes. The characters in her writing are incredible.
I love Octavia Butler. I had to thank Allison Brunner for turning me onto her. I was looking in my library. It's Sofia Segovia’s The Murmur of Bees is my favorite book. I read constantly. Kindle Unlimited is my favorite perk in the world.
It makes it nice when you're traveling. Otherwise, I never know what I'll be in the mood to read. Before Kindle, it would be ten books that would show up and be put in the luggage and transported. Now you're like, “I have all these options.” They're all on the Kindle. It makes packing much easier. Who is your hero or heroine in real life? I'll ask Erin.
Is it strange to say it's a tie between my mom and Ruth Bader Ginsburg? They're very different people but that's probably true. You referenced Ruth Bader Ginsburg earlier. What a model, not only for women lawyers but honestly a little bit of our strategy. She was so strategic and thoughtful about changing the law through appeals, impact cases and a lot of what we're doing. I would never compare myself directly to RBG or the kind of impact she has had. What an inspiration for generations. I love my mom. She's also my North Star. We talk all the time. I wouldn't be here without her.
It's nice to have that relationship with your mom, that continued guidance and a sounding board or touchstone for things that you're doing. Jennafer, what about you in terms of heroes?
My everyday heroes are the clients we represent. Each of them is strong and amazing and has such incredible grace and strength. That inspires me every day.
Given the choice of anyone in the world, who would you invite as a dinner guest? You can invite more than one. It could be a dinner party if you can't decide. Start with Erin.
Maybe Michelle Obama. She's probably seen and told a lot of interesting, amazing stories and is such an incredible person herself. I bet there's a lot more to tell. Maybe you could get it at a dinner party but she's wonderful.
Jennafer, what about you?
I'm going to build on that. I have been watching the last season of Black-ish. Michelle Obama befriends the main couple. The wife is played by Tracee Ellis Ross, who is amazing. I wanted to be at that table with Michelle, Tracee Ellis Ross and the wine.
You're building on it from my one guest to multiple guests. Sometimes the combination has a different overall flavor to it. You're going to get a little different dinner party conversation when you've got different guests together. That sounds like a good one. Tracee Ellis Ross was pretty and seems pretty amazing too. You would make it from TV to reality there. There's a nice subversion of that as well. The last question for each of you is what is your motto if you have one?
There's something I've been saying for a long time from the kid's book. We say a lot in our house, “You get what you get and you don't get upset.” You got to do the best you can with what you have every day. That's what we try.
Mine maybe would be similar to that. I say, “It is what it is,” a lot. That goes along with something I'm trying to embody more. I’ll be back to my point about being too much of a perfectionist. Letting things get done as they may. We're not in control of the world or what happens every day. I try to be more of a detached observer. It’s a phrase that I try to keep in the back of my head and not be invested in every single current event or happening. Observe it a little more objectively and do what I can but not internalize and try to control stuff quite as much. At the end of the day, it is what it is.
I feel so fortunate to have a job where I wake up every day and know that I am going to spend all day doing my best to put my legal skills and all my other skills to help people who need them. That's what I can do. I am so lucky to be able to do that every day. At the end of the day, it is what it is. I've done what I can.
If you have a perfectionist bent, that can be hard to have a level of acceptance in that regard because it can feel like giving up. You're like, “I want to do this to perfection but I can't.” There's also a lot of release in that when you're saying, “I've done what I can,” and then release it. Hopefully, we'll continue to do good and work positive things in the world but there are only so many things you can impact or change. You do what you can and then let it go.
Thank you both of you so much for joining me. I enjoyed it. You’re both sharing the journey of founding to the growth of the Family Violence Appellate Project, talking about your work and the community that you've created around appellate and in the legal profession. Thank you both, Erin and Jennafer.
Thank you so much for having us.
Thank you, MC. It's been a lot of fun talking with you.