My real life experiences and commitment to end poverty through the work I do are what I believe led me to being one of the only paralegals selected by Legal Aid of Nebraska to serve on the firm’s Strategic Planning Committee. That opportunity provided me hands-on experience with the firm’s statewide needs assessment, focus groups and ultimately bore the nation’s first Access to Justice Pro Se Center.

I got to be the paralegal assigned to the center. I assisted with the conception of the pilot program. From helping with the development of curriculum to teaching the Pro Se litigants and all minor administrative duties such as intake procedures. This is one of the highlights of my career.

HOW IT STARTED:
MUIRNE HEANEY & PAT FORD’S GUIDANCE
I continued to work at the center for it’s first year under the direction of Muirne Heaney and Pat Ford. I couldn’t have dreamt up a better duo to work for. They were polar opposites and both absolutely geniuses.

What Muirne knew real well, Pat knew nothing of. And what Pat knew well, Muirne never worked on. Neither of them had egos that precluded them from admitting the things they did not know well. Still their combination of knowledge was vast, but not nearly as vast as their compassion. They worked on every case zealously and with the utmost professionalism. 

EMPOWERMENT THROUGH PRO SE REPRESENTATION
I was so excited to be a part of the center. I really feel like to help people without them feeling like welfare recipients and suffer from the assumed constraint that comes along with that self perception, we have to help them help themselves. 

The self-help clinics were for people who had modifications to their child support obligations to include visitation so they could secure their rights to be in their children’s lives. 

A CHILDLESS MOTHER
As you can expect, we mostly helped fathers and it was always rewarding. But one of our first participants was a young lady in her mid-twenties. She came to the clinic a quiet, timid woman. She carried herself with her head down.

During her intake she explained that she had her 8 year-old son when she was just a teenager. That he was just a toddler then and she admittedly wasn’t living her life right. She had ended up in a very abusive relationship and wasn’t being the mom her son deserved. So her son’s paternal grandmother filed for guardianship for the child and after that refused the mother visitation. 

I have encountered so many mothers without their children in their lives, they are usually so hurt and broken. And she clearly was. 

WE PREPPED HER FOR THE LION’S DEN
Well thanks to Muirne’s magic, we went and got her all organized and helped her with her pleadings. Together, Muirne and I prepped her for her hearings and we sent her into Court with her quiet voice and her heavy chin and all I could do was just wish her well and hope she would do her best. 

She was so grateful for all the help we gave her but you could tell she was frightened. What she didn’t know is I was frightened for her too. She was going in front of a very grumpy judge and I was afraid he would growl at her and crush the remaining hope she had. 

EVIDENCE ADDUCED
She came back from Court immediately and walked in the door unrecognizable. Her chin was up,she had a huge smile on her face and I knew it was unlikely the judge would issue an order from the bench in a matter like this. But her energy told me she won. I was ready for he to tell me the judge gave her a favorable decision to her visitation request.

I asked, “Did he give you an order from the bench?” 

She said, “No. But I went in there, and he listened to me.” 

I literally welled up in tears as soon as she said that. That comment right there is why I love the legal field. Some of us just want to be heard. We just want to know we have equal access to justice. She was full of tears of joy when she went on to tell me how she went in there much more prepared than the other side. She felt confident and the judge respected her. 

ABILITY TO STAND UP FOR YOURSELF
Of course, she went on to get regular, reasonable visitation with her son. She came in with him during one of her visits so we could meet him. You could tell he knew he was something special while holding on to her hand. And if he didn’t know then, he would eventually learn one day that his mom didn’t just do what most people expect a woman with no support system, victim of domestic violence who formerly had a drug problem do and give up. She stood up for herself and her son, found her voice and was heard. 

I literally have at least 100 of those stories. That one might touch me the most because the Honorable Keith G. Kautz of Wyoming gave me the same respect that ignited a hope that most people who grow up poor as a minority in the Midwest never expect to receive in a courtroom.

During my time at A2J I was struggling with an uncomfortable autoimmune disorder. Eventually I left Legal Aid and my waitressing gig at a fancy restaurant to start Paralegal Power Company so I could devote more time to my kids. Nothing else could have tore me away from such important and rewarding work.