From QVS to Pursuing a Legal Career

What led you to QVS?

I learned about QVS while living in Immokalee, Florida. I moved to Immokalee after I graduated from undergrad to work in the immigration unit at the local Legal Aid office. I worked primarily with people seeking asylum, mostly unaccompanied minors. Immokalee is a hub of the tomato industry and home to incredible farmworker organizing in the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. While living there, I attended my first Quaker meeting with Fort Myers Friends. Friends there actually introduced me to QVS and encouraged me to apply!

I was drawn to QVS because I wanted to work on justice issues while also building strong community and sharing values (justice, simple living, spirituality) with my housemates. I was immediately interested in Casa del Trabajador, which ended up becoming my site placement. Casa is an immigrant, worker-led worker center that combines direct action and legal strategies to combat wage theft, support injured workers, and drive immigrant-led campaigns in Metrowest Massachusetts.

What have you been up to since your QVS year?

I started law school immediately after my QVS year. I chose Northeastern Law for the student body’s commitment to social justice issues. During law school, I did four internships: in the employment unit at a legal aid office, judicial chambers, state labor department, and a Vermont worker center. My work with Casa del Trabajador charted my path throughout law school.

During my first year of law school, I learned about the idea of “community lawyering” — law practice in solidarity with organizing efforts and community needs. Community lawyering understands legal action as only one tool of many in a larger social movement. It emphasizes the power of the people themselves, deemphasizing lawyer-centric legal solutions as a means of social change. My time in QVS introduced me to advocates who truly practiced community lawyering with low-income workers, and solidified my decision to pursue a legal career.

How have you remained connected to the social justice causes that drove you to law school in the first place? How has your understanding of social justice work evolved since we last spoke? How does Spirit show up in your work?

My belief in the dignity and spirit of all people guides all the work I do. My spiritual practices ground me in my values: justice, equity, the worth of all people and our connection to the earth. During my QVS year, thanks to QVS’ sponsorship of Fellows, I attended the Continuing Revolution conference at Pendle Hill. The theme was Building Intentional Lives, in the lens of work, love and relationships, justice, and spiritual practice. We asked questions like: “How do we build full lives that align with our values? How do we bring our full selves to work without alienating our core beliefs?”

For me, spiritual practice and community are the answers. They remind me that the work I do is only one element of who I am and what I share with the world. They remind me that my work — paid or unpaid — is not isolated from those around me, from my communities, from all of the social movements that intersect around justice for marginalized people.

Discernment is a big theme that surfaces in QVS. During the fellowship year, Fellows practice listening to the still, small voice as they discern: how to spend their time; their spiritual gifts; how to move through conflict or how to bring joy into a community’s practice; a vocational path, job opportunity, and training or further education. What does discernment look like in your life now? 

Discernment remains a big part of my life, as I imagine it does with many young adults. During my QVS year, my housemates supported my discernment process with clearness committees. I grappled with the idea of going to law school at all, and then with discerning which law school to attend. The discernment practices we established as a community are still very present for me.

I sat for a long time with the question of what I wanted to do after graduating from law school. I felt pulled in many directions. It was important to me to take a post-grad job that would let me work on impactful, worker-driven issues. Way opened into a post-grad fellowship that allows me to work on labor issues in a progressive, supportive space.