Fighting for Justice – Working at Community Law

“There is no such thing as an average day for our community lawyers.”

Lawyers often get cast in a rather unflattering light. You don’t need a lawyer when everything is going right in your life. Instead, they are often the bearers of bad news or the person you have to turn to when you’ve already got the bad news. They are there on the edges of relationship break-downs, evictions and letters of demand. Yet in my 6 years working at Community Law Wellington and Hutt Valley (CLWHV), the lawyers I have worked with are anything but the vultures described in pop-culture jokes. They are consistently passionate about fighting injustice, driven to get the best for their clients and motivated to ensure everyone in our community understands their rights.

There is no such thing as an average day for our community lawyers. They spend their days travelling between our advice clinics in the suburbs, supervising the drop-in clinics in or presenting legal education for free in between making sure any client work they have is being attended to. This month I spoke to three of our current lawyers, Kate, Sarah and Ione to find out what working at CLWHV means to them.