We sat down with Julie to discuss her experiences as a public defender with Youth, Rights & Justice over her nearly 20-year career here. Key takeaways include the relationships forged and rewarding work that keep her engaged and inspired at YRJ.
What motivated you to become a public defender?
I didn’t always plan to become a public defender. When I was in law school, I thought I wanted to do family law. I’ve always loved working with people. But in 2004 after school, I started with AmeriCorps on a helpline job that was funded at the Juvenile Rights Project [YRJ’s former name].
On the helpline, I did mediation between teens and parents. I filed some probate guardianships for people and answered general questions and questions about power of attorney.
I fell in love with the people who work here and our clients and dependency work in general. I did that for a year, and when a staff position came open at YRJ, I interviewed and was hired as a staff attorney.
So, you’ve been here for a while?
Yes, it’s been my only job as a lawyer.
What drew you to YRJ in the first place and what keeps you here?
I love our clients and I love the mission of the juvenile court. Offering support and services to reunite families is kind of how I see our work. It’s the clients that I love the most.
And then obviously the people who work here are incredible. And this includes the whole juvenile court: the bar, other defense attorneys, the other prosecutors. That’s a good group of people to work with.
Even the prosecutors?
Yes, the juvenile court is a funny land where you are aligned one minute, and the next minute you’re opposed. And so, you have to maintain professional working relationships because you never know which side of the triangle you’re going to be on.
What area(s) do you specialize in? and why?
Primarily dependency cases and SIJS [Special Immigrant Juvenile Status] cases. I have done delinquency cases but I mostly do dependency now. I love the dependency cases the most because of the reunification aspects and I love giving voices to children and parents.
What’s a typical dependency case you might see?
Typical cases are when something happens, and the clients come to the attention of DHS. The kids might be removed at the first hearing and placed somewhere or kept with parents. We either represent the parents or the kids. Kid representation really depends on how old they are and the circumstances around them.
We always represent the kid directly if we are appointed to represent them. We always assume that kids want to be home with their parents, unless something crazy is happening. They’ll say, ‘I want to live with my mom or dad, but I don’t want them to be using drugs’ or ‘I don’t want this partner to be living there.’
We’ll ask kids what things they need to be safe before they go home. Our job is to be the kid’s voice. The whole system works when everyone is represented. We help parents to navigate the pressure – always giving them the best advice to get their kids back.
How do you build trust with clients who may be initially resistant to working with a public defender?
I think being available and consistent and being honest are the main things. You have to meet with them over and over and you have to be available by text or phone over and over. It is important to be honest with them about the likelihood of success and the issues.
A lot of the parent clients expect people to fail them. Winning isn’t necessarily the biggest thing. We can lose a hearing and not get what we want; but if I was present at the hearing and respectful and available to represent what they want, that’s trust building. Being a consistent and trustworthy voice for them, I think, is winning. The rest they have to do, to make the changes. I can’t make those changes, but I can be available every time they call me.
How do the SIJS cases differ from the other dependency cases?
We use our dependency court to get kids out of the immigration detention centers and into foster care where they can go to school and work and live a fulfilling life.
These cases become typical dependency cases once we’ve filed a petition for them. But they are some of my favorite clients because they have been through so much and they are so resilient and grateful for all the help. It’s hard to quantify trauma – but these kids have been through more truly terrible circumstances than our clients who are raised here. They are mostly really trying to make the best life they possibly can.
It’s sad to see our immigration system being so broken. A lot of our kids from Central and South America never get residency in the three years we work with them because the queue is so long for their petitions to be resolved. They age out of the system before they can get a status adjustment.
We work to get filings in dependency court that are used in their immigration cases. We get them into juvenile court, and then give the findings to their immigration lawyer. We help them out in dependency and child welfare until they’re 21. But we work to get them into foster care before their 18th birthday so that they are not transferred to the Tacoma ICE detention facility and basically in prison.
Do you see outcomes improving for our clients? What is the biggest challenge facing our clients?
It’s been important that kids can stay in their home school and the school advocacy from SchoolWorks. The hardest part is cases are so much more complicated than they used to be. Family circumstances are so much more dire than they were 15 years ago. The drug problems are way worse and there isn’t the infrastructure to really support families with housing and treatment and finances within DHS.
DHS has also had a huge amount of foster care resources drain away. There used to be so many more therapeutic foster homes than there are now. Therapeutic foster homes don’t really exist any more. There were several organizations that had highly skilled and highly supportive foster homes and they have disappeared.
What keeps you coming back? Keeps you hopeful and engaged in this work?
I maintain contact with a former client that was a teen when I met her. She’s in her 30s now and has a baby. We still have lunch many times a year. That’s what keeps me going is just this low-key consistent support. It’s not glamorous, and I’m not fighting federal lawsuits, but it’s being constant and consistently there for people, is what I value most in this work.
When a case is done, that doesn’t necessarily mean that a relationship is. I have another client that had aged out of the system, without ever returning to a parent but I ended up being an ongoing contact for them.
Any parting words for folks interested in pursuing this type of work?
You just have to keep having hope. It sounds cheesy, but you know the system is broken and hard and difficult, but you just can’t give up.
I also have excellent boundaries. I think it is important to have a robust life outside of work, with friends and priorities that are not this work because otherwise this work will drown you. And there have been times where I felt like I was drowning.
It helps to have strong relationships within the office too. You need to be able to turn the work and worry off and have something else to turn to.