Week 4:
Volunteering

June 21, 2019

     I learned something new and neat about Octavia Legal Associates this past week.  On Monday morning, I walked into the office and found out we were going to be participating in a couple of different meetings this week.  As my boss explained to me, sessions were set up with various law firms across the Madison area to discuss volunteering in the Latino community. Up until that moment I had no idea that Octavia Legal volunteers once a month to focus on helping Latino community members tackle their legal situations.  The meetings for the week were set up to hopefully bring in more law firms to support the program.  

     The focus of the community volunteering program is not necessarily to solve the problems of each person who comes through the door but to help begin that process.  One issue discussed heavily in one of our meetings this week was how to classify these walk-in meetings. What I mean by that is, are the people coming to this program entering into a formal relationship with each lawyer they meet with? Are the individuals coming in considered “clients” who are receiving legal advice — or is the relationship more informal?Ultimately, it seems like they all agreed, the relationship was relatively casual, and the lawyers present at the volunteering session were triaging their problems giving them a recommended best path forward.

     On Thursday this week, we were all in the office listening to my boss speak on one of the Madison Spanish radio stations.  The entire interview was focused on the event we had been talking about all week long — it was also done in Spanish. There was a portion of the interview where people could call in and ask legal questions.  One interesting thing I learned is that people who are not in the country legally are afraid to call the police if they have been in an accident. As a result, a number of them get taken advantage of — especially if they are not the ones at fault for the accident.  Anyhow, this week, it was exciting to see how lawyers work together to volunteer in the community. It showed a very different side of the law I feel like so many do not necessarily take note of.

On a lighter side,  I said I would keep you updated on our team’s trivia success.  This week in trivia did not yield the success we had hoped for, but the 10 cent wings made up for our failures.  I also have continued to get my butt kicked by our hill-day workout. This week’s hill-day still has my legs shaking — funny enough, the hill we run is in front of the University of Wisconsin Law School building.  Abe Lincoln sits on top of the hill and to complete our workout we have to touch his feet.