tomorrow lawyering – Law and Innovation

October 27, 2016

Cultural Competency: A Vital Skill for a 21st Century Lawyer

Oh, Canada! I believe that our great nation is one celebrated for its racial, ethnic, cultural diversity in our people, industries, and way of life. In our increasingly multicultural society, it comes as no surprise that lawyer-client relationships are also as culturally diverse. With that in mind, I believe that a successful 21st century lawyer should be well-equipped for the realities of practice – and that is to be culturally competent when interacting with diverse clients, fellow practitioners, and other members of our legal profession from all walks of life.

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Just what exactly is cultural competency?

Cultural competency has been defined as a “set of congruent behaviours, attitudes and policies that come together in a system, agency, or profession that enables that system, agency or profession to work effectively in cross-cultural situations”. Put simply, a culturally competent lawyer is not only aware of their clients’ cultural backgrounds, but goes beyond to recognize that cultural undertones may inform behaviours, motivations, and their relationship with the client. In doing so, a culturally competent lawyer can effectively assist with advocacy and communication across cultural experiences.

Why is there a need for culturally competent lawyers?

Cross-cultural clients often face challenges and barriers when dealing with legal issues that stem from their unique cultural experiences. This list is not exhaustive nor reflective of every interaction, but I believe that these are common issues that cross-cultural clients may face:

Communication – The obvious is a language barrier between a lawyer and cross-cultural client. However, communication can include client’s body language, non-verbal cues, and mannerisms that may vary from culture to culture. When the lawyer is not cognizant of these cues, they are prone to missing important indicators of communication from the cultural client.
Cultural values – Individuals of different ethno-racial groups may think, behave, and express themselves differently from other clients. Sometimes, these practices greatly contrast common practices of mainstream culture (i.e. eye contact in North American culture regarded as confidence vs. direct eye contact can be viewed as disrespect in East Asian cultures)
Colour-blindness – Colour-blindness is a huge issue. Instead of working to recognize and accommodate cultural differences to provide appropriate legal services, colour-blindness ignores that there are even differences in the first place. This ideology disregards that clients of cultural groups foster diverse values, behaviours, and communication needs, all of which require special attention.
Stereotypes – There is also a danger of negative stereotypes being projected onto cross-cultural clients. Lawyers have to be cognizant of these stereotypes, so that they do not become normalized, repeated practices against clients of a particular cultural group.

What are some ways to utilize cultural competency in practice?

I do not think becoming a culturally competent lawyer is particularly difficult. It definitely takes practice and requires adopting a set of lawyering skills tailored to this special niche of clients, but it is like learning any other skill.

Courts, legal aid clinics, and many law firms have already adopted translators, interpreters and other language aid tools for their cross-cultural clients, which is a great start. In order for lawyers to provide competent services to clients of other cultures, basic knowledge of their cultural practices or values should be given preliminary research much just like any other legal issue that would be given the same attention. Another helpful tip is to adopt an open, culturally appropriate attitude when interacting with cross-cultural clients. I think the biggest challenge for lawyers is to seeing past the dichotomy between the dominant Western culture and non-Western cultural practices. If lawyers stop trying to make sense of cultural practices using dominant Western ideals as a benchmark, I think we can foster an attitude that is open towards clients of other cultures, and can even spot similarities that were not as obvious before. Lastly, I believe that there should be more attention to cross-cultural education in law schools, or teaching cultural competency in law school clinics and continuing legal education. This change in education could help implement core skills in law students on how to interact with cross-cultural clients, before they enter the profession.

Lawyers are advocates for clients from all walks of life including clients of other cultures. So isn’t it time we recognized cultural competency as a necessary skill to being a successful lawyer in the 21st century?

September 29, 2016

Career Metamorphosis

A handful of us in law school are here because we’ve hit the pause button on a career that’ll be enhanced by legal training, which has the potential to open up some interesting career paths beyond the traditional degree-article-firm job trajectory. In my case, a suspended academic career with an accompanying consulting practice tied to law means putting myself back on the other side of the classroom so that I might morph my work into something that can only come from the training that comes with a legal education. It’ll be worth it, right?

A survey of colleagues over the years show some of the interesting hybrid careers that can fall out of putting a layer of law on top of what one has already had some success doing.

One friend has a doctorate in language acquisition and second language learning, and, bolstered by that training, she went into criminal law and now works to address the legal issues that arise owing to weaknesses in legal translation in the courtroom.

Two others came out of high tech and transitioned nicely into intellectual property, bringing their specialized and current knowledge of their fields to guide patent applications and mount pretty formidable infringement cases.

One went from psychology to law, and now does mental health advocacy, including helping agencies seek funding.

The value of these lawyers comes from spending years honing a craft that then informs their legal work with a depth that cannot otherwise be acquired.

Law, we now know as law students, touches on literally every aspect of life and legal issues will always spring up. So whatever it is you did in a past professional life, you can probably parlay that into a career that aims to solve the problems that are endemic in that area. I used to teach and I’d get students in my office with all kinds of career anxiety, so I got pretty good at spitballing ideas. Here’s a few:

Were you a teacher? Teachers’ unions need your help, especially in provinces that keep defunding education. More on-the-ground work might see you representing individual teachers or schools in disputes.
Were you in health sciences? This one would be full of opportunity. Health tech, recalls, epidemics, policy, no doubt in my mind that another Imperial Tobacco is right around the corner, what with all the vapers in the doorways.
Maybe you come from social work? What can you and your expertise bring to some of the issues we need to be confronting in BC right now? Not a day goes by that we aren’t troubled by headlines regarding the homeless, the addicted, the mentally ill, housing crises and there are tons of legal issues arising all the time.
Environmental sciences or activism? You won’t be out of work in this province because, pipelines. Environmental agencies and First Nations are going to need your expertise to help make their case.

(You’ve probably noticed that I’m rather social justice minded, so perhaps the business minded can weigh in with their own ideas down in the comments.)

While it seems like jumping ship and going into law is a surefire way to do a mid-life career change, I suspect the hybrid route is one that could have some obstacles. You’re not immune to the thinning articling market, for example. And while no one likes to think it the case, age discrimination is a thing, and might work against you if you’re out there looking for something entry.

But a nice byproduct of the metamorphosed career is being hooked into a field that already knows your name, and that can’t be bad for business.

September 23, 2016

Immigration, anecdotes and project management!

All credit to Joe Gardner from Unsplash (https://unsplash.com/?photo=4xv3lqnanYc)

Let’s talk about immigration law!

So to start, and anecdotally, I have a friend in law school who recently immigrated to Canada. They had a very frustrating time doing so, mostly because of the incredible amounts of bureaucracy and delay involved. Most specifically, he missed a single signature on a single page, sent in the forms, and waited 6 months for a response. The response he finally got was “here’s all your stuff back, sign that 1 missing signature and then send it back in” which is frustrating, but reasonable. So he did that.

You would think the 6-month delay would have to do with postage on both ends, but no! He had to wait another 2 months before finally getting confirmation that they had the forms and had processed them.

He had to wait 8 months for a set of forms to be accepted and recognized! This kind of delay seems insane, and ridiculous. Maybe you can blame it on the bureaucracy. Maybe you can blame it on my friend missing the one signature. Wherever you place the blame, wouldn’t it be nice if you had someone to work through this material with you? Or more likely than not, a program that could keep the immigration process in check and let you know what’s going on with updates?

Enter BridgeUS. This is a startup based in the USA (though I think would likely be very successful in Canada), out of San Francisco, and which seeks to simplify the immigration process, either through an attorney, or on your own.

A screenshot of BridgeUS program at work!

BridgeUS has created an application that will walk you through the immigration process, start to finish, with the required forms, checklists, and all of the information you need to ensure that you complete your immigration as quickly as possible, and as easily as possible. The client-facing side is a Do-It-Yourself system, where you simply follow the guide. The application has surveys and methods to gather your information that aren’t simply you filling in blank spots on forms, which is a nice touch as well.

The lawyer facing side is also interesting, because it focuses on project management and tracking of the process. It works on a checklist process, focusing the lawyer on what needs to be done next, and (I assume) through your own input, directs you through the checklists and keeps you up to date on the file, so that even if you walk away from the file and come back to it later, then you can quickly see what you had on the go, and what needs your attention.

I really like BridgeUS. I think this is the kind of tool that governments should necessarily provide, to make the immigration process more transparent, rather than wrapped up in so much bureaucratic red tape that you don’t even know what to do.

Further, I think BridgeUS takes Susskind’s advice, and focuses on incorporating project management into the legal profession, which Susskind thinks will be a career specialty unto itself in the future. Good future-proofing, adaptation of a new skill set to force the lawyer to adapt, and both client and lawyer facing.

Good job BridgeUS! Keep up the work! I can’t wait to see your Canadian equivalent eventually pop up!

“Ars, Lex Iuvenesque Inventores: hinc Futurum”