Making It Easy to Give Back with Anna Chu

Episode Notes

Transcript

Anna Chu:

It’s been really exciting to see the enthusiasm for this work. We have had over a thousand lawyers join the network saying that they want to help. We have had over a thousand workers come and say they need help. Hopefully what we can do is give people some light for folks to know that there’s someone they can call, someone they can turn to, someone who can answer questions for them. That’s I think, what they are entitled to.

Announcer:

That’s today’s guest on SideBar. Anna Chu, executive Director of We The Action SideBar is brought to you by Monterey College of Law, San Luis Obispo College of Law, Kern County College of Law, empire College of Law, located in Santa Rosa and the colleges of Law with campuses in Santa Barbara and Ventura.

Welcome to SideBar featuring conversations about optimism in action with lawyers and leaders inspiring change. And now your co-hosts Jackie Gardina and Mitch Winick.

Jackie Gardina:

Mitch. In the first a hundred days of the Trump administration, we’ve seen an onslaught of actions that are often untethered to any legal authority but ones that have enormous impact on people’s lives. One of these actions is the mass firing of federal workers often without affording them any process or respecting any of their legal rights. Today we’re going to talk to someone who stepped into that chaos to support those workers. Anna Chu is the executive director of We the Action, an organization that connects pro bono attorneys with those who may need an attorney but who can’t afford one. When the mass firing occurred, we the action jumped into action and started the Federal Workers Legal Defense Network. Anna is here to talk to us about the organization, the work that they do across the board, as well as the work that they’re doing in defense of the federal workers. Welcome Anna.

Anna Chu:

Thank you so much, Jackie for having me here. Excited for our conversation today and hi Mitch.

Mitch Winick:

Hi Anna. One of the things, Jackie, that you touched on that I think is important for us to consider and we’re going to talk with Anna about today is that it’s easy to focus on the federal government as an institution, but it’s an institution made up of people who are there serving us. The whole purpose of their jobs are to provide services and benefits to us as citizens of this country, and I believe that sometimes gets lost in the narrative. So Anna, we’re going to want to talk with you a little bit about that so that we can humanize these stories about what’s going on. We like to start by learning a little more about your path. We’re featuring lawyers, advocates, individuals who are doing good work on all types of issues for this season of, so tell us a little about how did you get into this area of work?

Anna Chu:

Every time someone asks me this question, I do have to start with my family. My family’s actually made up of immigrants and refugees. My dad came as a refugees in his mid twenties. It was because of a lot of supportive policies in place at that time that he was able to go from not much honestly to, I guess you can call it an American success story. It was because of free college classes. He was able to go and learn English, good wage policies that he was able to find a job that could support him. He was able to take that and eventually have a family, buy a house, start a small business. I say all this because I don’t quite believe in the bootstrap story that we just all did it by ourselves because we were hardworking. We are super smarter than everybody else and we pulled ourselves up our bootstrap.

I don’t want to dismiss their efforts and how the late nights and the overtime that everyone put in, but without the policy decisions that we all made and put in place, I don’t know how many success stories there would be, and so when I think about all that, I am so grateful because it was these collective decisions that allowed my family to really thrive here. And so I have the mentality that if we got to thrive, we should help others also thrive. I want everyone to be a success story. I want everyone to afford secure a place to live, to have healthcare, to have jobs that pay good wages. We should not get through the door and just shut it behind us. That’s not very neighborly. For one thing that’s really driven me and the decisions I’ve made. I went to law school because I wanted to understand the building blocks of our country and how to ensure that we use the building blocks for the common good and that’s why I left the big law firm.

I will say my father thought I was going crazy. He was like, wait, what? You left the good paying job to go to DC and not have a job and surf on couches for a while. I was like, yes, yes, that is what I did. He didn’t talk to me for four months, but that’s why I started getting into work with nonprofits to help improve economic security. That’s why I worked at the National Women’s Law Center to fight for gender equity. That’s why I came to We the Action because I wanted to make sure everybody had access to justice.

Jackie Gardina:

It’s so interesting, Anna, because we ask other people that question and so many of them start with their family of origin and the influence their family of origin had on the path that they take. So you are not alone in your spirit of giving and giving back coming from where you started. And so I love that story and I do want to focus just a moment on We the action, because I love just the simple vision, the power to do good, and I just want to read from the website because I love it. The action was founded on the fundamental premise that lawyers have the power to do good, and that is what I always tell law students. The power that you now have upon graduation and getting your license is the power to change lives and how you use that power is going to be really instrumental in what our society looks like. What is we, the action, what does it do? How does it reach out and help others?

Anna Chu:

Jackie, I felt the exact same enthusiasm and optimism when I heard about We, the action myself. We, the action is built on the idea that if you connect pro bono lawyers with nonprofit organizations, you can dramatically increase the capacity of the nonprofit organization and together you can really advance the mission of the organization. You can really try and start advancing social change that you can advance access to justice, and that’s exactly what we’re doing, what we’re trying to do. So the action has grown a lot since it was founded in 2017. We are now at over 54,000 lawyers. They’ve donated over 194 million worth of pro bono services, and so I love it. I love doing this because every day I get to see the good that people do. We have countless lawyers, thousands of lawyers every election cycle volunteer for the election protection hotline, just helping voters answering their questions. What times are the polls open? What do they need to bring to the polls? We have lawyers who staff domestic violence hotlines, and so you’re talking about very tough situations, helping people and being a light for someone during a really tough time. That’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to make it easy and we’re trying to match the two together, bring the communities together so that the sum can be more than its parts,

Mitch Winick:

And what really surprises me is how flexible you appear to be as an organization. For example, clearly you ramped up immigration legal response in the last few weeks. You had started to address issues related to federal employees who need to have protection. That’s an area that I’m not sure anybody would focus on or think that might be necessary. Talk first about immigration and then bring us up to speed on what you’re doing with federal employees

Anna Chu:

On immigration. That has always been an issue that’s very central to we the action. We were actually born out of the first wave of migrant bans back in the first Trump administration, and at that time we saw a lot of lawyers rush to airports to try to represent impacted individuals, and I love the enthusiasm. That was great. It was also the worst logistics, a logistical nightmare. You can imagine there had got to, we saw that and said, there’s got to be a more efficient way to ensure that folks can access pro bono lawyers. And hence, the action was born in the beginning of the year. We started ramping up because we anticipated everything that’s happening in immigration and we started hosting trainings. I will say that our immigration training had over 400 lawyers attend. We have seen thousands of lawyers, new lawyers sign up to we the action, many of whom are interested in immigration.

I will say right now, the field and the sector is really hard, namely because the way it is being attacked is a little bit different from what we’ve seen before, and so we are having to adapt and adjust in real time. We see new categories of people who need legal services, legal resources. We are actively working with our partners right now to see how and what we can build to get access to folks because we did not anticipate that it would be international students being targeted. And so right now we have to think about how we are reaching out to international students. I cannot tell you that we have a perfect answer for it right now, but yes, the action is flexible and it is nimble because of the fact that we have 54,000 lawyers all versed in different areas and spread out across the country, we are able to mobilize quickly.

We do have to address this issue. I think the other aspect on immigration is that immigration organizations themselves are under fire. They’re facing funding cuts, so there are layoffs throughout the sector and it’s really hurting their ability to respond in the moment and to continue serving people at the levels necessary. It was always hard serving folks at the levels necessary. It’s just now even harder. So in terms of what we need moving ahead, we are going to have to be even more creative about how we leverage legal services. I do think pro bono services will have to be an even larger part of the equation.

Mitch Winick:

Jackie, I want to take a moment to reflect that as we’re talking about optimism and action. Many of our guests say that they first started thinking about a career in public service while they were still in law school, and schools like yours and mine, Monterey College of Law provide an affordable, convenient way for working adults to attend law school and pursue these interests. Classes are taught by practicing lawyers and judges who prepare our students to serve their community in many of the same areas that we are discussing here on SideBar. For more information, go to monterey law.edu

Jackie Gardina:

And I just want to focus a little bit on the work you’re now doing for federal workers, but I think it might be important to lay a foundation about why the legal protections for federal workers exist and why it’s not just about protecting the individual worker, but it’s about protecting the public service that’s provided by those federal workers. So I wonder if you could lay the foundation about some of the federal protections that are in place and why they’re important.

Anna Chu:

First off is that I think a lot of people have a misconception that federal workers are only in Washington dc that they’re working in the large buildings. It’s all just layers and layers of red tape bureaucracy, and if Doge gets in and just massively cuts, we’re just going to save a lot of the money. I think what folks don’t recognize is federal workers are spread throughout the country. They’re everywhere. They are working in our national parks. They are helping deliver healthcare. They are supporting our schools, making sure that all students, including students with disabilities, have access to public education. So when we do layoffs, it’s hurting the federal worker. It is hurting the federal workers’ family, but it is also threatening all of us and all of the services that we are relying on. For example, how is anyone reaching Social Security Administration right now?

If tax refunds are late, who can they go to And for Tax refunds, families are living paycheck to paycheck out there. They’re waiting for that tax refund to fix their furnace, to fix their fridge, to fix their car. We have a system in place where we protect federal workers. We have a large group that are unionized and have protection from the unions that is trying to be undone. Right now. We have a differentiation between who is a political appointee that the president can put in place to steer an agency versus your civil servants who are there day in, day out. Focus 100% on delivering services to you and I, regardless of how the hands change politically at the top.

Jackie Gardina:

So when we’re talking about the Federal Workers Legal Defense Network, it’s almost like the Public Services Legal Defense Network would be an apt name as well. So what is the Legal Defense Network doing on behalf of not just the federal workers but all of us that are served by them?

Anna Chu:

Jackie, I will take the suggested name change back to the team. We thought it was really important to help support federal workers during this tough time. So we have seen a lot of great lawsuits by organizations like Democracy Forward. They’re doing class actions, they’re pushing back in mass. We also know that there’s a lot of rank and file workers who may not fall under one of the class actions and they are still impacted. They have nowhere to go. They try calling their HR office in their agency, what does this notice? What does this mean? What rights do I have not have? And they’re not getting anyone because there’s no one there anymore to help them. And so that is just grossly unjust, grossly unfair. What we want to do is provide them access to at least some legal resources. So what we did is we brought together a lot of experts in federal employment law.

We worked with A-F-L-C-I-O, we worked with Democracy Forward Leadership Conferences of Civil Rights and many others, and we built this new entity. We would take in questions and inquiries from workers and make sure we’re getting them the right resources. If someone has a whistleblower claim, we’re making sure they have access to all the whistleblower experts. If someone has investigative matter, like Congressional Investigation Agency investigation, the criminal matter, we’re making sure to connect them with folks who have those resources if they have the thousand and one questions, how to file appeal. Can you talk me through this? Do I qualify for this one or this one? We are connecting them with lawyers for free pro bono consultation. It’s been really exciting to see the enthusiasm for this work. We have had over a thousand lawyers join the network saying that they want to help. We have had over a thousand workers come and say they need help. Hopefully, what we can do is give people some light for folks to know that there’s someone they can call, someone they can turn to someone who can answer questions for them. That’s I think what they are entitled to.

Mitch Winick:

As I look on your volunteer page for we, the action, I see that it says you have 700 nonprofits have requested help on 80,000 volunteer matches, and then you’ve got 64 active projects listed right now today. I scrolled through them and if someone was interested in healthcare or criminal defense reform or as you’ve talked about working with federal workers, I mean, it just goes on and on. It really is quite extraordinary that you have created this matching system for volunteers. Talk a little more about that. I mean, that was an ambitious project and yet it looks like you’ve accomplished it. It’s just extraordinary.

Anna Chu:

It took a lot of time, a little bit of blood, a little bit of sweat, a little bit of tears all at once. But we are happy that we have built up a reputation with nonprofit organizations where they can trust us, trust that we will respect their expertise, and we will provide them the help that they need, not the help that I think they need, but the help that they are telling us they need and want. And so what we did with all of that is, gosh, we just kept building and building the countless calls to countless nonprofits, to countless coalitions, offering our free services to them. At the same time, the outreach to lawyers at firms in-house, solo practitioners, small firms, bar associations, you name it, we’ve been there. What is also an important part of this story is the technology. We have built this community where lawyers and nonprofits can access each other easily because we built and poured a lot of resources into building a sophisticated online platform. So we are giving expensive, cutting edge technology for free for those who can least afford it, and I deeply believe that’s also part increases, increasing access to justice. We are trying to bring the expensive legal services to nonprofits who often can’t afford them, and we’re leveraging really sophisticated technology for folks who otherwise cannot pay for them as well.

Jackie Gardina:

Like so many of the guests on this show, I went to law school because I wanted the tools to create change. If you have that same passion and you want to develop the necessary skills and knowledge in a nurturing environment built for working adults, join us at Colleges of Law with both in-person and online learning options. Take the first step to building a better future for you and your [email protected]. And if I could just follow up on your reliance on pro bono attorneys, attorneys who are working in their own firm or for a larger firm and they’re donating their time and their energy to a project that is through your organization and connecting them. We have heard a lot in the news about the large law firms that have cut a deal with the president and are donating up to a billion dollars in pro bono services to causes that are aligned with the administration. I’m wondering how much your organization or others have relied on some of those firms pro bono departments to actually fuel your work and have your organization or others lost out on some of the pro bono efforts of those law firms because of these deals?

Anna Chu:

That is a great question, Jackie, and I’m sure that is a question that many, many people within the legal profession is are thinking about. We do have relationships with a lot of the big firms, including the firms that have entered into deals. We have strong relationships with the pro bono coordinators, the pro bono teams. What I can say is that in conversations with the pro bono coordinators and the pro bono teams of the law firms, for law firms that have cut and haven’t cut, we’ve talked to both. They have still expressed to us a commitment to do pro bono work. I anticipate there are some matters that they may take longer to get back to us that may be harder to staff period with them, but thus far, we have not received an indication that we should burn their telephone number and no longer ever call them again, we have not received that indication, and I would say there are good folks there. There are still to do good work.

Jackie Gardina:

So much of what you’re talking about, immigration, federal workers is going to be litigation and or actions against the federal government, and these are law firms that are now in a relationship with the federal government that’s distinct from those who have not cut a deal. So is it even ethical for them to be engaged on a pro bono effort, for example, defending federal workers against the federal government?

Anna Chu:

I have not received any firm answer from the big firms around that. My guess is that it will be harder for them to say yes. That said, there are two points to make. The first is that we, the action has never relied solely on big firms. We have a varied recruitment process. We have in-house lawyers, we have the solo practitioners, folks at the smaller boutique litigation firms, folks at your government investigation firms. We’re spread out across the country as well. And so we are not dependent on a few New York, Chicago, DC based firms. We have continued to see huge enthusiasm for this work. Since January, we had over 2000 new lawyers join we, the action that has not slowed down even with the attacks that we’ve seen from the executive orders against the big firms and even with the deals that we’ve seen. I think the second thing is there was a healthy list of law firms that signed an amicus brief in support of Perkins Cooey.

So that indicates to us there are lots of firms and lawyers out there that are taking a different stance, and so we are reaching out. We are having conversations with the folks because we do know we have to be nimble. We do know that it will be hard for a big firm to say yes to us. Now we have to find the other people that want to say yes. I think the problem we have on our hands is an organizing problem. I deeply still believe there are good people out there who want to uphold the rule of law. I just got to find them.

Mitch Winick:

Well, Anna, that’s a great point that I was about to ask next because I think you make that perfectly. There are over 1.3 million lawyers in the United States. They don’t all work for the major law firms on the East coast. They work in towns and communities all across the country. And I think what you’ve shown through your organization is that you don’t have to have the support of a large firm to carve out some valuable time for you to be a pro bono lawyer in an area of interest that you want to focus on, and that you guys provide the infrastructure to help match them to that. And as I heard you say, and the training on some of these areas to help them expand their area of interest. So I’m encouraged. I know we try to focus on optimism and action, but it really does sound to me like you’ve not just set the foundation well on the way of creating a vehicle for more of the 1.3 million lawyers in the United States to step up, pick their topic, pick their area of help, and get engaged.

Anna Chu:

Mitch, I think it comes down to why we were founded and why we’re here. We want to make this easy. It should be easy to give back, and there’s a lot of lawyers with a lot of expertise. And Jackie, you said it when you spoke about what you tell your law students. The vast majority of all of us lawyers graduated from law school wanting to do good and understanding that we now have a different responsibility to our society, to our communities.

Jackie Gardina:

Anna, we have an audience of lawyers. If I’m a lawyer wanting to give back in the way that we’ve just talked about, how do I reach out to your organization and make that happen?

Anna Chu:

That’s easy. You can hop on our website, we the action.org. That’s we T-H-E-A-C-T-I-O n.org, and you find you can play around with it. You can immediately start searching through the different opportunities available. You can click join. I promise you the join form is fast. Again, because we’re trying to make this easy, right? You don’t want to spend 10 minutes filling out a form, asking you questions about your ancestors that you don’t know and need to look up. No, no, no, no, no. One, two minutes and you’re done and you’re in. You can get started.

Mitch Winick:

Anna, thank you very much. This has been great. This is exactly what we wanted to learn, not only about you and your path into this type of work, but for the work that the action is doing and your call to action that Jackie and I support 100%. Thank you for joining us on SideBar today.

Jackie Gardina:

Mitch, I have to say we, the action and specifically our focus today was the work that they’re doing with federal workers is the exact kind of optimism and action that I think gives me hope about not just the legal profession, because that’s been under attack of late, but about just communities being able to create the change they want to see, and the idea that someone had this germ of a thought that there should be a better way for us to organize pro bono efforts, and then eight years later has built it into this wonderful organization that connects pro bono attorneys with those in need and closes. The legal services gap is just so impressive. Really enjoyed talking to Anna

Mitch Winick:

Jackie. Anna is exactly the type of optimism and action that we wanted to highlight on this season of SideBar, and in fact, it points out that in the quiet of their day, many lawyers, thousands of lawyers, as she points out, step up and find time to work with those who need help. We tend to only see those who are out in the news, on the talk shows, on social media, frequently doing things that I know you and I are not proud of, and we question how they as lawyers are justifying their action. Here you have the exact opposite. Lawyers who are organized and active on, as we saw, 700 different nonprofits that they’ll help direct people towards. It is exactly the type of program that we love to highlight here on SideBar

Jackie Gardina:

Well, and I’m hoping that after people listen to this, they will go to the website and fill out the join form if they are a licensed attorney in any state in the United States, because there are ways for you to help, and it doesn’t have to be a lot of time or a lot of effort. It’s just putting your expertise to work for someone who otherwise wouldn’t have access to legal services. Once again, I want to thank everyone who joined us today on SideBar, and as always, Mitch and I would love to know what’s on your mind. You can reach us at SideBar media.org.

Mitch Winick:

SideBar would not be possible without our producer, David Eakin, who composes and plays all of the music you hear on SideBar. Thank you also to Dina Dowsett who creates and coordinates sidebar’s. Social media marketing.

Jackie Gardina:

Colleges of law and Monterey College of Law are part of a larger organization called California Accredited Law Schools. All of our schools are dedicated to providing access and opportunity to legal education to marginalized communites.

Mitch Winick:

For more information about the California accredited Law schools, go to ca law schools.org. That’s ca law schools.org.