This episode discusses trauma informed practice from the perspective of family law lawyer, Zara Suleman. She also discusses why diverse, racialized, Black and Indigenous representation and perspectives are necessary and essential in law school, the legal profession and the judiciary.
In this episode, we discuss relational client engagement, racism, trauma, and the value of bringing a racially diverse lived experience to the counsel table and the courtroom.
Myrna McCallum: I’m Myrna McCallum, Métis-Cree lawyer and passionate promoter of trauma-informed lawyering. Welcome to my new podcast, “The Trauma-Informed Lawyer,” brought to you in partnership with the Canadian Bar Association.
I believe that law schools and bar courses are missing a critical competency requirement in their curriculum: trauma-informed lawyering. Becoming a trauma-informed lawyer will, among other things, challenge you to critically reflect on your personal behaviors, beliefs, and biases; call on you to positively transform the way you approach advocacy; guide your practice to avoid doing further harm to others; and ask that you commit remaining open to learn new and old knowledge you didn't know you needed before beginning your career. Your education starts right here, right now. This podcast comes to you from the traditional, unceded territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh [Squamish], səl̓ilwətaɁɬ [Tsleil-Waututh], and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm [Musqueam] people.
Welcome back to the Trauma-Informed Lawyer podcast. Before we get started on this week's episode, I just want to give a shout out to my friend Samantha Breslauer. She is a new call here in British Columbia. She just started her own law practice, which is SJ Breslauer Law, where she plans to support lawyers who have associate-level work but may not be in a position to hire a full time associate. She specializes in employment and labour law. If you need someone to help lighten the load for a short period of time, give Sam a call. I'd like to say her number is 1-800-CALL-SAM. It isn't. Um, I don't actually know what it is [laughter], but you can find it on Instagram and you can find her as well on LinkedIn and probably on Twitter. SJ Breslauer Law. Check her out.
I just want to take a couple minutes and acknowledge the heaviness in the air right now for many of us here in Canada but, in particular, Indigenous people. I've been feeling it. It's straight up grief. I can't find another word to describe what I'm feeling. Probably, most of us have seen the media reports about Joyce Echaquan, who spent her last dying hours in a hospital being mistreated and subject to straight hate from people who should have been taking care of her. It was heartbreaking and it was such a reminder for so many of us about why we don't go into the hospital when we’re sick or we don't go to the doctor when we know we should. You know, all the shame and the pain and the trauma and all that history and suspicion and just . . . it just comes to the surface. And, then, you know, on top of that, out here in Abbottsford, a young Indigenous boy was found in his closet after four days of being missing and it's unconfirmed, as of yet, but his death was caused by an apparent suicide.
All of these stories are hitting home and, then, when I thought about the loss of that young man, I thought about the efforts of Tristan Durocher who is from my neck of the woods. He's from northern Saskatchewan. He walked 635 kilometers from northern Saskatchewan to Regina and he erected a tipi on the grounds of the legislative building in the hopes that the Sask party would talk to him about creating a meaningful strategy and plan to curb and address and prevent suicide in Saskatchewan and, particularly, the rates—the high high rates—of suicide among Indigenous people in northern Saskatchewan. And, they made it known pretty quick that they weren't going to talk to him. And, so, he had said “well, if I hunger strike, I’ll die here.” So, he turned that into a ceremony and it became prayers and fasting and he had a lot of people come to see him and support him, including the judge who heard his case, which was pretty amazing. The province had wanted him to remove his tipi and get off the grounds and they took him to court and the judge, um, Justice Grant Mitchell, ruled that Durocher should be allowed to complete his ceremonial fast without further incident. And, not only did he make that ruling he showed up on Tristan’s last day there. That sent a powerful message about relationship, about wanting to understand, wanting to know more. And, I think, more non-Indigenous people need to show up like that. It was profound. It was a profound and hopeful moment.
And, then, most recently, we saw Seth Cardinal Dodginghorse in Calgary at the opening of the Tsuut’ina Trail. He kind of just grabbed the mic and talked about the grief he and his family are going through as a result of the city and the province having built that road. And, he said that was their land and their territory under that road and his family had lived there. And he cut off his braids and threw them on the road. And, as somebody who used to have very—very long hair and understands what that means to cut your hair, —um—I can feel his grief and I could feel the grief of all of these people.
And, then, finally, Orange Shirt Day on September 30th. For those of you in Canada you may know, like, that is really the day that we give our attention to what happened in residential schools for Indigenous people. For me, that day has really become a day of mourning because I think about all that I've lost because of residential school. And, I know, so many out there also see that day as a day of grieving and looking back onto all that they have lost. And, so, my heart just feels like it's on the ground these days. A friend of mine reached out to me on LinkedIn this morning and just wanted to check in. And, I really appreciated the message. And, he said “don't lose hope.” And, he reminded me of why it's so important that none of us give up. We have to keep banging on the doors that let us into these spaces that have long pushed us out and kept us out. Representation in law, on the bench, is so critical. And, every time we are denied or we are overlooked or we are just ignored really sends a message that simply says, “we don't want you here.” But, you need us there. And, the Indigenous people who come before you or come to you for assistance, they deserve to have someone who knows their lived experience—who knows them—to deliver advocacy and justice, as they so desperately require. So, I won’t give up, we’ll just keep on holding on to that spirit of âhkameymok—not giving up—never give up—don't quit, don't stop. So, with that, you've learned a new Cree word today. And, âhkameymok will be the spirit that will lead us beyond this place of grief and into brighter—brighter days.
Ok, so thanks for listening to that heavy, heart of mine. Let's move into today's conversation, which, I guarantee, is going to inspire you. I had a conversation with Zara Suleman. She practices family law infertility lashes the founder of her own firm, Suleman family law. she's also a certified family law mediator and a collaborative law practitioner. She's been actively involved in presenting and training, writing on family law issues. She's done extensive research and professional development in areas of family violence, especially violence against women and children. And, she works with families in crisis and couples. And, prior to law school, she was a frontline community advocate for over a decade. She worked extensively on issues involving violence against women and children, anti-racism, immigration, refugee issues, legal aid reform, custody, and access, advocacy, as well as anti-poverty initiatives. So, you're going to love our conversation.
Initially, we're going to talk about you know bringing a trauma informed lens to the practice of family law, but we seem to, like, touch on that for sure, but I just saw a pattern developing where we really talked about the power of representation and diversity in advocacy and in judicial proceedings. And, so, I think it was a conversation that needed to happen and it's conversation that needs to happen more and, so, I hope you enjoy today's episode.
Myrna McCallum: Hi Zara, thanks for meeting me.
Zara Suleman: Thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I feel very grateful and privileged to be able to be sharing this space with you at this time; to be talking about trauma-informed practice. It's such an important topic and I'm so glad you are using your knowledge and the time and space to be doing this great work. We desperately need it in the legal profession and beyond.
That being said, my background . . . I did not do the sort of regular path to law school. I, actually, if you ask my younger self, which seems like a long time ago now, if I was going to be a lawyer, that wasn't exactly the path that I thought I was going to do. I actually got involved very early on when I was around 19 in antiviolence work. And, I worked at a rape crisis centre for—a frontline rape crisis centre—for several years in my 20s. And, that really shaped, I think, one, it got me engaged within activism and advocacy. And, looking at the world within a gendered lens and then, subsequently, in an intersecting lens of issues of race, class, gender, violence, sexuality. And, it shaped the way that I moved in the world. So, I had started off in a rape crisis centre, I was a part of women's collective, where we were peer-based counseling support and advocacy centre, where we wore pagers back in the day and would show up in the middle of the night when a call came into our crisis line to be with women who were sexually assaulted. We would show up at the hospital, show up at police departments to be there in support and believe women survivors of violence. So, that was my, sort of, initial work that I started doing and the work I was involved in. And, then, I worked from there into transition houses shelters where women were leaving abusive relationships. I worked at an immigrant serving agency working with refugees and new immigrants who were experiencing trauma of all forms of leaving countries, being forced out of their countries. Many families where there was family violence, as well, and, all sort of the issues that new immigrants and refugees face in terms of coming to Canada, in terms of the race—racism, and acculturation, and . . . So, I worked actively with an immigrant-serving agency for many years. And, then, I sort of, in all that time, I was doing research. I was also, early on in my years, doing artistic work, as well: writing, and doing play-writing, and other things. And, after, I think . . . I did . . . I worked in the not-for-profit sector for quite a long time. I burned out several times in that journey of front line work. And, I stepped back and thought, “OK I really want to go back to school.”
And, so, I went to law school. I knew, then, by the time, I went into law school that I've only wanted to go back to law school to practice family law and I knew that because what had informed me coming into the space of law was the disproportion impact the area family law had on women, in particular; and women and children; and women and children facing violence, in particular. And, that sort of fueled me to go in and have the . . . I wanted to have the ability to represent women who are experiencing violence or represent women in custody situations, that time referring it to as custody. And, really, just have a say in shaping the law reform or the—the laws that were coming into place around women's impact in those relationships.
And, then, it sort of expanded. I think it, for me, now, my practice is both family law and fertility law. So, I have the benefit of also, really, having more of a—a view to how we look at family; and what family is; and who gets to be family; and who gets to make families. And, so, I feel fortunate in my evolution in my legal career that I've expanded it into this other whole area. But, that's kind of my journey. It started off as a front line activist and then went back to law school and I—my experience was I just wanted to get in and out of law school and become a family lawyer. And, I was very—kind of—focused. And, even though I tried to be as head-down as possible, the journey of law school was—you know—relatively traumatic in itself. But, I got out and I did all the other regular things in terms of becoming a—you know—articled—I articled at a public interest advocacy firm in town and was able to do some great public interest work there. And, then, I ended up working as the director of the family law project with West Coast LEAF. And, then, started articling and working at a law firm and then, soon, started my own law firm.
Myrna McCallum: Well, thanks for that background. Uh, before we get into where you are now and, like, with all of that experience that you have collected over the years being on the front line prior to law school and then going into public interest law and doing all kinds of advocacy for folks who really need a voice speaking for them, let's sort of go back to something you said that I just want to ask about. You said law school was traumatizing in and of itself. Can you share a little bit about that?
Zara Suleman: Yeah, I was not bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when I went into law school. I had seen the impact of the fact that laws can say one thing—legislation could say one thing—but how it is applied to people in the day-to-day application doesn't work for everybody consistently. And, so, I wasn’t just walking into law school without a heavy lived experience and practical knowledge that the law fails people on a regular basis and, depending on who the people are, in terms of what bodies they happen to be in, whether they are racialized bodies, Indigenous bodies, black bodies, bodies of various genders, female bodies, you know, bodies of people who are poor, bodies of people who are in the sex trade, bodies of people who don't have English as a first language, bodies of people who are homeless, who have addictions. And, you know, we'd like to say that, if you go into the system, everyone is going to come out with the exact same treatment. And, that's the ideal. That is the fundamental justice. That's what drives all of us to, sort of, make sure actions are tempered to that behavior. But, the reality is, when you see that that is not the case.
By the time I went to law school, I had witnessed that the outcome for, particularly, sexual assault survivors, for women fleeing abuse, was inconsistent. They were not taken seriously by the courts. They were not often taken seriously by lawyers. They were not often heard or listened to. They were regularly disbelieved. They are still regularly disbelieved about what happens to them. And, so, I think that, by the time I had gone into law school, I knew that reality. I also came to Canada as a refugee. I'm an immigrant family. We’re a racialized family. I witnessed through the eyes of my parents and through advocating for my parents through various systems, the ability that education and language can shift and change people’s way of treating you and the sort of impact of the differential treatment people face. So, when I went to law school, I sort of had that.
I mean, I wasn't looking to the law system with these sort of sparkly eyes saying, “oh this is going to be the bastion of, like, where everything . . . it's all were justice resides here,” you know. The scaffolding of justice exists in that what you do with it is going to be based on a lot of different factors. And, so, when I went to law school, I sort of—I knew that going in, and. . . . but yet, when I went in, I remember—I remember, in the first week of last school, I found myself feeling like an outsider, very much. You know, I felt like this wasn't the space that I was supposed to be in and everything about the, sort of, education in law school made me feel more and more that I wasn't represented in the majority of faculty that taught. I wasn't represented in—in the voices of the analysis of how things were viewed. Remember now, this is the first week 9/11 is happening. So, subsequently, in my whole time in law school, issues of racial profiling were happening. There were people in brown bodies being attacked or having horrible things happen to them in light of 9/11. And, yet, but, I was in a bubble in law school where people were having these academic conversations about racial profiling being necessary to keep us safe. So, I would be in a small, like, law group, where there is people in their early 20s, majority of them white, many of them male, but not all—women as well, but non-racialized—who were talking about these issues in a very disconnected way. Like, these things didn't affect real people, like these laws weren't connected, these actions weren't connected.
So, I think, in my time at law school, I felt like I was constantly just trying to survive the whiteness, the upper-middle class environment, the way certain people were actively privileged. Like, I was worried about law school, but just getting to my first year. And, yet, in the first week of law school, I remember a conversation and group outside of one of our main sessions and this young, white boy, 20-something he was, like, “yeah, I'm gunna to be a judge.” He just—he just said that. He was like, “yeah, I've come to law school 'cause I'm gunna be a judge.” And, it was just his confidence, it was his . . . and I really felt like “yeah, you probably are going to be a judge.” He came from a family of—of lawyers, he came from a family of legal scholars, he came from a family where they were judges. And, so, he had his confidence. He was walking in there, in my small group of racialized and Indigenous colleagues that I eventually developed in law school, most of us were just—were just trying to get through. We were just, like, trying to get through. We could see all the obstacles that were before us. And I just thought, “wow, what an interesting space to walk into where you feel not only embraced, you feel that you are above and beyond . . . like you will . . . that your legacy is already built into your education, into your legal landscape. You have . . . uh . . . envisioned you're, kind of, where you're going to be. And, I thought, “wow that's pretty both awe-inspiring” and, yet, also sort of a big punch to the gut for everybody else that are made to feel like outsiders . . . in the education of law. And, so, the way I got through law, actually, was through the writing of Patricia Monture because, without her words, I don't think I would have survived law. I say that again and again. I would read her books and I would say “OK, you know,” and the guidance that she would say is just that, “you might not be like one of them and that's OK, in fact it's good that you are not . . . good that you are coming with the outsider voice and that shows a critical way of looking at the legal system.” So, outside of the logistics of just being away from family and—and people that I cared about the most, it was the day-to-day just feeling like you didn't belong there and that you weren't represented.
Myrna McCallum: Yeah, I totally hear you on that experience around white privilege and possibility. I mean, I had, probably, a similar law school experience where I was like, “Oh my God, am I gonna get through this? Am I going to actually survive law school? And, if I do, will I then find an article? And, then, if I do, will I pass the bar?” Like, everything was so much uncertainty and terror. Always, I would say, those were my companions. Like, uncertainty and terror. So, it's interesting that you recall that experience because I think it just goes to some of what we're still seeing today: with privilege comes entitlement and possibility and, absolutely, he would say I'm going to become a judge because I look at who are our judges and they look like them, they are them, right? But, when we look on the bench, do we see ourselves? Not so much. Maybe, in some like corner of the province, we might see someone who looks like us. But—
Zara Suleman: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Myrna McCallum: —but, very few and far between, right?
Zara Suleman: Yeah.
Myrna McCallum: And it gets worse as you go up to other levels of court. So—
Zara Suleman: Exactly. And it takes so much more to survive that and, I think, that it was . . . it was interesting. . . my mother did not have the privilege of getting a higher education. And, she came from a large family and she had a family that did not have money and, certainly, she did not have the benefit of being able to go and seek higher education. And, she actually was with me when I went to law school for the first week; she had come. And, I remember saying to her that I wanted to take her to a lecture at the law school, 'cause she's never been to a university and she’d never sat in. And, she was so nervous, she said, you know, “is it OK if I come?” And, there's like 300 people in the room and I'm like “absolutely you're going to come.” And, I think, for me, it was also the very recognition that . . . of the inaccessibility of law school, but of education in general. And, that defining line, when you have the ability to be able to get an education. And, when I say “get,” nothing was handed to me, it wasn't like an easy ride to get there, but, it was that I still was able to access an education and I could see through her eyes just about . . . and I've always been able to see through her eyes, when you don't have that education or you feel that uncertainty about how you speak or how you move or the knowledge-base. And, I think, to me, it was always something that I always wanted her to take up the space in every place, regardless of education. And, I feel that very strongly about that because I feel like while I can critique education and law school education, I know it's a privilege—it's a huge privilege that I have—it's a privilege that, when I say I'm a lawyer, people might have all sorts of issues around that, but there's a shift in treatment based on the fact that I've been able to have that knowledge. And, I see the pride and the feeling in my mom and my dad at the ability from where we started off as a family to see their daughter have this much education and it's like, you know I was fortunate that my parents have been able to come to every . . . from high school, graduation to University, to law school, to my Masters and it's always with “wow” like “you've been able to get an education.” And, my mom, I feel like I have this education on behalf of both myself and my parents, but definitely for my mother, as well as many women who didn't have the benefit and didn't have the privileges of being able to have an education. And, I recognize that and I—I'm very conscious of that every time, so . . .
Myrna McCallum: In so many ways, Zara, you and I are sort of living parallel experiences, which, I think, probably, is not that uncommon for people who are black, Indigenous, like, other people of colour, racialized folks, who are also in law school and—and the legal profession sort of feeling like we're a little bit on the outside looking in and trying to find out where are “in” is or where our “place” is.
I mean, as a old colleague of mine once used to say “Oh, Myrna, we need more brown faces in white spaces.” And, I was thinking, actually, we need to turn those white spaces into brown spaces. That’s what we need. And, I think, you know, that kind of mentality that she used to share with me was, sort of, I think, maybe the root of what we see now that some people may be identified as either tokenism, or diversity, or inclusion effort. Like, it's not enough to pull one in or pull two in.
And, whether we're talking about the judiciary, or we’re talking ‘bout law school, or we're talking about a law firm, and you're looking at “Who are your partners? Are there any people of colour here?” Right? Like, it's not enough to just bring one in. We have to transform these spaces.
Zara Suleman: Yes.
Myrna McCallum: And, so, yeah, anyway, I—
Zara Suleman: And, yeah, I’ve been seeing that more because—you know—what you say, I guess, I mean—we're doing this podcast in a particular time and location where I think I've said to you offline is, like, the world feels like it's on fire. And, I know that the world, historically, has felt like it's on fire, or has continued to feel like it's on fire for many, many people. And, by that, I mean, just the state of chaos, and uncertainty, and violence, and, sort of, degradation, and everything that's going on. And, you know, as I look at that and I sit in the law, I sit in this place where it's not just about the police and how the police deal with people of colour, and Indigenous people, and black people. Because, if they get to the police and they survive and they live, you're going to get to deal with people like lawyers.
And, I just think, we can't just keep saying, “it was just the police.” Or “it’s just”. . . . it’s this whole system, right? You talk about that so much in your podcast. But, I, in family law, in particular, I've been doing that sort of self-reflection and it's caused a—a great amount of, you know, I don't even know how to say it because, if I say anger, I’m not sure it's anger, I'm not sure it's disappointment, I'm not sure if it's sadness, I'm not sure if it's—I'm not sure what the emotion exactly would fit into—but I can go to family law conference right now in 2020 and there will be no people of colour, no black people, no Indigenous people presenting. I can go and get an education in family law and that will be the same case. I can, for the majority of times, know that the people that are my opposing counsel are not racialized, not Indigenous, not black, and that I will be in a court system where it is unlikely that I will be in front of a judge in a family law matter that are from any of those backgrounds, in 2020. And there's no magic science to this. If you go to the courthouse and the BC Supreme Court in downtown Vancouver and you go to the third floor and you walk up and down one side and the other where all the photos of the judges are, you don't need a great big science degree to figure out the disproportionate representation of people who are not Indigenous, not black, not racialized as members of the bench.
But, also, in terms of colleagues and in terms of family law, you see that all the time. I've had people who come my way because, either, they, you know, been referred to me because they know my background in family violence, around my particular work from around anti-violence work with women and children, but many will come to me because they were like “oh we don't know of a lot of racialized lawyers” and they might be racialized, Indigenous, or black women going through the legal experience in family law and they know that they are already viewed in a particular way. Not only as individuals going through a family law case but as women, as mothers. There's already certain stigmas about who they are. And, so, and, it's not just because I'm a person of colour but it’s because I am very aware that I'm a person of colour and I'm critical about that focus in the law.
And, so, I think, it's about—I really do—it's about making Brown spaces, but it's about making Brown critical spaces. And, spaces that look at the issue of power and power relationships. And, how we either reinforce trauma or we work against making traumatic events happen in those systems. Because, with respect to colleagues who are very, and—and they might do it to survive, but are very much a part of the system, and they might not particularly look at the role that they're playing and . . . it's rare that I see Indigenous presenters at family law conferences, both in this province and nationally. And, what does that say? I mean, what does that say?
And, so, I have been thinking about how to approach that because I feel like, when we start—or if—or if people of colour, Indigenous, or black lawyers do get onto these panels, we are not presenting on substantive issues. We're there to do the diversity talk or the sensitivity talk. We're not there to talk about evidence. We’re not there to talk about reports around psychological assessments of children. We’re not there to talk about division of family assets. And, why is that? And, what does it tell students about who are dealing with the “soft,”—I'm air quoting—“soft” items in law, and “the law”—the serious—in quotes—“law” items. And, who has that knowledge base. And, who has that. And, right down the line, it's still a very racialized perspective of who has that knowledge. And, the holders of the substantive knowledge in law still remains with those who are deemed to be wiped in our society and, I think, that that is a really dangerous ongoing practice to reinforce that, especially by either national legal organizations and also anyone who's doing legal education because, I think, it does not only a disservice but it is misinforming law students of their potential and what's there. But, it also, it reinforces to the public that the law is not accessible to them. It reinforces who the knowledge holders are in the law and, often, it's not the people in terms of the communities that we are in, you and I.
Myrna McCallum: Representation is so critical and, without it, you have zero credibility. But we’ll move on from that really important subject just so we could tap into a little bit about all the awesome work that you're doing now. And it occurs to me that all of the work that you've done and anti-violence and working with survivors. I'm assuming that has largely informed your competency that you've been able to gather all kinds of skills to deal with people who are experiencing traumas.
Zara Suleman: I came to the practice of family law with a big basket of underpinning of how I view this area. And, so, for me, it was really about how to approach people at their most vulnerable place. When I was with practitioners—sometimes—I would see that they just had, sort of, like, they just wanted to deal with the legal issues. So, you’d have a person coming in—and—and what I also saw, which was— what I think I think broke my heart more, is people coming in to lawyers offices feeling like they had to be together to visit their lawyer and be like “OK, I have to make sure I have no emotion, go into this person's office, and start my conversation.”
And, we were sort of talking about some things that I learned in terms of my practice, is that, I remember just the simplest thing of when someone would come in and say about their—talk about their—break up in the first consultation, saying—I would just sort of stop. I would have any pens down. I would just look at them and say “how are you doing?” Just, “How are you doing?” Because a divorce, a separation, a break up, these are life-altering moments in people's lives. These are markers where people will remember, usually, the people that were around, you know. Breaking up is listed and divorce is one of the, sort of, five major losses or five major traumatic events in people's lives. And, it's, like, you know, people will remember the face that they see, the kindness that they experienced. And, I can get to the legal issue but when people are coming in and I'm hearing that, you know, their partner so many years has just said they don't love them anymore, they don't want to be with them, there’s a third party or an affair involved. I—sure, I can tell you all your legal rights and entitlements, you will hear very little of it because there's so much else going on. And, I can even take that piece of the burden, as your legal advocate, and defend you and tell you about your rights entitlements. But, there has to be a space of where we just take a moment, we just take a breath and we just kind of acknowledge that, whether this was either a combination of a sacred union, or a—you know—a dangerous union, or the combination, or whatever this meant to you. That this now—your life—is fundamentally altered. This now means that your basic life things are up in up in limbo: your shelter; where you're earning your living; how you're going to—if you have children—how you're going to be navigating the future of your children; yeah, your financial stability; your emotional stability, your hopes and your dreams. These are all the things that happen and it's the hopes and the dreams that I think we forget.
I think about family law lawyers, it's like, the idea is that we—we’ll push over a box of Kleenex and be like “OK,” and that's when we say, “if you start to get emotional, remember, we’re your lawyer, were not your counselor.” And, you know, I just think people are pretty clear that we're not counselors. I think that they’re pretty clear that were not there counselors. But the other thing is, I think there is this compassion gap, this is gap of understanding trauma of understanding that, when a human relationship ends, even ones that—were there has been abuse—the complication of that, and the feeling around that, and the rebuilding that needs to happen. You know, often I will say to my clients, “Do you have support? I want to know, are you supported during this time? Do you have people in your life, or are you doing this in isolation? Can I give you referrals or, even, just do you have a community that it can support you because but the process of moving through the legal system is going to be difficult, and it can be ranged from if people who are doing this amicably and respectfully, it can be still hard. It's still hard breaking up, even when everyone is being respectful, and then we have a system that is not always the best for being, you know, encouraging and facilitating a process that is applicable and respectful.” So, if it is really a very litigious situation, you know, you want the people that you're working with to be in the best state to give you those instructions but also to be able to deal with the devastation that they're dealing with, just as humans to humans. That's not taught in family law, right? It's not taught that—that the people that are coming to you are facing this.
I've had the benefit of teaching or doing sessions with law students at Rise Women's Legal Centre and I would say to them, you know, “this might be a file to you, but this is their life; this is their life. It’s the same letters, but when you move it around, their impact is huge. You will box this file and it—it might even carry some weight with you if you are compassionate, and if you are trauma-informed, and you do take it away. And, even if you're not, it might still sit there in your body and you don't know why you can't leave this case. But, you will box it, you will close it, you will do all the Law Society requirements of closing a file and do everything appropriately. For that person, this moment will be defining. I can tell you it will be defining. It will be shaping their future relationships, their relationships with their children, and, frankly, it will shape their children and their children's relationships.” The amount of children that I have, as adults, come to me for other things in their lives, who all identify their parent’s divorce as being the reason why they are now coming preventatively to a lawyer or why they are coming to deal with their relationship and they want to do it differently, it's incredible to me. So, the fact that the work that we do is just seen as transactional and doesn't have any long legacy, I think, is completely incorrect. In fact, that is something, I think, if law students were informed, or, if we, as lawyers, talked about it more, then, I think that that would be helpful not only to our clients but in the larger approach to how we deal with family law, in general, around things like trauma and the legacy that, as lawyers, we have an influence on in making this either a more, in terms of the wellness of our clients and in terms of, I guess, future healing for our clients. And, I don't think we need to be counselors to do that. I just think we need to be humans aware of these issues.
Myrna McCallum: Some of what you're saying echoes previous conversations I've had on this podcast with other guests and, most recently, probably being Harold Johnson, who’s a former Crown prosecutor, who was to the point in saying “these people showing up in these process just need to feel as though you give a shit about them. And that makes all the difference.” And he's like, “and they don't teach you that in law school.” Maybe I'll ask how do you notice a difference in how being relational, taking this human approach, this client-centred—whatever we want to call it—relational versus transactional, you know kind of caring approach, just to acknowledge, like, “this is a big event—this is a big life event, how are you doing?” Have you noticed a difference?
Zara Suleman: Yeah. Well, I mean that—I think the big part is that they don't expect it from a lawyer and some will say “wow” either, literally that language “oh I didn't expect a lawyer to ask me. I didn't expect a lawyer to care.” Some will say “you don't seem like a lawyer.” In certain settings, I would be like “what?” But, in other settings, I'm like, yeah, that's probably a good thing. And, so, I always take it as a compliment from clients when they're saying that around because, you know, it's interesting, they don't seek caring and the practice of law going together. They see that that is those very opposite things and that you can't be a lawyer if you care, and that that that’s a unique quality versus, just, it should be a given quality. But, I think, first of all, I notice that people breathe. I suddenly feel they fill the space to acknowledge the loss and the grief and any other feelings before we, kind of, move forward. And, I think that there's a different trust that forms because they also believe that they are now looking at someone in, like, this person actually cares about what's going on. I think, in the trust that it also allows for them to share things. I think that just creating that space where people can breathe, be listened to, know that I'm a human being as well, outside of being a lawyer I’m a human being, and I care, and I'm concerned.
Myrna McCallum: You need to meet your client where they are as opposed to requiring them to meet you and show up in fitting your mold. We've been doing that for too long and that's what creates a lot of trauma and creates a lot of people walking out going, “why is my lawyers such an asshole?” That's, I think, a common experience.
So, do you think that part of that awareness that you have developed stems not just from your work in anti-violence—like in that world—and having worked with people experiencing trauma but also from being a racialized lawyer? I experience this too. People will show up because “I heard you're an Indigenous lawyer who does this.” “I wanted to call you. I want to work with you. We need this lens” or “I know you'll get it” or “I know there's a lot I don't need to say because you come from this background” And, I wonder whether the value that you put on relationships as per your culture or as per the way your family is, like, you talked earlier about bringing your mom into law school. I think a lot of people wouldn't think to do that. I did the same thing, I brought my mom to law school because she's never been to it—
Zara Suleman: [Laughter] Yeah.
Myrna McCallum: —like, she never got more than a grade six, I think, right? So, you don't often see that. But, anyone who—I've never seen one of my white colleagues bring their parents to law school but I did it and I know a couple other Indigenous students who did it too. So, I just wonder whether your cultural background also informs the value and the emphasis you put on practicing this way and engaging with your clients this way.
Zara Suleman: Mhm. I think it does. I think a couple of things. The one is that, again, I—and I say this when I'm teaching students as well. It's just that, as family law lawyers, we all going to use the same laws. So, we all went to law school. Great. We're now members of the Bar. And, so, we're all going to use the same laws. It's not like magic, I'm going to pull out a different law out of somewhere. So, what makes a person come to you versus somebody else? And there's different people and there's different lawyers for different people. So, that in itself is—as a difference—people will vet different lawyers and say “I want to go to this one.” I will tell people, and I tell them all the time, is that the way the law works, family law works, and the way that human beings in relationships and breakups work, do not match up. They are completely inconsistent with how we operate in the world. So, you go through a breakup and you have to deal with a breakup and then you look at how the law works. The law does not recognize things like love. It does not recognize things, like, even fault, jealousy, heartache. All sorts of things that are underpinnings—psychologically—that go on. It doesn't recognize any of that. So, the way that the law functions and the way that breakups happen, there's a fundamental disconnect.
And, so, if it does feel like “why doesn't the law understand?” “Yeah the law doesn't understand!” And, so, partly the lawyers and advocates have to do a translation and, kind of, put the reality and the humanity of that into place. In terms of, you know, my background, I think that growing up in terms of a racialized community, an immigrant community, a refugee community but also an extended family community, I grew up with my grandparents in my house for the early part of my childhood. I grew up in the notion of collective responsibility and I also grew up in a practice that really reinforced around the idea of service, of compassion, of understanding, of being there for your brother, or sister, or your family member, or your kin. And, to always give back and to always be connecting that, kind of, emotional peace.
You know, part of the work that I did was a member of the Ismaili-Muslim Conciliation and Arbitration Board. So, I did mediations, faith-based mediations. And, one of the things that we would do there is we look at the idea of bandaging the wounds and the idea is that, when one member of our community is wounded we are all wounded. And, so, how do we help heal the wounds? So, when a marriage breaks up or relationship breaks up, you know, in our society, we see those as just individuals. This individual relationship. We don't think of people being wounded and walking. The further damage both collectively, spiritually, emotionally, psychically this all has on everybody. But, in a community or faith-based community, you do know that. Because everybody who is going to be born into that faith, is going to die in that faith, you're going to see the same people. We’re all connected. We see each other. And, so, the legacy of a breakup has a huge impact on our community. And, we want to see everyone heal for themselves but also heal so that they're not wounded.
And, I think, and I—you know I've talked about this on mediation panels and talked about this idea—and it's really something that other people have talked about. Like, well, what if we just all thought about that? That part of our goal is around bandaging the wounds. Is around not just being there for the transaction—so the divorce happens, we get your entitlements—bye. But we actually check in and we say “how are you doing?” and we build that in. Like, that just seems far fetched. It works within our community because there is—this is what we do in terms of our mediations but, in the broader world, we don't think about doing that.
And, I think this notion of wounding and healing are not concepts that the law deals with at all. So, and it's not that we want them to walk away saying “boy that was a great lawyer” or something. But we don't want to leave them more damaged than when they entered the system. And, at this point, I think family law—I can't say that that's not happening, right? I think people are entering the system and they're becoming more traumatized. Some people are avoiding getting their legal rights and entitlements because of the traumatizing system. And, so, I think in that, alone, it's a failure of justice, right there.
Myrna McCallum: Good point. Before we close off or cap off this conversation, how do you rise again, and again, and again to meet your clients where they're at, day after day, when you're off and meeting with clients on maybe what could be the worst day of their lives or the most traumatizing day of their lives?
Zara Suleman: I honestly view every time someone comes in to meet me as a privilege. I see it as such a privilege that they are coming to me. That they are willing to be vulnerable. I feel very honored to be doing this work and to be doing this work in the way that I want to do it. I think that I also—I really come to recognize that there is such importance in seeing people. And, so, giving opportunities to see people an empower people in the legal system is so important. And, so, I think, for me, giving people the space to understand the law, for me, it's also the—the knowledge that everyone has the right to feel empowered under the law. And, a big part of that is the knowledge and how you convey that information. So, I think, for me, it's the privilege of being in this space. It's the desire to always be of service and—it—always pass on that knowledge. I think the desire for “justice”—air quotes because I'm not sure necessarily day-to-day what that means when I'm in the legal system. It's a challenge that I face all the time about knowing whether the system is actually more beneficial or more detrimental, frankly.
But, it's also recognizing this idea that it's important for people to understand the—the laws as they navigate it and to be able to be accessible in how you convey that and to be by people’s side as they navigate it.
And, so, I feel like part of that is I feel great privilege in that work. But, I think, I also surround myself by colleagues who are like-minded. You know, I have a shared group of colleagues where I feel like we can just get the support we need. That were like-minded. We don't have to do the translation about race, and class, and sexuality, and colonization, and white supremacy. We don't have to do that. We understand that. And, we understand how hard it is for us each day to walk in the law who we are doing this work. So, I think I have the support of that.
I, also . . . I am fortunate in order to do this work that I have the support of an amazingly lovingly supportive family, who have supported me all the way through, who shelter me when it's awful and it's hurtful and when you have to turn in to see people like you and go “yeah we're going to be OK. Like, we've survived so much and will be OK.” It’s funny, we're going through COVID. I said my mom “oh it just seems like we're all having to deal with this quarantine and all of this” and then my mom said to me, “remember, you were born in a curfew,” she said, “you were born in a curfew.” And, she had to make sure she got to the hospital in time before the curfew happened. So she said “you've lived through this.” She said “we've lived through worse.” So, I always think about that and I think about people who are living even worse off than me. What I can offer . . . I think of all the people that have said things to me after leaving about their—the significance of the role that I have played for what I have offered in terms of the information or resources and it has helped them get to a better place. And I feel like that makes me feel like “OK, I'm on the right path. I’m trying to approach this in a way that is respectful and different.”
And, ultimately, I just—I've always felt that everyone has the right and the entitlement to the laws and it shouldn't be something that is a barrier because people are not willing to see people, and listen to people, and understand people where they're at. And, in family law, that the issue of trauma, sometimes people don't want to see that and that's exactly when you need to be right there with the person during that time.
It's not easy. There are days when I just think that it's too hard and I think that it breaks my heart, especially when I see outcomes happen that I don't think are just. When I see the silence or invisibility of so many communities. It is hard to be in this space as a lawyer. It is very hard. At the same time, I think we need more people who want to change the way that this works. And, I feel, sometimes, very empowered by people coming in to the law and want to re-envision how it works. I always say, “It doesn't have to be this way. We just let it be this way, right? And, we can change it.” And, so, that's why I think things like this podcast and the work that you do and others are so critical in changing what we have come to know this—as the way things are and who got to decide that. I didn't get to decide that. I'm assuming you didn't get to decide that. So, I'm thinking that we can then change the way things are.
I guess the final thing I wanted to say is that I remember when I did sexual assault work. One of the things I was assisting a woman or advocating, uh, for a woman through the system. And, I knew we had gone through a Crown Council meeting and the, you know, Crown Council was swamped and wasn't very prepared and didn't really know—even know the woman who was before her at the time. And, I just had a feeling that this wasn’t going to be successful in terms of the prosecution for the sexual assault she survived. And I kind of had to prepare her for that and she knew it, as well. And, one thing that I remember her saying to me was, “I know that I might not get justice, but the fact that you’ve listened to me, that you stood by my side, and that you've told me, you’ve listened to me, and you’ve explained it all to me,” she goes, “for the first time, I feel like I'm a part of the process, but I'm actually seeing that I'm in this process. So, yeah, you can tell me that this person is not going to be charged and I know. That that's probably guna happen, but the feeling of being seen and being—understanding the law—and being—having a voice in that—was in—incredible for that process. For this person that I was supporting. And, I thought about that. And, I thought, there is something very significant about our process. It's not just the outcome. It's not just the issue spotting or the things that we learn in law school, but it is very much about the process. And, I think we don't spend a lot of time in law about process. Whether it's with each other as colleagues, in how we treat each other, and also how we work with our clients.
Myrna McCallum: I agree with you. It's all about the journey not the destination. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking time to chat with me and share all of these insights and these lived experiences. I mean, we could go on and on. It’s just been so, partly, validating 'cause a lot of what you're saying echoes a lot of what I teach. But, at the same time, it's also so important, I think, to bring forward these experiences that you’ve had in law school and I've had in law school, 'cause, you know, I know a lot of law students listen to this podcast and I'm sure there are still some in law school who are having very similar experiences to what we had. And, I really think—going back to the piece on representation . . . it's so important that more of us show up in and speak these experiences just so they know that there are others. We exist and we're hopefully increasing in numbers. Thank you so much!
Zara Suleman: You're very welcome! Thank you so much for this work! I am incredibly honored to be sharing this time and space with you.
Myrna McCallum: Well, that's it, everyone, for this episode. I hope you enjoyed it! I did. If you have any feedback, anything you want me to know, you can always find me on LinkedIn, Instagram @thetraumainformedlawyer, as well as Twitter @LegalTrauma. Please rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast if you haven't already. Okay, until next time. Take care everyone.