Claudia Pena and Alicia Virani share their inspiration for co-creating and co-teaching a course on trauma-informed lawyering and restorative/transformative justice at UCLA Law School.
This episode discusses vulnerability, vicarious trauma, restorative justice, harm, healing, debriefing, personal trauma and the missing link between current legal education and the practice of law.
Episode 15: Re-envisioning the Lawyer’s Role: A Conversation with UCLA Law’s Claudia Pena and Alicia Virani
Published: November 14, 2020
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 everyone to another episode of the Trauma-Informed Lawyer podcast. We’re winding down season one — pretty exciting! And we just hit the 10,000 all time downloads mark. Just today. What a huge milestone. I am over the moon. Thank you so much all of you for subscribing, for listing, for sharing, for recommending this podcast and just being so supportive of my work. I really appreciate it.
Before we get into today's episode there’s a couple shout outs I— I need to do. Melissa Erickson, Marissa Faulkner, Brittany Scott, and Ellen Campbell: these law students are total rock stars! A couple weeks ago I had posted on social media that I really was struggling to find a way to either get sponsorships or ads or something so that I could cover the cost of transcripts for this podcast. I've had so many folks requesting transcripts and I felt so terrible that when I was putting this Podcast together that I hadn't even thought about it. And I was feeling the pressure but I was not moving on it because I was struggling to figure out how I was going to make that happen. Anyway, these four students stepped up and said “We will transcribe your podcast! We’ll all take episodes and make it happen.” And they have been! So little by little they're trickling in so check out the podcast site and you will see that there are transcripts. Share it with your colleagues who may have hearing impairments and cannot listen to podcasts. Anyways, thank you so much students! Law students — they’re going to change the world I'm telling you.
I also have to give a huge shout out to the BC law Foundation! Oh my goodness they supported a project that I was doing with The Golden Eagle Rising Society. We just published a tool kit called “Trauma-Informed Legal Practice”. We have lots of copies to give away. They’re free. If you want a print version of this tool-kit please email suzy@spiritworks.ca Give her your mailing address. She will send you a copy — I promise.
Otherwise, if you can hold tight, Golden Eagle Rising is going to have an online version of this tool kit on their site along which a downloadable — Downloadable? Is that word I don’t know? — downloadable PDF link. So anyone who wants access to the toolkit can just go there, click the link, they can download the entire thing or they can take a look at the pretty website. That should be up hopefully at the end of November. If not by the end of November, then early December for sure. Where can you find it? You can go to https://www.goldeneaglerising.org. You'll find it there. So thank you BC Law Foundation.
Now today I am talking with two phenomenal Educators down in LA. Alicia Virani is the Gilbert Foundation associate director of the Criminal Justice Program at UCLA School of Law. She was previously a Deputy Public Defender in the Orange County Public Defender's Office where she represented indigent clients in criminal matters and parents navigating the dependency system. She currently teaches an experiential course where her students represent clients at felony bail hearings as well as a course on Trauma-Informed Lawyering and Restorative/Transformative Justice.
Claudia Peña teaches Disability Rights and Re-Envisioning the Lawyers Role: Trauma-informed Lawyering and Restorative/Transformative Justice at UCLA Law. Her research interests include civil, human, and disability rights as well as social movements, alternative to incarceration, and trauma-informed lawyering. Claudia is also a co-founder of “Repair” — an organization based in LA that considers how systems of oppression and exploitation, such as racism, make people sick and disable communities.
Naturally, when I heard about Alicia and Claudia that the two of the two of co-teaching were co-teaching this course that they created around trauma-informed lawyering and restorative justice I had to interview them for this podcast. Let's get to it. I hope you enjoy this conversation.
Myrna McCallum: Thank you both for making time for me today to talk about the course that you're teaching at UCLA law on “Re-envisioning the lawyers role: trauma informed lawyering and restorative/transformative justice.”
Claudia Peña: Thank you for having us, Myrna!
Alicia Virani: Yes, thank you. It's the title of our class is quite a mouthful, I realized as you read it out loud!
Myrna McCallum: It's pretty awesome though. It definitely caught my attention. So maybe let's just begin with how did the two of you come together to create this course which I don't think is a common course that you’d find in any law school?
Claudia Peña: Alicia, do you want to start?
Alicia Virani: I started working at UCLA Law School 2.5 years ago. Uh Claudia and I are both graduates of the law school and so knew each other when we went to law school together. And, um, we both had proposed separate courses and I don't remember who it was but I had — I had proposed a course in restorative justice; Claudia had proposed a course in trauma-informed lawyering. Someone let us know that we had both proposed these courses and we started talking about how they would overlap.
We’ve also talked about how trans— uh, trauma-informed lawyering should be a semester long course in every law school. Right? So right now we’re teaching a 2-week course where we’ve jammed together all of these subjects but they really do relate and they provide law students with a lot of, uh, different skills that overlap.
Claudia Peña:My interest in trauma-informed lawyering stems from coming from a family where there's a lot of trauma. There were so many norms in our family that I thought were just “that's just the way it is” that every family is like this. And it wasn't until I got to college and started spending more time in the outside world that I realized we have a lot of behaviours in our family that we’ve normalized internally that isn't necessarily the way it needs to be. So I started looking at and studying trauma in bits and pieces in college and then past college.
And then in law school, I was really surprised when we were thrown into our first experience working with a client who has been severely traumatized. Who was an asylum seeker and had made the trek all the way through Central America to here and had experienced numerous assaults.
And when we had our first interview with her, us as students had never… we had had no training at all on how to work with someone who had experienced trauma. I had a little bit of experience because I'd gone through my own healing journey and through that and through using different healing modalities I had some idea of what I was talking about and doing. But we'd received no nothing from the school.
So that was my first sort of inkling into “there's something missing here”. And then, you know, graduated, did some work, and my colleague Beth Ribet and I started an organization called “Repair”. And the organization is a disability rights or a disability justice organization. And part of what we did was look at how trauma is a result of systems of oppression: racism, transphobia, sexism, excetra… these all lead to trauma and have physiological impacts on the body.
And through that work we— we did research, education, and advocacy on this particular subject. And I started to put together trauma-informed trainings. I don't remember if I did it for — I think I did it first for practitioners? I did. I did it for practitioners first. And then my — the person who invited me said, you know, these Federal Public Defenders they were my first workshop. They all said “I wish that I had learned this in law school” you know? They said “I wish I had been practicing all of these different strategies that you provided and, um, that I had them for a long time because now I’ve been doing this for 10 or 20 years and I can all the impact of not having had this information before.”
So then I started doing it for students at UCLA. And then of course the student said “We need more than just a few workshops and trainings. We need an entire class on this.” This is how we ended up proposing a class on trauma-informed lawyering.
And, you know, from the literature we see that the concept itself has existed for awhile. Sarah Katz and others have talked about it. And there have been a few one-offs here and there in law review journals and such.
But as a practice, I don't think that it has become normalized yet and that's part of my goal is for it to become part of legal training such that we don't even remember a time where we didn't talk about trauma in terms of our clients and ourselves.
Myrna McCallum: What themes are you focussing on within this course? And what is the student response?
Claudia Peña: Before I came back to UCLA Law School to — to teach, I was involved in creating restorative justice alternatives for young people in LA County. Uh, so instead of getting processed through the Juvenile Justice System, we would get referrals for cases where young people had caused harm — where they were ready to take accountability for that harm. And we would generally bring them together with the person or persons they had harmed with supportive community members. And so for me that was my first job out of law school and it was a very non-traditional legal job.
And, you know, I have grappled with the questions about “what is the lawyer's role in creating alternatives outside of the law?” Because these are not skills we’re taught in law school *laughs*. We’re not taught how to mediate harm. We’re not taught active listening — sometimes we’re taught active listening when we’re talking about client centered interviewing — but it's — it’s rare. We’re not taught about restorative questions and, you know, how to um really engage and go deeply with people and their feelings. Or the impact of shame — right? — on people who may have caused far more experienced harm and how that might block them from healing, taking accountability, um, really having thriving lives in the world, right?
And so I think that, um you know, I wanted to just get in the dirt with the students and — and figure out with them what they see as the lawyer’s role in this. And really for them to see themselves as more than just lawyers. I think law school really makes us forget all of the human things that we bring in with us and the practice of law continues to do that. And so to really have them connect with their human relational skills in this class is one of the things that we really focus on.
But it's been very interesting because, uh, I've done restorative justice workshops with the students now through this class and with attorneys and now have done a few with, um, professors. And these are groups I think that just, um, you know, try to intellectualize their out of *laughs* a problem. And so it's been very interesting to try to get people to connect back to, you know, what's important to connect to their emotions, to be vulnerable uh, to share. Right?
And so we have students talk about a time that harmed somebody and how that felt. We have students talk about a time they were harmed and how that felt and what they needed for healing. We asked students to talk about themes of forgiveness. Although restorative justice never demands or requires forgiveness, it's an interesting topic to discuss.
And then we really talk about structural issues, right? And we talk about the criminal legal system and all of the racism and oppression that it's built on. And how can we start to create a system that is not built on any of that? I don't even want to call it a “system”. How do we create a process and a world and relationships that are not built on the principles and values that the criminal punishment system is based on?
So that's a lot of topics that we cover but we do really talk about all of those things.
Myrna McCallum: So, I think you brought something up that is really interesting that I want to ask the two of you about because I get — like I think about this a lot and its vulnerability. And so you don’t see a lot of vulnerability in the practice of law. You don't see vulnerability in the legal profession. You definitely *laughs* I think sometimes when I invite lawyers to self-reflect I see them almost recoiling ‘cause like people almost don’t want to look within — particularly type-A-type lawyers. So how do you encourage courageous work of being vulnerable?
Claudia Peña: That’s such a beautiful question. I mean, just the concept of “vulnerability” that fact that its *laughs* caught traction recently thanks to people like Brené Brownwho made a Netflix special on it, you know, people are actually talking about vulnerability. And it's so important because I have a personal belief that most of the harm that— that exists in this world is a result of unaddressed trauma. I think if we had more avenues… more paths for healing that we would just see less harm in general all across the board.
Which is why Alicia and I married our two topics into a class. Because restorative and transformative justice leads to potential — potentially leads to healing if everyone is, you know, doing their best. Um and when there's healing, then you know you've addressed trauma.
So vulnerability, it's fascinating to me as it might be to you how much lawyers are repulsed by the idea of vulnerability often. Right? You can see it in the classroom when we’re teaching. You see it in meetings when you're strategizing around how to pursue some sort of legal resolution.
People just want to act as if vulnerability doesn't exist. As if emotions, feelings don't exist. As if we can be robotic in the ways in which we approach the law. And to me it's parallel to this idea of acting as if the law’s objective in the first place. Right? Like I think that lawyers understand their lack of vulnerability as an intentional objectivity. Which I think is a myth ‘cause I don't think the law is objective in anyway. *laughs* Um and I spend much of my classes tending to that fact and ensuring that students understand that.
And I — I have experienced that when lawyers are more comfortable understanding their own vulnerability, then they approach their cases, their clients, and the folks on the other side of the table from a much more humanist or human-centered perspective. And then we can really get somewhere that's good for everyone.
‘Cause I do think that there is harm in the way that our system is currently set up. I think there is inherent trauma in the adversarial system. Whenever it's “us versus them” or “you versus me” I think it's set up to cause harm for at least one — but generally it's two — in the criminal legal system, when people have caused harm or people have survived harm, generally everybody is negatively impacted by what happens after that. Nobody comes out healed or better or, you know, more resolved. So the way that things are set up currently aren't really for the good of society.
Myrna McCallum: I’m with you there. Alicia, what are your thoughts about getting people on board with embracing vulnerability and acknowledging that as an essential approach to practice? Especially if you want to do no further harm to people. Because, you know, as lawyers, when people come into our processes they’ve already been harmed, right? So — so how do you sell the concept?
Alicia Virani: Yeah, I think that we sell the concept — especially in our class — and then we both teach other classes as well, right, so we try to do this in all of our classes. But in the class we teach, it's really both by, um, modeling, it ourselves.So by being vulnerable to our students, it opens up that space for their own vulnerabilities and for them to feel safe to express that. Because, uh, most law school classrooms it's not safe to express that. It's not safe to express the trauma you’ve experienced — whether in law school as a result of law school or wholly unrelated to law school, right?
And so, we model our vulnerability by sharing stories about ourselves, by sharing times where we've made mistakes. When I was a Public Defender prior to this, I… got burnt out very quickly and I think one of the reasons why is that people liked to pretend that they were always successful and that they didn't make mistakes. And so I was over there thinking that I was the only person making mistakes or feeling like a failure. And come to find out when I quit, everyone starts coming to me and telling me all the things that they feel, right? And — and — and asking me why I quit. And if only we had had that space to talk about it in the job itself, right?
And so, I don't want our students, you know — we're training future advocates, futures lawyer to go be in these offices,maybe someday lead these organizations… and I do not want them to create those environments where it's not okay to say “I made a mistake” or “I feel bad” or “I feel sad” or “I feel angry”. All of those feelings are perfectly valid when we're facing injustice.
And it's really important that we process through those feelings otherwise we're going to be burnt out. And we see that with lawyers. We see terrible coping mechanisms — uh, we see people getting burnt out. I’m sure you all have met so many people who call themselves “reformed lawyers”, right? Who are no longer practicing. And that's a true loss, you know? I mean I don't know that there needs to be as many lawyers in the world if we get to the place where we need to be. But right now, it's a true loss where the people who have great levels of empathy, who really want to be there for their clients but are unable to figure out ways to move through it, and cope, and be vulnerable, and access their feelings, um, are — are leaving the profession. And that’s — that’s a true loss.
Claudia Peña: I want to see one more thing about this. Which is the way that legal training is set up right now really encourages people to become sort of a slice of themselves. Right? So only approach their clients and their work with one portion of who they are. And I think that that impacts our creativity and our imagination on how to resolve issues. Or how to come to a place of resolution for all parties involved. And vulnerability is one of those things that gets left out.
And I'd love to see legal training become a space where people can bring their full selves into the room, into the classroom as their learning, into the courtroom, into any other — into any other space where we’re attempting to find resolution. Including vulnerability, including lived experiences, including your imagination and creativity as the artist that exists in every single person and the legal training, critical thinking, that you've learned inside of your class. If people could bring their whole selves I think that we would see an entirely different practice of law.
Alicia Virani: You know, just going off of that too, I think you know the legal profession — and this is true for a lot of higher education spaces where certain skills are not even thought of as skills. And so that’s — I think in our course we try to value, again, those skills of listening, those skills of vulnerability and really showing how, um, these are skills that you need to develop: we don’t all have them. And that you need to prioritize. Right? Because otherwise, the law that we will practice and the study of law is going to prioritize understanding case law, understanding latin words, these other skills, right?... Writing concisely, you know, oral advocacy. Again, sometimes client centered interviewing or client centered practice. But it's still rare that that's even a full class. That that’s considered a skill that we need to develop.
Uh, and so few of us come into law school with those skills because we’re not taught them anywhere else. Um, unless you have — I know a lot of folks in high school had, you know, were peer mediators and things like that and then you start to learn those skills of nonviolent communication. But then you might forget them because they're not reinforced anywhere else throughout your education or in any workplace that you’ve been in. And so it is really changing the types of skills that are valued in our profession as well.
Myrna McCallum: I see these as necessary skills. Even the experience of being in law school can create trauma in people. And that when we come to law school, we also come with our own traumas — whether it's our direct traumas or the traumas that we’re carrying from our parents or our grandparents. And so, I'm curious about what you — what you both think about how, like, how do we start to make space for that and recognize almost like a holistic approach to law?
Claudia Peña: I don't know as much about the medical profession so this comparison may be way off. But I think that there was a time where quote-unquote “bedside manners” didn’t matter as much. And then there was a movement to — to change that to acknowledge that patients are people with human emotions and feelings and need to be acknowledged as a whole person and not just this person with a diagnosis that requires treatment.
And I think that there’s aparallel to that in — in legal services. Right? That there are some people that think that just paying attention to the black letter law and the evidence as you said, Myrna, is the thing that matters the most. And maybe in some spaces it does, I don’t know. However, what I know for sure is that every single client is a human. With lots of different needs. Often times their legal needs is just one sliver of all the other needs that they have. Right? For those of us who work in vulnerable communities, we know that even if it's just a housing issue that we’re temporarily addressing, that there is often a resource issue and, you know, food instability, and issues with paying bills, and all sorts of other things happening in their neighbourhood.
And lawyers have to recognize that we’re — when we are offering our legal expertise and our legal assistance it's usually just a slice of what's happening for that client. And the more that we can recognize them as a whole human being, with a whole list of things that they need, the more successful we will be, I think, in approaching whatever the issue is at hand.
And if I have more information about what their job prospects is looking at — what their job prospects look like at that moment, then I might change my strategy and the way we pursue communication with the landlord, lets say. Right?
So, in thinking about the fact that lawyers have — I completely agree I've been working on this paper for a long time on the ethical responsibilities of being trauma-informed. Here, in the United States, we have rules from the American Bar Association that have been mostly, um, taken on by each of the States and added to. And there are three that I think are most relevant to this. There's the rule on diligence, the rule on competence, and the rule on communication. I don’t think that you can be fulfilling or performing your duties under any of those rules without being trauma-informed. You just can’t! You can’t be a diligent or competent attorney without understanding how trauma is impacting your client.
And — almost without exception — your client has experienced a form of trauma that has gotten them to the table in front of you right now. And especially communication! The way that you communicate with someone who is feeling unsafe and disempowered is completely different from someone who… is not having those experiences. So how could you possibly be doing your job well? How can you possibly be diligent, competent, and have good communication with your client unless you understand trauma — unless you understand that all of these other things matter just as much as your legal expertise.
Whenever I’m doing these trainings and in class — and Alicia and I have done this together — we tell people that the client is the expert on their own lived experience [and] the lawyer is the expert on the legal information. Together you’re a team and you have to figure these things out in collaboration with each other.
Um, because my experience is mostly in the criminal legal system as a defense attorney and I'm teaching a legal clinic right now where most of my students are aspiring Public Defenders. And we talk all the time about, you know, setting your own goals for yourself in — in your profession. Particularly within the criminal legal system and maybe even in all of the field of public interest law because the law is very stacked against our clients. It’s very important if you're a criminal defense attorney to know the rules of evidence. To understand, you know, Fourth Amendments, uh, Constitutional Law. It's very, very important to understand that.
And you could be the best person in all of those fields and still lose your case. Right? And so, if that's the case, then how can you do all of that and not, um, prioritize your relationship with your client?
And so, you know, when I started as a Public Defender I knew it wasn't a lifelong career for me. And so, you know, because of the wise guidance of some people in my life I set a goal for myself which was: I will be kind and respectful to every client I have. I will sit and listen to them. And if I have done that, I have succeeded in this —in this job.
It was very hard to stay on track with those being my measures of success, um, but I can honestly say that I feel I fulfilled that. And I don't think that that's — so we encourage our students to set those different goals for what winning looks like, uh, in this profession. Right? Because it generally, unfortunately, is not going to be winning the legal case. And so, it can be that in addition to being kind and respectful, because you have used trauma-informed skills to interview your client, to talk to your client to form that relationship — like Claudia said, you will be able to identify other needs that they have and you may be able to connect them with resources. So even if they have a criminal conviction, which is not great, that you can still help them find housing. That you could still point them in a direction of a job or mental health treatment or substance use treatment.
And so I think it's really being able to view that person as a whole person with lots of needs, with lots of strength, and to be able to really listen to that and address that and meet people where they're at.
Claudia Peña: Also just want to make a quick point about, Derick Bell wrote this piece called “Serving Two Masters” and it's mostly about, uh, school of desegregation. But I think that there is a piece that we can pull out that's relevant to our conversation now which is that lawyers are so intent on winning. Right? We’re taught to win cases. And I have observed that sometimes that happens at the expense of the mental health or sustainability of the client. Right? Sometimes like being so committed — so focused with blinders —on winning the issue at hand, it comes at the expense of the long-term potential for joy for that client. And if we understood more that winning shouldn't be the ultimate goal — that the well-being of your client should be the ultimate goal — then we might change some of our legal strategies.
Myrna McCallum: I love that the two of you are approaching like — and interpreting these concepts for your students. And so, something that the two of you talked about in terms of recognizing the person as an expert — and I love Claudia how you said “you have to meet people where they’re at”. Because I think for too long, our profession has required people to meet us where we are at and to fit within our mould.
But I want to ask two questions and either of you could decide to answer [or] you could both answer. But I know we’ve talked about trauma-informed lawyering and restorative practices within the context of working with marginalized, or vulnerable, or disadvantaged people. But would you say that this concept — particularly trauma informed lawyering — applies to every lawyer, everywhere and in every practice area? And two, I notice in your course description you talk about “institutional trauma” and I think that's a little distinct from “vicarious trauma” and I’d like, uh, one or more of you to — or both of you — to tell me a little bit more about what that is.
Claudia Peña: Happy to! Myrna, can you — I got excited about institutional trauma ‘cause I wanna talk about that more — but can you repeat the first part of your question because I’m also interested in that?
Myrna McCallum:Yeah! Trauma-informed lawyering…
Claudia Peña: Oh right!
Myrna McCallum: … is it applicable to every lawyer? Or is it just those who are in criminal law, family law, working with marginalized/vulnerable people?
Claudia Peña: Yeah. I’d like to see and raise you and say that everyone should be trauma informed — like in the whole world! *laughs* In every industry, in every practice. I just think everybody should understand it because here, in the United States, the CDC — I think I got that statistic from? It was 84% of people had reported that they’d experienced trauma in their lives? Trauma is mostly a universal experience and not that many people understand exactly what's happening in their bodies and in their brains and in their spirits when — when it happens.
And so these manifestations come out — as you talked about earlier, you know for some people that manifestation is anger or rage. Anger or rage is just another version of pain.
Myrna McCallum: Right.
Claudia Peña: But people don’t understand that as much and so it's just sort of spilling out of them. And then we get that — that phrase “hurt people hurt people”. Right? If we had more of an understanding of what trauma looks like and the different modalities for healing that are there and available for us, um then, I think that we would just be a healthier… healthier… what's the big version of “humankind”? Humankind? I was going to say society but I’m thinking more globally. So anyways, yes I think that every single lawyer needs trauma-informed training. And I take that and I raise it to every single industry.
Myrna McCallum: I always tell folks in the education I deliver — becoming trauma informed really begins with you. So it's not just a benefit to your client. It's a benefit to yourself, to your personal relationships, to your colleagues, to your organization — it really lends itself to a culture shift or culture change. Right? For all of us.
Claudia Peña: Yah and every single one of the training I have ever done — every one — I've had somebody come up to me afterwards and say “Oh, I now understand my partner better” or “I feel like I can give my kid what he or she needs more that I understand the way this manifests and what the different options are.” People almost always can understand their own interpersonal relationships more after learning about trauma-informed practices.
Alicia Virani: And, you know, when you talk about the shift it just really ties back into I think restorative and transformative justice because both, uh, principles and practices require us to engage in a paradigm shift. And that shift, I think, is really trauma-informed. And it is this relational shift. It is thinking about, you know, harm and violence as both structural and things that we replicate in our own relationships with each other.
And so I think it's super important that, like Claudia said, I would 100% co-sign everybody needs to be trauma-informed. And if that were the case, we could really make the paradigm shift that restorative and transformative justice are looking for us to make and are creating. You know, there are some people creating that in the world and small pockets here and there where people are receptive and I think we would see a much bigger version of that societal-human-kind *laughs* whatever the word is! Version of that.
Claudia Peña: Institutional trauma. Again, this is one of these things that I've been quote “writing on” for a while *laughs* and it hasn't come to a full article but I really want to publish something about institutional trauma because I think that — especially in legal service and nonprofits and public interest organizations — they’re playing a big role in institutional, too. So institutional trauma, from my perspective, is just the practices and cultural norms that exist inside of an organization. Be that a firm, a governmental agency, an NGO whatever it may be — that make for an environment where work is not sustainable. And that causes harm to the people that work there. Either because things like microaggressions aren’t addressed and there's no process for it and people are walking around experiencing harm in low level ways but over extended periods of time that can be, you know, very painful. Or, there's a culture that you just have to work all the time, nobody ever gets a break, you are a terrible employee if you take a vacation sort of thing. It spans sort of a wide spectrum of things that can exist that cause harm to people who work there or to employees.
And, overtime, the impact of it is as if it's traumatic to the person whose experiencing it. And that maybe for lots of different reasons. Right? We all know that trauma is something that is different from person to person. Two people can have the exact same experience — one might walk away, the other one is completely traumatized and that's because all of their lived experiences up until that moment play a role in how, um, how things — how things end up impacting them.
So institutional trauma, I think, plays a big role in peoples — what Alicia was talking about earlier in terms of burnout. What Myrna was talking about earlier in terms of attorneys or any other profession interacts with their clients. Right? ‘Cause if there's institutional trauma that's taking place, it doesn't really set you up to be someone who might be compassionate or empathetic to your clients.
Myrna McCallum: So what is the answer to institutional trauma? Is it simply becoming trauma informed? Is it promoting or teaching empathy? What can institutions do where this is sort of playing out?
Claudia Peña: The antidote is new practices. New understanding. More information that comes from these trainings for sure. But they need to be applied. And so, when I do my trainings around this stuff I give, you know, “things that should change immediately”, “things that should change in the next 3-6 months”, and stuff that you’re working on sort of over the long term they are more, uh, things that you need to keep checking on — that sort of thing. Right? The long term stuff.
But it's also just people internalizing all the things that we’ve been talking about in this conversation. Just internalizing what understanding what, uh — understanding trauma is, understanding what healing is, understanding restorative and transformative practices and integrating them in order to create a new culture — a new way of being — um, inside the office and outside
Alicia Virani: I also think when I mentioned that our students, uh, don’t necessarily understand how to — as lawyers be a part of a restorative or transformative justice movement or process. One of the things that we tell them is that the skills that we’re teaching you here you need to take those into your workplaces.
So I think about when I was at the Public Defender's office, if we had had weekly circle practice where we could talk about our feelings *laughs* and how we were feeling that day —how much better of a workplace that would have been. Uh, if that happened with in law school uh, you know, we see in any school any workplace there are histories of conflict *laughs* within these workplaces that have gone unaddressed for so long. And that conflict gets in the way of our ability to actually do transformative work.
And so if we put in place mechanisms, um, from the beginning in organizations we’re working in and the institutions we’re working with where we can actually come together [and] discover what are values are collectively. Right?
So there are cities that have adopted restorative values or restorative charter. Now, some may argue that, you know, these types of systems and bureaucracies can't be restorative... and that probably is true. But I don't think it's a harmful thing to adopt, you know, restorative principles by which you want to engage the people who are residents of your city or county or state or your country.
And so I think that things like that are also the ways we shift institutional culture by really having people dive in and think about what are their values — what do those values mean? They mean something different — those words mean something different to everybody. And how can we collectively come up with processes by which to address harm within these institutions — to address conflict and harm and ways in which we commit that lateral violence. How do we address that through these practices? And I think all of us can do that in every place that we work. Not that I’ve been at all successful in doing that in any of the places I’ve worked but, you know, *laughs* the fight goes on!
Myrna McCallum: It sounds to me that what you’re talking about in terms of addressing, um, institutional trauma is maybe employing a debriefing practice? Which is something I've talked about a couple of times on my Podcast and in particular with my friend Helgi Maki. We talked about, like, how do you — how do you build a sustainable law practice? And one of the things that she really promoted was incorporating debriefing within your work day or your work week.
And I think immediately that has two different, positive outcomes. One is that it allows you to address however you’re being affected by the work you’re doing because you’re speaking it, you’re letting it go. And then the other piece is it promotes your relationship with your colleagues. It promotes bonding. Right? Which I think, at the end of the day, if you want to combat institutional trauma or the way that manifests in terms of, like, interpersonal conflict you want to promote relationships with the people you work with and encourage that and keep it positive. Right? This could be a potential positive outcome is employing a debriefing practice. Right?
Alicia Virani: Absolutely. I think that makes a lot of sense. And one of the things I want to highlight with incorporating these principles and practices in employment spaces is that it's — it’s important to do things like debriefing or just using these tools to build community versus only in response to harm. Right?
Because if we become well-versed and using these practices and — and we’re comfortable with sitting in —in the in a circle for example. Right? Or just speaking in a non-violent way regularly. Then when harm and conflict arise, we have more tools in our tool belt to address that.
And I always think about one of my law students who, um, came from a very big family and his mother instituted “circle practice” for their whole family. And so the only rule was that if someone calls a circle you have to come to circle. But they would do circles for birthdays where everyone would go around the room and say what they love about that person. They would do circles when siblings were fighting. Right? And so I just thought that was so beautiful because they did it at all moments of their life.
So he was raised *laughs* with — ingrained in those types of practices so that when it comes to conflict, he's ready to pull out those tools. And I think that's a super beautiful way to raise our families.
Myrna McCallum: That's interesting. So one is — I would say — what you're talking about is really being preventative as opposed to using debriefing or engaging together as a response to something happening. If you just do this from the outset it's a preventative measure really and it starts to lay the foundation for good relationships.
Claudia Peña: I just want to add a piece about debriefing ‘cause I think the debriefing is so important. I often call it “case rounds” when I'm talking about it. I also want to point out that it's important the way you do the debrief. So if everyone is just sort of sitting around talking about how terrible it is and how terrible these things were in sharing the very traumatic pieces of the client's story or the advocate’s story — then it actually could do more harm. Right? If everyone's a sort of like spilling out all the terrible stuff and everybody else gets impacted by that.
So when you're doing the debriefs, it's important to do it in a way that moves the conversation forward. So it should be sort-of strategy-based, resolution based, brainstorming, um, attempting to resolve in some way. It needs to be done in such a way that the conversation is moving forward. The debrief, again, it's a nuance but it's an important nuisance because sometimes people think “well, as long as I'm talking about it then this is better”.
Myrna McCallum: Yep.
Claudia Peña: But you could potentially be magnifying each other's vicarious trauma if it's not done well. But this is where Alicia’s point about integrating restorative practices period is super relevant. Because in those conversations if you're using restorative questions like “What were you thinking in that moment?” “What did you need?” “What do you need now?”. Right? These kinds of questions are the kinds of conversations you want to be having in order to help someone process and, as you said, release and let go what just happened. As opposed to venting. Right? If everyone is just venting and talking about how terrible it is and sort of increasing people's rage around them: not helpful at all.
Myrna McCallum: Now you bring to another point which is something I've been asked from time to time. Which is where is the line in terms of — you go to debrief with your colleague… like, does your college or the person you’re debriefing with need to have specialized knowledge? And now play the role of a mental health therapist?
Claudia Peña: Umm I don’t think so? I think that what we all need to be able to help through those times is actually self-awareness.
As you were talking I was just thinking about how…when I’m not at my best I… when someone comes to me wanting to debrief or with a problem, I resort to my coping mechanism which comes from lots of family dynamics which is to fix everything! I always want to fix everything. Because that is my role in my family and so I feel like immediately I must provide a solution.
That is not what people generally want or need — sometimes they do! And you can ask if someone wants that from you. Right? But most of the time it's just about empathically listening. And I think that having that self-awareness — you know, again when I'm not at my best I don't have it and I go to fix mode. But when I do have it, I'm able to stop myself from imposing whatever I think the solution should be and really listening and then maybe asking questions to help somebody find the path forward. Um, so I don't think that we all need to be mental health professionals.
Getting back to the lawyers, I’ve worked with lawyers who have constantly said, you know, “I'm not a social worker! Why are you asking this of me?” And it's like, well, you are a human being! *laughs* And so, human beings should be able to connect with one another. We don’t have to all like each other! You don’t have to like every client! I tell my students this all the time: your clients are also humans who you may not like! *laughs* And that's okay. We don’t have to like them, but we do have to listen to people. Especially when we’re in that lawyer-client relationship and we do have to lend that ear and have that patience and be able to ask the right questions to get at what people's needs are and how they move through a process of healing.
And I think that's really important. And it’s — I want to say it shouldn't be that hard for everyone to gain those skills. I think that if people prioritize and really listened to people like the two of you when you talk *laughs* about what's important and what skills are important that it wouldn't be that difficult. But I do think people just lack a level of self awareness perhaps that gets in the way.
Myrna McCallum: Alright. I just want to say thank you so much for giving me your time and lending your — your lived experience and your skills to this podcast which a lot of people will benefit from. Thank you both very, very much.
Alica Virani: Thank you. And thank you for putting together this podcast and for inviting us.
Claudia Peña: Myrna, thank you so much for your work. I mean you know that I think this podcast super rocks and I wanna ensure that even more people listen to it because, even though we’re talking about trauma-informed lawyering, I do think I do think that it translates to trauma-informed practices generally and broadly just interpersonally and anywhere that you work. And so I hope that the audience grows and grows ‘cause you have done an excellent job with this Podcast! Really, really well done.
Myrna McCallum: Thank you. Thank you both so much. That's my show everyone! I hope you enjoyed the conversation that I had with Claudia and Alicia. I feel really inspired when I hear about other lawyers out in the world committing their time, and their intelligence, and their spirit and their heart to advancing trauma-informed lawyering as a critical competency necessary for this entire profession. Maybe like… the whole world, as Claudia was saying. It made me feel hopeful. I hope it made you feel hopeful, too. Possibilities. Mmm. Possibilities.
Anyways, I hope you come back for next episode. I think that episode is going to round out Season 1. In the meantime if you have any questions, comments, jokes you wanna share with me you can find me on Twitter @legaltrauma — Instagram @thetraumainformedlawyer. You can also find me on Linkedin, of course.
Until next time. Take care everyone.