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From Tehran to Atlanta, Social Justice Lawyer Azadeh Shahshahani Fighting for Human Rights

Azadeh Shahshahani is a practicing human rights lawyer who has worked for over a decade in the US South.  She was the first woman of color to lead the National Lawyers Guild and has been deeply involved in the movements for immigrants’ rights including shutting down the Stewart Detention Center and repealing the discriminatory educational bans affecting undocumented students in Georgia, dignity for Muslim-Americans,  a just US foreign policy, and Free Palestine.

Growing Up

Azadeh Shahshahani was born in Tehran, Iran, four days after the 1979 Iranian revolution.  The Iranian people overthrew the unelected, US-supported, Shah of Iran who had ruled the country since a 1953 CIA coup which eliminated the democratically elected President of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh.  

Her parents named her Azadeh, which means free-spirited in Persian, signifying the hopes they had for the revolution.  Her family included many doctors.  Her father as well as several aunts, uncles and cousins were all in the medical profession.   

She grew up with war.  The Iran Iraq war started when she was one and it did not end until she was nine years old.   Readers may recall the US supported Saddam Hussein in that war giving Iraq billions of economic aid, plus weapons and intelligence to fight Iran.

“I remember that my family had created this space underneath the stairs with a blanket hanging where the four of us (my parents, sister, and I) would go, sit, and hold hands when there were sirens to warn us that Saddam's missiles were coming.  

“There were shortages and constant fear. Many fled the southern parts of Iran to seek safety in Tehran and became refugees in their own country.  Young men went to fight on behalf of Iran and were killed or returned maimed.  Things got especially bad during the last year of the war where he was hitting Tehran constantly (after he was done inflicting severe damage on the southern part of Iran).

“The war had a significant impact on our collective psyche.  I could feel it even as a young child.”

When she was 15, her family immigrated to the US for greater educational opportunities for her and her sister, settling in Memphis, in the middle of her sophomore year of high school. 

“Though I had a privileged immigration experience because I was able to come with my parents and with documents, I still felt deeply traumatized and uprooted.”  Because of the role the US played in overthrowing the democratically elected government in Iran and supporting Iraq in the war against Iran, “I developed a keen interest in US foreign policy and the destructive role the US government has played recently and historically in many countries.  My background and upbringing made me into a semi-revolutionary, but it was college and law school that finally sealed my fate!

Human rights led her to law school, even though she originally planned to be a doctor and had been selected for a spot in the University of Michigan Medical School.   As an undergraduate she majored in Middle Eastern Studies and history.  “I became involved with various social justice and human rights organizations and realized that my true passion was fighting for human rights.  I thankfully had the support of a mentor at the time, Professor Kathryn Babayan of the Near Eastern Studies Department, who encouraged me to follow my heart.  Much to my parents’ chagrin and disbelief, I postponed medical school for a year and applied to Michigan law school.”

A 2004 graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, Shahshahani also has a Masters in Modern Middle Eastern and North African Studies from Michigan.   During law school, she remembers “one day, I was roaming in the basement of the law school where the student organizations had office space and I came upon a poster about the National Lawyers Guild.  It described the organization's work in support of social justice movements, how it had come under attack during the McCarthy era and how it had survived.  I found that extremely inspiring.  Our NLG chapter also organized a few of us to go to the Yale RebLaw conference that year. NLG had such a large presence at the conference that I thought that the conference was organized by the NLG!  That experience got me hooked to the NLG.”

At Michigan she met her future husband, who earned his PhD in Electrical Engineering from Michigan.  They have now been married almost 15 years. 

After graduation from law school, they moved to Raleigh North Carolina where her husband was hired to teach at North Carolina State.

“I had no connections to North Carolina whatsoever.  Honestly, for a while, it was very rough.  I was in a state of loss and desperation. I did some volunteer work for some organizations. But I also noticed that there was a large Muslim and Middle Eastern community living in the state. Given that this was 2004, at the height of the post-9/11 repression, I was expecting to find an organization or program to provide legal support to the community.  But there was not any.  So I thought maybe I could help start something.  I approached the ACLU of North Carolina with the idea of a program to provide the community with the legal support tools they needed.  We got funding for the project which enabled me to do a series of “Know Your Rights” presentations at various mosques and community centers around the state.  I also helped put together a network of attorneys to help represent community members when they were approached by the FBI or faced discrimination.

Three years later, they moved to Georgia when her husband got a teaching job with Georgia Tech.   There he gained national renown when he led a team which invented a device which allowed paraplegic people to live more independently steering a wheelchair or operating a computer.

Shahshahani was asked to serve as the Interim Legal Director for the ACLU of Georgia.  “But my heart was still with the work I was doing before. These were also times of terror for immigrant communities in Georgia.  ICE launched a number of police collaboration programs and detention centers such as the Stewart Detention Center. The Georgia legislature also notoriously put forth and passed several anti-immigrant bills including an Arizona copycat bill. The ACLU of Georgia allowed me to start a project focused on working with Muslim and immigrant communities.  I served as director of the Georgia National Security and Immigrant Rights for 7 years.  I took on litigation, human rights documentation, coalition and movement building, advocacy at the legislature, training of attorneys, and public education.”  With the ACLU she helped publish a 2012 report on private prisons for immigrants in Georgia, and a 2014 report on hyper-enforcement against immigrants in Georgia.

She recounts one of her human rights victories as one on behalf of Mrs. Valentine who was prevented access to a courthouse in Douglasville, Georgia in 2008 because she was wearing a headscarf.  Not only was Shahshahani able to help secure a settlement for Mrs. Valentine from Douglasville, but she was also able to implement a statewide policy change through accompanying Mrs. Valentine and her husband to the then Georgia Supreme Court Commission on Fairness and Equal Access to the Courts, a body composed of current and former judges. “The judges were horrified by the treatment that Mrs. Valentine had suffered at the hands of one of their colleagues.” A new Georgia policy allows people of faith to wear the religious headgear of their choosing at the courthouse. 

During her time in Georgia, Shahshahani restarted the Georgia chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.   Founded in 1937, the NLG is the nation’s oldest organization of progressive lawyers and legal workers fighting for social change.  Soon she was elected the Southern Representative to their national board and was active in the United People of Color Caucus (TUPOCC) of the NLG.  “TUPOCC has played a large role in making the NLG become an anti-oppressive organization.”

In 2011, Shahshahani was elected President of the National Lawyers Guild “The NLG has served as my political home.  NLG members have been some of my strongest mentors, role models, and friends. There is no other organization like the NLG serving as a base for legal activists.  It provides a space to do political legal work and be connected to other movement lawyers, legal workers, law students, and jailhouse lawyers.” 

With the NLG, Shahshahani participated in international human rights delegations to Haiti, Honduras, Palestine, post-revolutionary Tunisia and Egypt, and Venezuela. She also served as a member of jury for human rights tribunals on Mexico and the Philippines.

In January 2016, Shahshahani started a new job as Legal and Advocacy Director with Project South.   Project South is a Southern-based leadership development organization dedicated to movement building.  In her new position, she provides legal support to social justice movements with a focus on immigrants’ rights and defending Muslim and Middle Eastern communities against state repression. 

She has been recognized with the 2012 Advocacy Award from the American Immigration Lawyers Association among others.   Her writings have appeared in Al Jazeera America, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Huffington Post, The Guardian, MSNBC, and Truthout.

“As an immigrant and a Muslim, I am intimately familiar with the human rights issues I am working on.  I know justice comes about through grassroots mobilization and movement building.  My work as a social justice lawyer and activist is to help support the movement.  Winning even small victories for the movement gives me great satisfaction.  I get frustrated when we have to fight battles just to maintain the status quo because of current political dynamics.

“I am inspired by freedom fighters throughout history, particularly Palestinians fighting for their human dignity in the most oppressive of circumstances. On my office wall I have pictures of Mohammad Mossadegh, the democratically-elected prime minister of Iran who was toppled in a 1953 CIA-engineered coup because he dared to nationalize Iranian oil and Forough Farrokzad, a pioneering Iranian woman poet who died tragically young but who has left her mark on Iranian literature and the feminist movement.

“In order to sustain myself, I exercise for 1.5 hours every day.  Every other day, I run outside.  Breathing fresh air and seeing the nature is energizing.  I know my limits and try to take at least one day every weekend where I stay home and rejuvenate.   I try to eat healthy home-cooked meals and I usually go out with friends once a week and we enjoy a meal together.  I love food and spend considerable time cooking and reading about new restaurants and cafes.

“I recommend people read Something Fierce: Memoires of a Revolutionary Daughter.  This is a fascinating story about the life of a Chilean young woman who lives with her family underground in various Latin American countries during repressive times in the 1970s and 1980s. She then evolves into a revolutionary herself.  It is a captivating story about perseverance and stamina in unbelievably frightening and suffocating times.

“When social justice law students ask me for career advice, I tell them to stick with it.  It can be very challenging at the beginning especially and at various points throughout your career financially, emotionally, politically. To get your foot in the door, I would also advise trying to devise a fellowship with an organization you have worked with during law school. Become involved with a social justice organization that provides you with mentorship and a sustaining network; for me, that has been the NLG.  The NLG provides great support for progressive folks trying to make it through legal spaces without getting demoralized.  Please join and come check us out in NYC, August 3-7!!!” 

When critics ask her why she challenges the injustices of the US, she responds, “I live in this country and as such, am most effective at fighting the injustices inflicted by the US government on people here and around the world. This government in particular needs to be held accountable in light of its massive military power, disastrous neoliberal agenda, and history of repression of movements domestically and internationally.  I also find inspiration in in this poem by the great Persian poet Sa'adi (which is inscribed on the entrance of the UN):

Human beings are members of a whole,

In creation of one essence and soul.

If one member is afflicted with pain,

Other members uneasy will remain.

If you have no sympathy for human pain,

The name of human you cannot retain!”

The Bathroom Wars

So, on the one hand, …. I find myself befuddled by the North Carolina “bathroom law” and other extreme responses to transgender rights and the assertion of transgender identity.  I say this as someone who generally appreciates the force of conservative views of sex and sexuality even when I disagree with them.  For example, though I fully support same-sex marriage, I am on record arguing that the debate was more complex than partisans on either side wanted to admit.

But the transgender question is different.

I do understand some basic premises of the “traditionalist” position.  (I use the term “traditionalist” simply as shorthand here, not to derogate the value or legitimate power of “tradition.”)

Simply put, I think it is right that human beings are both embodied and embedded creatures.

 We are embodied in the sense that biology matters.  We are not simply the products of our own will or emotions, but also of our bodies.  And sexual difference is a fundamental biological fact, not only for human beings but for most species on Earth.  To be sure, we are not reducible to our sexual differences.  Nor should our sexual differences determine our status or rights or occupations or ambitions in life.  But sexual difference is not nothing.

We are also embedded.  We are not merely lone selves, but parts of larger social structures.  And one of those structures is the male-female pair with its capacity and responsibility to reproduce the species.  Not all human beings fit into this particular structure.  For that matter, reproduction – in the broader sense of taking responsibility for raising and nurturing children – neither needs to be nor should be limited to the structure of male-female pairs.  That’s one reason that I support same-sex marriage.  Moreover, the particular forms that the social structures of male and female identity have taken in man societies, including our own, has often been profoundly oppressive and constraining of individual human potential.  But the basic abstract structure – and the sexual identities that come together to form it – are still a vital part of the larger human constitution.

None of this, though, justifies the hostility to assertions of transgender identity and transgender rights.

Religious Freedom and the Contraceptive Cases

The cases involving religious freedom and the contraception mandate were decided yesterday. Some of the reporting discussed the case as if it showed the problems of a 4-4 division of the Justices on the Court. I do not agree.  Aside from arguments about a perceived lack of justification for exempting some groups and not others from the mandate, the religious employer claimants argued that if government required the insurance companies selected by the employers to provide contraceptives over the employers’ objection, this would constitute a high jacking of the employer’s insurance program and would make them complicit in what they regard as sinful activity.

The Little Sisters and other litigants also objected to the notice required by the government. The government required that the litigants inform the government that they objected to providing contraceptives and that they include the names of the insurance companies. At oral argument, counsel for the Little Sisters said they were not objecting to the objection requirement, they were objecting to naming the insurance company. This objection was also based in a concern about complicity.

The Court then asked for briefing on the question whether contraceptives could be provided to employees through the employer’s insurance company (though not the employer's plan) with no notice to the government, but with communication by the employer to the insurance company that it did not want the plan to cover contraceptives because it objected on religious grounds. As I said in a prior post (see here, this proposal seemed to suggest that using the same insurance company was not high jacking  (though there is no holding on the issue). Also assuming the high jacking issue was off the table, it was not clear to me why the Little Sisters would need to be legally obliged to provide notice. If Little Sisters wants to distance themselves from the coverage, they would have to tell the insurance company. No government regulation was needed except to make sure that when objections are made that the insurance company is required to provide contraception coverage.

In response to the Court’s request for briefing, according to the Court, the parties all agreed that the alternative notice proposal was acceptable to the parties. So understood, the high jacking and equality arguments were out of the picture. There was no need to decide the original issues before the Court, so the Court remanded to the lower courts to facilitate the settlements. The government already has had notice for some time (just not the filled out form). If there were a 5-4 split on the Court, it is possible the Court would have decided issues that did not need to be decided. The 4-4 split on the Court is generally far from ideal, but it is not at all clear that it led to bad results in these cases.

Louisiana Number One in Incarceration

In 2014, the US Department of Justice confirmed Louisiana remained number 1, among the 50 states, with 38,030 in prison, a rate of 816 per 100,000 over 100 points ahead of next highest state Oklahoma.   Because the US leads the world in incarcerating its people, this means Louisiana is number one in the world.   Compare Louisiana’s rate of 816 people per 100,000 with Russia’s 492, China with 119, France with 100, and Germany with 78.

Louisiana first became number 1 in the nation in 2005 when it was imprisoning 36,083 people.  Louisiana remained number 1, in 2010 with 35,207 in prison, an incarceration rate of 867 per 100,000 people, over 200 points head of the next highest state Mississippi.

It was not always so.  In 1965, Louisiana ranked 13^th nationally in putting its citizens in jail with a rate of 109 prisoners per 100,000 people.  In 1978, Louisiana only held 7,291 people behind bars.  By 1986, Louisiana was 5^th highest in the nation in putting its own citizens in prison, with 14,580 behind bars, a rate of 322 per 100,000, according to the US Department of Justice.   In 1990, Louisiana rose to 3^rd highest in the nation, putting 18,599 behind bars, a rate of 427 per 100,000.  In 2000, Louisiana moved to 2^nd highest in the nation, imprisoning 35,047 behind bars, a rate of 801 per 100,000.

The number of prisoners expanded nation-wide as a result of the “war on drugs” which was conducted in a racist way to target blacks.  But in Louisiana, the prisons also backed up when the practice of releasing prisoners for good behavior after 10 years and 6 months of their life sentences was ended in the 1970s.

Louisiana has been much more severe in sending black people to prison than whites, at least after black people were no longer slaves.   In 1860, when the Civil War started, the population of the Louisiana penitentiary was two-thirds white.  But by 1868, the population of Louisiana’s penitentiary was two-thirds black.

Angola Penitentiary remains the largest maximum security prison in the United States.  There are over 5000 prisoners at Angola alone.  The average sentence for prisoners there is 93 years.  About 95 percent of people serving time at Angola will die there under current laws. 

It costs taxpayers an average of $23,000 a year for each inmate at Angola.  Over 400 people, about 9 percent of those serving life in Louisiana, were convicted of non-violent offenses. 

There are an additional 69,000 people in Louisiana on probation and parole.

Louisiana has a long history of running abusive prisons.  In 1835, Louisiana was described as having “the worst prison in the United States.”   In 1952, after dozens of Angola inmates slashed their heel tendons in protest of barbaric conditions, Colliers magazine called Angola “America’s worst prison.”   In 1970, the American Bar Association said conditions at Angola were “medieval, squalid and horrifying.”  By 1975, conditions were so terrible, a Federal judge declared Angola a “state of emergency.”

"Remembering Daniel Berrigan: A Penniless, Powerful Voice for Peace"

That's the headline on a front-page story in today's New York Times, here.  Two excerpts:

"Deeds, not things, made Father Berrigan one of the best-known Roman Catholic priests of the 20th century:  His physical possessions barely filled the modest room in the Jesuit infirmary at Fordham University in the Bronx where he spent his final years.  He departed indifferently penniless from a world that often seems to keep score in gilded ink."

"Father Berrigan drew inspiration from Dorothy Day, who helped found the Catholic Worker Movement in 1933 to bring fresh, radical life to the church’s teachings on social justice. Among other things, Catholic Worker communities across the country feed, clothe and shelter those in need."

Teacher, Union Leader, Labor Lawyer: Profile of Chris Williams Social Justice Advocate

A labor lawyer for the last 12 years, law was Chris Williams’ third career.  He taught school in Chicago for a decade.  For another decade he was a union organizer.  Only then did he become a social justice lawyer specializing in advocating for and with low-wage workers.   “Even though my route to law school was somewhat circuitous, I think my two prior careers help define who I am as a lawyer,” he says.

Beginnings

Chris grew up in St. Louis.  Mom was an elementary school teacher.  Dad was Navy pilot who died testing a jet when Chris was two.  His dad was a hero because he stayed with his failing plane to avoid a residential area.   Mom became the sole parent for 4 kids under 5.   Later, mom later married a guy who already had 4 kids and Chris became one of 8.

In college at University of Wisconsin Madison Chris studied history and social justice movements.  He was active in justice campaigns including divestment in South Africa and the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador.  He worked through college as an assistant cook in a restaurant.   In 1984, he received his undergraduate degree and teaching certificate.

Teacher

Chris moved to Chicago to be a social studies teacher.  He got some job offers in rural communities, but wanted to go to the big city.   “I tried to find a job in the Chicago Public Schools but it was hard to find a permanent one as a history teacher.”   So he began as a day to day substitute in a system with 16,000 other teachers.  As a sub, he bounced around to a lot of different schools. 

“I found a second job in the evening in the City Colleges of Chicago teaching in what was called the Adult Learning Skills Program.  This was primarily high school courses for people who had dropped out.  It provided GED courses, Literacy courses and English as a Second Language.  This pre-collegiate program was the largest program in the City College system, with over 1,500 instructors.  It was constantly underfunded despite its size and significance, and the 1500 teachers were treated as part-time hourly wage workers, paid $10.00 per hour with no benefits and no pay for prep-time.  We were doing the same work as full-time teachers in the Chicago Public Schools but they were calling it part-time and gave no benefits.”

Williams started getting active in the union of evening teachers.  After 8 years he dropped the day job, went into full-time night teaching and became much more active in the union, a part of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).   Ultimately he became president of the evening teachers union, AFSCME Local 3506, in Council 31.   The 1500 teachers in the union worked for 7 city colleges but classes were held in 350 different community centers.   

“As president of the teacher’s union,” said Williams, “I made it my priority to go out and visit each of these 350 community centers, whether on Chicago’s south side, west side or north side, building ties with many different organizations all across the city, relationships that I have maintained to this day.  Chicago is racially and ethnically divided but our teachers were working everywhere.  We were able to raise wages, get more preparation time, got some benefits and increased community control.

Union Organizer

After about a decade of teaching and union activism, AFSCME hired him on full-time to coordinate a state-wide organizing campaign of minimum wage group home workers for the developmentally disabled for Illinois, a campaign that continues to this day.

Williams worked with AFSCME for several years eventually leaving to work for Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in 1997 where he began organizing hospital workers.  He later worked with the Screen Actors Guild to help them build solidarity while they were on strike.   

“Throughout this time, I maintained my relationship with the community-based centers that housed the pre-collegiate classes,” he noted.  “As my knowledge of labor and employment law grew, I became a part of a group that provided ad hoc support the students in the classes in these community centers because, as you might expect, there was a big overlap between students in this program and low-wage workers whose rights were being regularly violated.

“After organizing in the more traditional labor unions for about a decade, I personally started to become frustrated with the difficulties labor unions had in organizing workers in the new economy of temporary work. This was particularly true for immigrant and other communities of color, where more and more jobs were contingent and temporary.  And where more and more workers were not “employed” by the companies they worked for but instead through the use of independent contractor agreements and temporary staffing.

“In early 2000s, I left the labor movement just at the time our ad hoc committee of support for students in the City College classes began to formalize into one of the first worker centers in Chicago, the Chicago Workers’ Collaborative (“CWC”).  I worked with CWC for about a year before deciding to go to law school.

Law School

“I remember the exact moment I decided to go to law school. I was working at the Chicago Workers’ Collaborative.  We had a tiny budget.  Most of our staff was volunteer.  We rented a cheap office in an old convent with rooms about 5’ X 9’.   We were a small non-profit worker center with very limited resources, a situation with which I suspect almost every worker center person can identify.  But at the same time, the need was so great.  The further we penetrated into the vast underground economy in Chicago through our organizing, the greater the need became.

“Like many worker centers, we tried to connect workers who were the victim of wage theft to legal services.  

“At the time, we thought that the lawyers were doing us a favor, providing pro bono legal services.  But, like many worker center folks I have spoken to over the years, we had done much of the work, driving the worker to and from the lawyers’ offices or to court and, often, providing translation.

“One time, as I was translating a settlement agreement, I discovered that the worker we brought to the lawyer was recovering $10,000 ($5,000 in back wages and $5,000 in liquidated damages), the maximum amount he could recover.  The worker had clearly been provided with excellent legal services.  However, I also discovered the attorney was recovering $25,000 from the settlement for attorneys’ fees.  I asked the attorney if he could share some of his fees with our organization since it was our work that had brought this worker forward and provided him with the support that gave him the courage to fight for his stolen wages.  The lawyer told me, correctly as it turns out, that he couldn’t even if he wanted to because lawyer ethics rules in Illinois at the time forbid sharing legal fees with non-attorneys.  When I asked if he would be able to share fees with us if I were an attorney, he said yes.

“After meeting with our collective’s steering committee and explaining what I had learned, we decided it would be a good idea for me to go to law school to bring some of the legal fees made off of low wage workers back to the organizations fighting the causes of such exploitation.

“I enrolled in Chicago- Kent College of Law.   I had to work and it had a good night program.  Plus Kent had a labor and employment certificate program.  I taught during the day at City College.  I loved the night program.  All the students were working people.  My wife was in nursing school at the time.  When she finished her degree and started working full-time I switched to full-time law school.

“I did externships at employment firms.  I did part-time work in a workers compensation firm.  I knew experience working for a law firm would help me.  Kent gave me some scholarship money but I left law school with a lot of debt.   I am still paying that debt off.

Lawyer

“When I got out of law school I knew I wanted to work independently.  So I set up my own private firm, Workers Law Office PC.  I knew lots of people in the community who had legal problems so I co-counselled with other lawyers who split expenses and helped with the cases. 

“My goal from the beginning was to create a non-profit legal clinic for workers funded by the regular legal work I did.  I did not want to raise money from foundations and compete with the workers centers. 

“The hardest part was the first year.  I made it because my sister took out a second mortgage on her house and loaned me money to get an office started.  It took me two years to pay her back.  I am very fortunate because I know not everyone has a sister able and willing to help out.

“What I made with my private firm, Workers Law Office PC, I ultimately used to help set up the non-profit Working Hands Legal Clinic.”

Early on Chris was primarily responsible for working with the Illinois legislature, the Illinois Department of Labor and community advocacy organizations to create the strongest law protecting day laborers in the nation, the Illinois Day and Temporary Labor Services Act (“IDTLSA”).  Chris was nominated by the Governor of Illinois to serve on the labor advisory board of the Illinois Department of Labor.  He explains, “The National Employment Law Project came up with model language and 25% of my time was spent working on organizing and drafting and came up with a bill passed the legislature.”

In 2007, the Working Hands Legal Clinic (WHLC) got started and I was the first director.  It was able to pay me a salary for part-time work and to fund a full-time paralegal.  Chris worked there from its beginning in 2007 until 2011 when it transitioned into the Raise the Floor Alliance.

The Working Hands Legal Clinic was a non-profit legal clinic that worked with a network of community-based worker centers to support workplace justice campaigns and to bring access to legal services for low wage and immigrant Illinois workers in the area of labor and employment law. In addition to direct representation services, WHLC worked on policy issues related to employment in low-wage jobs and fights to remove barriers to low-wage workers exercising their rights and being paid for their work.

 “I think of myself as an organizer who became a lawyer and believe that view shaped my approach to how we approached the law at WHLC.  I, like most employment lawyers, enjoy winning a case and handing a check to a worker for her stolen wages, but I also recognize that all we have really won is for that worker to get the poverty-level wages to which she is entitled by law.

“At WHLC, we developed a 75/25 approach to our work to allow us to support worker centers, sustain ourselves and grow.  Our approach was to look at the legal clinic as a business 75% of the time.  We did our best to provide the highest quality of legal representation to our clients and to work with other firms that will do the same, but we also looked to generate income from those cases through the fee-shifting provisions in employment law cases.  That meant, in addition to providing a legal service in appropriate cases, the staff of WHLC was available 25% of the time to provide the Chicago area worker centers with legal support without consideration of costs.  The model worked fairly well, starting off with one staff person living off of a loan and growing to a peak of seven staff years later, almost entirely self-funded.”

In some cases, WHLC was able to get Cy Pres court funds left over from class actions and the like to be directed to one of the community-based worker centers.  In others, WHLC secured grants to fund joint projects with the worker centers, but was able to pass through any share intended for WHLC because of its own funding source, leaving more of the funding for the worker centers. Finally, WHLC was able to provide support through donations to the non-profit organizations.

“Once the member worker centers had dedicated lawyers at its disposal, they definitely discovered ways to use us for the 25% of the time,” said Williams. “When WHLC started, we had one lawyer spending a quarter of his time on pro bono work.  However, by the time WHLC grew to seven staff that meant the worker centers had nearly the equivalent of 2 full-time staff at WHLC available to them to work on pro bono projects.

“Our pro bono work generally fell in three categories: (1) legal support for worker-leaders so they could continue in their leadership role; (2) impact litigation filed in conjunction with a community campaign’ and (3) legal support for policy work.

“For example, since WHLC’s inception, the worker centers, in conjunction with the legal support from WHLC and others, have been able to make over nine amendments to Illinois laws which either provided more protections to low wage workers or stopped attempts to strip workers’ rights away.  Of course, the political power to make these changes came from the workers organizing through their worker centers and fighting for these changes in the state capital and in their communities, but it did help to have legal resources available to turn ideas into legislative language and to walk the new regulations through the rules process to make sure it would be enforceable.

“Similarly, we were able to file multiple class action lawsuits in conjunction with worker center campaigns to highlight and end particularly egregious unlawful practices. WHLC was also able to assist dozens of worker center leaders with matters that, if left unresolved, threatened to take them away from organizing.

Much of their legal focus was on temporary work and staffing.  “People were getting let go from their jobs and told to reapply with temp agency for the same job,” reported Williams.  “Mostly immigrant workers.  Employers even used police against workers.”

“For me, meaningful change for social and economic justice comes through organizing.  Unions were failing to bring larger and larger sectors of the economy into the labor movement and that is why community-based worker centers began popping up around the country to help fill this gap in worker organizing and advocacy.  

“Chicago alone now has eight such worker centers.  Each is unique in the population it works with and in its organizing style.  But each also has one thing in common, a severe lack of funding.  So a primary mission of WHLC was to help bring resources to the member worker centers, whether legal or financial. And, over time, the level of collaboration between workers centers and unions has increased dramatically, making both more effective.

In 2009 and 2010, Chris worked extensively with a taskforce of state agencies, including the Illinois Department of Labor (IDOL) and community advocacy organizations to examine the existing wage theft statute, the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act (IWPCA), and to identify ways the law could be improved and more effectively for enforced. The 2011 amendments to the IWPCA were the result of the work of this taskforce and the Director of IDOL’s vision and serves as a model for states across the country.

Williams and the team he works with have filed over 300 labor cases so far, many class actions.  Lots are under the temporary staffing law of 2006 that he helped strengthen. 

As he says, “The temp industry never ceases to give us reasons to file lawsuits.  Temp agencies have very high turnover so they tend to do unlawful things over and over.  It is not unusual to have thousands of plaintiffs.”  They sued Walmart couple of times because they hired temp agencies and staffing agencies which did not pay overtime and mistreated their employees.   They sued many suppliers of big companies.   They were involved with other firms in a big class actions against Kelly Services for 90,000 people that reached an $11m settlement.

Recalling why he went to law school in the first place, he also advocated for a change in the rule barring attorneys from sharing fees with non-attorneys, including profit worker centers which refer a worker to an attorney.  As a result of advocacy by WHLC and others, in 2010, the Illinois’ attorney ethics committee adopted the ABA model rule and now attorneys can share court-awarded fees with a non-profit organization that referred the client to the attorney so long as the referral is disclosed to the client.  “In Chicago now, it is pretty standard for law firms to share fees with such non-profit organizations, including worker centers,” according to Williams.

Ultimately the WHLC was folded into a larger organization in Chicago, “Raise The Floor Alliance,” which involves all eight of the local worker centers.  It provides legal support, communications, and policy work with the other centers.

“In 2011, I left WHLC and started a private practice with a partner, Alvar Ayala, called Workers’ Law Office, PC.  We largely do much the same work but now we are able to work a broader range of community of worker centers, even partnering on some national cases.  We are in the process now of opening a second office of Workers’ Law Office, PC in Los Angeles.  The firm specializes in employment law for low-income, immigrant and other vulnerable communities.

Asked why he is committed to this model of practice, Williams responds “There is nothing new here, lots of lawyers subsidize their social justice work from private work.  What is distinctive about it is the intentionality of it.  When we can make money from the exploitation of workers we route some of this money back into the worker centers.”

Role Models and Inspiration

“When I was working with labor unions, I usually found the lawyers told us what not to do.  However, I credit Craig Becker, now of the AFL, for demonstrating to me that there is a role for lawyers in organizing.  For example, I was working on a hospital organizing campaign and he came to meet with me about identifying the bargaining unit.  But unlike so many other lawyers, he didn’t focus on what we could or could not do legally.  Craig simply asked “What do you want?  And I’ll work with you to figure out how to do it.”  We, of course, didn’t get everything we wanted, but we got a lot of it and I was confident, because of Craig’s approach that he got us everything he could.

Curtis Muhammad, former SNCC organizer and lifelong activist is another role model.  “He is an amazing organizer.  When he worked with us in Kankakee Illinois, he could talk with anyone - young black people, older white women, everyone loved him.  He is also a mentor to my partner and, as I result, I have had the privilege to spend time with him.  He always challenges me to broaden my thinking, especially about race in America, and has challenged me to take chances in how I practice the law.   He helps me, teaches me and challenges me to think beyond the latest legal decision and not get caught up in linear thinking.  For example, he points out that the original constitution was a radical document for freedom of people breaking away from another country.  We should use it as a revolutionary document!” 

Chris also credits the workers he represents.  “The workers who have come forward to lead campaigns or to put their names on lawsuits are inspiring to me.  They stand up even though they are vulnerable to serious consequences for doing so.”

Asked to name a recent book that influenced him, he does not hesitate.  “The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander was an eye-opener for me, exposing how the war on drugs and criminal justice system has been cynically used to continue to disenfranchise a whole segment of our population based on race.  I know it should not have been so shocking to me, but it was.  For years, much of my work was focused in the immigrant community, but more recently we have been working with worker organizations with more of an African-American base.  I recall sitting in a deposition with one of my African-American clients, a class representative in a race discrimination class action, and listening to him testify about his criminal background.  I could not help but note that he had not done anything that I had not done, but I am white and was in college at the time while he is black and was living on the west side of Chicago.  And there I am, the lawyer, while he is the ex-con.  That made the book very real for me.

Sustainability and Advice

Chris lives in Chicago and is the proud father of three children.  Two older boys from prior marriage and an 8 year old girl.  He is an avid bike rider and can often be spotted riding along the lakefront even on cold winter mornings.  “There is a community in Chicago which will ride no matter the weather, I will not ride in snow storm but I will ride throughout the winter.”

Law students can empathize with Chris because he is now preparing to take the California bar!  He is planning to open an office in Los Angeles and partner there with a former organizer who went to law school later in life.

“I tell law students, and others who ask for advice on how to do justice work, to just do it.  Figure out what you want to do and then worry about how to make it work.  After that, don’t regret what you do, just learn from it.  I am not one of those who really loves the law for the law’s sake.  It is a means to an end for me, a tool in the fight for social justice.” 

 

"Zen Poem," by Daniel Berrigan

How I long for supernatural powers!
said the novice mournfully to the holy one.
I see a dead child
and I long to say, Arise!
I see a sick man
I long to say, Be healed!
I see a bent old woman
I long to say, Walk straight!
Alas, I feel like a dead stick in paradise.
Master, can you confer on me
supernatural powers?

The old man shook his head fretfully
How long have I been with you
and you know nothing?
How long have you known me
and learned nothing?
Listen; I have walked the earth for 80 years
I have never raised a dead child
I have never healed a sick man
I have never straightened an old woman's spine

Children die
men grow sick
the aged fall
under a stigma of frost

And what is that to you or me
but the turn of the wheel
but the way of the world
but the gateway to paradise?

Supernatural powers!
Then you would play God
would spin the thread of life and measure the thread
5 years, 50 years, 80 years
and cut the thread?

Supernatural powers!
I have wandered the earth for 80 years
I confess to you,
sprout without root
root without flower
I know nothing of supernatural powers
I have yet to perfect my natural powers!

to see and not be seduced
to hear and not be deafened
to taste and not be eaten
to touch and not be bought

But you-
would you walk on water
would you master the air
would you swallow fire?

Go talk with the dolphins
they will teach you glibly
how to grow gills

Go listen to eagles
they will hatch you, nest you
eaglet and airman

Go join the circus
those tricksters will train you
in deception for dimes-

Bird man, bag man, poor fish
spouting fire, moon crawling
at sea forever-
supernatural powers!

Do you seek miracles?
listen- go
draw water, hew wood
break stones-
how miraculous!

Listen; blessed is the one
who walks the earth 5 year, 50 years, 80 years
and deceives no one
and curses no one
and kills no one

On such a one
the angels whisper in wonder,
behold the irresistible power
of natural powers-
of height, of joy, of soul, of non belittling!

You dry stick-
in the crude soil of this world
spring, root, leaf, flower!

trace
around and around
and around-
an inch, a mile, the world's green extent,-
a liberated zone
of paradise!