WEBVTT - Fighting To Give Others a Fighting Chance 0:00:06.280 --> 0:00:09.440 This is On the Job, a podcast about finding your 0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:12.000 life's work. On the job is brought to you by 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:16.159 Express Employment Professionals. This season, we're bringing you stories of 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:19.160 folks following their passion to carve their own career path. 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:23.840 For this season finale of On the Job, we talked 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:27.080 to Leonette, a second career lock clerk who works daily 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:29.680 to help relieve student debt for people who have been 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:32.479 misled by bogus colleges. We talked to her about the 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:36.600 surprising accessibility of the profession itself and the importance of 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:44.080 new voices being represented within it. As a radio producer, 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:46.680 I feel like one of the most confusing and out 0:00:46.680 --> 0:00:49.440 of reached lines of work for me is any job 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:52.920 in the field of law. I'm recording, um, you're recording 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:56.360 on your voice memo? Okay, awesome. Luckily I got to 0:00:56.480 --> 0:00:59.800 demystify that world a little bit by talking with Leonette. 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:05.080 My name is Leonette Rainy Hammett. I am forty two 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:09.360 years old. I keep having to think about that. It's COVID. 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:13.560 Leonette is a lawyer, technically a law clerk for the 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:18.399 Department of Education Borrowers Defense Group. If you're like me 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:21.160 and do you hear someone's a lawyer, you immediately think 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:23.880 they're duking it out in a courtroom and working directly 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:27.399 with clients. But what we do is we actually are 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:32.920 more administrative. We take and we process claims. The Borrowers 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:35.960 Defense Group where Leonette works, is part of the Department 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:38.600 of Justice, a government job, and the claims that they 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:41.600 process are from people who say they've been tricked into 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:44.520 taking on massive amounts of student loan debt, so it's 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:49.080 off fraudulent debt. Basically, these people have gone to for 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:51.760 profit school they've been charged an exorbitant amount of money, 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:55.040 like predatory colleges. Yes they were predatory. Most of them 0:01:55.080 --> 0:02:01.560 are for profit and they made misrepresentations. So these are 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:04.080 those sketchy schools you might have heard about in the news. 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:06.600 Some of the more well known ones are the Corinthian 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:09.760 Schools and I T. T. Tech, both now shut down, 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:12.720 but there's a lot more out there, and they market 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:15.280 themselves hard to people who might not have had a 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:18.680 shot getting into more reputable schools. So these schools where 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:20.880 telling people like, I am going to give you this 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:23.720 amazing opportunity to go to this wonderful school. We have 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:26.520 all of these great businesses and companies that we work for, 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:27.880 and they will give you a job and you're going 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:31.000 to get paid and you're going to have a wonderful 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:33.240 life after this. And they're talking to people who are 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:36.520 sometimes first generation high school graduates, and um, a lot 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:38.480 of people are don't have English as the first language. 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:43.160 That's really predatory, like they are going after a certain demographic. 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:47.520 Needless to say, these promises the predatory colleges make are 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:51.960 often not true, but people enroll because these colleges offer 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:55.600 a better future opportunity. And if you're someone who hasn't 0:02:55.680 --> 0:02:58.680 gotten a lot of opportunities, you take the chance and 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:01.799 you sign on the dotted line, hoping you don't think 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:05.560 about the money though, as you know, i'd say out 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:08.520 of mind until six months after you graduate. And then 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:12.239 wait a minute, they knock on your door. Yes, when 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:15.280 these enormous amounts of debt come knocking after students received 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:18.160 their certificate, they don't have the high paying jobs to 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:20.880 pay them off, and they file claims with Leonette at 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:24.280 the Department of Justice. We adjudicate these cases to give 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:29.160 them some relief. On your day to day what that 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:32.080 looks like is Leonette and a team of law clerks 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:35.760 going through all these claims, so we look at whatever 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:38.480 they've claimed the school has done wrong. We look at 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:40.440 all of the cases, we look at them together and 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:43.720 we see if there's any uniformity, like as as everyone 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:46.680 saying the same thing, is the school misrepresenting on this 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:50.520 one point. So if you went to a regular college 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:53.000 and you claim that you left with crazy student loans 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:55.120 like many people do, and you just didn't get the 0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:58.360 job that you wanted to afterward, your case would probably 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:01.760 be denied by Leonette. They are looking for trends and 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:04.800 usually find them when ten or more similar claims are 0:04:04.800 --> 0:04:07.960 made about a singular school. Now, for most schools, we 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:11.320 have thousands of cases. Some of these schools have been 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:14.200 shut down, some of them have been sued, a lot 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:16.200 of them have been fined by the government. They've had 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:19.640 to pay back into the government. But Leonette isn't actually 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:22.599 involved with what happens to these schools, and she isn't 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:26.000 involved with the people claiming that got defrauded, never meets them. 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:28.800 It's her job to be unbiased and either approved the 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:32.479 claim or deny the claim. We just adjudicate the case 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:35.239 on the merits. You know, it's just the law, the case, 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:42.359 what we found, that's it. Even though she's impartial behind 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:45.440 the desk, she is personally motivated to do the job 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:48.360 and help when she can because of the staggering amount 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:51.960 of debt that has come to define recent generations of Americans. 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:54.680 She's fired up by how huge this problem is. Even 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:57.640 for people who went to non predatory schools, it's still 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:00.560 so heavy. Like the amount of debt to go to 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:06.040 school is rediculous. It doesn't even make sense, is it worth? 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:08.320 I mean, there's just so many there's so many arguments 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:11.080 to be had when you're talking about student debt and 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:14.000 people's ability to pay, and you have doctors and lawyers 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:17.839 who haven't paid their student debt, and you you kind 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:20.719 of come to terms with that. You can't fix everything, 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:24.200 but you can fix what you can fix. And that's 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:27.839 what I work on. That's what that is what I 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:32.120 have to focus on, because it gets heavy. It's a lot, 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:39.839 it's a lot. Working in law is actually Leonette's second career, 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:42.400 and her trajectory to get there isn't as clear cut 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:44.520 as you might think. But talking with her a little 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:47.120 bit about her upbringing, it starts to make sense how 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:51.200 she ended up there. So I am originally from New Haven, Connecticut. 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:55.039 New Haven pretty small city, great pizza. Leonette was really 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:58.120 active in sports. She was popular. Her parents were hard 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:01.000 working churchgoers, so they made sure that she was on 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:02.480 the straight and narrow. So I won't say I didn't 0:06:02.480 --> 0:06:04.039 do much, but I wasn't able to, like, you know, 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:06.320 like hang out with my friends. That wasn't really a thing. 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:07.680 My parents were like, no, you can stay in the 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:10.000 house and read a book. So you were forced to 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:12.680 be a nerd. I was forced to be a nerd. 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:14.719 I was still a little cool though, Like I was 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:17.760 a little cooler than most of my friends, you know, 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:22.680 in school. Anyway, Leonette was really inspired growing up by 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:25.840 her parents being entrepreneurs. Her mom ran a hair salon 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:28.840 her dad owned an exterminating company. Neither of them went 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:32.520 to college, but for a few reasons, Leonette never questioned 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:35.559 that she was going. No, there was never an option 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:38.720 college for in My family. Was like thirteenth grade, like, 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:41.200 you just have to keep going. There's not an option. 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:44.120 You're going to college. So I was also very excited 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:46.880 about leaving home. Um, I knew I was going away 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:50.040 to school, so I was excited about that. The other 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:52.520 thing she knew is that she wanted to go to Howard, 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:56.400 a historically black university, which she got into in her 0:06:56.440 --> 0:06:59.280 all girls high school. She was one of four black 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:02.120 girls that graduated in a class of over a hundred. 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:04.400 She had grown up in a black family, went to 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:07.480 a black church, but in her whole life up until college, 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:12.000 she had never once had a black teacher. Never ever. 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:16.040 Like sitting down my first day in class, my professor 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:18.440 her name was Dr Hamilton's and she wrote that on 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:23.120 the board, Dr Hamilton's not Miss Hamilton's, not Mrs Hamilton. 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:27.560 I have Dr Hamilton. And I was like wow, Like 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:31.400 this is this is it? Like I made the right decision. 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:35.040 I'm so happy I'm here, Like it just felt like home. 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:41.240 After graduating, she came back home to New Haven and 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:43.560 started to figure out what she wanted to do. She 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:46.280 had a few jobs, started testing the waters. My parents 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:48.080 wanted me to be a doctor. I knew I did 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:49.880 not want to be a doctor. I was not going 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:53.040 to medical school, Like I was like no. She ended 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:56.960 up substitute teaching and became a vision specialist, basically helping 0:07:57.000 --> 0:08:00.520 blind kids in school developed curriculum that worked for them. Eventually, 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:02.920 I was supposed to learn how to like do breo, 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:06.400 but I didn't stay long enough. I was like, wait, 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:12.160 what was your degree in biology? Okay, no, it still 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:15.640 doesn't make sense. I'm trying to make the connection. Um, 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:17.680 I mean I have a sculpture degree. Here we are 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:23.760 right right, listen, stranger, things have evan right. She got engaged, 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:27.280 called off the engagement, and realized she'd always wanted to 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:30.120 live in New York City, so she moved there. She 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:33.600 hired a head hunter. Initially wanted to go into pharmaceutical sales, 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:36.400 and she couldn't find anything in that realm, so she 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:39.760 just started applying to anything at all, like any kind 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:41.360 of job, Like I just want a job. I want 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:43.920 an office job. I have a degree. Someone should hire 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:46.080 me because that's what I was taught. You know, you 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:49.120 get a degree, you get a job. Her head hunter 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:52.320 eventually got her an interview for a financial endless job 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:54.640 at Bloomberg. And I did that. I studied for the 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:56.120 broker license and I was like, I can do this. 0:08:56.200 --> 0:08:58.320 I can do finance. Like this is great. I love it. 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:02.640 It's interesting. I'm me up. She liked it, but she 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:05.199 wanted to use it as a stepping stone and get 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:08.400 hired out by other companies Bloomberg worked with. But then 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:11.280 the two thousand and eight financial crisis hit and no 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:14.320 one was hiring. And it was at that time, you know, 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:17.160 people were like walking in Time Square with their boxes 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:19.480 in their hands from like Lehman Brothers and like, you know, 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:21.200 all these other funds. I was like, I have to 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:25.520 figure something else out. She pivoted again, moved to North Carolina, 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:28.679 trying her hand at being an entrepreneur like mom opening 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:31.920 a hair salon. The only difference is Leonette salon lasted 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:34.920 about eight months. This was right after the crisis, right 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:37.319 after the crisis, and we were selling like a we 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:40.160 were trying to do like this upscale salon and there 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:43.920 North Carolina, no less, like right after the mortgage crisis. 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:47.959 It was just like ridiculous. She ended up back home 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:51.360 in New Haven, got back into the educational system, facilitating 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:55.440 tutoring systems for kids, just constantly going and constantly switching 0:09:55.480 --> 0:10:00.480 up her work. And that's when, um, when I decided 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:05.560 to have my daughter. I was like, Okay, now you're 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:08.240 like a real adult, like you have a whole another 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:10.840 person here, and like prior to that, I was like 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:12.760 I'm probably gonna move to l A. And I'm like, 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:15.600 I was just ready to go all the time. I'm 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:17.560 just ready to go, just enjoy life, Like I'm like, 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:20.000 we only get one shot here. I'm going to do 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:23.400 everything I want to do. But then I had another person, 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:26.840 and so I was like, uh, do I want to 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:31.320 go back to school? Leonette was thirty three. She knew 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:33.800 she was done with finance and business, so she wasn't 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:35.600 going to go back to school for an m b A. 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:38.600 This is when she really started to zoom out and 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:41.120 think about what her life would look like from then on, 0:10:41.559 --> 0:10:43.920 done hopping around, the next move being the one that 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:46.360 she was going to stick with for a while. And 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:48.200 I wrote down the things that I wanted to do. 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:50.280 I wanted to help people. I wanted to be an 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:53.480 asset to my community. I wanted to be a role 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:57.400 model for the other little girls in my family, like 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:00.800 you know, my daughter included, but also my little cousins 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:04.000 and you know now my niece and just everyone else. 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:06.600 The moment she figured it out, she was on an 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:09.880 Amtrak train after visiting her mom with her infant baby 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:12.959 in her arm, and she asked herself a pretty big question, 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:16.840 what don't we have in our family who has a 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:21.360 professional degree. Well, went on one attorney and black women 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:24.800 only represent two percent of all attorneys in the United States. 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:27.880 That's it. I thought about how the I could help 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:31.720 my community with that, and that was my reason. I'm like, 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:35.160 I'm gonna do it. I have to be an attorney. 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:40.400 We'll be right back to Leonette's story after the break. 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:46.120 Navigating the professional job search is hard. You know the 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:48.360 perfect job is out there, you're just not sure how 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:51.080 to find it. The good news is you don't have 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:54.280 to go it alone. You need the Specialized Recruiting Group. 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:56.960 We're here to guide you and help you find a 0:11:57.040 --> 0:12:00.440 job that fits all without costing a dime. We're the 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:04.840 Specialized Recruiting Group and Express Employment Professionals Company. Go to 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:07.520 s r G express dot com for free support and 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:16.320 get on the right course. Now back to on the job. So, 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:19.360 at thirty three years old, Leonette had a daughter and 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:22.400 started going to law school. She thrived in all the 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:24.840 work that she'd done before that, and she says things 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:28.320 always did come easy tour. That really set me up 0:12:28.360 --> 0:12:32.640 for law school because that's where it ended, like nothing 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:34.560 comes easy to you in law school, like that's a 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:38.880 totally different game. You were a big fish growing up 0:12:38.920 --> 0:12:43.760 and then oh I turned into an amiba maybe, Like 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:48.880 I guess what really shocked me talking with Leonette is 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:51.680 that once you go through three years of law school 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:56.200 like she did, there are so many different opportunities after that, 0:12:56.640 --> 0:12:59.800 so many opportunities. You learn everything. Like you don't specialize 0:12:59.800 --> 0:13:02.120 in anything in law school. You learned the ends from 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:04.840 you know, beginning to end, soup to nuts. You learn everything, 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:07.040 and you can basically the world is your oyster. You 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:09.840 can do it with that what you want, Like to 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:12.320 the point where someone will call you because they just 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:15.520 know you're a lawyer and say, I got hurt on 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:18.520 the job. Do you know anything about personal injury? Yeah, 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:20.319 I can tell you about personal injury. And I can 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:22.400 tell you something about estates, and yeah I know a 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:25.560 little bit about like antitrust. So you know, we have 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:28.760 to learn the gamut. So so not only is getting 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:31.600 your law degree more accessible than you might think, but 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:39.480 you can just always have a job. After having her 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:43.160 second baby, a little boy, Leonett graduated and took the bar. 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:46.240 She started looking for work to line up after spending 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:48.960 time with her new baby and thought that a government 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:52.040 job might be perfect because of the reasonable hours. You know, 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:54.400 I found out that I'm not actually a workaholic. I 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:57.839 thought I was, but you know, I am not a 0:13:57.960 --> 0:14:01.120 live aholic, right. But I love a kations. I like 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:03.600 enjoying my kids. I like, you know, putting food on 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:05.760 the grill and just sitting out. I enjoy my life. 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:10.640 In Late Howard University's Career Services Center of posting for 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:12.680 this job that she is now at the d o 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:15.679 J with the Borrower's Defense Fund, helping people who were 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:19.200 defrauded by predatory colleges get their money back. She got 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:21.240 the job and they threw her right into the deep 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:24.320 end working on cases. Immediately. They teach you how to 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:26.480 judicate these cases, and you just start doing it, you know, 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:28.680 based on the merits. It's just like law school. You 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:30.640 look at the law, you look at you know, what 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:32.840 what's required, and then you look at this application and 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:35.280 see if you can plug these things in. Does it 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:37.560 fit or does it not fit? Has it approved or 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:40.840 is it denied? That's it. She initially liked it. It 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:42.960 was a job, but the more she got into the 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:46.160 gravity of her work and how big the problem of 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:49.840 these schools really was, she became way more invested. What 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:53.800 schools you know have misrepresentations and what exactly does the 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:56.640 law mean when it says misrepresentation, and what was on 0:14:56.680 --> 0:14:59.080 the mind of the framers when they wrote this law 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:01.640 that that's off started making me, you know, I was 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:05.400 way more interested. So for the last couple of years 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:08.400 she's been adjudicating as a clerk, doing your job and 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:12.200 doing it right. Still, she really wanted to be personally 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:15.320 helping people who needed it, which can be hard to 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:18.280 feel when you're simply at your desk saying yes or 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:21.640 no based on a law that just exists, a law 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:24.160 that is meant to do some real good in the world. 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:28.440 But Leonette wanted to feel that she was doing something good. 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:32.320 I think the day that that actually happened, it was 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:38.880 probably about maybe three months ago. Leonette was adjudicating a case, 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:41.680 and for all cases at her job, there are two 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:45.520 other people called seers, who are basically quality control. So 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:48.800 after Leona approves or denies a case, it still has 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:51.240 to go through another set of eyes before it just 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:56.120 passes through. Yeah, which is a good that's a good thing. So, um, 0:15:56.320 --> 0:16:00.760 one of my cases I approved and the person who 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:04.360 sent in the claim was I would say that maybe 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:07.680 English wasn't their first language, so some of the language 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:12.000 and the claim actually went against what we would approve. 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:16.720 By this, she means very basic language barrier stuff using 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:20.760 negatives instead of positives, like instead of saying the school 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:23.240 told me I would get a job making a hundred k, 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:26.360 writing the school told me I would not get a 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:29.320 job making a hundred k. And I think you and 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:32.240 I could both agree that that person probably meant the 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:34.960 schools told me, right, we we I mean, you use 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:38.480 basic common sense, and you imply you use it. You 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:41.240 just make a basic inference. It's not that you understood 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:44.160 this and you gave it your stamp of approval. Of course, 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:48.720 Lena identified a lot with the claim and story understood 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:51.880 the perspective. She wrote it. The report explained, this is 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:54.120 what they meant by this, this is what they're trying 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:56.520 to say, and she approved it and she passed it 0:16:56.560 --> 0:16:59.080 along to her sears. Well. It was sent back to 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:03.280 me um as a denial, like now the person absolutely 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:09.639 didn't say that, and I'm like, this is problematic, Like no, 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:13.080 they did say it, and this is how I know, 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:15.000 and so you know and I so of course I 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:16.639 went to bat for it and then it ended up 0:17:16.640 --> 0:17:21.240 being fine. It was approved, and um, that's good work, like, 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:23.280 and that's something that you know, I'm proud of. I'm 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:25.040 proud that I was able to be that voice in 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:27.440 the room because otherwise it would have absolutely been denied, 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:30.800 and you know, I don't think it should have been. 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:36.359 When you first started telling the story, I was like, 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:38.720 I thought you were going to say that they you know, 0:17:38.760 --> 0:17:40.200 you went to bed for it and it was still 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:43.520 denied and you know, and that made you be like, 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:47.240 you want to keep fighting and doing what you do. 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:52.280 But they approved it, which means that you speaking up 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:57.959 and being there fundamentally changed whoever this person who's claiming 0:17:57.960 --> 0:18:00.680 this you that changed their lives just you being there, 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:03.760 it changed their life. And if I wasn't here, there's 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:07.879 a possibility. I mean, that's huge. And it's like, I 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:10.119 mean it's I don't feel like I'm huge because I 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:13.680 did that, but that that representation It when people say 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:18.600 representation matters, no, it really matters, Like that's one person, Yes, 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:20.440 but that's a it's a big deal. It's a big 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:22.200 deal for someone, not a big deal for me. It's 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:24.399 a really big deal for that person though, because the 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:27.719 people who denied it, you you made your case again 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:31.119 and they thought, oh, I didn't think of it like that. Okay, 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:40.840 that's like that's that's really scary. It's scary. It's really 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:46.280 really scary. And I was like really, I was like 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:49.119 really like upset about it. Like I was like fired 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:51.840 up because I'm like, I know because this is the 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:53.600 stuff that we hear about all the time, you know, 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:56.480 And I mean I know that it happens, but I 0:18:56.480 --> 0:19:05.600 saw at firsthand and I'm like no, like no, like 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:09.800 this is this is wrong. This is why black women 0:19:10.040 --> 0:19:13.400 and like minorities and other people like, this is why 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:16.399 we need to make up more than two of any field. 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:18.800 Like there always needs to be someone in the room, 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:21.239 you know what I mean, Like that represents everyone, Like 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:24.280 everyone should be represented. This is this is what we 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:26.840 look like. Everyone doesn't have the same vernacular. There should 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:29.320 be someone there who can say, maybe we need to 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:32.840 take a closer look at this. That's that's probably when 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:35.600 I just really felt like, Okay, like I'm here for 0:19:35.640 --> 0:19:41.040 a reason. It's not just me passing through in her workspace, 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:44.040 Leonette brought the perspective of someone from a family of 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:47.600 entrepreneurs in a minority community, she empathized with the people 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:50.600 whose files were on her desk, And meanwhile, she says 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:54.280 that she'd hear people around her basically say how can 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:57.880 someone fall for this? Like who would be crazy enough 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:00.640 to go to a school that's saying blah blah blah. 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:05.239 And I'm like a lot of people and it's not 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:09.879 that they're crazy, but you have to look through their eyes, 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:13.120 like you cannot stand here as you and say, who 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:14.960 would be crazy enough to do this? A lot of 0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:17.760 people would. It's not crazy, it's something that it's it's 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:20.400 logical as people actually trying to make a better way 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:23.040 for their family and this is the only opportunity that's 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:25.440 presented to them. That's it, and it sounds better than 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:34.400 all the other opportunities. It's not that crazy. And the 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:38.439 person who is adjudicating those cases, if they don't have 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:40.960 the ability to see through that lens or have the 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:46.719 empathy to even try, then that could completely change someone's 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:54.000 life for better or for waters, without a question. Leon 0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:56.600 And says a big reason why there's such a small 0:20:56.680 --> 0:21:00.199 percentage of minorities in the legal system is because of 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:04.399 its reputation. The word lawyer itself has an elitist air 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:06.960 to it that makes people think that they could never 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:10.119 do it, even I I have a couple of friends 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:13.280 who are lawyers, or if I meet someone who's who's like, oh, yeah, 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:15.679 I went to law school, I'm a lawyer, and be 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:18.720 like oh, because it just has them in the same 0:21:19.920 --> 0:21:23.560 even when um, you know, I was I read just 0:21:23.800 --> 0:21:27.640 your title and what you do to me just fundamentally 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:32.080 felt like, Wow, that's something I couldn't do. That's fundamentally 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:35.320 not accessible. And I think that keeps a ton of 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:39.560 people who should be doing what you do from even starting. 0:21:40.760 --> 0:21:43.760 A ton of people, a ton who would be so 0:21:43.840 --> 0:21:46.080 good at it, would be so good at it, and 0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:49.280 would bring an empathy to the job that is so 0:21:49.440 --> 0:21:56.320 desperately needed. It's just I can't even put into words 0:21:56.400 --> 0:21:59.760 how desperately needed it is. A lot of people just 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:02.520 don't think that they qualify, like I couldn't do that, 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:06.080 Like that's for I have no way you could. You 0:22:06.200 --> 0:22:12.320 absolutely could, and you're needed today, at least in her workplace. 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:15.960 Leonette fills that need and her family they're no longer 0:22:16.000 --> 0:22:19.600 missing an attorney for her daughter, for her cousins, her niece, 0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:22.359 They've all now got someone to look to and say 0:22:22.520 --> 0:22:25.840