Behind the Scenes of Justice: How Office Community Affects Legal Service Work

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2018-03-27

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This summer, I worked with New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, a small nonprofit civil rights law firm in New York City. From my first day, I was blown away by the positive office culture of this organization. This culture enabled me to experience unexpected subtleties of legal public service work, ranging from gender and power dynamics in the private and public sector, to thinking about what it means to do work that takes years to come to fruition. Participating in a professional environment where the culture emphasized community, support, growth, and leaning into difference allowed me to see the incredible difficulties individuals face when fighting against systems of injustice without feeling disheartened by the imbalanced odds—even in the face of frustrating defeats.

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