Latest / The Starfish Storytellers / Season 4, Episode 2: Justice in Storytelling - The Art of Advocacy with Ariel Clemmer

Transcript

Season 4, Episode 2: Justice in Storytelling - The Art of Advocacy with Ariel Clemmer · The Starfish Storytellers

0:00
Welcome to the Starfish Storytellers, the podcast that makes a difference one story
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to time by bringing storytelling to life.
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The Twilight Zone by Nathan L. Hecht
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The television drama The Twilight Zone portrayed characters in disturbing situations set in
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the murky area between reality and the dark unknown.
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Most episodes had a moral.
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Here's my thought for a new one.
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You're driving across the country.
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It's late afternoon and you haven't eaten for hours.
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Hunger is starting to nudge you.
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You enter a town eager to find food.
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You're about to enter the Twilight Zone.
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The first place you stop is lit up with a big neon sign.
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You get out of your car and walk up to the front door.
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It's locked and dark.
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That's strange, you think?
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Other places are open and the sign is all lit up, but this place is closed.
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I'll take my business elsewhere, you mutter, as you walk back to your car.
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You drive down the street.
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There's another place.
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It too is all lit up and this time you see people inside.
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You get out of your car and walk up to the door.
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But again, it's locked.
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You pound on it, but no one inside seems to notice.
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Beside the door, there's a machine with a sign on it.
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To enter, please insert cash.
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$100 bills only.
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You think that's outrageous just to get something to eat, no way.
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Prustrated, you drive further down the street.
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You come to another place and this time there's a fellow sitting out front.
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You tell him you're looking for something to eat.
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You a member, he says.
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Member you respond.
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This isn't a club.
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I just need something to eat.
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Nope, he says.
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Not a member.
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You don't belong here.
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You turn on your heels and stomp back to your car.
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This is getting crazy, but hope lies ahead.
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Another place, this one with the lights on and the door open and lots of people inside.
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Finally, you think some food.
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Inside you're handed an order form several pages long and complicated.
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You must order with codes, but you have no idea what they are.
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This is impossible, you think.
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You look around, all the food that's offered requires extended professional preparation
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and it's expensive.
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Nothing simple for a hungry traveler.
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Despairing, you wander out and a voice says behind you, have a nice day, come back anytime.
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What kind of town has nothing for an ordinary person to eat?
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A truck to your car, dusk is falling, you're in the Twilight Zone.
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Food is important, so is justice.
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But for many, justice seems as far out of reach as food for this traveler.
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The signs out front are all lit up.
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The American commitment to the rule of law is fabled.
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When I was a trial judge, I told jurors as each case began, you are privileged to be
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part of the best system of justice not just in the world, but in the history of the world.
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Many were proud to serve, but when people needed the system to serve them, in far too
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many instances it can seem beyond reach.
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America's claims about the nation's justice system are lofty.
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James Madison famously wrote in Federalist number 51, justice is the end of government,
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it is the end of civil society.
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It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it's obtained or until liberty be lost
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in the pursuit.
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His collaborator Alexander Hamilton is said to have called justice the first duty of society.
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Yet in poll after poll, Americans report that the justice system is too expensive, too hard
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to navigate, too far removed from real people, as closed as if the doors were locked.
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Across the country, millions of people try to represent themselves in court.
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Abraham Lincoln had it right.
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He who represents himself has a fool for a client, but for many there is no other choice.
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And far too many Americans have no idea they need the justice system.
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They have no way to recognize legal problems when they arise.
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They don't know that they're hungry.
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Most distressing of all many Americans view is that the justice system like the government
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in general is simply not theirs.
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Much work is being done to improve access to justice.
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Lawyers in a proud tradition of their profession represent needy clients without charge, pro
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bono público, or the public good.
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The Texas Bar Association estimated that lawyers in the state, where I am a judge donate more
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than 2 million hours annually, conservatively worth half a billion dollars.
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Legal aid provides basic civil legal services free of cost to the poor and economically
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struggling.
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That is people whose income is usually no more than 125% of the federal poverty guidelines.
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In 2018, that was just $15,175 for a single person.
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Funding comes from Congress through the Federal Legal Services Corporation, sometimes from
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state appropriations and other public services, and sometimes from bar associations and private
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contributions.
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Legal aid, like pro bono services, is not an entitlement.
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It's not welfare.
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It is simply a good government.
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This is an American ideal, not a liberal one or a conservative one.
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As a judge, sometimes I identify it as a conservative.
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I support improved access to justice because I am convinced that this nation is strongest
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when its basic institutions fulfill their missions, and as a judge, I feel a special
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responsibility to help legal institutions fulfill theirs.
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Basic civil legal services help victims of domestic violence, veterans returning from
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deployment, needing employment, housing and benefits, children in school and the elderly.
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Legal aid is compassionate and morally right.
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Using individuals to resolve legal problems strengthens families and communities.
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Legal aid is constructive.
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Study after study around the country concludes that legal aid, directly and indirectly, benefits
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economies.
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Legal aid is good for businesses and taxpayers.
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Legal aid providers offer cases and training to lawyers who will work pro bono with those
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who have no other way of getting the help they need.
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Thus leveraging legal aid funding to provide more representation.
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And legal aid makes the promises of the American justice system real when they otherwise would
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be a farce.
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And in that way, legal aid is critical to the integrity of the rule of law.
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Yet legal aid is only available to a fraction, those who need it, by some estimates no more
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than half, by others less than a fifth.
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Justice for only those who can afford it is neither justice for all, nor justice at all.
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If the justice system is to deliver on the faith America asks people to place on it,
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and on the values it claims to preserve, greatly improved access to justice is an imperative.
8:42
Hello.
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My name is Leanna Henry and welcome to the Starfish Storytellers.
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I'm the CEO of the Black Dog Group, a Marcom and project management firm headquartered on
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the east coast of the US in Claint Colonial Bedford, Massachusetts.
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I'm your host and passionate about storytelling.
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I'm actually on a mission to raise up the next generation of storytellers.
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We've named ourselves the Starfish Storytellers after the Starfish Story.
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The moral of the Starfish Story is based on the power of one.
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No matter how big the challenge, each action we take makes a difference and has an impact.
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One step, one starfish, or one story at a time.
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Every episode we welcome a new storyteller who will share their story meant to inspire
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and connect with you.
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Then we'll break it down and offer tips for any listeners who are ready to tell their
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own stories.
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So thanks for tuning in.
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Now let's get started.
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Today's episode is justice through storytelling, the art of advocacy.
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And with me today is Ariel Klemmer.
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Ariel is the executive director of 603 Legal Aid, a legal advice and referral center in
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Concord, New Hampshire that hosts a central call center for people seeking civil legal
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aid.
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Say that correctly.
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So I just wanted to say thank you for being here and I'm really happy that you are joining
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us today.
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Thank you so much for having me.
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So at the start of each episode, our guests take a few moments to introduce themselves.
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Would you like to tell us a little bit more about you?
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Sure.
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So I'm sitting, as you said today with you from Concord, New Hampshire.
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I actually grew up about an hour from north from here in the upper valley of the state.
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And I went to college in Virginia at the University of Richmond.
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And after college had applied to go to law school, but ended up deferring law school
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to become a teacher with Teach for America.
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I did that in New York City in the Spanish Harlem region.
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And following that, I did go to law school.
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I did then practice.
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I had about a 10-year litigation career back in New York City.
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I like to say that I did murders, millionaires, and mistresses as kind of the three subject
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matter types that I did.
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That was public defense and big law firm, white collar, criminal work, and family law
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cases.
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After that, I moved to Western Massachusetts.
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And in Springfield, I worked at the Bar Association running a pro bono program for lawyers to
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provide free civil legal services, as well as became the director of the Center for Social
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Justice at Western New England University School of Law, running free legal service advocacy
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programs with law students and other pro bono volunteers.
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And then recently, just about a year ago, moved back here to New Hampshire and became
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the executive director of 603 Legal Aid.
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Now, 603 Legal Aid is a newer name, correct?
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I think I read on your website that it had been called something else.
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But are the services pretty much the same or has it changed?
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Yes.
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I was just talking with somebody yesterday about how we became not just the sum of its
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parts, but greater than the sum of its parts in some way.
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So we brought together the pro bono program from the New Hampshire Bar Association, as
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well as the legal assistance and referral center, which was a brief legal advice call
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center together to become 603 Legal Aid in 2021.
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We do free legal services in-house.
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So we provide brief legal advice and representation for people in a variety of civil legal areas,
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primarily family law, housing.
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And this year, we've added a new consumer unit as well as a brand new veterans assistance
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program.
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And our partners in the state of New Hampshire provide sort of the whole spectrum of legal
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services that people may need across the state.
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You said, is the veteran services something that's newer?
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It is.
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We got a grant from the VA this year, and it's a prevention of homelessness grant.
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Luckily the VA, like we see the prevention of homelessness as almost any kind of civil
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legal case, whether that's something that stems from just being a low income individual
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and having credit card debt or other kinds of financial challenges to facing an eviction
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case and actually physically losing your home to a family law matter where if you have a
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dispute with your spouse and you need to move out, that is also putting somebody at risk
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of homelessness.
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So it's a very broad grant and work where we can integrate it throughout all of our
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free legal services.
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But we also had our new staff attorney get accredited with the VA, and so they can also
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bring veteran specific cases around discharge upgrades or other types of cases directly
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with the VA.
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Nice, nice.
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So important, just such a need.
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We have a VA here in Bedford, Mass and a hospital and services, and there's just such a need
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for services.
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Yeah, it really is.
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Hi.
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So again, thank you for sharing your story with us.
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That whole Twilight Zone analogy just I think really drove it home.
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You know, it can be very confusing when you have a need and no matter where you go, you
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aren't able to get the services that you need.
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I'm a communicator now.
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In my previous life, I was a social worker for 23 years, and I did case management for
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the state and for families and children that were neglected and abused.
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It was always, we had to do referrals and it was always a challenge to try to find services
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for families that needed it.
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It's such a confusing system.
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I love that story and I actually read the story, tell the story in a class called Access
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to Justice that I have taught previously at the law school that I was working at because
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it paints such a clear picture for people.
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You can see coming to, finally you get to this restaurant, you've navigated all of these
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barriers and then you can't even place the order because the menu is in code.
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It's so emblematic of the barriers and the frustrations that our clients have in navigating
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the system by themselves.
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Unfortunately, it's just not set up for people to be able to navigate the justice system.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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And that's good that there, obviously that you exist for them.
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In this episode, we do want to talk about how you're getting legal justice for clients
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and storytelling align.
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So we're going to dive into the power of storytelling.
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For attorneys, storytelling is more than just a skill.
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It's a critical tool for representing clients effectively.
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Whether you're painting a vivid picture or an opening statement, you're weaving evidence
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into a compelling narrative or you're delivering a memorable closing argument, the art of storytelling
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has the power to humanize clients and bring justice to life.
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Today we're going to talk about how attorneys use storytelling to advocate for their clients,
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especially in the high stakes world of pro bono cases.
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So if you're ready, we'll dive right in.
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Let's do it.
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So you said in your story that you were a judge and but what inspired you to become an
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attorney?
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So just to be clear, I was not a judge.
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This is a story written by a pretty famous judge.
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She's a prominent figure in the Access to Justice community.
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His name is Nathan Hecht and he was the Supreme Court Chief Judge in Texas from 2013 until
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just December 31 of last year.
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A pretty revered figure and somebody who's really pushed the envelope on access to justice
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throughout his career.
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And so was he the inspiration for you to really become a lawyer?
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People like him.
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I think what first inspired me to get involved was actually when I was in college, as I mentioned
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in Virginia, I was in Richmond, Virginia, and doing some work in some local prisons
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there.
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And it was one of the first times coming from the Northeast.
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It was one of the first times that I dealt with the real impact of systemic racism in
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a way that I just had not been exposed to before.
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And that really lit a fire in me to set out to address injustices wherever they may lie.
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And I love the story of the starfish because I sort of feel like that has really motivated
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my whole career of trying to figure out just one person, but how much can I do and where
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can I make an impact even if it's just me throwing things back into the ocean?
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And I think as we have sort of created our podcast based on that story, when I was a
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social worker, actually, I was a trainer for foster parents.
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And we used to always tell that story, I think maybe the last night of the training, because
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we wanted them to understand that they were making a difference one child at a time and
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that even if there were so many children that needed help, what they were doing made a difference
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to that one.
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And so what you're doing makes a difference to your clients, to that one client at one
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at a time.
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Yeah, it can be really frustrating because as you said, you feel like you're just one
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person and there's this ocean of problems that you're stacked up against.
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And particularly in the civil legal system, unlike in the criminal context, in civil legal
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cases, there's no guarantee of an attorney.
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So when you have a criminal case, they tell you if you can't afford it, a lawyer will
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be provided to you.
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There's nothing like that for cases where you might lose custody of your children or
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you might lose the roof over your head or the bottom line dollars that help you feed
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your family every month.
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There's just no guarantee of any sort of representation or assistance.
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And so the statistics are staggering in terms of the number of people that need help and
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then the amount of people that actually get help from organizations like mine.
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But all we can do is make that difference for the people that we are able to reach and
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encourage people to contact us and hope that each day that we can do a little bit better
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in assisting people get closer to accidentally justice.
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Yeah.
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Yep.
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Yep.
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So you've already talked with us about 603 Legal Aid.
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Is there anything else you want to add as to the process for helping new clients?
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Sure.
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In general, when 603 Legal Aid was created, it became the centralized hub, as you said
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early on, of intake for the state.
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And so everyone with any civil legal issue across all of New Hampshire is meant to contact
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603 Legal Aid first.
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We have a robust intake team who will process all of those calls upwards of 10,000 people
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a year, as well as people can apply online directly on our website, 603legalaid.org,
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and 24 hours a day.
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And then we process those applications as well.
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So we're really the first starting point for people that need any sort of free civil
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legal services in New Hampshire.
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And then from there, we determine does this person have a legal case?
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If so, who's the right provider of free legal services to assist them?
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It could be us in-house.
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I described some of the services that we provide.
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Or we also run the state's pro bono program, so we might decide to place them with a free
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attorney from the private bar who's donating their time.
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Or we may decide that they are best served by one of our partners across the state, like
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New Hampshire Legal Assistance or the Disability Rights Center, who take on other kinds of
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cases and other strategies of representation for someone.
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OK, so lots of options there, it sounds like, which is good, which is needed.
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So I have a question.
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So is there a difference in how an attorney might use storytelling when representing clients
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pro bono as compared to other cases?
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It's a really interesting question.
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In these pro bono cases, or I'm going to generalize it up to be free legal services type cases,
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because we sort of do both of those things here in-house.
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As I said before, the stakes are so high that storytelling becomes almost like an imperative
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of the advocate when you're in front of court or even when you're in settlement negotiations
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with an opposing party, and you need to convince them that this person, this particular client,
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deserves XYZ, whatever you're seeking for them.
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And so I'm sure all lawyers feel an obligation to storytell, but I can certainly say that
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in my career, whether it was as a public defender trying to get somebody out of jail, or whether
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it was in a divorce case talking to the other side, trying to get some specific outcome
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that my client really believed in to the kinds of cases we do here where we're helping people
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keep the roof over their head for an additional three months, each of those scenarios really
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require a slightly different but a very profound version of storytelling that enables that person
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to get the justice that they deserve.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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I mean, not that all of the cases that you're talking about, public defender versus free,
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you know, legal aid, aren't important, but it seems like those with the need for the
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legal aid, there's certain a level of urgency that maybe is different or not as present
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in some of the public defender cases.
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Would you say that that might be accurate?
25:00
Yeah.
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I think to a certain extent, that's totally true, particularly when cases go on longer,
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you know, some types of federal cases, sometimes of other cases do go on for quite a while,
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and particularly if the client is out of the incarceration system, you know, there's slightly
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less urgency, although I believe everybody should get their case adjudicated as quickly
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as possible in any context.
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But you're right that in our cases, like we run a very robust domestic violence program
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for the state, you know, those cases, sometimes 24-hour turnarounds or people sometimes call
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us the same day as they're hearing and say, help, what am I going to say to the court
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today?
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And, you know, the sense of urgency there is real.
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We have sometimes hours to be able to convey to somebody the important information that
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they need to move their case ahead.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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So storytelling is key.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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So let's talk about when cases get into the courtroom.
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So when preparing an opening statement, how would you approach building a narrative for
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a jury?
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And do you find that you have to balance legal facts with emotional resonance to create an
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impactful opening?
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Absolutely.
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There's no doubt that that is a critical exercise that any lawyer is trying to do when
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they're in front of a judge, in front of a jury, you know, they're really taking the
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facts and storytelling with them in a way that best puts their client in the right light
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and conveys the information the way that they want it to go.
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So that's true of opening statements.
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For sure, it's the first opportunity that somebody has to get in front of the jury and
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to kind of capture their hearts and minds and socialize them to any of the sort of story
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lines that you're going to be telling throughout the trial.
27:06
Mm-hmm.
27:07
Yeah.
27:08
I mean, I think when I knew that we were going to have an opportunity to talk and have you
27:13
on the show, I just, I thought about, you know, opening statements are just like closing
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statements are, they're all stories.
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I mean, they have to be.
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And they have to be compelling.
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That's right.
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So then I wanted to ask about some challenges maybe that you might face and so how you make
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an impact with the representation that you provide.
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Are there any challenges that you might face when you're trying to tell that compelling
27:43
story with a pro bono case?
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Yes.
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I think there's a couple factors that make this challenging.
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One is something that I bumped into a lot when I was a public defender, which is the
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exceptional client storytelling that happens.
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You know, it's hard when you're a repeat player in a system, like you see the same prosecutor
28:10
every day, the same judge, you know, three times a week to go in front of them and to
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deliver this narrative about why this particular client deserves to get out of jail or a later
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sentence or whatever it is that you're seeking when you need to do the same thing for every
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client.
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And so you kind of run into this, you know, exceptional client issue where you don't want
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to pit these people against each other, but how do you say, you know, time and time again,
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this particular client deserves this and then, you know, the next time around this particular
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client deserves that.
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And there's inevitably this sort of comparison between stories that get told with repeat
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actors in the same core ecosystem.
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So that was one challenge and something that lawyers have to be careful of.
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The other challenge, and this is just more procedurally, but you have to be really careful
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about client confidentiality and privilege.
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And so one of the things we rely on storytelling a lot in my current position to get funding,
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it's one of the ways that we can convey to people who are supporting our work and allowing
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us to keep the lights on about the importance of our work and about the ways that we are
29:35
able to make meaningful impacts in our clients' lives.
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And so we want to tell people stories and yet we don't want to use them in a sense that
29:49
could be, you know, taken the wrong way or feel, you know, used by us for that purpose,
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but we also have to maintain confidentiality.
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So for instance, I pulled a couple of client stories for you today that I could share,
30:03
but we changed names, we changed, you know, certain facts to make sure that they were
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untraceable in our small court system that we have here.
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And we always get permission from our clients before we use their names or before we use
30:19
identifying information in a story.
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But we do do that publicly all the time on our social medias, in grant applications.
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It's really a fundamental piece of what we do.
30:28
Are you primarily funded by grants?
30:32
We are.
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We have, the majority of our funding right now comes from the Legal Services Corporation,
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which is a pass-through entity of federal funding for civil legal aid.
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Every state has at least one LSC-funded entity and we are at that in New Hampshire.
30:51
The rest of our funding comes from a whole variety of sources, mostly grants and donations.
30:58
And it, you know, varies year to year, it's always seeking new sources and coming up with
31:05
innovative ways to bring additional services to the community.
31:11
And so that's how we primarily survive.
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Well, and obviously you have to get really good at fundraising stories.
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So yeah.
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So looking at the other end of a case in court is the closing argument and closing arguments
31:30
have very important stories, hold very important stories because that's where the decision
31:36
is going to be made.
31:37
That's, you know, so in your opinion, what would make a closing statement memorable and
31:44
persuasive?
31:45
Yep.
31:46
There's a couple of key things I think just like in the beginning, you know, this is your
31:55
final opportunity to paint a picture before the jurors or the judge who's going to be
32:01
the decision maker.
32:03
You definitely want to keep it succinct so that people don't get lost in the story.
32:09
You know, it can be tempting to sort of want to put on a summary of all the evidence and
32:15
everything that happened, but really, I think the most effective stories and the most effective
32:20
closing statements are ones that are shorter and punchier and kind of really outlie exactly
32:28
what you've been able to prove throughout the duration of the case that supports your
32:32
case theory, whatever that may be.
32:38
You know, I think about closing statements in some of the cases that obviously you see
32:43
on TV, either fictionally or not fiction, the ones that are, you know, sort of the bigger
32:51
sensationalized ones that you see.
32:55
And I can just, I can remember certain cases, they're very memorable, you know, because
33:00
the lawyers really had, sometimes they used props, sometimes they did use that key piece
33:08
of evidence and brought it back to remind the jurors.
33:14
So those things are very persuasive.
33:19
And I would imagine, I would imagine, I mean, I'm sure that the jurors are very attentive,
33:27
but I'm guessing in cases where it might be a long case or where there's a lot of evidence,
33:33
it could probably, they might forget or it might be hard to remember it all.
33:37
Yes, that's true.
33:40
And I think that's why you want to, you know, without taking too much time to cover everything
33:46
that happened because they're able to ask, you know, follow up questions or if they have
33:51
points of clarification that they need, they can always do that later on.
33:57
But you do want to, as you said, make it memorable, you know, bring in something where it will
34:04
stay with them, it's not unheard of in the field of particularly criminal defense for
34:10
people to put glasses on their clients if they, you know, even if they don't normally
34:15
have it because that conveys a certain kind of individual that they want their client
34:20
to be seen as.
34:23
So there's lots of ways to captivate people and to convey to them, you know, the message
34:30
that you're trying to send.
34:32
Yeah.
34:35
So can you share a time when storytelling had made a significant difference in the outcome
34:40
of a case and is there a certain technique you think that can leave a lasting impression,
34:46
which I think we sort of talked about that, but I'm really interested in, you know, and
34:49
obviously confidentiality is, you know, key.
34:55
But yeah, I was just curious, you know, is there anything that sort of comes to mind?
35:00
Yeah, immediately a couple of cases come from my public defense days, one case in which
35:10
my client was this very large kind of imposing looking figure and the opponent was a very
35:20
small, you know, older man, and we basically did storytelling in this way of communicating
35:33
just how sort of ludicrous the opponent's story was that this my client who was, like
35:44
I said, he was a bouncer, you know, he had serious muscles and was very large and that
35:51
the story that the opposing party was telling just wouldn't have possibly made sense because
35:57
if it happened the way that they were relaying, this was a car dispute, you know, a bumper
36:03
situation or car dispute, alleged my client got out of the car and sort of roughed this
36:07
guy up.
36:09
Had my client actually done that, you know, there would be a lot worse facts that came
36:14
out in the case and so we basically use reverse storytelling to say, you know, here's why
36:20
this other story doesn't make sense and then here's what really likely happened.
36:26
And my client one was a great case, he had refused to plead guilty the whole way along,
36:33
even though the prosecutor was willing to offer him something where it would have just
36:37
gone away eventually, he was adamant that he was not guilty and he was not going to
36:42
plead to anything and I was really proud of him because at the end of the day, he knew
36:47
what, you know, what he wanted to do and we took his direction and he ended up proving
36:52
his case through sort of this reverse storytelling technique.
36:58
So that definitely worked well.
37:01
Yeah.
37:03
Yeah.
37:05
So if there are any aspiring attorneys out there who may want to follow this path into
37:11
practicing law this way, what advice would you give them?
37:18
I would tell them to get involved as soon as possible and as many ways they can.
37:24
I'm always counseling young folks to just give it a try, you know, and that it's a great
37:30
time when you're young, when you're in college, when you're thinking about law school, wherever
37:36
it is in your career, I've even had high school interns before in my practices, you know,
37:42
I think there's no wrong time to get involved and the more diverse experiences that you
37:48
have, the more you learn about what you like doing and what really calls to you.
37:53
We have a pair of legal here who started law school and is intending to go back to law
38:01
school and I think had a major of, you know, IP law or something and after two months of
38:07
working here in the family law unit said, yep, I'm changing my mind.
38:12
This is what I want to do for my career and we hear lots of those stories.
38:17
It's why I worked, you know, primarily with law students when I was running the program
38:22
at the Center for Social Justice because it was such a great way to get them in the door,
38:28
in the courts, you know, really one-on-one contact with clients and those experiences
38:33
can help somebody develop, you know, their career path and decide what they really want
38:39
to focus on.
38:40
That's wonderful.
38:43
And like you said, start early and get active right away.
38:47
Yep.
38:48
And don't be afraid to try different things, you know.
38:51
I have some regrets that I knew I wanted to be a public defender.
38:55
I was a little bit older, you know, I had worked for a couple of years before I went
38:59
to law school and I basically zeroed in on becoming a public defender, which is fine,
39:03
but now I counsel others to sort of not follow in those footsteps and really try it all out
39:10
because, you know, my, as a result, my career, I've tried out different, like I said, types
39:16
of law throughout my career and that's been fine.
39:19
They've all been litigation-side focused, but it's great if you can do that, you know,
39:26
for summer internships or even semester programs or even just volunteering.
39:31
There are so many nonprofits and legal aid organizations that would welcome somebody
39:36
who could come five hours a week after school, could still make a big difference.
39:42
What kinds of things would somebody who came to legal aid to volunteer, what kinds of things
39:47
might they be able to help with?
39:50
So depending on their level of experience and education, they would be able to do different
39:58
things.
39:59
The law students that I worked with were full on advocates for clients, you know, with supervision,
40:04
obviously, but we took them to the court.
40:07
They made arguments in front of the court magistrates and were able to counsel clients
40:13
directly with college-aged interns or even high school age.
40:20
They assist in the office, you know, they'll sit in on calls.
40:24
They might do some preliminary drafting of documents or assist.
40:31
We're having, we have a social work intern right now and she's assisting us with creating
40:36
a client resources guide, which is such a valuable tool, as I'm sure you know from your
40:42
career.
40:43
And something that is well suited for an intern type activity, you know, that we can continue
40:50
building on year over year and that can really provide people with the information that it
40:55
can be hard to figure out on their own.
40:58
Yeah, and having that, having that guide at your fingertips to be able to pass that on
41:03
is going to be huge.
41:04
So that's a huge help.
41:06
Yeah.
41:07
No, that's great.
41:08
That's great.
41:09
Okay.
41:10
Oh, so we talked about if folks needed legal help and if they wanted to reach you, what
41:18
was the best way?
41:19
I know that you said you had, people can apply even right online if you wanted to give your
41:28
website again, I'm guessing like your phone number and address and everything is there.
41:33
Yep.
41:34
So it's www.603 legal aid, that's L-E-G-A-L-A-I-D.org.
41:48
And that's our main website.
41:49
You can find all of our contact information there.
41:52
You can also apply directly online for our services 24 hours a day.
41:57
We also run, as I mentioned, the call center.
42:00
We field calls between 9 and 2 p.m. on Monday through Thursday and that call line is either
42:07
1-800-639-5290 or if you're in New Hampshire, 603-224-3333.
42:20
And you primarily, your entity serves all of New Hampshire, right?
42:26
That's right.
42:27
Okay.
42:28
So that's all of the civil legal cases, even if it's not one that we handle, we still
42:33
field that call on behalf of our partners across the state.
42:38
Great.
42:39
All right.
42:40
Well, that's all the time we have for today.
42:43
Thank you so much, Ariel, for being here and being our guest and sharing your story.
42:48
I just, I really enjoyed that whole Twilight Zone reference and, you know, just kind of
42:57
hearing how you got to where you are.
42:59
It was just really great to hear.
43:02
Thanks so much for having me.
43:04
And to our listeners, whether you hear us locally from the BTV studios in Bedford, Massachusetts
43:09
or across the globe on such channels as Spotify, Apple Podcasts or Amazon Prime, thanks for
43:16
listening.
43:17
We hope you enjoyed this episode and we'll see you next time.
43:20
Happy storytelling.