By Nadine Atkinson-Flowers (Follow us on LinkedIn)
For most of my 17 years as a lawyer, I have volunteered in one way or another, from speaking at seminars for legal public education to giving talks to high school students about how to minimize the possibility of negative interactions with the criminal legal system.
Just recently I was sitting as a “Judge” on an Arbitration panel competition hosted by the American Bar Association (ABA) for law students around the country competing as claimants and respondents. It was a very interesting technological set up which showed that many hours had gone into ensuring success on the day. The students were all stellar attorneys in training. The future of the profession is in good hands, as they did direct and cross examination as well as made and responded to articulate objections. It was four hours well spent. The preparation time for me was about 2 hours. However, I was convinced the students had been preparing for weeks because they knew their material so well. Previously, I was also a Judge for an ABA Moot competition and even got to wear a robe and sat in the courtroom. court room, albeit at a table, nevertheless it was all quite heady.
When I migrated to the USA from Jamaica, I realized that there were even many more ways in which I could volunteer, and I learnt something totally unexpected. Volunteering allowed me to meet many people, in a variety of areas and exposed me to a variety of legal areas. With the advent of COVID and its aftereffects, there are unique volunteer opportunities online that were previously unavailable. Some involve sustained time commitments; others are literally an event online. Seek them out!
Volunteer to grow your professional and personal network
Realizing that I could foster my growth in this way was very important as I had come to the USA without any professional network as all my schooling and work-life were in Jamaica. So, I began to expand my professional and personal network through volunteering far and wide. I began to use LinkedIn much more than before and to interact with others on the platform. Then COVID hit and everything went virtual and remote and so did volunteering. That led to tremendous opportunities.
I have gone outside my comfort zone. I have developed professional and personal connections, and my knowledge of immigration law has expanded. My knowledge of other areas of US law has also increased and for someone who wasn’t exposed to the US system before coming here this has been really important.
I found the ones I am involved in by just checking out interesting posts on LinkedIn, accepting specific requests from the ABA, reading my Missouri Bar journals as well as just literally reading everything that came across my eyes. I recently spoke to a community group because I saw their flier in the local post office and one thing led to another and now, I have expanded my network again and made a few new friends and contacts.
So, don’t be afraid to jump in, a volunteer opportunity is close!
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Notes Between Us (NBU) is a blog about conversations and topics of interest to the writers. The writers are expressing their personal opinions solely. The essays represent their personal beliefs and not those of their workplaces or any organization they are associated with.
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