Q & A with Yvonne Burgess
What prompted Siemens to contact CLA SoCal?
Siemens has a record of pro bono service. I had an interest in being involved and became a member of the company’s pro bono committee. My intention and focus have been to help grow our pro bono involvement and so I’ve been concentrating on expanding our connections and cultivating the participation of our staff. Siemens had relationships with legal aid organizations in the East and Midwest and we were looking for opportunities on the West Coast and in particular the Los Angeles region. This led me to contact CLA SoCal’s director of pro bono, Monica Mar, which started our relationship and participation.
Siemens first pro bono experience for CLA SoCal was with the Unlawful Detainer clinic. What was that experience like?
It was terrific and went smoothly, without a hitch. Siemens legal staff from across the country participated in the clinic, including paralegals. The support that the CLA SoCal staff provided us was thorough. As practicing contract attorneys, we were basically starting from scratch in our knowledge of housing and evictions and CLA SoCal brought us up to speed and ensured we had what we needed to well-serve the clients. When we did this work it was still during the pandemic and laws were changing and CLA SoCal kept us up-to-date and informed.
Siemens proposed a new expungement project to CLA SoCal, a new model for performing pro bono work that was rolled out last year. How did it come about and how are you serving clients?
We’d done expungements for legal aid organizations in other parts of the country, and it worked out well. CLA SoCal has a small expungement team, and with our experience we thought we could be of help to them.
CLA SoCal provides our attorneys with training, which we record so that is available at a later time. They then assign a case to our attorneys, give them the file, and two weeks to complete the work.
Our attorneys contact the client and set up a time to discuss their case. Siemens allows us to use our cell phones, so we text the client, introduce ourselves and then work with them to determine when we can meet. We’ve found that texting the clients is the optimum way of getting in touch with them. Most don’t like to pick up a call from someone whose number they do not recognize, which is understandable.
After we’ve met with the clients and completed the work, we hand the case back to CLA SoCal and, as the attorney of record, they do the filing. If we have questions during the process, the CLA SoCal expungement attorney is available to offer guidance.
The flexibility of this project’s arrangement compared to a clinic, which has fixed days and times, works well for our attorneys as they can integrate their pro bono work in a way that best fits their schedule. At the same time, the flexibility also benefits the clients as they are not restricted to clinic hours and can let us know when it’s good for them to meet.
We’ve had great response and repeated interest from our staff, which again includes paralegals. It isn’t a huge time commitment and feels good to do. Our next round is scheduled for this month, and we are looking forward to it.
What do you personally get out of your pro bono service?
Pro bono work is deeply rewarding to me. It is gratifying to use my legal skills to assist those who are in the process of facing and navigating their way through personal changes.
My pro bono work pulls me out of my own life bubble to connect with those whom I would not necessarily otherwise meet in my work and personal life. Hearing their stories, seeing them, understanding what they’re up against, and supporting them through the process of change has deepened my ability to empathize and to truly know what it feels like when we use the expression, “Meeting people where they are at.”
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
I am grateful that Siemens is supportive and recognizes the importance of our pro bono work and that we’ve developed the partnership with CLA SoCal. We have a Teams site dedicated to pro bono. Siemens grants us time off to do pro bono and I am working on building the volunteer force. We track volunteer hours, and our pro bono work was recently recognized by Siemens when they awarded us the Werner von Siemens Award for the Greater Good. In fact, we traveled to Munich where our parent company is located to receive the award, and I am pleased to say that the awareness throughout Siemens about what we are doing is growing.
