The Thai Immigration, Housing, and Labor Advocacy Project

-- By HenryRoss - 5 May 2015

In my post a few weeks ago, I described my personal connection to a problem and offered a vague outline of a solution. I write to replace that quixotic narrative with an update on what I have done since then and what I intend to do next.

I. Building the network

Skeptical of Joshua Horowitz’s claim that telephone and email persistence with strangers is worth the trouble, I decided to send out a slew of messages asking for support, advice, or contacts. To my surprise, I received several responses.

Stan Mark, Senior Attorney for the AALDEF, called to express his support, suggesting that I contact the Thai Consulate in New York, the Legal Aid Society in Queens, and workers’ organizations with large Thai memberships. I used Lawnet to track down Thai LL.M. candidates at Columbia, who in turn suggested that I email Narun Popattanachai, a J.S.D. candidate here who specializes in commercial law.

I didn’t get a response from Narun, so I sought him out during a coffee break before his presentation at the Columbia-hosted Thailand Update Conference. As it turns out, Narun is also a practicing lawyer with significant experience in several areas of poverty law. He’s busy, but he’s competent, well-connected, and eager. We arranged to meet for lunch over the coming weeks. While we were talking, Narun was greeted by Li Ling, an attendee from the Henry Luce Foundation, the event’s co-sponsor. Narun filled him in and asked—in so many words—if Luce would donate. Like any circumspect distributor of the assets of a dead rich man, Ling smiled and sidestepped: “why don’t you get it off the ground first.”

II. Reformulating the idea

Like Ling, most people want to see evidence of momentum. They sometimes ask if the organization has a name, so I gave it a name. Law students want to know what the administration thinks, the administration wants to know if any lawyers are on board, and lawyers want to know how much free student labor they’re going to get. My strategy has evolved accordingly. Now, rather than “Henry Ross, a law student hoping you could help me,” I am “Henry Ross from Columbia Law School, asking you to consider joining us.” The more I say it, the truer it becomes. If the project didn’t have underlying value, it would be a shameless Ponzi scheme for public interest lawyers.

Bringing in lawyers and institutions isn’t just about building momentum. Lawyers supply expertise and keep us from violating Section 478 of the N.Y. Code; institutions provide money and promotion. Thus, I have abandoned the image of myself leading a “student group” of privileged Thais and renegade law students into a tenement and emerging victorious. Instead, this idea has taken shape as a Columbia in-house pro bono project. The exchange is simple: lawyers expand their practice at no expense and with Columbia’s quality guarantee while law students get credit toward academic or pro bono requirements for graduation.

Nobody has been more supportive of this undertaking than Laren Spirer, the Director of Pro Bono Programs at the law school. Laren, who has built her career around pro bono work, sees the same need and opportunity that I do. She has access to a vast network of organizations and people that provide legal services to the poor, including her colleagues in similar positions at NYU and Fordham. Designed for Columbia Law students, the pro bono program nonetheless permits participation by students in other divisions of Columbia and at other universities.

With the help of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, the Southeast Asian Student Initiative, and the Columbia Students for Southeast Asian Development, I have arrived at a more concrete vision of what roles such non-law students might play. These include assistance with translation, web design, and community education—all familiar undergraduate tasks. Early results are promising. One Thai student is putting me in touch with the monks at Wat Buddha Thai Thavorn Vanaram, a Thai temple in Elmhurst, which I hope to visit with flyers and translators next weekend. Another posted a Thai-language summary of the proposal on the Thai community Facebook page. She has been relaying the post’s “likes” count (187 to date) and comments regarding what sorts of services are most needed.

III. Next steps

My instinct is to keep visiting temples, poring over online comments, and making other efforts to assess where the greatest need exists. Laren thinks finding a supervising attorney allows us to bypass that step. Where there is a lawyer, there is a need. If that’s the case, then that search can begin immediately. Within the organizations I have contacted already, there are countless candidates—one of the lawyers at the Asian American Bar Association of New York, for example, or at the Queens Legal Services Corporation. Narun, at the very least, might be able to get us started.

After that, the next steps are internal. Laren indicated that the bureaucratic process of approval and budget allocation would be trivial in comparison with the difficulty of recruiting and adequately training members. Creating recruitment materials, compiling a practice manual, field visits, observations at the Queens County Civil Court in Long Island City, and other such tasks would likely prevent a launch date earlier than August of 2016. An attorney whose practice is large enough for well-established rules—such as client fees (if any) and training experience—could help us reduce the workload.

Finally, I need to keep building the tiny network that I have created. Its growth over the past few weeks has been both unexpected and deeply heartening. I don’t have a complete answer for why I’m coming back in the fall, but I am excited to come back for this project. However it turns out, I’m grateful to all of you for encouraging me to think differently about what my time here means. And, of course: let me know if you’d be interest in joining “us.”

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