06/02/2022
Lynn Murphy Mark
Back in the saddle again
Tuesday this week I worked my first full day as a part time employee at Legal Services of Eastern Missouri. I spell out the name of this organization because I want to spread the word about the work that is done in this old building on Forest Park Avenue in the city.
It’s not called “orientation” anymore. Now it’s “onboarding”, which made me think I had signed up for a cruise. I spent a delightful hour with the Director of HR learning, among other things, how to keep minute by minute track of my time on my computer. As a volunteer I only tracked the actual work that I did for clients. Now that I’m getting paid, they want to know how much time I spend making copies, etc., in addition to my actual work. Big change number one.
She said if I wanted, she would give me her spiel about all the departments in our building. I regularly interact with the very busy folks who help with divorce, custody issues, and orders of protection – mostly because they specialize in working with victims of domestic violence and that is my client base. But even after four years tucked away in our Immigration Law offices I do not know the extent of the work that is done at 4232 Forest Park Avenue.
I definitely want to know more, now that I am an official staff member. So she started listing the departments and what they are responsible for. There is a large Housing department that works with folks getting evicted illegally or who have bad landlords or who live in places that are not up to code. There is a Public Benefits department that helps people get Medicaid, SSI, and other benefits that most people don’t know about. There is a Homeless Children department that works with kids to get them whatever benefits they are eligible for – one thing I learned is that if you are a homeless child you can attend any school and what these attorneys do is remind a school district that a homeless child is allowed to attend any school without having to prove residency. There is a Children’s Education department that helps parents with kids who have special needs, or need an Individual Education Plan. There is a Senior Law department that helps folks on the other end of the age spectrum. There is a department that works with Mental Health legal issues. By the time she was done spelling all this out I was amazed beyond words.
In addition to attorneys and paralegals, just about every department has a Social Worker because most of the time you can’t really separate real life issues from the kinds of law that is practiced in our building. I have interacted and practiced with Social Workers all of my nursing career. Some of my best friends are Social Workers. I think this is one discipline that flies under the radar, mostly because they are so damn busy addressing things that most of us are ignorant about. I believe they do God’s work.
Our slogan at Legal Services is “Justice, Action, Hope”. I am reminded of Micah 6:8 where it says what God expects from us: to “do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God”. This is exactly what happens where I work.