Lawyers connect most effectively with the clients and communities we serve through face-to-face interaction. We can understand our clients’ goals and concerns best when we share their sense of place: when we see the site of an incident, the community that a partner organization serves, the land that is the source of a dispute. Long-term trusting relationships like those with the 23 Native American communities in New Mexico depend on these connections.
We are clinicians in large states with rural and geographically isolated communities: New Mexico is the 5th largest state, and Wyoming is the 10th largest. Each has just one law school. For years, we have faced the choice between expending scarce financial resources and the even more scarce time of students and supervisors to reach our whole states or staying close to home for convenience. Often this choice results in serving only nearby communities. We know there are several clinicians with rural catchment areas who share our logistical challenges.
The recent increase in acceptance and familiarity with remote interactions opened a new avenue, and we could expand our reach and take on matters that we would not have been able to in earlier, less technology-focused times. Simultaneously, we have felt the loss of the personal interaction and sense of place that is important to representation.
We will lead a discussion, sharing our own experiences with representing clients over a vast geographical distance by traveling and by internet, welcoming input from attendees, and highlighting opportunities for creativity and innovation through group discussion and brainstorming. Attendees will leave with ideas for the post-pandemic landscape, and we will have identified a community of clinicians with similar interests to collaborate going forward.