Lessons We Are Still Learning From Kathleen

The Yale Law School Clinical Faculty

We had the privilege of working with Kathleen Sullivan in the Yale Law School clinical program from 1993 until her untimely death this past summer. We are still trying to cope, personally and collectively, with the loss of our brilliant and compassionate colleague and friend, who was, for us, a moral beacon in our often pressured and stressful professional lives.

Kathleen had a profound and lasting influence on all of us who worked with her. We want to acknowledge some of the lessons we are still learning from the example she set as a lawyer, teacher, colleague, and friend.

CLIENTS' STORIES BELONG TO THEM

Kathleen would wonder aloud, in her non-directive way of communicating important ideas, whether using clients' stories to teach students was right, especially when it did not advance the clients' interests: She reminded us of the dangers of story appropriation, of making public that which is most personal and dear to each of us - our experiences, our life history, our inner thoughts. It never made sense to her that low-income individuals and families must surrender the privacy that most of us take for granted in order to obtain the basics of life - income, food, shelter, the right to live with loved ones - and legal representation.

Kathleen's views on appropriation flowed from her unshakable belief in client autonomy. The client, not the lawyer, had the right to make critical decisions. Earlier in her career, she emphasized the need for lawyers to defer to clients in presenting evidence in litigation. She knew that clients' stories should and must be told, often by lawyers. The telling, however, was an invasion, unless and until the client had fully participated in the decision to tell, along with what should be told.

"WHO IS OUR CLIENT? WHAT DOES THE CLIENT WANT"

Kathleen asked these questions over and over, and never lost that focus in practice or in teaching. During supervision meetings and class case discussions, she resisted allowing the conversation to drift into hypothetical scenarios, and would politely interject; "Can we get back to the client?" She grounded all discussion in our duties to the client. Even in class action work, the perspective of individual clients informed and propelled her advocacy. For her, the central questions involved, whether in case work, legislative advocacy, or policy discussion, grew out of the daily concerns of her clients.

IF YOU MUST BE JUDGMENTAL, JUDGE THE SYSTEM AND YOURSELF, NOT YOUR CLIENT

Kathleen worked to change perceptions of low-income clients. She had students read books like David Zucchino's Myth of the Welfare Queen, I and Kathryn Edin and Laura Lein's Making Ends Meet,z because of those authors' portrayals of the harsh realities of poor peoples' lives and their exposes of commonly accepted myths about public assistance recipients. She cared about issues of duty and difference, using Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day3 to explore the former and Anne Fadiman's The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down 4 to examine the latter.

Kathleen would encourage students to put themselves in the place of the clients, to imagine the real-life conditions and demands with which clients had to cope, and to think about how as the client they might view and experience the bureaucratic requirements imposed on them. And Kathleen would challenge students to imagine a set of circumstances that might render understandable a client's actions, such as a failure to keep an appointment, that they might be tempted to judge. In this way, she taught students to respect our clients and the complexity of their lives. Through her example, she imparted to her students, and to us, a compassionate understanding of others. Kathleen challenged all of us, students and faculty alike, to see ourselves, our legal selves, through our clients' eyes, and thus to confront and to grasp our own role as part of the system with which our clients struggle.

LAWYERS MUST BE HUMAN; LAWYERING MUST BE HUMANE

Kathleen was a consummate professional, both as a lawyer and as a teacher. She modeled for students and colleagues alike excellence in professional practice. At the same time, she was a warm and compassionate human being. She listened, not just to wait her turn, but to learn: Deflecting any hint of praise directed at her, Kathleen took seriously the unique qualities of everyone with whom she dealt. She took joy from the accomplishments of others, from her family to her colleagues, students, and clients.

Kathleen taught us that radical empathy with clients and students is not without risk, and that the risk is one worth taking. Empathy, verging on intimacy with clients and students, was Kathleen's hallmark. She believed and taught that in order to be a good lawyer and teacher, one must be acutely aware of, and open to, feelings and personal relationships. In her work she radically redefined the concept of "professional distance" that lawyers commonly establish between themselves and their clients, and that teachers typically place between themselves and their students. Ever conscious of those boundaries, Kathleen saw her roles as lawyer and teacher as distinct from that of "friend", yet she engaged those roles in a caring and empathetic manner. She would caution students to avoid the temptation to "rescue" clients, but would urge students not to give up on clients even when clients seemed to give up on themselves or on the students.

TO BE AN EXCELLENT PROFESSIONAL, BE MINDFUL OF THE DETAILS OF DAILY LIFE

Kathleen knew that hospitality is part and parcel of lawyering and teaching. She believed it was important to nurture one's stomach, as well as one's soul. She delighted in finding places to meet, where one could talk and eat at the same time. Whether it was as simple as an offer of "tea and crumpets" in her kitchen, or as exotic as sampling different kinds of Chai tea in a downtown bookstore cafe, Kathleen never lost sight of the fact that work could, and should, be enjoyable.

Kathleen understood that, at times, doors should be closed. When a client, student, or colleague needed her help, she strove to give undivided attention. She was patient, listening with a careful tilt of her head, and she was willing to admit it when she didn't have an immediate answer.

Kathleen also remembered that an hour session should consist of only sixty minutes. She realized the danger behind meetings with no timetable. For Kathleen, discussion was important, but it was also important to stop talking in order to achieve what was discussed.

PUBLIC BENEFITS AND CHILD WELFARE ARE OF SUBSTANTIAL INTELLECTUAL, MORAL, AND PRACTICAL IMPORTANCE

As a social welfare and child welfare scholar and practitioner, Kathleen did everything, from "fair hearings" and "neglect" trials, to impact litigation, community education, and group and legislative advocacy. Only after engaging in the full range of practice would she write about it. And write she did, subjecting to critical scrutiny the various state waiver programs through which the federal government allowed states to "experiment" with so-called "welfare reform", and which foreshadowed the "end of welfare as we know it." In her impact litigation, her scholarship, and her teaching Kathleen carried on a determined intellectual, moral and activist engagement with those who, out of ignorance or innocence or meanness, failed to understand the reasons for our clients' circumstances, and the impact upon our clients of ill-advised social policies.

Not only did Kathleen handle all aspects of these cases, she was also willing to work with a wide range of partners. Kathleen's strong desire for fair results, coupled with her lack of need for ownership, led her to combine her energies with groups of welfare women, with members of the local school system, and with statewide legal services attorneys in class action litigation.

RESISTANCE IS NOT FUTILE: NEVER GIVE UP

In her work on behalf of welfare recipients and poor mothers threatened with the loss of their children, Kathleen was motivated by her profound sense of the injustice of a social welfare system that denies poor clients basic subsistence and then undermines their right to family integrity because of their alleged inability to care for their children. In her lawyering, Kathleen taught that resistance to injustice is not futile, that defending individuals and families against draconian social policies is not only appropriate work for lawyers, but is morally obligatory. With indignation and often outright anger, she fought for every inch, defending her clients with energy and creativity. Her passionate struggle against the system was an embodiment of the advocate's mantra, "Never give up."

CHALLENGE THE CONVENTIONAL WISDOM,EVEN WHEN IT'S YOUR OWN

Kathleen continually wondered aloud why things were as they were, and how they could be made better. Whether it was a law, an administrative agency practice, a court procedure, an office policy, or a class that she had taught for a dozen years, Kathleen seemed instinctively to question conventional wisdom. During countless meetings, classes, supervision sessions, and conversations, Kathleen would ask herself and others present, "Like, what's up with that?" Sometimes quizzical, often ironic, she meant that we should slow down, re-think what we were saying or doing, or, just as often, what we were not saying or doing. She encouraged us to question our assumptions, our standard operating procedures and those of our adversaries, and always to endeavor to create a world whose laws, policies, and relationships were more just and compassionate than those of the world we live in.

We miss Kathleen's warmth and passion, her kind and caring manner in relating to clients, students, and colleagues, her unwavering commitment to our clients, and her steadfast refusal to accept the social injustices that our clients confront in their everyday lives. Though we must now, in sorrow, continue her work without her, we are grateful for the enduring lessons and memories that she has left with us.