PRO BONO AWARD: Norma Linda Ureña
By Carl Marquardt
The KCBA Pro Bono Award is presented annually to the attorney or firm who best exemplifies KCBA’s commitment to pro bono legal service. This year’s award will go to Norma Linda Ureña, recognizing her consistent, tireless efforts on behalf of unpaid workers, victims of domestic violence and other persons in need. Since graduating from UW Law Sc
hool in 1994, Ureña has dedicated herself to securing justice for low-income clients. Ureña served as a legal aid attorney in her native Idaho from 1994 to 1997, before returning to Seattle to work with Northwest Justice Project and Columbia Legal Services from 1997 to 2002. While legal aid work was satisfying in many respects, Ureña was frustrated by limitations that, among other things, restricted representation of individuals who did not have legal immigrant status in the U.S. Ureña entered private practice in 2002, in part to allow more flexibility in her practice. These days, in addition to a thriving private practice serving family law and employment clients, Ureña takes a steady stream of pro bono referrals arising through the KCBA Community Legal Services (CLS) Program. Since 2002, Ureña has appeared in more than 20 cases referred through CLS’s Wage Claim Project, and six complex matters through the Family Law Mentor and Volunteer Attorneys for Persons with HIV/AIDS programs. CLS staff praise Ureña for her unusual willingness to take on difficult cases, and exceptional diligence and skill in resolving them. Kim Todaro, managing attorney for the Family Law Mentor Program, notes that while some attorneys shy away from taking complex family law cases on a pro bono basis, “Norma will routinely take on the most difficult cases, including cases involving representation of domestic violence survivors in multiple court appearances. In fact, Norma has been known to call back to let us know she is ready for another referral.”
Ureña’s interest in pro bono service is an outgrowth of her own life experience and the forces that propelled her to become an attorney. Ureña was born to a family of migrant farm workers from Jalisco, Mexico, who settled in rural, southern Idaho when Norma, the youngest child, arrived. Growing up, Ureña watched her parents and four older brothers put in up to 16 hours a day working in fields, in processing plants and at other manual tasks. Ureña frequently witnessed mistreatment and a basic lack of respect for Mexican workers. Equally frustrating, she recognized the sense of helplessness and acceptance that can take hold among people who suffer from discrimination — people whose tenuous status makes them fearful or reluctant to demand better treatment.
“On some level, you need to accept the way things are or else you could go crazy. But you can also do your best to work for positive change,” she says. Ureña learned English as a second language in school and proceeded to excel as a student. In high school, she received National Merit and other scholarships to attend Seattle University. Ureña recalls the unease felt by her parents — who had been unable to attend school past the sixth grade — considering that their daughter would go so far away to pursue a college education. Her father’s ultimate affirmation that he would support her in whatever she wanted to do motivated and inspired her. Ureña worked as many as four part-time jobs at a time to help put herself through college. Summers spent back in Idaho reinforced the perceptions of injustice she had developed as a child and ultimately settled her choice of career. “I went to law school to help people like my father,” she says. By the time she entered private practice in 2002, Ureña was painfully familiar with laws regarding unpaid wages for immigrant workers. The Wage Claim Project, a partnership between the KCBA Newcomers Resource Project and CASA Latina, seeks to assist local Spanish-speaking laborers with unpaid-wage claims. While the circumstances of individual cases vary, Ureña has seen that in many cases employers forego paying Latino workers simply because they believe they can get away with it. Employers recognize that, regardless of their visa status, immigrant workers are often reluctant to involve themselves in the U.S. legal system. Language and other barriers can further frustrate any meaningful recourse. For Ureña, the injustice in such cases is striking. “The most appalling thing to do to someone who comes to the United States to work is to not pay them,” she says. Ureña and other project volunteers typically file lawsuits or liens on behalf of unpaid workers and work to obtain payment through settlement or other collection efforts. Meantime, as she expanded her private practice, Ureña discovered a strong unmet demand for Spanish-speaking family law attorneys. To develop her skills in this area she connected with KCBA’s Family Law Mentor Program. Like most CLS programs, the Family Law Mentor Program functions on a triage basis; it seeks to allocate pro bono resources to the most dire cases — generally, cases involving low-income clients where there are children at risk. The program places needy clients with newer attorneys, who can gain family law experience while working under the supervision of more experienced volunteer mentors. As a volunteer, Ureña quickly graduated from “mentee” to become a critical resource in complex matters where other program resources failed. For example, one recent case involved a father who had an unusually violent history; he had been shot several times, imprisoned, and had assaulted his partner by, among other things, jumping across a counter to attack her at her place of work. Several attempts to place the mother’s case within the Family Law Mentor Program failed; the last attorney had withdrawn out of concern for her personal safety. With nowhere else to turn, Todaro found Ureña was willing to take the case. While monitoring the father’s whereabouts through his probation officer, Ureña succeeded in showing the court that the father did not have any positive role to play in the young child’s life and that sole custody should be granted to the mother. Based on her background as a legal aid attorney, Ureña understands how difficult it can be to find outside representation in such cases and she knows that calls for help are not placed lightly. “I know that when they call me, there’s usually no one else,” she says. “I can’t say no in that situation.”
Notwithstanding the efforts of attorneys such as Ureña, the need for pro bono attorneys is ever present and growing in these difficult economic times. CLS hopes Ureña’s work will motivate others to lend a hand. Attorneys interested in the Wage Claim Project should contact Ann Wennerstrom at 206-267-7055. Attorneys interested in the Family Law Mentor Program should contact Kim Todaro at 206-267-7020.
