I have been looking
forward to talking with you lawyers and interns because some of my best
friends are lawyers. I just wouldn't want my sister to marry one of them.Theresa Hughes
and Jill Robertson have done a great job of promoting this meeting and they
have sent me copies of the Minnesota Justice Foundation's Pro Bono Report,
each one of which I have read from cover to cover. Volume 13 No. l the Fall
1997 issue has a picture of a cat and me. Unfortunately the accompanying
article contains everything I planned to say tonight; even my favorite story
about U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas who sent a postcard
to a concerned friend telling me not to worry about being deported. So I
did stop worrying. It was good to follow this advice; most parties to a
lawsuit have to sweat it out.That MJF article
did a good job of covering my checkered career, but wholly failed to reveal
that I earned my living for almost 50 years as a legal secretary.At the age of
16, just out of the 8th grade in Canada, I had my first job in a law office.
In those days one didn't have to have a PhD to work in a law office. One
needed only to be able to type and be an expert with shorthand. Shorthand,
as you know, is a now a lost art.I received $25
a month, $15 of which I paid my mother for board, $5.00 a month on a bicycle.
The rest went for candy no doubt. I didn't have to worry about clothes since
I already had a bathing suit. It had a high neck, long sleeves, a little
skirt and bathing slippers. Very depressing. If I am asked what is the greatest
change I have seen in my long years, I would say it was in swimsuits.My unfortunate
first employer dictated on my first day on the job as follows: "The
defendant denies each and every allegation contained in paragraph I of the
plaintiff's complaint herein." Don't you love it? It sounded Greek
to me.Had you known
that I had been a legal secretary since 1913 I am sure you would not have
been so reckless as to invite a legal secretary of such solid credentials
to address a captive audience of attorneys, and particularly a retired secretary,
who could not be fired.Let me insert
at this point, something you probably don't know: that behind every successful
lawyer there stands his or her utterly astonished secretary.However I am not
talking about the members of the Minnesota Justice Foundation. In my book,
the Foundation and similar groups are special--a breed apart.It was during
the hysteria of the McCarthy period in the 50's that I had a run-in with
the law. I was arrested because of earlier membership in the Communist Party
and was held for deportation to Canada. As a responsible ex-legal secretary
I must remind you, just in case you have forgotten, that deportation proceedings
are held under civil law, not criminal; therefore the victims are not protected
by the Bill of Rights. The Immigration and Nationalization Service, the
INS, thought nothing of trying to deport me, who was foreign born, for membership
in the Party thirteen years before my arrest when such membership was not
a deportable offense. I can only charitably assume that the illiterate INS
didn't know what the phrase ex post facto meant.So they took me
off to the slammer where I spent an interesting afternoon with a couple
of young women awaiting deportation. They asked me why I was there and I
thought I would make them laugh, so I told them I had been accused of trying
to overturn the government by force and violence. They didn't laugh. Instead
they said "well, the damned government ought to be overthrown."
They had never heard of such a noble crime.My friends bailed
me out for $500. I understand that bail is usually set so high that the
bailee will not attempt to leave the country. They must have known that
I was the last person who would want to leave the country. After you get
home tonight just try to see the logic of that. But don't ask me to explain
this during the question period.I have good, personal
reasons for believing that were it not for pro bono lawyers I would not
be here tonight but would have spent the last forty years in exile in England,
although I was born only 80 miles from Seattle, in Victoria, British Columbia.
I'll explain why England and not to Canada.We had friends
in the Canadian parliament in Ottawa whom we persuaded to ask their government
to tell the United States government that they would not accept me. I guess
those friends argued that if I was too dangerous for the United States,
why should Canada take the risk?So, after ten
years of trying, the United States was back to square one.Next they tried
to deport me to England, where I would spend the rest of my life thousands
of miles from my only child, my grandchildren and not-yet-born great grandchildren;
from all my relatives and friends, completely uprooted from my home in the
United States of some 40 years. I can sum this up by saying that behind
every exile by deportation lies a tragic story.Shakespeare's
Romeo poignantly described exile. He says: "Be merciful, say 'death'
For exile hath more terror in his look, much more than death; do not say
'banishment'" I agree with Romeo. It would be a bad trip.Of course, I had
no connections in England. But the INS made the mistake of lying to the
British government, claiming I had no ties in the United States, had one
daughter from whom I was estranged; in fact, I didn't even know where she
was.Eventually, by
a question in the English parliament by a member to whom my lawyers had
given the facts, England, too, refused to accept me. Spared once again from
exile, this time we finally got some relief from the courts: the Ninth Circuit
sent me back for a new administrative hearing. This time the INS finally
stopped their efforts to deport me. They had enough of the Wolf case.The some 400 political
deportations initiated by the Immigration and Naturalization Service were
but a prelude to the McCarthy cold war persecutions of the 50's that deeply
penetrated into every niche in our society: lawyers, the courts, the churches,
labor unions, seamen, grass roots organizations such as senior citizens;
the arts through attacking Paul Robeson and refusing to allow him to leave
the country and refusing to allow Charlie Chaplin and the artist Pablo Picasso,
who were foreign born, to come in.Most of the deportees
were poor people but due to the work of mostly pro bono lawyers only two
were deported: Hamish McKay, expelled from his union in the U.S.A. because
of his alleged Communism, was unable to find work. But Canada did not share
the Communist hysteria that prevailed in the United States. Hamish was fully
employed in Vancouver, B.C. through his membership in the Canadian Carpenters,
union for the rest of his life.William Mackey
was sent to Finland and after a few years, when the hue and cry died down,
he was returned by Congressional action.My attorney was
John Caughlan, assisted by C.T. Hatten. They worried my case through innumerable
administrative hearings and to the U.S. Supreme Court twice on certiorari.
Along this route, before the higher courts, local lawyers usually acted
on their behalf. John did the major work for all of the 14 deportees in
Washington state. I happened to be his secretary and we still argue over
whether I worked for him or he worked for me.We lost all the
battles but won the war in all of these cases. I applied for citizenship,
but that is another long story. After some 24 years of turmoil, I finally
became a citizen in 1974 at which time I forswore allegiance to my former
sovereign, Queen Elizabeth. Celebrating at the local pub I proposed the
following toast: "To hell with Queen Elizabeth and to hell with Richard
Nixon, too." That is the end of my personal story.Mr. Caughlan founded
the local chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, and both of us have belonged
to the American Civil Liberties Union for many years.There is also
a group of women lawyers in Seattle, known as the Northwest Women's Law
Center. Their mission is, and I quote, "The Northwest Women's Law Center
is a non-profit organization founded in 1978 to advance women's legal rights
-- the right to reproductive choice, the right to earn equal wages, to be
safe in the workplace and at home, to be free from employment discrimination
and sexual harassment."These groups concern
themselves with civil rights abuses. However, many lawyers who give generously
of their time, like the Minneapolis Justice Foundation, act for the poor.
There is indeed a thin line between the people who suffer from civil rights
abuse and the people of low income. Rich people seldom suffer civil rights
abuse. And because poverty and discrimination go hand-in-hand lawyers may
start their pro bono services for the poor but end up with civil rights
cases. I think this is what happened to Morris Dees in Montgomery, Alabama.
He built a staff to work for the poor, but he soon found out that the African
Americans suffered civil rights abuse as well as being poor. He did tremendous
work in suing the Ku Klux Klan into bankruptcy whose victims were largely
the poor.I am going to
change gears now. With the publishing of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring in
the early 60's the rather small and largely recreationally oriented environmental
movement sprung into action, particularly the Audubon Society whose mission
had been somewhat limited to protecting birdlife. But Carson demonstrated
that the use of DDT was life threatening to many avian species. I remember
that a bumper sticker reading "Ban DDT" was enclosed in our national
magazine and we all started a campaign that did finally ban its use, at
least in the United States. I was then the local Society's secretary, and
still am.We often discussed
suing the polluters or the footdragging government agencies, and sometimes
did. We won many of these cases. And who did the legal work? Mostly lawyers,
and a lot of their time was pro bono. Students began to study environmental
law, as our Society and other environmental groups pressed for legislation
for clean air and water, for preservation of ancient forests, for protection
of wildlife habitat and for endangered species.A wonderfully
witty book was written by Attorney Scott Reed of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. It
was written especially for environmental organizations, to discourage them
against using litigation, and presenting many options. I remember so well
his last sentence in a paragraph all by itself: "If all options fail,
sue the bastards."The Seattle Audubon
Society has a board of twenty three persons. Seven are lawyers, serving
as volunteers. John Lundin is our official legal adviser. Dick Butler takes
care of our purchase of wildlife refuges. Eleanore Baxendale, a city attorney,
is on land management. All volunteers. Lawyers serve as volunteers in other
environmental groups such as the Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy, World
Wildlife Fund. Attorney Brock Evans serves as president of the Federation
of Western Outdoor Clubs. There many others. Some large law firms allocate
a certain amount of pro bono time on a regular basis. They are generally
known as volunteers rather than pro bono but they all mean the same thing.We have a special
organization to assist with our special litigation known as the Earthjustice
Legal Defense Fund, until lately known as the Sierra Club Legal Defense
Fund.Returning to legal
aid for the poor, here in Seattle, we have an offspring of the King County
Bar Association known as the Evergreen lawyers, whose mission is to provide
free legal services to the poor. They earned the 1997 Harrison Tweed Award
given by the American Bar Association and the National Aid and Defenders
Association.The Seattle Post
Intelligencer recently commented in an editorial: "If we are to remain
a nation of laws, it is essential that all persons have access to the legal
system."So far I have
discussed deportation cases of the past. Presently there are thousands of
immigrants who are being persecuted under the Immigration Reform Act passed
by Congress in 1996. The critics say the new rules could tear apart families
with legitimate claims to U.S. residency. Many immigrants in the Puget Sound
area believe their lives and futures are hanging in the balance. The Seattle
Post Intelligencer of September 25th 1997 devoted more than a page to individual
cases under the headline "Millions of families may be broken apart
as (the new) immigration law kicks in."For example, Pedro,
a U.S. citizen, has two sons, 21 and 24, who support him. They live with
him in a small two-bedroom apartment where the sons are awaiting their green
cards. Under old immigration laws they could stay here while waiting. Now,
however, that provision ends. The two young men will be required to return
to Mexico to wait for their permanent residence in Mexico where they can't
support their father. The wait could take years.A 50-year-old
Chinese woman says she would rather die than return to Hong Kong.Cela Rodriguez
with husband, Noel, and son, Francisco, is among 300,000 Central American
refugees whose future will be in limbo unless Congress acts. Returning to
Nicaragua without her family frightens Cela.These are just
examples of what faces thousands of immigrants under the new Immigration
Reform Act.Things happen
fast in the vacillating present 105th Congress. Help may be forthcoming;
but, then, maybe not. But for me, now a U.S. citizen, I am spared anxiety
and I will never fail to be grateful to the many, many pro bono lawyers
who prevented my deportation to a country of strangers, and who made it
possible that I am living here in the comfort of my family and friends.Thank you for
inviting me to speak with you.Hazel Wolf