Women’s Law Project

After two months, my internship at the Women’s Law Project has finally drawn to a close. Yesterday was my last day and today I moved out of our apartment and drove home.

I had a wonderful time this summer and I’m sad it is over. I will be back in Philly soon, however, as Customs Week is just around the corner!

It seems a little incredible, but I have just over a week left at my internship. Next Friday is my last day and I’m moving out of our apartment the following morning.

It seems to me like now is the time to sit back and reflect on the last two months. Did I accomplish everything I wanted to? Did I learn something?

On the living-in-an-apartment-in-Philadelphia front, I certainly learnt a lot. I’m a lot better cook than I was two months ago, as evidenced by the fact that the number of successful meals I cooked increased inversely proportionate to the mess I made and number of kitchen items irreparably destroyed. I now know how to unclog a drain, have keys fixed, get rid of flies, and go grocery shopping on a student budget (even when tempted by all of the wonderful foodstuffs at Whole Foods).

I also experienced Philadelphia as a tourist and a resident. I went to Independence Mall, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Love Park, Penn’s Landing, the Italian Market, Chinatown, Reading Terminal Market and the Magic Garden. I had my first Philly cheesesteak. I also learned how to navigate the crowds of tourists who have the annoying tendency to block the sidewalk near our apartment as they line up to get a cheesesteak.

Did I get to see everything I wanted to? No, there is still the Philadelphia Zoo, the Franklin Institute, the Atwater Kent Museum…

Of course, I did also go to my internship this summer Monday through Friday. I can’t possibly list everything I experienced and learnt at the Women’s Law Project here but I will share a couple things.

The range and breadth of my experience certainly far exceeded my expectations. I now know nearly every zipcode in Philadelphia and can tell you, with a fairly high degree of certainty, its location and racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic make-up. I learned this rather inane set of data in two ways. Firstly, through outreach. I spent many hours a weekend researching each zipcode and combing through the Telephone Counseling database looking at call distribution across zip codes. Secondly, through counseling and intake. Behind all this demographic data, are people who call the WLP at some of the worst moments in their lives. For many zipcodes, I can also picture a specific caller I have talked to, trying to help her deal with the problems in her life.

Nobody calls the WLP when life is going swimmingly well. Everybody calls the WLP when they have a problem, usually of an unimaginable magnitude. Rarely does a caller have just one question. Most of our clients are trying to fight multiple fires: they have an abusive partner, they are fighting for custody of their kids, they need a divorce, they have no money, they have no health insurance. I listen to their problems for an hour or even just ten minutes, but I can get off the phone. For our callers, these problems are their lives. That was one of the hardest things for me to come to grips with this summer.

On the phones, you see the best and worst of humanity. You hear about terrible things people to do one another. You also hear women who are so resilient in the face of incredible hardship. The dignity and graciousness of many of the callers I have talked to takes me by surprise every time. I can only hope that if I was ever in a similar situation, I could be like that.

The thing that I learnt this summer which was probably the hardest to understand but the most essential is the importance of listening. Sometimes, all anyone needs is to have someone who will listen and validate the person’s story.

The learning curve over the last two months has been huge. Whilst I may eventually forget all the technical details I have learnt about family law or Philadelphia zip codes, I believe I won’t forget the larger lessons about privilege, compassion, and justice.

Also, I won’t forget to make sure to always be really nice to the office manager as she will be the person to help you when you break the copier… and the shredder.

I can’t believe I have been interning at the Women’s Law Project for over a month now. It is amazing that I feel like I’ve just started, yet I only have three weeks left.

I realized, after scrolling through my previous entries, I have never really talked about the physical environment of my internship. Maybe an office in the middle of Philly is not quite as exciting as the locales in which other CPGC interns are currently working, but it seems worthwhile mentioning at least.

We live about 13 blocks from the WLP office. (I say “we” because, as I previously mentioned, both Lizzy and I work at the WLP). We walk to and from work everyday. Since it is Philly in the summer, the weather is brutally hot and humid. Luckily, the WLP is well air-conditioned, so from nine to five I escape the Philly heat.

In the office, I have a small cubicle in a cluster of other cubicles, all assigned to the Telephone Counselors. Since there are more volunteers and interns than desks, everyone rotates spots depending on who is in for the day. However, I am the only full-time intern this summer so I usually grab the same desk everyday.

On a typical day when I’m counseling, I print out the daily log and begin making calls right away. I take down notes on scrap paper, which I then record in our database after I have talked to the caller. Before I phone callers, I try to look at their intake notes and pull up information on my computer that I think will be helpful to them. When I have questions about the proper information to give a caller, I run it by my supervisor before getting back to the person.

One of my favourite aspects of my internship at the WLP is lunchtime. Typically, the entire office has lunch at the same time in the conference room. The conversations at lunch range over a very varied set of topics, but they are always fascinating. Everyone has something interesting to say: from the staff attorney to the law students to the office manager.

One of the great things about a small office is that you know everybody who you are working alongside by name. The atmosphere at the WLP is super friendly and engaging. I think this is one of the components that has made my internship great so far: working around knowledgeable, passionate, and enthusiastic people.

July 4th is quite a big deal in the city where the Declaration of Independence was signed. It felt like we ran from event to event this weekend, yet there were so many other events for which we didn’t even have time. On Sunday, we went to the all-you-can-eat ice cream festival down on Penn’s Landing. The placed was packed with people and the proceeds went to charity.

On Monday, we went to the parade in front of Independence Hall. It was a ton of fun watching everyone go by, but it was super hot standing out in the sun. After retreating inside to cool down, we walked across the city to go to a friend’s Fourth of July barbeque. After that, we headed out to the JFK Parkway to watch the free concert and fireworks. The announcers said there were 100,000 people on the Parkway and I can believe it. The place was packed! I had a really great time listening to the music and then watching the fireworks. Getting home was a little tricky, though, as those 100,000 people all wanted to leave at once. We finally made it back and collapsed into bed after an extremely exhausting July 4th.

Watching the free concert on the Parkway.

Last night, Lizzy and I went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to watch a free screening of Rocky, on the famous art museum steps. There, we met up with some other Haverford students. It was quite a lot of fun, although it was quite hard to hear. Everyone cheered when, in the movie, Rocky ran up the steps we were actually sitting on.

Watching Rocky on the famous steps (sorry for the poor picture quality).

Over the last two days, we have been celebrating Lizzy’s birthday. Yesterday, we went out to Haverford and had dinner and ice cream with all of our friends. Today (Lizzy’s actual birthday) I made dinner and Kelley brought home flowers and some really nice chocolates.

It turned out quite nicely in the end, with only a few mishaps. Kelley improvised and made a flower vase out of an ice tea bottle. After a few technical difficulties whilst cooking tomato pasta and garlic bread, I felt a lot better after using some burn salve we luckily had on hand (it was bought last week after someone had an accident with an iron).

Lizzy with her birthday flowers and chocolate.

Today, I graduated from being a counselor-in-training to a freshly minted counselor. This means I can offer basic information to our callers without going through my supervisor first. Although it happened with very little fanfare, the transition was quite exciting. It’s amazing how much I’ve learnt in just over three weeks. Before I began this internship, I had no idea how someone went about getting a restraining order –I didn’t even know what the proper name of it was (in case you’re wondering, a restraining order against a current or former household or family member is called a Protection From Abuse order or PFA ). Now I can probably tell you in my sleep.

Over time I think this job must get easier. Certainly I’ve picked up the technical aspects quickly. I can now use our caller database, the automatic postage machine, and the very finicky paper shredder with a high degree of certainty that I’m doing it correctly. For “simple” calls, callers’ whose questions are very common, I know the answer off the top of my head. Some calls definitely still bamboozle me. I’m sure, however, the number of bamboozling calls will decrease as the amount of time I’ve spent at my internship increases.

Sometimes, however, working as a Telephone Counselor is just hard work. There are calls when you don’t have any good answers. As one of my professors likes to say, there is no “right-answer machine” to life. And there are some calls where you do have an answer, but the caller doesn’t like it.

The WLP Telephone Counselors provide legal information and offer potential solutions to callers. We can’t tell them what to do, however, even if we really want to.

If a caller is experiencing domestic violence, we always offer to tell them about various safety tips.  The WLP has a comprehensive booklet that explains about safety planning. For those in abusive situations, it can be crucial that they have what is basically an escape plan. Most callers readily accept this information (of course, whether or not they utilize it is their own choice).

It is almost heartbreaking when a caller flat-out refuses to listen to information pertaining to his or her own safety or, after hearing the options, state that they won’t follow them. Some people aren’t ready to leave their home and/or family and “run away.” My natural impulse, which I’m sure is shared by many counselors both at the WLP and other hotlines, is to practically beg these callers to at least consider taking some of the steps. Have a bag packed, plan an escape route out of your home, have a safe place you can go to in an emergency. The only person who can decide to do this, however, is the caller.

As a Telephone Counselor, all I can tell you is what you can do, not what you should do. But sometimes, I really wish I could do more.

The Women’s Law Project has had many interns from the Bi-Co over the years, and this summer is no exception. Currently, there are three Haverford students interning at the WLP for the summer.

The Haverford Interns