Abstract
As a communications major in film and broadcasting, I took a film making course which required the production of a super 8mm film with an accompanying soundtrack. The film I produced was based on the lyrics, "You're my lawyer, you're my doctor, yeah, but somehow you forgot about me", from the song by Gil Scott Heron and Brian Jackson. These lyrics spoke to me of professionals who forget their communities or at least their communities' perspectives, needs, and sometimes their own roots. In turn, they are not respected and become despised for their indifference by those people who had different hopes and aspirations for what these professionals could do to help the general conditions of others in the community. As I began to write this article, these lyrics and their message came to mind. At the time I produced the student film, I had no idea I would eventually become a lawyer, but I did know that whatever I did do, that I would consider working apart from or without relation to the Indian community and my own tribal community, in particular, as unconscionable. The idea of professional success, especially in the elite legal profession, as being closely linked to community or having corresponding value to the community has directly affected my view of individual lawyering. This idea runs counter to the norm.
Publication Title
Clinical Law Review
Volume
5
Issue
2
First Page
557
Recommended Citation
Christine Z. Cruz,
[On the] Road Back in: Community Lawyering in Indigenous Communities,
5
Clinical L. Rev
557
(1999).
Available at:
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/clr/vol5/iss2/9