In Our Voices by Robert Le, OTLA Guardian “In Our Voices” is a column published in each edition of Trial Lawyer featuring members from underrepresented communities and their personal stories. These personal stories focus on adversity encountered, perceptions, general thoughts with the hope of bringing awareness to the larger legal community. Why did I become a trial lawyer? I have been asked this question thousands of times and the answer is always the same: I know how it feels to be nobody and know nobody, and have no money and no voice. I’ve known this since my earliest childhood, as the son of refugee parents who fled Vietnam in the ‘70s to come to California. Life was safer and opportunity greater, but still they struggled. Bills came, and night after night I heard my mother on the phone with bill collectors, pleading to drop the late fees and for more time to pay. I saw the power differences that exist in society and how humiliating they can be. Life in our poor neighborhood was hard for everyone — white, Hispanic, Asian — but sharing our diverse cultures gave me a deep sense of empathy for everyone regardless of race or status. With my parents’ strong work ethic, I thrived, attending college with plans to be a restaurateur and working nights as a supervisor at Johnny Rockets. Unpaid wages and death threats changed that. The story of eventually finding legal representation for the kitchen staff — many with poor English and some undocumented — and compensating them fully for their work has been told in these pages before1 so I won’t repeat it. But that experience profoundly changed my life: I realized the power of the legal system to give voice to those with nothing who had been harmed or treated unfairly. I knew I could make a difference, so I changed my major from restaurant management to philosophy and then went to law school. After graduation, I opened my own office. Starting out was hard — I had no experience and few resources, but fortunately mentors shared theirs — along with their wins and losses, and their passion for this work. One even paid for me to attend a trial practice academy. I knew I could overcome any hardship by staying hopeful, being persistent and working hard. My goal was always to make the most of my clients’ cases. But I also struggled to overcome my own obstacles. One eye-opening lesson came in my very first case, which I lost. Although embarrassing to admit now, my cultural hesitancy about speaking up and arguing led me to rely on the judge to rule based only on the papers. Thankfully, the judge pulled me aside afterwards to chide me: I had to argue my case, just as the other side did, and only then could the judge appreciate all the facts and rule fairly. I learned that doing this work required listening with an open mind, being nonjudgmental, empathetic and thinking outside of the box. As lawyer Atticus Finch says in To Kill a Mockingbird, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” Eventually, the facts come alive and a case that seemed hopeless or small can become powerful when presented to a jury. There, the dynamic shifts and the community has the power — not the side with more resources. Over time, I learned the importance of setting aside my own biases — often the same ones inherent in the defense position or even the legal system itself. I took cases other lawyers rejected — the harm was evident, even if proving it was hard. Together with other young lawyers or on my own, I prevailed against daunting odds to win relief for a nurse with severe but undiagnosed pain after being rammed by a sheriff’s car that ran a red light; a homeless but harmless man with schizophrenia who was shot to death as a supposed threat; and a low-level Wells Fargo call center rep who knew his employer was cheating customers but had only a single email to prove it.2 The first of these cases was tried to a jury, while the other two settled on the eve of trial — a reflection of the power of the jury system. ROBERT LE practices consumer protection and class actions. He is an OTLA Guardian at the Sustaining level. Robert Le is the Legal Director at Oregon Consumer Justice Law. 850 SE 3rd Ave. Ste 302. Portland, Oregon 97214. He can be reached at [email protected] and 503-751-2249. 12 Trial Lawyer | Fall 2024
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