Bud Rosenfield

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Transcript:  “I’ve been at Legal Aid now 10 or 11 years. I’ve really always had a passion to work on access-to-justice issues. Practicing law is a broad kind of profession, and a fairly privileged one. All law practice is, on the surface. But there are those people who have more access to justice and the court system and the means by which we redress our rights and enforce our rights than others, and it’s always seemed to me to make sense to try to raise the level up so that everybody has at least basic access.

In my corner of Legal Aid, in the Disability Law Center, we focus a lot on access issues, and when the system breaks down, most of the clients we have don’t have anywhere else to turn. Legal Aid’s it. And there’s something very compelling about working on those types of issues for that group of people who otherwise are going to be on the outside looking in. Knowing that the people now can breathe a little bit more easily and move forward in their lives—that’s what we’re trying to do every day.

It’s a difficult and challenging but unbelievably rewarding kind of career to practice law in a Legal Aid office. You can do lots of different types of work within Legal Aid. Try to get a sense of what issues inspire you and interest you, where you want to end up. And then when it’s time to make the jump, do it knowingly and with eyes wide open. Because once you get here, you’re not going to want to leave.”