Whole Client / Whole Advocate
Whole Client/Whole Advocate systematically promotes a holistic approach to legal services advocacy – one that regards clients not as “poor people” with legal problems or, worse still, as simply “legal issues,” but as “whole people” with many and varied circumstantial needs to be met. In an exploratory and non-judgmental atmosphere, participants examine the real-life professional challenges they encounter, while learning the skills and tools that make a difference. A set of discrete modules that can either be delivered together as a unified training or deployed separately to meet specific needs, Whole Client/Whole Advocate pays particular attention to: Clients with Learning Disabilities or Mental Illness; Clients with Chemical Dependence; Clients from Diverse Cultures; and, Clients with Limited English Proficiency. Click the "more" table to learn more about Whole Client/Whole Advocate training through our recent experience in New England.
Download a sample course Booklet
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Topics covered in this course include:
Cultural Competencies for Specific Cultures
LEP Client Rights and Program Obligations
Serving as an Ad Hoc Interpreter
Working with Ad Hoc Interpreters
Working with Clients from Diverse Cultures
Working with Clients with Chemical Dependency
Working with Clients with Learning Disabilities
Working with Clients with Mental Illness
Working with Limited English Proficient Clients
ABA Standards addressed include:
2.4 - Cultural Competence
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4.2 - Establishing a Clear Understanding
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4.5 - Access to Services
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4.6 - Communication in the Primary Languages of Persons Served
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6.1 - Characteristics of Staff
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Sample resources for this course
"Cross-Substantive Representation"
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by Shari Zimble
Faculty for this course:
Whole Client/Whole Advocate
In the spring of 2008 CLAE delivered a reformulated Representing the Whole Client training, renamed ‘Whole Client/Whole Advocate,’ which emphasizes how advocates’ biases are liable to compromise effective legal representation. It engages participants in exploring their own prejudice and presents tools to facilitate working across difference. Here we meet two participants, both experienced attorneys from Connecticut Legal Services, who found Whole Client/Whole Advocate particularly inspiring – and, as committed seekers of equal justice for all, decisively helpful.
When Nadine Nevins attended CLAE’s new Whole Client/Whole Advocate training, she had just started running an evening clinic to help day labors collect unpaid wages. Because they are primarily Spanish-speakers and undocumented, establishing trust and effective communication between the workers and the advocates is crucial. Nevins, therefore, particularly appreciated a session on “Working with Clients with Limited English Proficiency,” which provides practical tips for working with interpreters through demonstration and role play.
“In a very small period of time,” Nevins explains, “we have to establish a relationship and get a lot of information – so I wanted to train the interpreters [in order] to foster communication between me and the client…” “If you’re a new attorney and you need to work with an interpreter, you should be thinking, ‘in what ways will the presence of an interpreter change the whole interview? How am I going to establish a relationship?’ These are things that should be taught to every attorney who’s going to be using a translator.” To bring this knowledge back to her program, Nevins relies on the Whole Client/Whole Advocate training materials; as she readily confesses, “I’ve cribbed them relentlessly.”
Esther Rada first joined legal services in 2007 after a long and distinguished legal career in the military (even now, she remains an assistant adjunct general for the state of New York). Her participation in Whole Client/Whole Advocate, therefore, was one important way in which she acclimatized herself to the largely unfamiliar legal services community.
“I’ve been a practicing attorney for other 30 years,” Rada reflects, “but this training was a wake-up call to be very careful in my assessment of people and their situations – it actually brought me back to my basic values: treating every person with dignity and respect.” “The skills that I learned at the course,” she continues, “have allowed me to more effectively deliver legal services to my client base, in a manner that generates a sense of hope and compassion.”
To Rada, CLAE is unique in taking a substantive skill and relating it to values – a connection that’s often missing. “It was absolutely affirming,” Rada asserts, “CLAE is able to integrate the value component into a profession or a business. I don’t know if there are too many other places that do it. That’s a huge difference… CLAE is fundamental in raising issues and bringing life to the legal services corporation.”