Brooklyn Boro

Volunteer Lawyers Project trains lawyers to be legal observers during rallies

May 10, 2017 By Rob Abruzzese, Legal Editor Brooklyn Daily Eagle
The Volunteer Lawyers Project invited in a pair of legal observers to train members of the Brooklyn legal community to help out during rallies and public demonstrations. Pictured from left: Andy Izenson, Sarah Burrows and Jill M. Humphries. Eagle photos by Rob Abruzzese
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The Volunteer Lawyers Project has been an integral part of the legal community by providing low-income Brooklynites with legal representation since it came on the scene in 1990. Traditionally, its role has been confined to the areas of family law, consumer debt, foreclosure intervention and elder law, however, the organization has recently been taking on additional work to help out the changing needs of the community.

In March, the group tried to help alleviate the needs of the borough’s vast immigrant community by offering continuing legal education (CLE) training for attorneys to help immigrants file their paperwork to become citizens. Now this month, the Volunteer Lawyers Project (VLP) has worked on training lawyers to be legal observers to help out during protests, rallies and marches.

On Monday, the VLP held a CLE seminar at the Brooklyn Bar Association called “Legal Observer Basic Training,” with Andy Izenson, an attorney with the NYC chapter of the National Lawyers Guild; and Dr. Jill M. Humphries, with the NY chapter of the National Conference of Black Lawyers.

“This is a program that is outside of our normal practice area, but we’re very excited to give the opportunity to train people to be legal observers,” said Sarah Burrows, the VLP’s pro bono manager.

Legal observers are people who attend public demonstrations, rallies or protests, usually wearing brightly colored hats, who support organizers by watching the police and providing legal assistance if needed. They’re meant to be independent of both the police and demonstrators.

Since President Donald Trump has taken office, the groups who provide legal observers have been stretched to their limits. Monday’s CLE was an attempt by two of those groups to come together to offer more training to alleviate some of the stress.

“As you may have noticed there has been some political turmoil lately, just a skosh,” Izenson said. “The legal observer program is super overloaded so we’ve been doing a real push to train more legal observers.”

During Monday’s two-hour seminar, Izenson and Humphries helped to train the attorneys in attendance (legal observers are not required to be attorneys, though).

The pair explained the principles involved in legal observation and the tactics that they need to know to be effective when they’re out in the field.

“Most of what you need to know to be an effective legal observer you will learn yourself while you are out there on your feet,” Izenson said. “A lot of it is just keeping a cool head and being able to be in a caretaker space when things get really scary and I can’t give you those skills by talking through a microphone, but I’ll give you the information you need to get started and then we’ll go out in the field together.”

Izenson and Humphries explained to the attendees that their main priority when in the field is to watch police officers and document their interactions with protesters. They also explained that when protesters get arrested, legal observers should get their names and birthday and must track them as they are processed through the legal system.

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