The Courage of Compassion: Justice, Leadership and Social Change with Robin Steinberg
Robin Steinberg - Social Justice Advocate, CEO and former Public Defense Lawyer.
Robin Steinberg is the founder of The Bail Project and three other high-impact organizations: the Bronx Defenders, the Bronx Freedom Fund, and Still She Rises.
Steinberg is a frequent commentator on criminal justice issues and has contributed opinion pieces to The New York Times, The Marshall Project, and USA Today. She is the author of the book “Courage of Compassion: A Journey from Judgment to Connection” published by Optimism Press. She is currently a Gilbert Foundation Senior Fellow of the Criminal Justice Program at UCLA School of Law.
Is there space for compassion in the justice system? How does a public defender and a leader find the courage to care, and to fight for justice at an individual and systemic level?
In today's episode we speak with Robin Steinberg who is having a huge impact in creating access to justice for thousands of people.
Robin Steinberg is founder of the Bail Project, the Bronx Defenders, the Bronx Freedom Fund, and Still She Rises. She has taught at leading law schools across the US, and received multiple awards for her work. She’s also author of the brand new book, The Courage of Compassion: A Journey from Judgment to Connection, published by Simon Sinek’s Optimism Press.
In this conversation we cover her journey as a public defender, how to break down fear as a leader, and the steps we can all take to turn judgment into compassion, even and especially when it’s hardest to do so.
In 2017, Steinberg launched The Bail Project, modeled on the success of the Bronx Freedom Fund, a community bail fund started by Steinberg and David Feige in 2007 to support clients of the Bronx Defenders. Prior to her tenure at The Bail Project, Steinberg founded and served as the executive director of the Bronx Defenders, a nationally-recognized public defender office known for its pioneering work on holistic defense, which refers to a client-centered and community-based model of legal representation that seeks to address both the underlying causes and collateral impacts of criminal justice involvement.
In 2016, Steinberg launched Still She Rises in Oklahoma, which is the first public defender office in the nation dedicated to the representation of mothers in the criminal justice system. Steinberg received her B.A. from UC Berkeley and J.D. from New York University School of Law. She has taught trial advocacy and other courses at Harvard, Columbia, Seton Hall and elsewhere. She has been recognized with the Impact Award by the New York Law Journal, the Service of Justice Award by New York State Defenders Association, and Alumna of the Year by New York University School of Law among other notable achievements.
Her publications have appeared in law reviews, policy journals and books, including the Hamishpat Law Review, Cardozo Law Review, NYU Review of Law & Social Change, Yale Law & Policy Review, and Harvard Journal of African-American Public Policy.
To learn more about Robin and her work at the following links:
For accessible access, view the podcast with closed captions below and access the full conversation transcript.
Episode Transcript:
Spk0 Sally Clarke Spk1 Robin Steinberg Spk2 Alexis Zahner
[00:00:09] spk_0: Welcome to the We are Human Leaders podcast. Is there space for compassion in the justice system. How does a public defender and a leader find the courage to care and to fight for justice at an individual and systemic level? I'm Sally Clarke and today Alexis Zahner and I are speaking with a leader who is having a huge impact in creating access to justice for thousands of people. Robin Steinberg is founder of the bail project, the Bronx Defenders, the Bronx Freedom Fund and still she rises. She has taught at leading law schools across the US and received multiple awards for her work. She's also author of the brand new book, The Courage of Compassion, a Journey From Judgment to Connection, published by Simon Cynics Optimism Press. In this warm conversation, we cover her journey as a public defender, how to break down fear as a leader and the steps we can all take to turn judgment into compassion even and especially when it's hardest to do so. Let's dive in.
[00:01:12] spk_1: Welcome to we are human leaders. Robin, it is a real pleasure to have you here with us today and we'd love to start by learning a little bit more about you and your personal journey and how you've come to do the important work that you're currently doing.
[00:01:27] spk_2: All right. Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate the opportunity and I'm looking forward to this conversation on my personal journey. Wow. So when I think about how I landed where I did, of course, part of that journey is how you grow up and then part of the jour is when you are old enough to make decisions on your own, what you decide to do with your life and how you want to live. I grew up in a rather turbulent family. I think that had a lot to do with a lot of the things I learned later in life. But I also grew up in America during the sixties and seventies, which was a time of enormous change and frankly inspiration. And the civil rights movement was in full force. The feminist women's movement was in full force. And, you know, I was very much swept up by that as a teenager. And I think that sort of got me thinking about the world I wanted to create and what my contribution might be. I was lucky enough to go to college. And uh and I say that because neither of my parents have gone to college. And so that path wasn't quite so clear, but I wound up finding myself at the University of California in Berkeley and which was you know, a fantastic place to be if you cared about justice and change and how you could move power to make the world better. And so when I was there, I was really debating, like, what do I want to do? And how can I have the most impact? And I majored in women's studies. I was actually the first graduating class of women's studies at Berkeley. And I sort of, well, I have two choices here. I could become an academic and teach women's studies or I could think about how I might do something that would have broader impact. And so I decided to go to law school, which anybody that knew me growing up found that completely bizarre because it's perhaps the most mainstream thing you can do. But I decided to do it anyway. And I went thinking I was gonna do women's rights litigation. I was completely convinced of that and got into NYU law school. And while I was there, I took a course called the Women's Prison Project only because it had the name women in it. Honestly, there weren't a lot of courses on women or, you know, feminism or how to use the law to advance women's rights. But it had the word women. And the fact that it was in prison seemed to be almost an insignificant fact for me at that moment until I started to travel to prison. And I went every week to Bedford Hills Correctional facility, which is the maximum security women's prison in New York State. And I would get on the train and I would go up to Bedford Hills and which ironically is situated in this incredibly wealthy bucolic community called Bedford Hills outside of New York. And I would meet my clients and talk to the women who were in prison. And each visit I learned more and with each client and each woman I spoke to, I was baffled by so many things. I mean, first they all felt completely railroaded by the system. They did not trust or speak well of their public defenders. They were doing an enormous amount of prison time for crimes that seemed to me to be things we shouldn't be imprisoning people for to begin with. But particularly mothers who were then separated from their Children. They were all concerned about getting home to their kids. They were all black from low income communities around New York. So all of that just raised a question for me about what is going on in our criminal justice system that you know, these women that I've gotten to know that I care about that whose stories I care about are languishing here in jail cells when they could be contributing outside to their families and to the world. So my third year in law school, I joined the criminal defense clinic and that was just a clinic where you represented people in misdemeanor cases in New York City Criminal Court. And I will never forget the first time I stepped foot in a New York City criminal courthouse and looked around at what passed for justice. And I was horrified, I was horrified by thing I saw, I was horrified by the way people were treated. I was horrified by families being unable to even get a glimpse of their loved ones. I was horrified by the behavior of the advocates and the judges. I was horrified by the long lines of black and brown, middle income, men and women who I saw being brought into the courtroom. And what looked like. Justice was about two minutes of conversation usually. And you know, when you see something like that and you hear people were standing up and their cases were being called. And at the time, it was the eighties at the time, what I realized very quickly was conduct. People were being brought into the criminal legal system was conduct going on in every community around New York City, including my own. But my community wasn't being policed. So wealthy white communities were not being policed for the same conduct that low income communities of color, particularly black communities were being policed for New York City and they couldn't have been more apparent, everything from marijuana to drug possession, to getting into a fight in the school yard. And so that really raised some, you know, just horrified me. Everything I saw it horrified me and then I had two choices. Like I'm either gonna throw myself into this headlong and see what I can do to make a difference or I'm gonna walk away. And I guess I'm just not a walkway kind of person and I just felt like I can't unsee what I saw and I can't pretend that I didn't see it. And I have this incredible tool called the law degree that gives me a certain kind of credibility and power and I may as well use it for doing something to make the criminal justice system more humane, more dignified, more respectful and more equal. And so I became a public defender and I did that for 35 years inevitably though, because I am who I am, I began to decide I could build an organization. And so I founded a bunch of different organizations, the Bronx Defenders, the Bronx Freedom Fund still she rises, which is a public defender office in Tulsa, Oklahoma that represents women in the criminal legal system specifically. And then eventually the bail project and my work as a public defender for 35 years, always inspired me to wanna see more systems change. I loved at its core, representing and fighting for individuals in the criminal justice system. That is what motivated me every day to wake up and do my job. But when you do that, you begin to see the systemic issues and you want to start to take them on as well. And so I tried to reimagine how public defense might be able to do that through a holistic defender model at the Bronx defenders. And certainly tried to do that over the past 5.5 years at the bail project, really taking on the American cash bail system. So that was a very long answer, but I'm pretty old at this point. So there was a lot,
[00:07:21] spk_0: well, and you've achieved so much, Robin, thank you so much for sharing that with us. There's so much we could delve into there, I think particularly, and I love how you describe this in your book as well, this moment of kind of confrontation with the reality of the legal system in, you know, how stark contrast that stands to how it's presented on television and elsewhere. And I think, you know, myself, even as a law student, I remember sort of having this idea about how justice would work and then having that completely undermined when you're actually in the system seeing and what I also loved is how you were able to, because I think this is a really incredible leadership quality to be able to use the experience that you had through defending individuals, uh sort of as a form of inspiration, insight data almost to be able to change the system. And I think that does take a lot of courage, you know, in the face of the enormous issues in the system.
[00:08:10] spk_2: I have always believed that policy or systemic work has to be grounded in the actual experiences of people that are being impacted by the system. And while I'm not in the system myself, and I'm not directly impacted in that way, being in close proximity to people, day in and day out who were being impacted, getting to know them and their families and their Children and their communities definitely inspired me to want to do this systemic work, but also just made me smarter about it, made me understand from my clients and from their families and their experiences. What are the issues of most impact that we need to be taking on to change? Whether you're fighting that from inside the system or you're fighting it from outside the system. There's a lot of work to be and I've always liked the idea that direct service work ought to inspire and ought to inform policy and systemic work, not the other way around. Obviously,
[00:08:55] spk_1: Robin, I can't help but imagine the grit required to persevere in the work that you do and you know, to digress quickly. Like how is that felt on a personal level for you feeling the uphill battle? I guess that you've had to fight through the years for the clients that you represent and for the system that you are essentially trying to overhaul, has that sort of taken a personal toll
[00:09:19] spk_2: on you? Well, I'm not gonna lie. So there are times I feel like I'm banging my head into a cement wall. And then of course, I just want to go back and do more. So that's probably just unique to my particular personality. But I'll tell you one thing that was really important for me and really valuable, which is yes, the work can be heartbreaking and you take that heartbreak with you and you carry that with you. And I think as a public defender particularly, I remember every loss, I remember every client who I couldn't win their case way more than I do the victories. And so I think that's just part of being connected to people and caring about what's happening to them. But one of the things I think that helped sustain me was really remembering that what's happening is not happening to me. And that if my client can endure what's being done to them in our criminal justice system, I can certainly endure standing by them and taking that journey with them and defending them day in and day out. Because at the end of the day, I was going home to freedom and I was going home to a safe community and a nice apartment and food on my table and people that loved me. And as long as I stayed grounded in that, you know, understanding you can pretty much put up with anything when you see what's happening to other people by your side, an
[00:10:28] spk_1: important perspective for sure.
[00:10:30] spk_0: Yeah, I love that you use the word grounded as well. Robin, I think that's such a core component of it really doing the hard work at times of, of remaining grounded. Now you speak in your book about the courage of compassion and I'd love to just take a moment to get granular here on how you personally define each of these terms, courage and compassion.
[00:10:50] spk_2: I think about that a lot. So courage, you know, courage is sort of the willingness to act in spite of the fact that you might be afraid or in spite of real fears and real obstacles, you're willing to act anyway. That doesn't mean you're reckless. It doesn't mean you put yourself in harm's way necessarily. But it does mean that you are willing to move through those fears and courage comes in all different shapes and sizes. You know, there can be, you know, small personal courage that you exercise every single day. It could be something as small as I'm afraid of spiders, but I'm going to do this gardening anyhow because I care about the flowers. But I know there are spiders in there and I'm gonna work my way through that fear to do this thing that matters to me. And it can be as big as, you know, running into a building that's on fire to save lives. And so when I think about courage, I like to remind people that courage can be every single day in very little ways that are very meaningful to you personally. And it can be very large and have impact that's external for other people. But at the end of the day, it is really, I think, defined by the same thing, which is the willing to act despite being afraid. I love that.
[00:11:52] spk_0: And I think that's a very helpful reminder for all of us that it's not just about the sort of big swashbuckling kind of things that we might do in our lives. You know, it really can be about those things that are invisible to the outside world, but simply happen within us that can actually sometimes take the most
[00:12:06] spk_2: courage. Absolutely. Absolutely. Right.
[00:12:09] spk_0: And as for compassion, super curious to hear your personal definition. Yeah.
[00:12:14] spk_2: So to arrive at where I did about compassion, I had to distinguish it from other emotions. I think that people think about compassion is not pity, compassion is not feeling sorry for somebody and compassion is not even showing mercy because in that there is a power relationship. So compassion is really the willingness to travel alongside somebody and to suffer along with them. That's how I think about it. It's important I think to say though that, you know, you can't experience the pain or the experience somebody else is having as close as you might get to them and as much proximity as you have. So in some ways, compassion is an act of sort of imagination but it is sort of pushing yourself to try to find yourself as close as you can to travel that journey with that person. And as much as you can to put yourself in the position of that person to understand what they're going through while recognizing that you can't really experiencing somebody else's pain or experiences generally. So that's how I distinguish compassion and I distinguish it from, you know, feeling sorry for somebody or pity or mercy. And it takes a lot of courage because it's hard. I don't think it comes naturally. I don't think we're boring, compassionate. We like to think we are, but just look around. I mean, it'd be really hard to look at the world and to think that we're just a inherently compassionate people. I think compassion is a skill and I think it's one that you can learn, but I think it's one that requires a lot of tending and a lot of care to really develop and to make sure that you are using it every day. And even I who, you know, like to think that I led as a public defender and led organizations in a compassionate way. And that I wrote this book, right? That, that talks about the courage of compassion. I fail at it all the time. I mean, I fail at it virtually every day. I find myself reminding myself, you know, what you need to actually be a little more curious about that and a little less judgmental. We need to really try to remember what that person might be going through, what their experience is, what they're experiencing in their shoes before you make a judgment about them. And so compassion is hard. I think it's worth it in the end. But it's something that we can continually remind ourselves of and learn as a
[00:14:14] spk_1: skill. And I think that's an important discernment robin that you made around things like pity and mercy because what those things allow us to do is keep people at safe mom's distance. We aren't really taking the perspective shift necessary to truly be in compassion with another human being. I think that's the important thing with compassion, isn't it? Is that we're experiencing or seeing the world through their worldview, not them through
[00:14:39] spk_2: our eyes. That's such a good point. And I think compassion in some ways opens us up to more vulnerability than what you have described as having more distance, which I do think is pity and mercy and that, which I, you know, look at those are important emotions as well. But there is a distance, right? This is the world, willingness to try to really see the connection you have with somebody else and recognize that you're connected to them and that makes you more vulnerable. It also enhances you more so it's worth the journey.
[00:15:05] spk_1: Yeah. And Robin, you've defended numerous people in your career, some who have been accused of quite shocking crimes. And you mentioned that people have often asked you through your career, how can you defend those people? And I say those people with quotation marks there, can you share what your response to this kind of question
[00:15:28] spk_2: is? So I think every party cocktail party event I went to through my career as a public defender, I got to ask that question, how can you defend and your right to put quotes around those. But when people ask the question, there's an inflection in their voice, right? Those people as if they're over there or somebody else, not part of us. And so that question gets asked to every public defender, including myself and there's a couple ways to answer it. And I actually believe in both of them. One is the easy answer, which is, well, I believe that everybody has the right to a defense lawyer. I believe that if you're charged with a crime before government can incarcerate you and take you away from your life, that they have to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. And the only role in our criminal justice system in America that breathes life into that is the defender. So without the defender, the system collapses and the presumption of innocence collapses and government can just remove you from your community and incarcerate you. So there's the system's answer which is I think a legitimate one and one that I certainly care about did that, let me get up every morning and want to go to work. No, I've never been motivated by systems answers. I've always been motivated by the people that I was working with and defending and getting to know. And so for me, I thought about my work as what I am doing is just defending somebody who's in the criminal justice system who is being defined by. Perhaps if they did it, the worst thing they've ever done. The worst moment of their life, the worst mistake they may have made. But that sort of defining somebody by their worst thing or worst moment is not a way that I would want to be judged. And it's not the way that I think we as a society ought to judge people and public defenders. Part of our work is to add context to that act, right? So whether somebody did the thing or didn't do the thing, whether they did or they didn't do it is the system's answer, right? You want to defend somebody and make sure that the evidence is there and you have the right person. But the bigger question is how can you bring to light the fact that this moment in this person's life, no matter how horrible it might have been, that there was an entire world of experience that happened, that was the path that led them to that moment. And, and I never forget this. There is always the possibility of a better future and of redemption. And so for me, my answer to that was always a long one. But it was like, look, I'm defending human beings who may have done something bad. We've all done something bad, but I refuse to define them simply by the worst thing they've ever done. And I don't want to be defined by the worst thing or most shameful thing I've ever done and most people don't. And so in talking about that I sometimes will be able to get people to say, you know, think about the worst thing you've ever done to the thing you're most ashamed of. Don't say it out loud. Now, imagine walking into a room and the way I introduce you is hi, I'd like you to meet. So and so she is a, and then the worst thing you've ever done, you immediately respond by saying, well, that's not all I am. I'm more than that. Yeah, I might have done that thing and I feel badly about it, but I'm more than that. I'm a sister and a granddaughter and a neighbor and a friend and somebody who picks up trash in the park, whatever the things are you do to make the world better. There, there a lot more to you than that. And so for me, the core of being a public defender was defending that humanity in somebody and trying to be the voice in the courtroom and in the system that reminded the system that so readily defined you by one moment that this was a full human being with a complex experience that needed to be talked about and elevated and that there was always the possibility for a better future. And so that was sort of how I used to answer the question. But frankly, the easier answer is the system.
[00:18:51] spk_0: It's such a beautiful answer. Robert, thank you so much for sharing, bring it with us. And I love that, you know, it's kind of making me come back to that definition of compassion which you shared as well. And as you were describing it, it was kind of thinking of this image of almost like compassion is in some ways having the curiosity and patience to kind of keep an empty room now bear with me with this metaphor, but it's like the door opens and we just want to rush in with judgment with shame with all kinds of definitions and labels. And in order to be compassionate, we have to be able to take a breath, hold that grounded and of hold space for that person's fuller experience in the context. All of the moments that have led up to that moment and the moments as you mentioned also that might come that might actually see positive change in their lives.
[00:19:35] spk_2: Yeah, I love that image of taking a breath because I can remember sitting in jail cells with clients and getting a piece of paper that showed the charge that was against them and sometimes it was really violent or really troubling. And as you said, that I just reminded myself, I would literally take a breath and just remind myself that this piece of paper on this charge is the beginning of my relationship and that my job is to actually develop from here. That was just the starting point with clients. And I think in this strange way, you know, I think about this all the time, why we're so judgy, why we're pointing our fingers and wagging our fingers and canceling people out of existence and labeling them and demonizing them. And it seems so easy and we do it so readily these days and we do it forever sometimes now right now, I mean, the criminal justice system is the place I think in America where we do it most literally, right? We literally cancel people out of existence. You no longer exist. We don't look at you, we don't think about you. We put you in a cage and you are gone from us, right? But we do that kind of thing every day in our lives, right outside the criminal justice system. And more and more frankly, as we have become much more technologically connected and much less personally connected. And so I think about that and I think, you know, what is it about that that makes us do that. And I think somehow being maybe it's what we talked about before that distance. It being judging creates a distance between you and the other person and maybe that distance is out of fear, but more likely that distance is out of, I would never do that. I'm not that kind of person. I'm a good person. They're a bad person. I would never do that rather than recognize that all of us have a little bit of bad and a little bit of good in us and that we're all much more complex than that. And nobody is all good and nobody is all bad. You know, I remember when I was raising my Children and I'm sure it got them into lots of arguments and playgrounds when they were kids. But, you know, they would inevitably, you know, come back to my son and he'd say like, you know, we're gonna put like, I'm the good guy and he's the bad guy. And I'd say, ok, first we have to stop. There isn't such a thing as a good guy and a bad guy. There are people that do some bad things and there are people that do good things, but we're all people and to try to get out of that paradigm where you're all one thing or you're all the other because frankly, it is a racing of humanity to define somebody and demean them by just being bad people or defining them by something that bad. But it's equally dehumanizing to put somebody on a pedestal. Right. And to look at them as if they, they also don't have complexity and there aren't parts of them that aren't the good parts. Right. And that all of us are on a spectrum and that there's nobody entirely good or entirely bad. And I try to remind myself of that too when we begin to put people on pedestals and worship them and give them no space to be human or to fail or to have flaws and that we have to be doing that on. I think on both sides,
[00:22:14] spk_1: Robin and excuse me as the novice here in the room sitting with two lawyers. How important to you as a public defender was the actual truth of a, was that something that you sought to know to do your job or what I've sort of just gathered from your explanation is it's almost irrelevant to an extent because whether someone did or didn't do what they're accused of having done your job is to give context and help them to not be defined by that moment regardless. So I just, I wanted to ask that question more personally. It fascinates me. Is that something that defense lawyers feel like they need to know or want to know? Or is that actually a hindrance to you in your
[00:22:55] spk_2: case? So it's a great question and I think it depends on the defender and sometimes it's both. But what I mean by that is when you go into a courtroom and you're fighting somebody's case or you're on trial. It's really about testing the evidence against your client. Right. So I am challenging and testing the evidence that the government has put up, right, that they are putting up to put my client in jail. And in that context, I don't care about the truth. Right. The jury is going to determine whether the case has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. It may be that somebody is guilty of something, but the evidence is, is weak or the evidence is unreliable or the evidence is, you know, riddled with racism or the evidence or whatever the evidence is, it's flawed. I can live with the idea that we should not convict anybody on anything less than objective, credible evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, even if the truth is they did the crime. Because I think that is very important for democracy and very important for America's criminal justice system as we define it in the presumption of innocence. I think the relationship between myself and my clients, which is becomes an intimate one over time, right? You really get to know each other. I think truth becomes part of that relationship. Not always, I think that that develops over time. You know, I always say to people, I try to imagine that you have met somebody five minutes ago and the lawyer sits down and public defenders, you know, clients don't choose you, you're assigned a public defender and the public defender sits across the table and says, so tell me what happened, I think to myself, why would anybody do that? I'm amazed at how many people actually trust their lawyers and tell them everything. But usually getting at the truth comes over time between your yourself in your client and they will talk more and more about what happened and what the experiences were or what did or didn't happen related to the criminal charge. I think in the end, I never expect anybody to tell me the whole truth about anything. You know, that would require an awful lot of time and an awful lot of trust to develop. But I do think that in the relationship that develops, I think truth kind of emerges over time as people get to trust you and know you and you're authentic. You know, I think that it's important to do the work, but it's certainly not important in terms of into the courtroom and doing a criminal case. If that makes sense,
[00:24:57] spk_0: I love that you highlight there, that truth is contingent on trust. So it's an interpersonal relationship like any that you build first to create a safe space for that person to feel like they can tell you perhaps incrementally more about what's happened. And I think that's a really important insight. Sometimes we just expect people to automatically find us super relatable and easy to chat to. And hey, I'm your lawyer. So, you know, this is how it works. And I've done this a million times before, but maybe the defendant hasn't, you know, maybe it's their first time and it's a really scary space potentially for them to be in. So I think that's almost relationship building that you spoke to is really
[00:25:30] spk_2: key. And then you add to that the bridge you have to develop between clients who particularly who are targeted by our criminal justice system, who tend to be disproportionately from black and brown community is disproportionately low income. And I'm walking in as a white attorney with an enormous amount of privilege and bridging that gap of trust, right? Is very important and takes time and intentionality and real effort, right? And I look more like the people sitting on the bench judging them than I do like my client, perhaps not in all cases, certainly. But um oftentimes just given who the criminal justice system tends to target and how we enforce our
[00:26:07] spk_0: laws. I'm getting way off questions here for a sec, but I do just have to ask, I'm curious, do you have when you sort of think of that process, is there anything in particular that comes to mind as a way that you would go about creating that sense of trust with someone who may potentially see you as just another
[00:26:22] spk_2: privileged white woman. It was really simple, but I always tried to find something that we had in common. And that thing could be certainly, when I had Children, when I started as a public defender, I didn't have Children. But eventually I was lucky enough to have a son and a daughter and certainly talking about my own Children and sharing a photograph of my Children or talking about my Children and getting them to talk about their Children was an immediate connection. Right. Because we're all sort of bound together. And if you didn't have Children, you could talk about somebody's family, you could talk about music that you like. I like sports teams, right? So I would talk about a sports team, you know what was happening at the time and just find something that you share so that you can see each other in each other easier. And sometimes you just do that with the little things, right? And then you can eventually get to the broader things. I
[00:27:08] spk_0: love that seeing that connection in small ways is a beautiful, beautiful concept. Now, I know in your book, you observe that sometimes the single biggest obstacle to progress is not bad policies, but the fear that drives them. And you also share some of the ways that fear can manifest. Fear of sudden change, fear of an idea, fear of failure, fear of loss of position. These are fears obviously that very much, you know, are alive in our work lives, irrespective of which industry we find ourselves in. I'm curious to hear from you Robin, what do you think leaders can do to start to perhaps unravel these fears in ourselves and also in others?
[00:27:43] spk_2: So I think the starting point is one that sounds really simple, but I'm amazed at how little we do it, which is to acknowledge it exists. You know, just to say out loud, I'm afraid, let's talk about what we're afraid of and sort of, you know, pull the teeth there and begin a conversation. So I think sometimes it's just naming that people are afraid, which is an important starting point. I think, you know, when you've done that, I think fear is often grounded in a kind of irrationality. And so if you can to bring that fear back to let's talk this through in, from with rationality, whether that's by using data or whether that's by talking to people at whatever that is. I know the criminal justice system, you know, the data never ever shows any equivalency to the fears that people have. You know, crime is going crazy and everybody's getting killed. And you actually say that the crime rate's gone down. It is driven by narratives and stories and personal experiences. It's almost never driven by what's real and what's data. So I would say name the fear, then I would say if there's a way to address the fear with objective sort of credible evidence to the contrary to move you through that fear, I think that's a really good way to go. And then I think you have to just interrogate your fear and what's it about and why is it there? And where does it come from? And how real is it? And sometimes fear is very real, right? Sometimes it protects us. It's when fear is irrational and overwhelms our ability to think clearly and it overwhelms our compassion that we get ourselves into trouble. And so I say to people, I'm not suggesting you ignore fear, but I am suggesting that you question it when you experience it and really try to ground yourself in how real it is where it comes from. Is this about you? Is this objective? Is it not objective? And to be brave about that? And I think as leaders when we come up against something that's afraid, I think we just saying it out loud is an enormous relief for people, particularly if you're working in the not for profit or social justice space, right? Where we're just supposed to march ahead and be brave all the time in the face of fierce opposition sometimes and sometimes it's OK to say I'm really afraid and here's what I'm really afraid of. Who else is afraid of this. And to get it out into the open. Thank
[00:29:39] spk_1: you for sharing that Robin and something that I've just sort of contextually learned while hearing you say that I've not thought of it in this way. But fear is a very divisive thing. When we keep it hidden. But as you've just said, the transparency of that conversation often illuminates that many of us are sharing the same fears. And just by bringing that into the open in a way begins to dissipate the fear, perhaps not entirely. But we start to recognize that the fear that I'm having is the fear that you're having or that we're having as a collective.
[00:30:08] spk_2: And that again connects us, right? And that connects us back together. And that connection is, I think what leads to compassion and leads to sort of action sometimes that's a
[00:30:18] spk_1: brilliant observation and it does seem to feel sometimes that connective piece, isn't it? That it's something else that we should. Yeah. And I imagine in some of your work as well, you mentioned earlier around connecting with clients over things you have in common like Children and things like that. Often, I imagine a lot of the clients you've defended have these fears around. Well, you know, what will happen to my Children, what will happen here, what will happen there? And that's just another bonding piece, isn't it that you can share and another way to build that compassion towards that person or with that person?
[00:30:45] spk_2: Oh, absolutely. And I think sharing one's life story, which is what public defenders ask people to do, right? Is also scary, right? You know, can I trust this person with these details of my life that, you know, one thing that I have learned in the criminal justice system that I carry with me every day, which is, and it goes to the earlier question of how can you defend quote unquote those people, right? The thing that I learned that I really know and we use this phrase a lot in our field is hurt people, hurt people. And so when you are talking to somebody who has done something that is harmful, it is very likely that the more that you unpack the world that they live in and the things that happened to them coming up in the world to get them to that moment are going to be painful, hurtful experiences as well. And so, you know, you need to really think carefully about that and how you grow that trust so that you can share those stories and see each other's humanity in that way as well. Absolutely.
[00:31:35] spk_1: And I can't help again. But thinking that we underestimate the value of trust and how sacred that is from another human being. And to that analogy, hurt people, hurt people. If you as a public defender or myself as a friend or as a leader was to then build that trust with someone and destroy it. I couldn't imagine sort of the damage that that can potentially do as well. And I think often as leaders in organizations, we don't place enough value on the reservoir of trust that we build and how important that is to have in our relationships and important that that thing is to protect as
[00:32:11] spk_2: well. Yeah. And I think a critical component to that trust when I'm thinking about this as a leader of organizations, some of the feedback I've gotten over the time and I get negative feedback and positive feedback from people that I've worked with in organizations. And I think one of the things that's really important is a certain kind of authenticity and the expectation that you're going to lead with authenticity, which helps people not be so afraid. You know, if people feel like they can trust the words you're saying and trust the things you're saying and that you say what you mean and mean what you say it does in a strange way, open up a space, right? I know what you expect. She's good for her word. I can entrust this story with her or this problem I'm having at work or this situation in my office and I can trust that she's going to lead with a certain kind of authenticity and care for my story or what I'm disclosing. And so I think trust is also really, really important to build in those spaces in every way that you can. Yeah, I
[00:33:04] spk_1: couldn't agree more. And Robin, so something that you've already touched on a little bit, we've spoken a bit about this notion of judgment already. And I think it's really important to note that human beings, our brains judge naturally, it's something we're designed to do. It's something a mechanism in our brain that keeps us safe. But you've mentioned that this judgment is really challenging for you and doesn't necessarily serve you your job. So I'd love to know in your experience, how do you or how can we shift from this blame and judging mindset to one where we are able to approach these relationships with curiosity and compassion.
[00:33:38] spk_2: So, you know, I think about this because I know that we are wired for fight or flight, maybe much the way that you think we're wired for judgment. And I think that comes from a really important evolutionary place, but it's an evolutionary place, right? And one of the things about being human beings that are capable of thought, right is that we can actually move beyond where we might be wired to really think about, you know, does that wiring hinder me or help me in this moment? And does that wiring hinder or help us as a society in this moment? And can we move beyond it even if it is instinctively what we want to do? So when I think about the thing we can do to get away from being judging, I think it is to remind ourselves that we wouldn't want to be judged in that same way. So again, it's the same thing about I don't want to be defined by something that I done wholly. I mean, that doesn't mean I shouldn't be held accountable for things that I have done that have caused harm or that people shouldn't be held accountable. Of course, I believe in accountability. Accountability by the way, doesn't have to look like destruction. It doesn't have to look like cancellation. It doesn't have to look like all the ways that we do that to people. But accountability is important, you know, to think about. But the judgment piece of it just is about what I want to be judged this way is an important thing to I think, ask yourself when you're finding yourself doing that. And I think the most valuable tool we have to moving through as you've pointed out, what might be an instinctive judgment is to replace it with curiosity. You know, when we're Children, we're curious about everything, right? So you come into the world and we're an open book, we're curious about the whole world. Every little thing is, you know, if you watch little Children, I think it's amazing to see the world through their eyes. You know, every little blade of grass is a mystery to them and that we lose that over time. We become duller over time and we lose that curiosity and we think we know more. We do know more but lose that sense of curiosity I think is what gets us into trouble because the only way you're going to get through judgment is to really think about being curious about the other person rather than judging them, being really curious about how they got there and reminding yourself that you would not want to be subjected to the kind of judgment that you might be, you know, putting on somebody else. And I'm always amazed at running an organization in this day and age is challenging. I know that everybody from my generation says that because you're dealing with generational shifts in people's expectations for work, people's expectations for their lives. And I sometimes find myself falling down on the job and, you know, just getting annoyed at somebody and just like, why do they keep doing that? It's so annoying and so frustrating and it's not forwarding the mission of this organization. And I can get very, you know, judgy in the moment until I, again, like we talked about before I take a breath and I try to step back and I try to say, you know, what, why don't you have a conversation and find out what is going on here that makes this person keep asking the same thing over and over again, even though I thought we moved on. Right. Or we've already decided we weren't doing that or I don't understand why they're so unhappy, but to be really curious about what's going on with them and then engage in those conversations is the only thing that for me is the antidote to judgment. I don't think there is a better antidote than curiosity could not
[00:36:41] spk_0: agree more when you put it so beautifully there, the antidote to judgment, being curiosity. And I kept thinking also of the word that you mentioned earlier, which is feeling grounded. And I think there is a level of, you know, to be able to not just go straight into fight flight freeze or have that sort of judgy response. Does it helps when we have a sense of grounded of stability where we can take a breath and hold that space for curiosity? So I think that's perhaps also a component of it as well and doing what it takes to stay grounded, whether that's self care or whether that's connecting with others and really working on that as a component as well. Absolutely. Now, you mentioned in your book that leadership requires hearing everyone but also knowing what is up for negotiation and what is not and being honest about this with your team. We've already talked a little bit about your leadership style within the various organizations that you've started and run. I was wondering if you could share with us a situation when you were challenged to lead in this way, hearing everyone knowing what was up for negotiation and being, having to be honest with your
[00:37:38] spk_2: team. So I think, you know, one of the things I've been incredibly lucky to have experienced is I work with brilliant passionate advocates, right? Whether it was at the Bronx defenders or still she rises or whether it's now at the bail project and people believe so strongly in the work that we're doing and the mission that we're trying to forward, right, which is to ensure that there's more freedom and that people aren't held in jail just because they can't afford their cash bail, particularly in this context. And so one of the, I remember one of the situations where, you know, the organization started five years ago, we were building it. We had a very clear mission. The mission was very clear, it was to provide bail assistance to low income Americans who don't have money to pay cash bail and then to also work on the systems change, right? To try to elevate the human stories of the suffering that people have in jail and then to use that and the data that shows you don't need money to make people come back to court, they'll come back anyway, you know, to use that to sort of change systems and change policies. But at some point in the organizational history, as we began to work with more and more clients, you know, there were a lot of people in the organization and started saying, look, we're going to bail people out and they need all these social services and supportive services and we should be providing them. And people felt incredibly strongly, some people on the team really like wanted us to embed in every team's social work workers and psychologists and people that could actually provide the kind of social services and support that everybody should be entitled to. But far too few people who are in low income communities can get access to. But I knew that the organizational mission, right was that we were gonna do bailouts, do policy work and we would navigate, become the navigators, meaning our teams on the ground could work with a client to help connect them to social services or supportive services they might need. But we weren't going to do that work ourselves internally. And you know, people that care about the people that were bailing out and really get connected to them, felt very, very strongly that we should be doing the services ourselves. And I had to hold the line. I had to listen to people. It was painful and complicated and I recognized how painful and disappointing it was for some people to basically say, like, look, that's not the mission of our organization. Our organization is really focused in this very particular way on eliminating cash bail in America and providing, you know, transportation and providing court reminders and connecting people to services that already exist in the community. But we are not the social service providers ourselves. And that just required really hearing people out. But also knowing what our North Star was and recognizing that we have limited resources and that we can only do so much and that we had a particular mission and you didn't want to a have mission creep and frankly, we didn't have the resources to do it even if we did. And to really just be honest about that and straightforward about that and recognize, you know, the value and what they were advocating for. Of course, right. Some of our clients are living in communities that don't have resources for social services or supportive services. Right. And so it looks like we're the only people that might be able to do it and that that's painful to have to walk away and say we can't. But it was important, I think as a leader to be very clear on the organizational mission, right? And why we had the North Star we did and what the long term goal was and to not allow ourselves to, even though we felt passionately and emotionally about it to allow ourselves to be swayed in that direction I contemplated. It's not that I didn't listen to it, not that I didn't think about it. I did. But at the end of the day, I had to sort of hold the mission line of the bail project. And I know that made some people disappointed and, and happy and sad. I think over time, people understood why we made that decision and why it was important to do. But it's important that leaders are willing to, I think, hear everybody out, but also just know where your lines are in the sand and be able to explain why the lines in the sand are what they are. I don't think it's expected to just draw a line and say that's my line and you can't cross it. You have to have an explanation for why that's an important organizational line to have. And I think people respect that in the end. And again, I think, you know, honesty and authenticity have a lot to do with that. You know, how people respond even when they're disappointed and you don't take their idea and go with
[00:41:30] spk_1: it. And I'm glad you mentioned that word disappointed there, Robin, because I think many leaders will want to appease people because they don't want to be viewed unfavorably by their team. And I think I appreciate you taking us there because what you've just described for us is important in two really important ways. And firstly, obviously, there's the strategic business view of why that's important. And especially in a space where I imagine resources are probably quite finite in terms of funding and things like that to dilute your offering would mean, you know, doing people probably potentially a disservice in the long run when there is resources are spread really thin. But that mention of as a leader, being able to hold the space in yourself for the discomfort of disappointing people and having to have a hard conversation. But knowing that discussing that transparently and giving that explanation is still the right way to move forward and I think that that that does take wisdom and emotional maturity over time to actually be able to do that. So thank you for sharing that with us. I think that's a beautiful example of how to negotiate those challenging conversations. And Robin, we are coming to a close of our conversation. I know Sally and I could be here for a very long time discussing everything with you through your career and your experiences, especially. So she's nodding as a lawyer. But to help us wrap our conversation, what is one thing that every leader or every human being listening right now can do to bring more compassion to their leadership? I
[00:42:58] spk_2: think again, it gets back to reminding yourself that you have a lot to gain, you know, by being compassionate, right? So if you bring to your work, a genuine curiosity about people that you work with. If you bring to your work, a willingness and an openness to open your heart and your mind to other people. If you bring to your work, the understanding that in leadership, you are the steward of a lot of resources and a lot of different opinions and that you have to move forward with care and respect and dignity. But at the end of the day, leadership is not always going to be popular. And if I people, if you want to run an organization and you can't stand somebody not liking, you do not run an organization like, it's just not possible and that will be your Achilles heel. If you know, you just have to be willing to, people should respect you and people should see you for the work that you do as adding value. But everybody is not gonna like every decision. I love to think that leaders recognize also that, you know, it's a little bit off the question. But I think about this a lot these days, I think young people come into work now and they see the world around us and they're discouraged and they don't have a lot of hope and the climate is going to burn the planet and food is going to be scary. I mean, there's just a whole host of terrible outcomes out there that I think they think about and worry about. And I think sometimes they come into an organization and they want the organization to be the utopia that they want to live in, in the world. And you can't create that either that, you know, it's still a workplace with a mission and the mission of the organization has to take priority. And so you do what you can to care for and nurture your staff and develop them and have them feel like they're working in a safe place. But to also recognize that this work is way bigger than us as individuals and humans. And particularly if you're working in the not for profit or social justice, racial justice space. There's a much bigger mission here and everybody needs to get aligned. So bring love and open heartedness and humor and compassion and curiosity and try to remind yourself that when you're getting judgy, there's something going on that you didn't pay attention to and to also just remind ourselves a little bit less about leadership, but maybe it's about leadership, which is that if you're working on a problem that you're going to solve in your lifetime, you're probably not thinking big enough anyway. And so the best you're going to do is move the needle forward in the way that you need to move the needle forward. But it is the height of arrogance to think that one solution is going to solve a big social problem. It's going to take lots of strategies and solutions and lots of time and lots of generations and work went on before us and work will go on after us. And all you can do is the, you can do right now and do it with your full heart and passion and love. And when you do that, I think we've moved the needle forward and made the world a little bit better.
[00:45:31] spk_0: Reven. You've given me goosebumps. That's such an incredible vision, I think for the work that you're doing that so many people around us are doing. I'm so glad that you stunned your friends and studied law and that you've taken this path, deeply inspiring to speak with you. Thank you so much for being with us today on. We are human leaders.
[00:45:49] spk_2: Thank you so much. I really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you to both of you. Appreciate it.
[00:46:00] spk_0: Thanks for joining us for the We are Human Leaders podcast as a former lawyer and a firm believer in the power of compassion and courage. I loved Alexis's question around the grit Robin has showed to continue to fight for justice in the face of what for many of us would feel like overwhelming challenge. We were both deeply inspired by her wisdom and her powerful, inspiring message to set big courageous goals and to work towards them together. Feel welcome to join us and continue the conversation at www dot We are human leaders dot com. Thanks for being here. See you next time.