{"id":7945,"date":"2009-11-11T14:12:52","date_gmt":"2009-11-11T19:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=7945"},"modified":"2009-11-11T14:18:03","modified_gmt":"2009-11-11T19:18:03","slug":"wanted-lawyers-who-speak-spanish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2009\/11\/wanted-lawyers-who-speak-spanish\/","title":{"rendered":"Wanted: Lawyers Who Speak Spanish"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writing in 2004, Anne Marie Slaughter, the current Director of Policy Planning for the United States Department of State and former Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University recognized, \u201cThe consensus among lawyers, CEOs, NGO activists, and others is that the people whom they would most like to hire are those who understand how to navigate between cultures.\u00a0 In a dream world, such competence would include knowledge of at least one foreign language.\u201d<\/p>\n

Slaughter\u2019s wishful thinking now appears to be reality. A recent Wisconsin Law Journal<\/em> article<\/a> reports that bilingual attorneys are carving out a \u201cgrowing niche\u201d in legal practice in the state.\u00a0 The WLJ<\/em> reports, \u201cAs the minority populations in the state continue to grow, so too has the opportunity for bilingual attorneys to expand their client base.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Now it seems, new lawyers will not only wish to market their law school academic achievements, but also their command of a language other than English.<\/p>\n

In particular, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Hispanic population in Wisconsin has increased by 48.2 percent\u00a0since 2000, numbering close to 300,000 members of our community.\u00a0 In Milwaukee alone, the Hispanic population represents\u00a0twelve percent\u00a0of the population<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0This trend reflects the national population growth of Hispanics, estimated as of July 2008, to be 46.9 million people.\u00a0 People of Hispanic origin now makes up\u00a0fifteen percent\u00a0of the national population, and constitute the largest minority group in the United States<\/a>.\u00a0 Not surprisingly, these changing demographics directly impact the legal community both locally and nationally.<\/p>\n

Notably, the Hispanic legal community already enjoys solid roots in Wisconsin.\u00a0 In fact, the Wisconsin Hispanic Lawyers Association celebrated its\u00a0twenty-fifth anniversary <\/a>last year, and has helped tackle issues to make the courts more accessible to the Spanish speaking community, such as institutionalizing the practice of providing court interpreters and publishing a directory of Spanish-speaking lawyers for the courts to help people find legal assistance.<\/p>\n

Wisconsin lawyers like Gerardo H. Gonzalez, recognized as a one of the 2009 Leaders in Law<\/a>, can take credit for being pioneers in forging this legal niche. When Gonzalez began his solo practice in 1989, he recognized that the Hispanic community was under-represented.\u00a0 As a bilingual attorney, he was able to make this constituency an important part of his practice \u2014 including his pro bono service to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce-Wisconsin<\/a>, which just celebrated its\u00a0twentieth anniversary.\u00a0 Eventually, Gonzalez went on to establish the law firm Gonzalez Saggio & Harlan LLP<\/a>, one of the largest minority-owned law firms in the country, with thirteen offices nationwide.<\/p>\n

Lawyers like Gonzalez recognized early on an indisputable fact: In addition to the need of serving local Spanish speaking populations, the globalizing economy puts a new premium on language skills, especially with transnational transactions becoming more common. Bilingual lawyers no longer represent a luxury, but rather a necessity for law firms.\u00a0 Consider for example that there are approximately 500 million Spanish speakers around the world, and Spanish is the official language of twenty-one countries and is the third most widely spoken language in the world <\/a>(after English and Mandarin).\u00a0 With international trade, the need for understanding foreign legal systems, cultures, and languages is now an imperative<\/a>. Yet, the historical tendency of the United States to be monolingual <\/a>(as most evidenced by the lack of foreign-language training in elementary and secondary schools) puts us at a disadvantage with our polyglot competitors from other nations.<\/p>\n

Responding to this new market trend, a handful of law schools across the country have begun to offer law classes in a foreign language.\u00a0 A quick survey reveals that Columbia Law School, Michigan Law School, Boalt Hall at the University of California-Berkeley, Georgetown University Law School, and the University of Miami School of Law are among the few who are \u201cjumping into the vanguard\u201d<\/a> of offering law classes in Spanish.\u00a0 Yet, these schools are in the minority, and these types of classes are still the cutting edge.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For that reason, it is exciting news that Marquette Law School is joining the ranks of these innovative law schools by offering for the first time the course \u201cComparative Criminal Law and Procedure\u2014In Spanish.\u201d\u00a0 This open-enrollment course comes at the initiative of our own students, who approached Dean Joseph Kearney with the idea for such a class.\u00a0\u00a0 After several months of research, a small ad hoc committee of MULS faculty presented a proposed course that was approved by our Curriculum Committee last month.<\/p>\n

The class will be taught by Alejandro (Alex) Lockwood, who has served as a public defender in the Office of the Wisconsin State Public Defender in the Milwaukee Trial Office since 1991, when he graduated from University of Minnesota Law School.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Professor Lockwood was born and grew up in Caracas, Venezuela. \u00a0He came to the United States after high school to learn English, and lived with a host family that spoke no Spanish.\u00a0 With patience and diligence, he was able to gain command of English and eventually enroll in the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he graduated with honors in 1987, and then went on to earn his J.D.\u00a0\u00a0 According to Professor Lockwood, \u201cDuring my second year in law school, I discovered my vocation. I had my first experience defending indigent persons when I was accepted in the law school’s Misdemeanor Clinic working in conjunction with the Hennepin County Public Defender in Minneapolis. My first client was a Marielito Cuban — who did not speak English — charged with domestic violence. I also participated in the Prosecution Clinic with the City of St. Paul City Attorney Criminal Division, where my ability to interact with Spanish-speaking victims was also immensely helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Professor Lockwood is currently an attorney supervisor and represents indigent persons accused of felony offenses.\u00a0 During his early years of working for the Public Defender, he was assigned mostly cases involving individuals charged with misdemeanor offenses. \u00a0As he gained more experience, he began to accept the challenge of representing those accused of very serious crimes.\u00a0 Notably, many of his clients are Spanish-speaking.\u00a0 As Professor Lockwood observes, \u201cI make every possible effort to humanize them in their ordeal. I feel that my ability to speak in Spanish with my clients strengthens our bond and my commitment to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Learned societies have already called upon Lockwood to share his knowledge of criminal law, including the Public Defender\u2019s Conference where he has shared his experience challenging the admissibility of confessions illegally extracted by the Milwaukee Police in a first-degree intentional homicide case, as well as talked about the immigration consequences of criminal convictions. \u00a0\u00a0Although he will be a new member of MULS adjunct faculty, Professor Lockwood has already enjoyed many years working with MULS students as interns, an experience that made him discover that \u201cteaching is one of the most fulfilling aspects of my career.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Professor Lockwood has shown great enthusiasm for MULS\u2019s initiative to offer a course in Spanish, finding it a smart response to the demographic changes in our country and a way to celebrate our diversity.\u00a0 Also important is that our students will gain not only language skills but also a comparative look at Latin American legal systems, which are currently undergoing significant legal reforms.\u00a0 As Professor Lockwood comments, \u201cA comparative analysis will allow the students to explore not only the changes taking place, but will also help them understand the fascinating cultural context that makes our jurisprudence different from Latin America’s.\u00a0 Regardless of the type of law practiced, understanding cultural differences enables you to relate on a personal level with clients and peers who have only experienced law through a Latin American perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marquette Law School is thus\u00a0helping to make Slaughter\u2019s “dream world” come true.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Writing in 2004, Anne Marie Slaughter, the current Director of Policy Planning for the United States Department of State and former Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University recognized, \u201cThe consensus among lawyers, CEOs, NGO activists, and others is that the people whom they would most like to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-education","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7945\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}