These Clients We Defend

Woman of the Law is the subject of this week's Monday Musings at Public Defender Stuff. It's a great read, all-around, but one part of her comments really got me. She was having a discussion with a law professor who did capital defense work, and the issue of why she thought she might want to be a prosecutor came up. She told the professor about the abused kids she had worked with as a social worker, and how frustrated she would get with how the system dealt with them, and the professor responded, "These clients that we defend - they were your kids once. And this is where they ended up. This is what the system did for them."

Wow. So very true. So many of the kids I work with are being abused, and the system fails to protect them at every turn. And I often find myself hoping and praying that they don't end up where this professor's clients have.