Jessica Schneider is an amazing person. She was born in Germany, but she has spent most of her life in Chicago. Most of her family is considered European. She works hard and happily, on a nonprofit for lawyers, as a staff attorney in educational and housing projects. In her free time she likes to watch television and hang out with her friends. She loves the work she does, since it has helped a lot of people.
Jessica works at The Chicago Lawyer Community, which is a nonprofit organization for lawyers. She has been working there for about 2 years. She started as a Civil Rights fellow. She would give advice about the peoples rights on expulsion and housing, but then she became a staff attorney. Her job consists now on educating people about their rights on housing discrimination and expulsion. This is done by reviewing the clients cases, and providing them an attorney that will help them with their case. She explains to the client, what they may be able to do, or have, by right and what they can't. Like for example, if a student is going through some sort of school discipline, like expulsion. There's normally a hearing where you can be represented by someone, so if the student doesn't have someone that represent him/her at the hearing then she and others review the case, so that she can provide the student someone to represent him/her at the hearing. But even though she does this, she also has volunteered in workshops to helps them fill out the application for DACA (Deferred Action For Childhood Arrival). But there’s had been always lows and highs in Jessica’s working life.
Some of the difficulties that Jessica had in her work have been the limitations of the law. “It’s hard to be a lawyer sometimes because you want to fix everything, but you are limited by what the law says.” Also, what is difficult for Jessica is that, “People tend to assume things that maybe or may not be true about certain things just because they saw it on TV and it’s hard sometimes to make them understand the reality.” But either way, there’s been some good cases about discrimination that Jessica has won. Also there have been cases where she and others had found ways to solve the case without going to court since it could be really expensive and sometimes people don't have that money to afford it. But all these accomplishments have been done by all the inspiration she has from the community and the people around her.
Her biggest inspiration had been her parents. Since they have been spending their lives with their work as lawyers and trying to help people in many ways. That’s been really inspiring because she said that “To be able to be like the, and do do that type of work had been important to me.” But not only that. She had found also inspiration in the people she works with. They have accomplished so many things and resolve so many cases, that she would like to follow in their steps. Also this is another form of inspiration to her. “It’s nice when someone thanks you for something. You feel like you helped somebody. But when I feel really tired, and I don't want to go to work, I think about those people.” Thats why she does, what she does. To help others, and give them a better way of living by following in the steps of her heroes and the characteristics that makes them a hero.
Even though she should be considered a hero by the community, she also considers other people as her heroes like her parents. They have been her role models, and heroes since she was little. They have worked hard to help others no matter what. For her, seeing her parents doing that, and dedicating their time to help those in need had guided her to be the person she is now. Because for her, heroes are people that do extraordinary things for others and are people that dedicate their life to help others in need. “Somebody who inspires you... somebody who you look up to. Something that an ordinary person wouldn't do. So that will make a person a hero,” she said.
That’s why Jessica is a hero in the community because she has expended most of her life helping others by the works she does. And she does this, day by day without complaining. She just loves to do it and that's really inspiring to see someone come in into a class and talk like that about her work with a lot of passion and happiness. That’s just really amazing. There's no words to describe that.
Being a lawyer may be really cool. Having the tools and skills that you need. In order to accomplish your goals and help others in any way you can. Help them to know their rights and fight for them, no matter what is the situation, maybe hard, but a really great experience.
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