Lily was focused on social justice work while in law school. She interned at Legal Services for Children (where she is now a board member) and at the National Center for Youth Law where she later became an Equal Justice Works Fellow. Lily was also a Bergstrom Fellow at the University of Michigan.
Lily draws on her background to empower others with lived experience to help them advocate for themselves and to make needed changes. This past year Lily founded the National Network for Foster Sibling Connections, where she’s grown a network of over 150 volunteers from across the country to advocate for protecting the rights of siblings. She’s bringing lived experience experts, lawyers, judges, social workers, family members and advocates to the table to overcome hurdles to implementing basic human connection rights, share best practices for keeping siblings connections, and improve policies where needed.
Lily has worked on state and federal laws impacting youth in foster care. She also helped found organizations including With Lived Experience, a consulting project to empower systems change, and Elis for Rachael, a nonprofit that fights for mental health justice.
What inspires Lily every day is the people she works with. She loves working with people who want to make a difference and who are authentically connected to the purpose of helping children and families. She is inspired by that community culture that supports each other – not just to get results but to be authentic, caring community members. She believes that when people are relating at a heart-to-heart level, being honest and acting with integrity, then the work just flows and even the bad days are opportunities to remind ourselves that we get to be human and we can be flexible.
Lily’s advice to young lawyers is that anyone working in child welfare is going to be impacted by the real trauma that children and families face. She advises that professionals need to understand early in their career that being open and vulnerable and connecting to others isn’t weak or unprofessional but instead is a strength.
Lily believes being a successful advocate does not mean that you don’t have fear, it’s that you have courage to face challenges. It also means that you get to acknowledge your fears and frustrations and have compassion for yourself, your colleagues, and your clients so that you can be a zealous advocate.
Her theory of change from the individual client level to the full system level is to center the decision-making process and the system as a whole on empowering those most impacted.
She believes the most successful advocates have to be both empathetic and focused. It is only by truly hearing their clients that they can they fill the gap that’s most needed. Being a lawyer is a privilege that is also a professional responsibility. Lawyers have power in this country and Lily believes they can use their tools for good.
That is exactly what Lily does and why she is this month’s fearless children’s lawyer!