Rhea Yo

Rhea Yo believes attorneys for young people must exemplify fearless humility in a traditionally pretentious profession. “No amount of education and experience makes me an expert in the lives of my clients.”

Rhea is the legal supervisor of Legal Counsel for Youth and Children’s Youth Homelessness Program in King County, Washington, and has been representing young people in child welfare, family law, education, and other civil legal aid systems for over 13 years in Michigan, Washington, D.C., California, and now Washington state.

As a first-generation immigrant from South Korea, neither Rhea’s mother nor her father had an opportunity to finish high school. They wanted their daughter to have a chance at an education in the United States. “For my family, cultural, economic, and political power were not accessible at birth,” Rhea explains. “My parents made every sacrifice to give me the opportunities they did not have.” For Rhea, it was important that she use her own privilege of access to education as a tool to empower those without the same opportunities that her parents worked so hard to give her.

“During college, I volunteered at a domestic violence shelter and the local women’s prison.” And it was while she was volunteering that she learned firsthand how systemic oppression can take peoples’ lives, through time lost behind bars and through death. Rhea believed by becoming a lawyer, she could have the greatest impact in helping others.

However, during law school Rhea felt discouraged by how the system seemed self-serving and became disillusioned. She describes how it felt,

I considered quitting in my third year because I could not muster the motivation to study hard just to get good grades, only to get a good job, so I could then earn money in order to pay off my law school loans–all to obtain societal status. I was infinitely more passionate about teaching Feminist Theory as a graduate student instructor at the Women’s Studies Department than I was about law school courses.

Eventually, she found her “legal calling” at the Child Advocacy Law Clinic (CALC) at the University of Michigan Law School, where she developed a passion for children’s rights. “CALC was the only thing that kept me going throughout law school.” For Rhea, CALC gave her a means to help those victimized by a legal system that was not built to adequately protect them. According to her, “Children—like women of color, LGBTQ people, and immigrants—are disenfranchised and systemically oppressed.”

And Rhea has turned her passion for advocating for children’s rights into her career. In her experience, it takes a special kind of lawyer to be effective in children’s rights, requiring multidisciplinary skills that traditional lawyers do not always have because legal systems do not always recognize the unique needs of young people. According to Rhea, it takes understanding the needs of the whole person and partnering with their families, schools, and other professionals to meet those needs.

Rhea also understands that, for her clients, admitting abuse within a family, uncertain immigration status, or disability opens their families up to incredible vulnerability. For this reason, Rhea recognizes that it is critical to gain their trust. She explains, “As a first-generation immigrant I understand the fear that accompanies asking an outsider for help or demanding justice from within a foreign system.”

Because young people are experts in their own lives, Rhea firmly believes that it is the child attorney’s ethical obligation to represent a young person’s self-determined interests. And that is what she tries to do each day as a fearless lawyer for children.

As Rhea puts it, in any legal system adults such as lawmakers, judges, caregivers, attorneys, educators, and behavioral health providers make decisions on behalf of children, presumably based in their best interest.

For her, the attorney representing a young person is best-positioned and morally obliged to zealously advocate for what that young person wants while protecting their legal rights, because as she puts it, “children and young people are whole human beings and have the right to self-determination.”

For this reason, even winning challenging cases can leave Rhea feeling deeply conflicted and unclear on whether the outcome is ultimately in the best interest of her child clients. She freely admits she has made mistakes assuming she knew better about what was best for her clients.

As Rhea describes it, “Even for clients who have achieved the outcome they desired—an emancipation decree, name and gender marker changes, a protection order, preventing an eviction, or access to education—I have come to realize that it is merely one piece of the puzzle.” In her experience, Rhea’s clients regularly come with multiple crises and layers of trauma built in. A legal resolution may provide them with temporary relief, but it is just one barrier that has been lifted for them. And no legal or other professional intervention can substitute the love and support of a client’s chosen family and community.

Still, the moments in which her clients experience relief, joy, or power because they had her as their advocate are deeply rewarding for Rhea. Giving them a moment of justice in an unjust world is what keeps her going. 

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