Uplifting Barrier Breakers 

Uplifting Barrier Breakers 

By Nora Grais-Clements
Senior Attorney, Victim Rights Law Center

At the end of 2023, I was asked to do a podcast with Break Into Law School, a project of Break Into Law. Barrier Breakers®, Inc. is a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing access to and success in higher education for BIPOC and other marginalized students. They provide financial assistance, educational resources, and consulting for higher education applicants. 

I was energized by the chance to share on this important platform about trauma-informed lawyering, and Victim Rights Law Center’s internship program, and I enjoyed speaking with LoVetta Jenkins on the podcast about the work that we do at VRLC. Any opportunity to acknowledge the gaping hole in legal education around trauma-informed lawyering, and to speak openly about vicarious trauma and how to make public interest work sustainable, is one that I will readily take on.   

To the extent that representing VRLC on this platform might serve to recruit students of color to our internship program and as employees post-graduation, to change the rates of disproportionality of representation of attorneys of color in the nonprofit world, or to encourage students to set their own boundaries and capacity limitations working at other organizations, those are good outcomes. But throughout the conversation, I found myself wondering about whether my voice was the right one for this conversation. I wrestled internally, both during and after the podcast, with my role as a white woman on a platform intended to elevate and promote first generation, BIPOC, and other marginalized students. I recognize the power of using my privilege to promote excellence and opportunity for students living at the intersection of marginalizations. And this is a moment when I am learning to recognize that two things can be true at the same time – that it is important for me to sit with my own discomfort in my ongoing learning about what it means to me to be anti-racist, including those moments like this one, where I wish I had brought up my concerns at the outset; and that I still need try to be useful and strive for those positive outcomes, acknowledging that in the process I will make mistakes. 

This is important work. And it is work we can only do successfully and sustainably when we work together and elevate one other. I remain committed to inviting and centering the voices attorneys of color into these conversations and learning from partners like National Sisters of Color Ending Sexual Assault (SCESA), a nationally recognized nonprofit organization that supports and enhances the capacity of organizations led by and for communities of color; and the Women of Color Network (WOCN), a national grassroots initiative dedicated to building the capacity of women of color advocates and activists responding to violence against women in communities of color.  

I thank Breaking Barriers for trusting me to join this conversation. I enjoyed the dialogue with LoVetta around setting healthy boundaries and honoring our own capacity limitations. While I look to my BIPOC colleagues as experts of their own lived experience, I also recognize my role in doing the work and creating and holding space when gifted with opportunities like this one; I hope that my voice on this platform did not cause harm. I will continue to bring on, uplift, and support BIPOC and/or other marginalized law students as part of VRLC’s ongoing DEI efforts. And I hope my efforts to create a diverse pipeline of attorneys for the anti-sexual violence movement will encourage staff at other predominantly white non-profits to seek opportunities to do the same.  

Nora Grais-Clements (she/her) is a Senior Attorney on Victim Rights Law Center’s direct services team. She primarily represents victims of sexual assault and rape in Western MA. Nora joined VRLC in 2018, and is a founding member of VRLC’s Committee on Racial Equity. She oversees VRLC’s Massachusetts Legal Internship program, with a focus on building skills and strategies to make trauma-informed public interest work sustainable for the next generation of attorneys.