This week is the National Pro Bono Celebration. Each day this week, Texas Bar Blog will feature Texas attorneys who provide pro bono services in their communities. The service of these attorneys, and the hundreds of pro bono attorneys like them in Texas, ensures access to justice for many of the most vulnerable Texans. For a list of Pro Bono Celebration events in your area, click here.
At the Cabrini Center for Immigrant Legal Assistance in Houston, Naomi Bang provides pro bono legal services to some of the most vulnerable clients – unaccompanied immigrant children. These unaccompanied children are victims of abuse, neglect, and abandonment, and without an attorney like Ms. Bang, these children would have to navigate the complicated immigration system alone.
“I believe that every lawyer has a duty to give back to the community with our training and tools,” Ms. Bang says. “For me, I choose to defend the ‘least of these’ – unaccompanied minors, young victims of trafficking, domestic abuse, and gang violence. These children have suffered more than anyone of us will in a lifetime.”
In addition to her pro bono service, Ms. Bang is an adjunct professor at South Texas College of Law and a senior attorney at the FosterQuan law firm. At the Immigration Clinic, she supervises law students taking juvenile immigrant cases in family and immigration court. “These cases are not only rewarding, they are excellent opportunities to use and improve practical litigation skills and become great advocates for the people in our community who need us,” Ms. Bang says. “I am very proud of FosterQuan and South Texas College of Law for their dedication to and support of this worthy cause.”
The enormous impact of Ms. Bang’s pro bono service is perhaps best summarized by one of her child clients who said, “She gave me hope to live a better life in this country. She believed in me.”