wfn.org | Attorney tells students about 'road less traveled'

["NewsDesk" <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

June 4, 2003 News media contact: Kathy Gilbert7(615)742-54707Nashville, Tenn.
  10-31-71BP{310}

NOTE: This report be used as a sidebar to UMNS story #309. A photograph is
available.

By Pamela Crosby*

READING, Pa. (UMNS) - Mayuris Pimental is an attorney on a "road less
traveled," particularly for someone in her field.

Instead of making the big bucks at a high-powered law firm, she is working
with the Eirene Immigration Center in Camden, one of the poorest cities in
New Jersey. The center is a partnership between the Justice for Neighbors
project of the United Methodist Committee on Relief and the Greater New
Jersey Annual Conference. 

Pimental shared her experiences with students attending an ethnic diversity
luncheon at the Student Forum. The United Methodist Student Movement held the
annual forum May 22-25 at Albright College.

As a Christian, Pimental said she feels it is important to show her clients
that "God has more in store for them than what they see and that what God has
for them is more than their current circumstances." She explained that when
clients talk to her, it might be the first time someone has listened to their
story.

"As soon as you become a Christian, you become a minister," she told the
group. Her lifelong ambition to be an attorney came from her desire to help
people, she said. Her work focuses on justice issues and involves helping
immigrants learn how to adjust to another country and culture. 

Her choice has meant showing constant love, no matter what the circumstances,
she said. In addition to dealing with clients and colleagues who make
judgments about her youth, ethnicity and gender, she deals with the stigma
that people who do pro bono work or work in nonprofit organizations aren't
"real lawyers."

"This traditional idea of who is an attorney and who is not, what's real work
and what's not, is very much alive," she explained. "In those instances, you
show constant love and do your best to represent people."

In the question-and-answer session after Pimental's speech, a student said
she'd like to be a lawyer, but didn't want to graduate $90,000 in debt. She
wondered if Pimental worked a regular job and served at the immigration
center as a church volunteer. 

Pimental explained that working with the church project was her full-time job
and that she has several school loans she's still working to pay off. It's a
balancing act, she said. She chooses to live with her parents, so she pays no
rent, and she drives a modest car. Her family bears some of the cost of her
being in the legal services ministry.

Many lucrative jobs for lawyers require working 80 to 90 hours a week, which
leaves little time for family, she said. "Their quality of life is not as
good as those who work fewer hours. A lot of the legal jobs where you can
have a normal schedule aren't the lucrative jobs. I'm going to keep dragging
those student loans along with me wherever I go.

"Part of taking the road less traveled means doing what's not expected and
also doing the things that aren't out in front," she continued. "The Sunday
school teachers, the ushers, the greeters who make people feel welcome -
those people are in ministry and are also important. Those are roles where
you can do ministry and glorify God, and sometimes that's the less-traveled
road."
# # #
*Crosby is assistant editor and writer for the Office of Interpretation at
the United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry in Nashville,
Tenn.

 
 

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United Methodist News Service
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