Student Spotlight: Jessica Brock ’10
Advocating for the Marginalized
“Oli omuntu w’itaaka.” If you don’t know what that means, you are far from alone. Few people in the world speak Rutooro, and most of them live in the Toro Kingdom of Uganda in East Africa. Notre Dame 2L Jessica Brock is an exception. She taught secondary school and did community organizing in East Africa as an Overseas Lay Missionary for two years before beginning law school, and became fluent in Rutooro along the way. (The quote means “You are a person of the soil.” It was a compliment given to Brock by the people she served in Kyembogo village. Translation: Brock needed no introduction because she knew the people so well that she was no longer an outsider but considered one of their own.)
“I started my first year of law school three weeks after returning from Uganda…not a good idea,” says Brock. “The culture shock was extreme. So much of what had seemed normal or important before living abroad now seemed absurd. It was an adjustment.”
Brock pursued law school because “even if I decided not to practice law, as long as I understood the language of law I could help others who don’t and have need of legal services or perhaps don’t know what their legal rights are.” That philosophy led Brock to Notre Dame Law School’s Legal Aid Clinic, where she found people with similar world views and similar career goals. “My summer at the Legal Aid Clinic cemented for me that I was in the right place, doing the right thing,” says Brock.
This past summer, Brock and two other law school classmates interned at the Legal Aid Clinic, working on everything from immigration issues to foreclosures to custody cases. “You can’t ask for a better education in domestic law and in what it means to be an advocate,” says Brock. “The faculty give students the opportunity to take the lead on cases while guiding them through the process. They are shining examples of the legal profession at its best. I really got a sense of the weight of responsibility lawyers have. The experience validated my desire to make sure the law is accessible to the marginalized.”
Brock recently began conducting research with two professors, G. Robert Blakey and Michael Jenuwine. “Professor Blakey is helping me discern whether something like RICO could be used in the context of international law in the prosecution of crimes against humanity, and Professor Jenuwine is working with me to assess the possible relationship between American alternative dispute resolution techniques and tribal reconciliation rituals.”
Brock’s plan for the future is to do something with human rights law. “I’m interested in combining community organizing with the practice of law to improve standards of living by giving people the necessary space to exercise their God-given power as human beings.”
