My Impact Series with 2018 Fellow Dusty Weber LaMay

My Impact is a conversation series from Equal Justice Works, using interviews with alumni to shine a light on what’s possible with an Equal Justice Works Fellowship. National Advisory Committee member Nicole Jansma spoke with Dusty Weber LaMay, a 2018 Fellow in the Design-Your-Own Fellowship Program hosted by Lavender Rights Project. Dusty now works at the Northwest Justice Project, funded by the Legal Services Corporation.  

Dusty Weber LaMay understands firsthand the legal needs of trans people living in rural areas. Born in Oklahoma and raised on the West Coast, Dusty became acutely aware of the complications that can arise when trans people try to change their information, especially when they move to a different state from where they were born. The process for trans folks to update their records varies from state to state—it can result in a challenging legal process, and in about half of the U.S., it requires a complicated court order.  

With his experience in mind, Dusty built his Equal Justice Works project to provide civil legal aid for trans people in rural areas of Washington. He identified the need for legal resources for trans people trying to attain name changes, gender changes for records, and legal aid for medical navigations in rural communities across the state. 

“In general, trans people are being underserved for their legal needs across the board, but all of the gender identity clinics, all of these things were focused on urban [hubs with] the most amount of people,” said Dusty. 

During the interview, Dusty stressed the importance of connecting with the community to conduct work in a more accessible format. Taking a community-centered approach to work allows Fellows, like Dusty, to raise awareness for the legal issues that clients face and increase their understanding of the specific needs in the communities they serve. This is exactly what the Equal Justice Works Fellowship helped Dusty do: gain hands-on experience making a statewide program that provided legal aid to communities where Dusty identified a need for legal aid.  

In order to achieve a wide reach, much of Dusty’s work focused on developing materials, such as informational sheets, guidebooks, sample court forms, local petitions, and other resources for non-lawyer community members to access. This presented its own set of challenges. For example, it was important for Dusty to be mindful that the language included in these materials was accessible to people without the background knowledge that law school provides.  

The need for attorneys and legal services in rural areas is immense. By creating shareable materials, Fellows like Dusty—who work broadly with rural communities in different parts of the state—can help more clients navigate the system. 

“Equal Justice Works has such a focus on creating community-focused materials and materials that can last beyond the Fellowship,” said Dusty. “I think [the Equal Justice Works Fellowship] gives you a really great opportunity for building skills in these arenas of lawyering—particularly in social justice, public interest work [is] becoming not only more than the norm, but more than requirement for a lot of jobs.” 

Dusty’s experience navigating the legal system to update his own records proved how complicated it can be for trans people: they must abide by their birth state’s rules for documentation updates—this often means that they need to travel to their birth state in order to update their driver’s license and birth certificate. If they must obtain a court order to update their documents, that court order must come from the state that they currently live in. An important component of his project was educating the public and Judges on the process. One client who turned to Dusty for help had tried to update their records seven times with a Judge with no success. 

“It’s basically the most novel legal argument I’ve ever dealt with to my career at this point,” said Dusty. “A big part of my Fellowship was about how [to] deal with this issue, because that is my life, right? I’m a rural trans person who’s been dealing with this problem.” 

To Dusty, this need for education on the record-changing process was so needed due to the changing landscape, for Judges and clients alike. Community outreach was key to creating supportive outreach materials and enhancing judicial education. This, Dusty hopes, will continue to carry on in the communities he served beyond his Fellowship and beyond his career. The emphasis on pro se was one of Dusty’s most important takeaways from his project. 

When asked what advice he might have for like-minded professionals looking to launch their careers in public service, Dusty emphasized how helpful his Fellowship was. Equal Justice Works connected him to a national network, and being connected to the organization’s name through his Fellowship helped Dusty to really get his foot in the door in a legal space that he is passionate about. He also suggested for anyone starting out in a Fellowship to enjoy the creative freedoms that often come with building your own Fellowship opportunity, and to try and connect that to something that they are passionate about as much as possible. 

“Find your passion, get informed by [the] community, and then get creative,” said Dusty. “No matter what you’re passionate about, people need your help.” 

 To learn more about Dusty’s work advocating for educational rights, watch the full interview here.