We women are like volcanoes. When we offer our experience as our truth, as human truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains. Ursula K. Le Guin, American author
Paula Marie Susi is one of those 25-year veterans on the front lines of federal court in Brooklyn. Paula is all about change. You wouldn't know it. She married the first man she fell in love with at 17 and has kept the same job for 25 years, working for the same court, the same kinds of cases, the same kinds of judges. But through all that sameness runs a fiery current of human truth. Paula has permanently altered her landscape. She talks to our clients like they're human. And they listen to her.
That's because Paula Susi gets it.
Paula Susi has been a court clerk in federal court for 30 years. We write about her today because she was recently honored at a charity event for her public service. Click here for remarks delivered by Federal Defender Michael Padden and Criminal Justice Act Lawyer Susan Kellman. They tell a story of how Paula basically disarmed an alleged hijacker who took a microphone up as a weapon in her courtroom. There were a lot of ways Paula could have responded to that situation. She chose the one that was both compassionate, and worked The refrain of those remarks, as you might have guessed, is that Paula Marie Susi gets it.
The event was to benefit a local Brooklyn-to-Alaska outward bound-type program. You know, taking underprivileged urban kids to fight bears in Alaska. Where they learn there's no "I" in Team while building rope bridges over raging rapids. Where all they have to eat is what they can pack. Click here to learn more. Even better, give them money. It's a true boots-on-the-ground nonprofit.
We support the Brooklyn-to-Alaska Project for the same reasons it honored Paula Susi: no change is going to come to the justice system unless we support people who get it.
Kudos to Paula, that EDNY's Quiet Volcano of Change.
