A Farewell And a New Beginning

If you haven’t already heard, my last day at the Mill Law Center (MLC) is June 15, 2023.

It is a bitter-sweet farewell but as the name of the farewell suggests, you can’t have sweet without bitter.

The Bitter

I joined MLC back in 2021, after five years of litigation and two years of nonprofit equity advising. Racial reckoning was still having her hot girl summer, but I was beginning to lose faith in the possibility of equity or repair, especially in the nonprofit world.

I remember the words in the job posting that drew me in. Kindness, idealism, adaptability. I do not remember the rest of posting but I do remember worrying that it was all a ruse. After all, there were no companies that did what they actually said they would do. I wrote a cover letter anyway. I allowed myself to be vulnerable, idealistic, and expansive. I knew that if what MLC had said about themselves were true, then we had shared values, and if we had shared values, then I would be safe to bring my whole self to work.

After my first interview, I learned that MLC was a newly minted firm. There were no bad habits nor toxic culture to try to stomach and there were no politics nor drama to navigate. It was a clean slate. A chance for restoration.

Over the course of the last two years, I’ve had the opportunity to work collaboratively with my colleagues on a shared vision—to create a firm that operates as much like a cooperative as possible.

We’ve talked through our business model, our internal equity goals, our DEI policy—whether we should have one or whether it’s a performative dog whistle, our salaries—whether our quest to be accessible harms our abilities to pay our bills, our profit-sharing model, our vacation policy—to be unlimited or not to be, our roles and responsibilities, our future nonprofit (look out for the MLC collective), our productivity, our unmet needs and our failed conflicts.

I have learned from them and had my perspective challenged. I think they’d say the relationship has been symbiotic.

As I bid farewell to MLC, I’m filled with a profound sense of gratitude for the opportunities, the revelations, and the fuel to pursue my life’s work—equity and repair.

The sweet

To that end, I introduce you to Cleland & You (C&Y), a law firm dedicated to helping individuals and organizations prepare for, manage, and resolve conflicts.

My work at C&Y includes helping organizations develop a constitution that defines the roles in their organization, the expectations of each role, the agreements between members of the organization, the covenants and commitments to each other and the organization, and a conflict resolution policy that is created in consideration of the needs and input of all staff.

From agreements to present at conferences together, to agreements to doing the fair share of the work, C&Y focuses on creating relationships where everyone has agency in the development of the relationship and where everyone is clear on what’s required of them, even during difficult conflict.

For individuals and organizations already in active conflict, C&Y provides the tools to help resolve the conflict and chart a path forward.

I hope to serve you there – theconflictslawfirm.com.

I believe in the expansive capacity of conflict and the power of transformation through communicating and pursuing a shared vision.

My time at MLC has solidified that.

To my colleagues at MLC, thank you for your friendship, your warmth, your honesty, your mentorship, your self-deprecating jokes, your company, your adaptability, your vulnerability and your collaboration.

With love and kindness,

C