I’m Proud to Join Team Paladin
In January of 2016, I received a call from Derek Parham, Deputy CTO at Hillary for America, offering me a job as an engineer on the campaign. Normally in tech, this is where the hiring manager tries to give you the hard sell by talking up all the free food, massages, unlimited vacation and team building getaways you can expect to enjoy. Derek’s approach was different, “There is no free food, no stock options, no vacation days, no weekends, no life, not much money. There is occasionally free coffee.” I took the job.
I took the job because Derek was offering me something that was more exciting to me than free lunch. He was offering me the opportunity to work hard in the service of something I believed in. He was offering me the opportunity to work with some of the world’s most talented and passionate people in an effort with huge, historic stakes. And also to make a lot of great friends along the way. How often do you get a chance like that?
In tech, we have lots of options. Salaries and equity packages at the hottest startups can be large and very tempting. But we also have chosen a vocation that puts us in a rare position. The versatility of software and design gives us a Swiss Army Knife skill set that can be brought to bear on any of the great challenges we face as a society.
In the course of my career, I’ve been fortunate to be able to work on a few of them. I worked for a startup that figured out how to make money by reducing fossil fuel emissions. I worked for a non-profit that brings clean water to people around the world who need it. I worked on a campaign trying to elect a president who shared my vision of an inclusive, progressive and prosperous future.
But it’s not always possible for each of us to work full time on the issues we are most passionate about. We all have our own constellation of circumstance — interests, obligations, skills and responsibilities — that govern our career choices. But what if you could spend a few hours a month using your professional expertise to help someone who really needed it?
That’s the vision of Paladin’s founders, Felicity and Kristen, and it’s why I’m so excited to be joining the team as CTO.
We’re getting started in law, where there is already a historic tradition of pro bono. There is a huge, global workforce of talented and ambitious attorneys who are eager to put their skills to work fighting for justice. At Paladin, we’re building a network to empower them and connect them with the people who desperately need their help.
According to the American Bar Association:
“in some jurisdictions, more than eighty percent of litigants in poverty are unrepresented in matters involving basic life needs, such as evictions, mortgage foreclosures, child custody disputes, child support proceedings, and debt collection cases.”
People in America lose their homes, livelihoods and even their families because they don’t have enough money to pay an attorney. That’s not justice.
Furthermore, given the rhetoric and policy proposals of the incoming administration, millions of us are at risk of being deported, being persecuted for our religious beliefs, losing access to healthcare, facing down local law enforcement without federal support, and otherwise having our civil rights violated. One of the best ways we can fight back is by ensuring that those who would have their rights abridged have legal representation so that we can challenge injustice in every instance as forcefully as we can, every step of the way.
That’s what we’re working on and that’s why I’m proud to join Team Paladin.
