Lady Justice

Lady Justice is wearing a blindfold; since the 16th century, the image has been female and unable to see. Is this because a woman, deprived of sight, could still balance right and wrong? What does this say about the nature of women? Do you think of Justice as a woman in formal attire, blindfolded with her hands full of scales to weigh the unseen?

Justice makes the attempt to be blind. Justice is aspirational; we find solace in the good word, in the belief systems that surround a ‘higher power’ or a judge or jury that rises above the ‘common man’ in a courtroom to make pronouncements of right and wrong when warring parties or litigants cannot. We all wish to be ‘on the right side’ and not ‘left out’ and to know that the world will always work out.  Symbols and the language choice that flows from them reflect us and shape us.  

Justice fails many times. Justice is not only blind on occasion, but comes with complete sensory-bias. Justice not only doesn’t see the ways in which people differ, and use that to humanize them, but often doesn’t see them at all, and in so doing, returns to an unacceptable and implied baseline of normative behavior to control and simplify choice. Justice is community-driven; the loudest voice is often heard when it isn’t necessarily the most compelling in thought, though it may be the most emotional in context.

I see justice as individual client driven; my role is to shape and define the story, of loss, or conflict or mistake. I seek to create a client history, accessible and relatable to those with whom the client will be forced to contact to alter his or her life. I support and encourage; More importantly, I also walk the path, sometimes in front, and perhaps alongside, but never straying, and always with the goal in my sight.

I see Justice as a teacher in front of a classroom calling and guiding, and occasionally correcting faulty assumptions, poor logic or outmoded beliefs. I see Justice as a teacher that is unafraid to be inspirational to her students, in word and in deed, outside of the classroom; Justice moves between the environment of a classroom, to one of a Courtroom, or to the Streets if need be, all in an accelerating attempt to redefine, on a daily basis, what freedom really entitles one to do, and where the boundaries are between one person’s decision and another’s in a collective.