Homecoming

How the Center’s newest lawyer, Julie Schaffer, made her way back to Spokane.

On paper at least, Julie Schaffer landed in professional clover in the summer of 2008. After winning academic honors as an undergraduate at the University of Washington, she’d earned a law degree, passed the bar, and accepted a position working as an attorney for one of the state’s larger counties. She’d also fulfilled a desire shared by many other young people who’ve grown up and gone to school in Spokane–which is to find a niche outside of Spokane.
There was just one problem. She was restless. Her job as a land use and environmental lawyer for Snohomish County was interesting and she was surrounded by “fantastic” legal mentors whose support was unwavering. But the job itself was lacking both in the sort of personal interactions she’d thrived upon while working as student journalist at the UW and in the advocacy opportunities she enjoyed while interning with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and several energized environmental organizations, including Friends of the San Juans. The contrast was striking.

“So I struggled with that,” she recalls. “I found myself behind a desk all day, and while I was working on interesting issues, I realized that I really wanted to be out in the community, connecting with people as an advocate.”
The other thing she realized is that she hadn’t had a break. College, law school, and starting her first job with Snohomish County had all run together. The joy she experienced as a reporter (she attended the UW on a journalism scholarship) led her to believe that she wanted to do more than write stories about issues she cared about. It was that instinct that led her to study law, both as a way to get a better understanding of how laws and policies got fashioned and to acquire the legal tools necessary to effect change. Yet, in the process she’d landed in a situation that required the kind of reflection that could only be had by stepping out of it.
So she did. She requested a six month leave of absence from her job with Snohomish County, put her belongings in a Seattle storage shed, and took off for Alaska.
“I am young and I have so much energy, I just needed to break out,” she says. “I knew I didn’t want just to look for another job, I wanted to be outside, travel a bit, take a breather.”
So there she was, last May, landing in a small plane with a backpack in remote Homer, Alaska, a place known to many as the halibut fishing capital of the world. Through a program called World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, she had signed up to garden on a ranch 11 miles outside of Homer. She lived in an 8 by 10 tent with a wood stove. She would work in the mornings and then have afternoons to enjoy biking, hiking and kayaking with new friends. She bought a used Subaru filled with sawdust, tree sap, and dog hair for $400, even though it took two people to open the driver’s side door.
Homer is ten miles across a bay from a pristine state park and one of Julie’s favorite outings was to kayak across the bay and camp on a deserted beach.
“The wildness of it all just drew me in,” she says. She was so taken with the Alaskan outdoors that, by the end of summer, she faced the difficult decision of staying there as a resident or moving back to Washington or Oregon.
Her old job was still available in Everett, but it wasn’t drawing her back.
“There were lots of opportunities over there (western Washington),” she says, “and there are hundreds of groups you could get involved in. Living there is just so overwhelming that I didn’t know where to start, or where I could make a difference. I just felt anonymous.”
“I wanted a smaller community,” she adds, “and I wanted to dry out a bit. I wanted to be in a drier climate but one where there’s snow in town in winter.”
But the main consideration was reconnecting with the energy she feels when she works closely with people on causes she believes in. Along with some timely nudges from her parents (her father is a Spokane doctor and her mother is a clerk for a federal judge) and friends, she began looking at her hometown in a different light.
“Seattle and Portland are fine,” she says with a laugh. “They don’t need any more progressives.”
What she found in Spokane intrigued her, especially in the way the non-profit network had grown in the Community Building complex where the Center for Justice is located. Among those she sought to talk to was the Center’s founder, Jim Sheehan.
“She didn’t come looking for a job,” Jim recalls of their first meeting. “She came looking for input on how she would be able to stay in Spokane. And I was impressed by her energy, her commitment, and her desire to be a lawyer seeking the experience of justice, rather than just a lawyer seeking the experience of money.”
Sheehan also sees the Center’s new 27-year-old attorney as the embodiment of a change in attitudes by Spokane young professionals.
“I think Spokane has changed so dramatically in the past forty years,” he says. “And I see people like Julie and Joe, my son, they would say they’re never coming  back in a million years. And now they’re coming back because it’s more vibrant, more alive, and there’s more progressive thinking. There’s just a whole bunch of things going on for young people to where they can actually feel like they’re contributing.”
And contributing is exactly what Julie Schaffer has in mind. She started work at the Center two weeks ago and has already found herself working closely with Suellen Pritchard in CFJ’s Community Advocacy program, with attorney Rick Eichstaedt on environmental law issues, and with attorney Bonne Beavers on possible civil rights cases.
“I love the variety,” she says. “I’ve wanted to be in an advocacy role, working closely with the people I’m trying to help. When Jim said he could offer me that opportunity and said he expected that I would become a face in the community for the Center for Justice, that got me really excited. There’s a lot of exciting stuff to do here and it’s really easy to get sucked into the work the Center is doing.”