Nathan Noh is an Associate at Ropes & Gray LLP, and a member of the VOLS Pro Bono Advocates Council, a VOLS initiative that plays an integral role in raising awareness and support for pro bono programs. We had the chance to speak with Nathan about his motivations to do pro bono work, how it fits into his experience as a lawyer, and how the importance of service has changed during difficult times.
What made you interested in volunteering and doing pro bono work?
Our day jobs can be challenging at times, just like any other job. But there’s a sense of being able to look somebody, an individual, in the eye, and make a meaningful difference in their life that really helps provide a fulfilling complement to our work. Being able to impact individual people in a way that may be very small for me, and in a way that I never really had to deal with or consciously think about, is very compelling. I think there’s just a lot of misery in the world, to put it bluntly. A lot of inequity. And it’s not lost on me how much I exist in this world of privilege. And so, finding that small way to make a huge difference has always been really important to me.
How has your experience as an attorney been enriched by volunteering?
I think it helps, in particular, with the more human aspects of lawyering. One is the interpersonal, which is just increasing the amount of empathy that we have for others, understanding where people are coming from and their various perspectives. That, I think, carries over in the day-to-day. From my interactions with my clients, with my colleagues, with everybody on the team. I think that, if everybody has that experience, it just makes it easier for us to communicate and feel an affinity towards one another as humans. Practically, being able to break down complicated legal terms and regulations and communicate in a simple and understandable way—especially with my non-lawyer clients—is something that has been really enhanced by the pro bono work I do. It’s a creative part of the brain that we don’t necessarily get to use in our day-to-day lawyering when our noses are buried in agreements and disclosures.
In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, why do you think this type of work is particularly important today?
The need is greater. It puts focus on the serious needs that currently exist. To be honest, a lot of this renewed energy on matters of social justice and equity coming through the COVID-19 pandemic dovetailed with racial justice issues coming to the forefront in the wake of the George Floyd murder (among many others), and that movement I think was really a catalyst for putting our attention back on the types of things that we could be doing as lawyers in our position of privilege. On an individual level, I think that with COVID-19, it was hard for people to connect with one another. As a result, many people maybe had more individual space to realize and reflect on the inequities out there, which are not new, but rather exacerbated throughout the pandemic. This was the positive to come out of the past couple years—that it renewed focus and reduced apathy from some of the people best-situated to make a difference; unfortunately, it took a global pandemic and a national reckoning to realize it. But we will take what we can. I am hopeful that we can keep the momentum going, and that people will continue to be excited and active in the pro bono and social justice space.
If you had a colleague who was on the fence about volunteering, how would you engage them to pursue volunteering with VOLS?
It really depends from person-to-person, but I’ve always found personal appeals to be very effective. For example, once you get to know someone, there’s always going to be something to help connect the dots to make pro bono work a priority, whether it is some experience that they’ve had, or something poignant that they’ve seen in their lives, or something they’ve read in a book or newspaper (if those still exist) that is meaningful to them. Something that is going to attract them to the great work that we do. What I like doing is finding those narratives that people can connect with, and I’ve found that that’s always been the most compelling way to draw people in.