Paralegal Julia Lauritzen has long had a passion for public interest work. The Cleveland native did a 3-week job shadow at Legal Aid when she was in high school, and then attended the University of Pittsburgh, where she majored in politics and philosophy. After college, Ms. Lauritzen worked for an anti-hunger advocacy agency as part of the Americorps Vista program. She joined Legal Aid full time in 2015, which fueled her interest in one-on-one advocacy. “There’s such a diverse array of issues, and lots of different ways we can help people,” she said of her job, which included work with families, immigration issues, and the intersection of the two. She was excited when one of her first cases at Legal Aid was to help a same-sex couple petition for one spouse’s resident status. Other cases gave her insight into how domestic abuse could be compounded when the victim was an immigrant dependent on a U.S. citizen spouse. Ms. Lauritzen is pursuing her interest in fighting injustices against vulnerable people further this fall in law school at The Ohio State University.
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