Meet Maryland Arsht Fellow Sharelle Love
We are thrilled to welcome Sharelle Love as Volunteer Legal Advocates’ (VLA) Maryland Roxana Cannon Arsht Fellow.* Sharelle began volunteering with Volunteer Legal Advocates in 2023. We spoke with her about how her volunteer experience led her to the Roxana Cannon Arsht Fellowship and what she’s looking forward to in this role.
Tell us about your career journey and what led you to seek out the Roxana Cannon Arsht Fellowship.
I’m from California, and I graduated from law school in 2003. My background is in civil litigation as a law clerk and paralegal. When I moved to Montgomery County, Maryland, my professional contacts were still out in Southern California. As I started a family and stayed at home, I also volunteered with the DC Bar Pro Bono Center. I began volunteering with VLA in 2023, but just a little bit here and there.
What drew me to the Arsht Fellowship is the mentorship. Losing all your local professional contacts and not having any as a stay-at-home mom can make networking very difficult. The Arsht Fellowship offers a great opportunity to work with interesting people, and there is a high level of collaboration. I really value that VLA’s supervising attorneys take you under their wing and lead you through the process, explaining the rationale, sharing their experiences, and suggesting solutions to achieve our clients’ goals. I also love that everybody has a different perspective, so I learn different ways to approach a situation.
What inspired you to volunteer with Volunteer Legal Advocates, and how did volunteering shape your perspective on justice and advocacy?
I joined VLA after learning about it through a friend of a friend at the gym. My previous advocacy work was with the DC Bar Pro Bono Center, which provided brief legal advice on commercial transactions, but I was drawn to the impact VLA is making through its legal clinics. It’s a great organization, and the work that it does is amazing. Volunteering showed me that there’s so much more I can do, and that I can make a meaningful and immediate difference in a survivor’s life and their children’s lives.
What have you learned from the survivors you’ve worked with?
Volunteering with VLA has certainly shaped my current views on advocacy and being a lawyer now for our clients. I’ve learned that trauma-informed lawyering matters on so many levels. Sometimes clients are unable to process information because of what they’ve gone through. It’s important to communicate the information clearly, even if that means repeating it more than once. I’m not the one who’s supposed to tell them what to do, so once I’ve made sure they’re informed, it’s about respecting the choices that they make.
Early in my volunteer days, I was working with a client, but she wasn’t ready to move forward. Even though I’d undergone training for trauma-informed lawyering, it’s different in practice, especially when you’re coming from a general business civil litigation background. It was a pivotal moment for me to understand that I can inform clients and make recommendations, but ultimately, they make their own decisions. And there are a lot of factors at play, especially in terms of trauma, family situations, and financial considerations
What excites you most about advocating for survivors through the legal system? What impact are you hoping to make for your clients and the broader community?
I am excited to provide access to justice for clients. Some of our clients have language barriers or don’t understand the legal system, and we can provide that framework or support so they can get the protection they need.
I’m looking forward to doing whatever I can to make it easier for survivors to be safe and make sure that they don’t feel like they’re stuck in a relationship because they don’t know their options. Right now, my work is mainly focused on civil protective orders, but I’m excited to assist and learn new things. A big part of VLA’s work focuses on community outreach and letting people know that these services are out there. Sometimes people might not know that a protective order is even available to them, so I’m excited to amplify community outreach efforts as well.
What would you say to other attorneys who are considering volunteering with Volunteer Legal Advocates? What keeps you saying yes to and excited about this work?
When I moved here, it was challenging because I didn’t have a professional network. I’d passed the DC Bar, but I didn’t really know anybody, and I found it was hard to break in. So, for people who want to volunteer, especially those in a similar position to mine, I want to underscore that you can get great mentorship. People are also willing to give you grace and understand that when returning to the workforce, there’s a lot to bring yourself up to speed on. What keeps me excited and going in this fellowship is not only the work we’re doing now, but also the work we might expand into.
*Volunteer Legal Advocates is honored to host the Roxana Cannon Arsht Law Fellowship and to celebrate Judge Arsht’s groundbreaking achievements as Delaware’s fifth female lawyer and first female judge. We proudly recognize her pioneering spirit and enduring legacy through this two-year program empowering female attorneys returning to the workforce after a career break.
