CLAIM

Molshree Sharma (at right with Zenaida Alonzo) planned on a Ph.D. and a career in academia. But as time went on, she says, “I realized that I wanted to do something that was intellectually challenging but had concrete repercussions for people. I wanted to make a real, tangible difference in people’s lives.” Molshree, who was inducted into the Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers in March, served as CLAIM’s Staff Attorney in 2006-2007 and now serves on CLAIM’s Board of Directors. Molshree’s experience in criminal defense and representing children at the Public Guardian’s office while she was a law student at Kent drew her to CLAIM. “I felt fundamentally that incarceration is obviously not a working solution. Prosecution does not solve the systemic problems, such as poverty, substance abuse, and lack of opportunity that lead to most non-violent crime. And if the prisons ever did focus on rehabilitation, they certainly don’t now.”

Molshree describes her tenure with CLAIM as “An intense insight into how the system is not working. It’s easy for us to get complacent; easy to hear about an addicted woman who left her kids and assume that she’s a terrible person. But then you wonder what happened to make her feel so desperate, and it makes you think about the raging effects of poverty in the world’s richest country. It’s so important not to just accept the snippets of people’s lives that we hear; we need to really think about the reasons why these things happen.”

As a single mother, Molshree connected with the women that she represented while at CLAIM. “I tried to imagine my own desperation as a mother if I had no resources to help my child. If my kid was hungry I would steal, it’s that simple.” Molshree’s commitment to CLAIM’s work deepened when she imagined what would happen to her own child if she was incarcerated: “If I went away for 3 years it would destroy my child’s life, even with all of the family support it would harm her. She would be punished for something will have children who go through the same system, the cycle just repeats itself. It has to change.”

CLAIM staff attorney and pro bono director Zenaida Alonzo spent her college summers volunteering in homeless shelters and transitional homes. “I came to realize that, regardless of the work that I was doing, there came a point where I needed to know the law to proceed. Not having a legal education was a barrier to getting people the help that they needed.” After Notre Dame Law School, Zenaida developed a mobile legal aid clinic for homeless youth as an Equal Justice fellow at Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. “So many kids who live on the street had had their mothers incarcerated. After their mothers were taken away they were bounced around from home to home before finally deciding it was better to strike out on their own as teenagers. I realized that I could address one of the root causes of teen homelessness by working with incarcerated mothers.” When she saw that CLAIM was hiring a new Staff Attorney, Zenaida jumped at the opportunity.

Molshree and Zenaida agree that working with incarcerated mothers can be challenging. Molshree says “It takes an emotional toll, working with women—many of whom have severe emotional and mental health issues—in such a repressive environment. You are simultaneously working within a system and working against it, and advocating for those who are least empowered.” Zenaida points out that “It’s all about access. You have to balance your relationship with the prisons, who determine whether or not you have access to your clients, with your duty to your client. In the end if they say you can’t go in, you can’t go in.”

“There were many rewarding moments working at CLAIM,” says Molshree. “I litigated a case against a large law firm which had lots of resources, compared with CLAIM, and I won. I helped women keep custody of their children, won greater visitation rights for women who got their lives together after years of addiction. When I taught family law in jail, I often saw a woman who was quiet and didn’t seem to be engaged, and then all of a sudden she would start asking lots of questions, and I could see that something had changed, that she was thinking proactively about what she could do. It was incredibly rewarding to meet these women who did everything they could in the face of adversity and to help them in some way to keep their children out of the system.” Zenaida adds, “I often help women in Cook County Jail to appoint a short term guardian for their children. It’s so rewarding when I later see them becoming involved in CLAIM’s Advocacy Project, getting their lives together and reuniting their families.”

Zenaida is in her third year as Staff Attorney with CLAIM, and she continues to enjoy her work with clients. Molshree has entered private practice, but maintains a strong relationship with CLAIM and a passionate dedication to our cause. She continues the work she started as Staff Attorney as the chair of the Board Development and Personnel Committee of CLAIM’s Board, and hosts an annual house party fund raiser at her colorful Oak Park home to support CLAIM’s work.