My BarStory S03E03 - The Cleveland Legal Collaborative Fellows - The New Class

Last year, we introduced you to the first cohort of Cleveland Legal Collaborative Fellows. These new lawyers were filled with passion for serving those who can’t afford market-rate legal services. Now, it’s time for the new class! Freshly arrived in 2025, Aireus Johnson, Ange Mastandrea, and Josh Selby are already working to help the Cleveland Legal Collaborative to reach even more people in need of legal assistance. Interviewed by first-generation Collaborative Fellow Abby O’Leary, you’ll hear their determination to make a positive difference in this week’s My BarStory podcast.

Transcript

Abby O'Leary (00:04):
Hello and welcome to my bar story. This is Abby O'Leary with the Cleveland Legal Collaborative. Today I'm here to speak with s Johnson Ang Mass, Andrea and Joshua Selby, the three newest members of the Cleveland Legal Collaborative. But before I bring them into the conversation, I just wanted to give a quick update. When you last heard from me, I was about a month into my fellowship with the Cleveland Legal Collaborative, which is the same position these fellows are in now. If you're not familiar with the Cleveland Legal Collaborative, or a program created by the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association, designed to help newer lawyers start their own solo practices, serving people who make too much money to qualify for free legal aid, but not enough to afford a market rate attorney. Since I started with the collaborative last summer, we've already helped over 300 people in various ways, ranging from brief advice and referrals to full representation.

Abby O'Leary (01:01):
We're doing our best to meet the needs of the community, but with new inquiries coming in every single day, there's only so much that the three of us right now can do. So with that, I'm especially excited to be joined by the new cohort of fellows both to talk to today and to work with every day they're joining. This program will help the Cleveland Legal Collaborative to serve even more people and even more areas of law. They're really great. So I'm going to turn it over to them now. To get us started, if you wanted to just each introduce yourselves and maybe tell us about a bit about your professional and educational background, if we wanna just go in a circle and start with Ang.

Ang Mastandrea (01:41):
Thank you, Abby. My name is Ang Ria. My pronouns are they them, and I am one of the new fellows with the Cleveland Legal Collaborative. As for my background, I went to undergrad and law school at Cleveland State University. In undergrad, I majored in sociology and gender studies, so there was a big focus on social justice and social inequities in general. Bringing that forward into my career and into my future and having a very strong sense of justice personally, I wanted a way to bring that forward to increase equity within our society and law school seemed like the perfect way to do that. So throughout law school, I worked in the nonprofit sector in Cleveland, Ohio. I did a couple of internships with the Cleveland Foundation, and before coming to the Cleveland Legal Collaborative, I was working at the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless.

Abby O'Leary (02:42):
Great. Thanks Ange.

Aireus Johnson (02:44):
Hi everyone. My name is Aria Johnson and I'm also a new fellow with the Cleveland Legal Collaborative. I graduated from the Cleveland School of Science and Medicine at John Hay High School. Then I attended Miami University of Oxford, where I majored in political science with a focus in Black world studies. I went straight to law school and business school and I graduated as a dual degree candidate from Cleveland State University with a JU doctorate and a Master's of Business Administration in May, 2024 in a professional capacity, I had been a full-time student up until I graduated in May, so I mainly participated in school activities at Miami University. I served as a resident assistant where I interacted with students and helped solve their issues as a law student. I served as the president for the Black Law Student Association. I ex her for the Honorable Judge Fleming in the United States District Court, Northern District of Ohio, serve as a law clerk at plaintiff law firms and at Reliably First corporation. And I also competed on the mock trial and MO court teams at CSU College of Law.

Abby O'Leary (03:56):
That's great. Thanks for sharing all about your involvement. Ari, what about you Josh?

Josh Selby (04:00):
I'm Joshua Selby, recent graduate of CSU College of Law. I got my first undergrad degree back in 2003 from Malone University. It was liberal arts with a concentration in philosophy. I went back to college to the University of Akron and got a bachelor's degree in nursing and I've been a licensed registered nurse since 2009 working in various local hospitals. Also did some travel nursing out west, and then I enrolled in CSU College of Law in 2019 and rode the Covid wave all the way through law school and just recently got sworn in.

Abby O'Leary (04:40):
Great, thank you. I'm really glad to have you all with the collaborative, you both, you all bring so many unique experiences and backgrounds.

Josh Selby (04:48):
I'd be interested in just a really basic foundational background question. Yes. to my fellow fellows, why did you go to law school?

Aireus Johnson (04:57):
I chose to go to law school because I was always interested in politics. Going to law school was just the first step in the process. I always was interested in running for president of the United States in 2036, and so I grew up watching poli politicians on TV and a lot of them went to law school. And so I thought that was just a necessary step.

Josh Selby (05:23):
I remember being seven years old and waking up the morning after the 1988 election and asking my mom who won, and I cried <laugh>. All right, Ange

Ang Mastandrea (05:35):
Growing up. My dad is a lawyer and so when I was younger I actually always said that I would never be a lawyer just to be, you know, contrary. But coming up and going, always having a strong sense of justice and being interested in social justice through middle school and high school and online spaces and really wanting to figure, figure out how I could become a zealous advocate against the inequities that I could see all around me and realizing that I'm LGBTQ plus and wanting to just fix all of the problems in the world through undergrad. Really looking much more into that through sociology and women and gender studies and focusing on those inequities so strongly for so long and coming out of that not knowing how do I have a practical impact on these things outside of sharing things online and how do I maybe merch that with my career so I can feel fulfilled and make money in a way that I thought was as ethical as possible. Law school just really seemed like the answer. Turning

Abby O'Leary (06:42):
It back on Josh, what made you go to law school?

Josh Selby (06:46):
I think that we as human beings have a moral and an ethical obligation to help others. I was gifted a healthy body and a healthy brain and two loving parents and you know, I've worked as a registered nurse for over 15 years. I think that was kind of phase one of my career helping people and now I'm moving into phase two, which is a different form of help, but I take my role seriously as an officer of the court. I think we need to remember from our oath to support the constitution of the United States and the state of Ohio and to conduct ourselves with dignity and respect. I hope I can live up to those obligations.

Abby O'Leary (07:30):
So now I wanna know a little bit more about what made you interested in the collaborative in particular, what brought you here, made you do the interview to get involved with the Cleveland Legal Collaborative?

Ang Mastandrea (07:42):
The two main things that really interested me in the collaborative were number one, the focus on serving the justice gap. That's definitely a huge point of equity and with my interest in social justice and advancing equity, it seemed like the perfect place to really break into the legal field after graduating from law school and putting all the skills that I had learned to good use and to really serve the community with them. Additionally, coming out of law school, because I had been working in the nonprofit sector while there, I hadn't gotten the chance to really take part in many externships or legal experiences so far as that went. So the ability to join a program as a fellow like the Cleveland Legal Collaborative with the offer of mentorship, learning opportunities, a curriculum, it really seemed like the perfect fit to begin my legal practice in that community centered space. Yeah,

Abby O'Leary (08:38):
That's perfect.

Aireus Johnson (08:39):
So I chose to be a part of the collaborative because it offered me an opportunity to explore different practice areas like probate and housing while building a legal law practice. I went to law school knowing that I wanted to build a law practice and this provided a perfect opportunity for that. Additionally, I have been involved with this Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association as a Lewis Stokes scholar. So I thought joining the collaborative as a fellow will be a nice way to give back to the CMBA and the greater Cleveland population.

Abby O'Leary (09:12):
Fantastic. That's a great journey from the Stokes Fellows to here.

Josh Selby (09:17):
I was interested in joining the collaborative just to have a chance to launch a solo law practice with the support and the mentorship of the CNBA and the Bar Foundation, all the mentorship and that networking opportunities that this presents to us by having an office space right here in the CNBA offices. What is the central node of the Cleveland legal community?

Abby O'Leary (09:40):
Are there any things that the three of you have been involved in with the Bar Association so far that you'd like to talk about or share?

Ang Mastandrea (09:49):
So since starting as a fellow with the CLC at the CMBA, I've been able to take part in a, a couple of the C MBA's, different, more equity based initiatives. One of the major ones is the lgbtq plus committee. I was interested in attending during law school, but with the demands of law school and other things going on at the time, I wasn't able to really meaningfully take part in many of those committee meetings. But since starting as a fellow, I've been able to attend both monthly committee meetings that have taken place since I began. So that has been really great and I also look forward to taking part in more of those committee meetings as well as potentially getting involved in some of the other committees as well.

Abby O'Leary (10:33):
Something Aria mentioned earlier was wanting to get involved in the Cleveland Legal Collaborative because of being able to explore different areas of law. Are there any areas of law that you maybe haven't had experience in before and are interested in pursuing with the mentorship? You can get through the collaborative or things you've done a bit of but wanna delve further into.

Aireus Johnson (10:59):
I'm most interested in exploring probate guardianship because I had the opportunity to go to a meeting with Abby O'Leary and I seen the impact that she had on her client with last will and testament administration and I want to have that same impact on my future clients. Thanks

Abby O'Leary (11:22):
Arius. That's so kind. Anyone else? Any particular areas of law you're interested in exploring and bringing into your practice?

Josh Selby (11:31):
I'm looking to get into some estate planning, some probate work, some guardianship work. And with my background in nursing, I might try to dip my toes into some personal injury and medical malpractice. If I could find a willing co-counsel for those matters,

Ang Mastandrea (11:48):
I still have yet to figure out a particular niche of the law or anything like that. I'm very interested in a community lawyering model, so working with different community organizing groups and things like that. And I'd really like to get an idea of multiple different areas of the law and to be able to assist different community groups with a wide variety of issues that may come up day to day.

Abby O'Leary (12:14):
Yeah, that's great. Definitely a lot of what we've been doing here at the collaborative has been kind of triaging what people's issues are and I think it probably took me till about right now to really start narrowing in on what areas I like. So you've got time, lots of stuff to explore and lots of people who will be helping you along the way. So I know it's pretty new still, but has there been a favorite or most memorable experience that you've had with the collaborative so far?

Ang Mastandrea (12:46):
I have to agree with Aria that being able to attend the administration of the last one Testament with you Abby, was very impactful. Being able to see in reality the impact that even something that you may not expect to have such an impact on a client would. I would say also being able to actually go into courts with the rest of my cohort and meet judges, meet the, the, the folks who work at the court and just become comfortable in that space has been really meaningful as I wasn't really able to do that prior to this. Yeah,

Abby O'Leary (13:22):
For sure. And I'm really excited about having the new fellows here because now we can, any of us who've been here for six months now we can start conveying and bringing you guys along and getting you into the fold with the bit that we've learned already being here. So it's good to hear that you've been enjoying that part. Anyone else have any other favorite or memorable things that you've done with the collaborative so far?

Josh Selby (13:47):
I really enjoy any time that we get to interact with the Honorable Judge John Russo. He's very supportive of this program. I think we all had a great time getting the tour of the Kaga County Common Police Court with the Judge Russo. I've enjoyed twice now I've got to participate in the CHAAT program, the Cleveland Homeless Legal Assistance Program, which is a program at the Bar Association where we go to 2100 Lakeside and speak with some individuals about

Aireus Johnson (14:22):
The most memorable experience outside of Abby's will administration was the Cleveland Homeless Legal Assistant Program Clinic. It was the first time we interacted with potential clients. It's unfortunate that sometimes that their problems aren't legal, they want to have someone to speak to or is more mental and emotional. And I think just outside of providing legal services to those people that's in the 2100 Lakeside shelter, we can also just provide them an error and that is why it's memorable to me

Abby O'Leary (15:00):
With all of my client experiences or just intakes a lot of the time. Just listening to someone gets you so far and gets, gets them some help that they, they need no matter what it is. Whether you're able to take them on as a client or not, being able to get them in the right direction is really helpful in building those relationships. Is there anything that hasn't happened yet here with the collaborative that you are excited about or looking forward to getting more into?

Ang Mastandrea (15:31):
Well, definitely taking on my first clients. I have not done that yet. I really look forward to having that one-on-one interaction with prospective clients, whether those are people who call in through the CBAs loyal referral service or through something like Schlep or one of the C MBA's, other programs. I really just can't wait to actually dip my toes into the actual lawyering part of it. All doing intakes with folks, really getting to the core of their issues and ultimately ideally coming to a resolution with them and for them that will make their life better.

Josh Selby (16:11):
I'm looking forward to some more attorneys coming in to present their practice ideas to us. We've had some great presenters so far and we've made some great connections and I'm excited to meet some more of those volunteer attorneys.

Aireus Johnson (16:27):
Like Ann stated, I am looking forward to serving clients and getting real court experience and visiting more judges because attending Judge Russo's Chambers was actually really fun too.

Abby O'Leary (16:41):
Is there anything I haven't asked about yet that you wanna share about yourself or the collaborative?

Aireus Johnson (16:50):
So Abby, since you're six months in, what have been your most memorable experience?

Abby O'Leary (16:57):
Yeah, great question. So I now have been able to take cases all the way from start to finish, so that has been really rewarding actually getting through a whole case from the intake to closing it and reaching the conclusion and being with someone the whole way through that. So being able to do that in housing and now an immigration case that I just closed this week has been really fantastic. And then also just building relationships with clients, being there to be able to help them and whether it is someone who becomes a client or not, if it's someone that I just do an intake for and I'm able to get them to the next step or I've had experiences where someone just was served court papers and doesn't even know what they mean or what they need to do next, to be able to read it, explain to them what the next steps are, and for them to then feel equipped to be able to handle that on their own has been really rewarding.

Abby O'Leary (17:59):
So whether it is those long lasting client relationships or just like a brief 20 minute phone call, those relationships with all the different people that I've been able to help have been the most memorable. Thank you. Yeah, of course. Great question. Great answer. Thanks. <laugh>. I know that y'all are excited to start taking cases of your own. I know there have also been attorneys who have come in to speak with us and maybe offer co-counsel or other relationships. Do you want to speak about kind of the real collaborative aspect of this, both working with other attorneys or working within the collab itself?

Josh Selby (18:47):
I think my experience so far really just emphasizes what we've been told since probably taking the lsat, which is networking is everything. We had a presenter come in and speak about his area of practice the next morning. I sent him a follow-up email just thanking him and offering to work together sometime. And then within 48 hours I was signing a co-counsel agreement for my first paid client. And now that has happened twice in the past three weeks.

Abby O'Leary (19:16):
That's great to hear. I'm glad all those relationships are working out and starting to build things for you. That's great to hear.

Ang Mastandrea (19:24):
Well, I would say for me, collaboration in all areas of life is super important. I think that everybody is more powerful when working together. You can get more out of something when you go into it with other people and it's amazing to see what other people are willing to put into the same things that you're passionate about and the same things that you're interested in and how many people are willing to really help you. It inspires you to wanna help others as well. So I've really appreciated seeing all of the attorneys who've been willing to come in and speak with us, the judges and other court staff who've been willing to coordinate times for us to come in and meet with us and give us tours and show us around and really sort of embrace us with welcome and confidence in our ability to go forward and be a real asset for the Cleveland community as a whole and the Cleveland legal community.

Ang Mastandrea (20:18):
I would say also working with the fellows, the first cohort of fellows specifically has been really amazing. I feel so lucky that there are people in the program who already have at least six months of experience. They say that they're not experts, but to me they do feel that way. It's been, it's been really incredible to see. So I feel like in law school there was a the nature of law school was very competitive and it felt much less collaborative to me outside of maybe extracurriculars or things like that. But the act, the law school experience itself felt very polarizing in certain ways. So to be able to come into the legal field professionally and see the ways that collaboration really does exist in the legal field and among legal professionals is really amazing and kind of gives me hope and a push forward into continuing as an attorney going forward.

Abby O'Leary (21:16):
Yes, I feel that 100% and it's been great to, you know, we went on when we started a lot of these same tours and visiting court personnel and learning a lot and then now knowing that those people are resources that we can rely on for if we need help. So if you know someone comes in with a legal issue that I don't know anything about, I've met with someone at the probate court or at the self-help center who I know I can reach out to and ask a question and they'll be able to help us. So that's been fantastic building that kind of network for ourselves and for the collaborative as a unit to be able to have moving forward.

Ang Mastandrea (21:54):
And I also look forward to going forward once I feel a little more settled and maybe a little more like an expert myself, being able to give back that same sort of collaboration in the future. Mm-Hmm

Aireus Johnson (22:05):
<Affirmative>. So in my experience, the collaborative has been really a collaborative effort. I can see all the excitement and the attorneys that come and speak with us, the judges that we visited, the older fellows, I can still see the excitement in their faces when they speak about the collaborative. I'm excited to push the collaborative forward and work alongside the new fellows.

Abby O'Leary (22:32):
Do you have a vision or a goal for what you see the collaborative looking like after you all are done or like five, 10 years from now? What, what you imagine it could become?

Aireus Johnson (22:46):
I see the collaborative grow in size and I see hopefully that if I'm still a solo practitioner in five years, that I'm able to come back and give my wisdom and expertise that I gained over that time period. And I see the collaborative not only impacting the greater Cleveland area, but going to the outside neighborhoods and cities that also need the same legal services because the Cleveland Legal Collaborative is a new program that many of the bar associations around the nation do not have. That's how I see the collaborative in the future.

Josh Selby (23:23):
I hope that the Cleveland Legal Collaborative becomes a self-sustaining legal incubator for many years to come and that it launches the careers of young attorneys like us. I joke when I call myself young like you, but that turns into us giving back to the program time and money that is probably well deserved. To go back to the program, because it all started here,

Ang Mastandrea (23:49):
I definitely see the Cleveland Legal Collaborative having a major impact on the community, both for graduating law students, for practitioners who are early in their career for seasoned attorneys as well as for the community as a whole. I would love to see maybe once capacity is a little more built up and there's a little bit more experience in terms of having a lot of templates or resources and materials and things like that already built up for new incoming fellows in the future. I think that it would be great if there could be a lot of interaction with different community groups and organizing groups. Obviously with my interest in community lawyering sort of the way, like with schlep, the way that the fellows are able to go into local organizations and work with the folks who are having services provided there, I think it would be amazing if that extended even further throughout even more organizations throughout the Cleveland community.

Abby O'Leary (24:52):
Yeah. I love all what you're saying and I, I feel you definitely excited for capacity to expand kind of our own individual experiences and everything we're bringing to expand and the kind of organizational knowledge from that to grow to so that we can help even more people. What would you say to any law students or young lawyers who might be interested in the Cleveland Legal Collaborative?

Ang Mastandrea (25:20):
I would highly suggest applying, reaching out to the folks at the CMBA, running the program, getting you know, as much information as you can about it. I would number one, suggest comparing what the fellowship offers with your needs in life, making sure that it's a good fit for your lifestyle, things like that, first and foremost. But if you are a fresh attorney interested in social justice, interested in finding a way to combine your interest in social justice in the law in a very practical way, which I know from experience can sometimes be a little bit difficult, the collaborative would be a really great place for you. If you're really committed to community, the collaborative would be a really great place for you.

Abby O'Leary (26:04):
Yes, if you are a member of the community who feels like you might fall into the justice gap, make too much money to qualify for Legal Aid, but not enough to afford typical attorney rates, you can fill out our intake form. It is on the C MBA's website under the Cleveland Legal Collaborative tab. On the website, there's an intake form that will come directly to all of us and we will reach out to speak with you and see if and how we can help you. And if we can't take your case, at least guide you in the right direction to doing better on your own or finding someone else who might be able to help you as well.

Melanie Farrell (26:46):
Thank you for listening. CMBA members. If you want to record your own podcast, it's as simple as visiting c metro bar.org/podcasts. We'll do the rest. See you soon with another My Bar story.