In 1924, Mary E. Yassin wrote a poem on behalf of her classmates at Portia Law School, now known as New England Law | Boston. She ended it with a promise:
“Though the road be long and steep / Wrong will not rule this land of ours / We’ll give Freedom no cause to weep / Nor let waiting Justice sleep!”
100 years later, Mary’s promise reverberates around the school, animated by students who share her zeal for doing the right thing.
One such student is Jean M. Michel, a 3L. In May, he will cross the Commencement stage holding his juris doctor, yet another milestone on the long, steep road he walks, a road that stretches for 1,600 miles from Haiti to Massachusetts.
A Taste of Culture
Years from now, when Jean is a practicing attorney, I will remember our first in-person encounter as the day I started thinking about potato salad in a whole new way.
We met in the student lounge. The room was humming with the energy of several dozen hungry students who had gathered for “A Taste of Culture,” a collective effort by New England Law’s cultural affinity groups to celebrate the diversity of the student body.
Jean was one of several representatives of the Caribbean Law Students Association, which he founded in January 2024 to “celebrate the members’ values and cultures” and “address their collective challenges.” He encouraged me to enjoy the food he had prepared: chicken, rice, and a potato salad that looked nothing like any potato salad I had ever eaten. It included not only potatoes and mayonnaise—which, in my experience, is where the ingredients end—but also beets, carrots, salt, and pepper.
It was superb—so much so, in fact, that I ate two servings. Ordinarily, my instinct to be excessively polite would have kept me from going back for seconds. But when Jean saw that I had finished my first serving and told me to get another, I thought about what he had said to me two days earlier, when we met for the first time via Zoom.
“In my culture, sharing food is about more than taste or flavor; it’s a loving act. We love to share food. It’s a pleasure for us.”
A Voice for the Voiceless
Jean grew up in Gonaïves, Haiti, a coastal community roughly 90 miles north of Port-au-Prince, the country’s capital. The eldest of four, he became his parents’ interpreter at a young age, translating French into Creole. The former is the language in which state documents are written, spoken only by the relatively small portion of the population that went to school; the latter is what nearly everyone speaks.
Jean was aware of the language disparity from the moment he started speaking French. It did not sit right with him that millions of Haitians had to comply with rules written in a language that they did not speak, a language reserved for those who had the privilege of formal education.
From Jean’s awareness of this injustice came his calling to be “a voice for the voiceless.”
It’s a calling that one could follow down many career paths—medicine, politics, teaching. As it turns out, it was a lawyer who made an impression on young Jean.
Long story short: A member of Jean’s family committed a minor infraction and subsequently found themselves dealing with major—and unwarranted—consequences. The family, lacking the money to pay for a lawyer, was at a loss. Justice was out of their price range.
Ultimately, they found a lawyer who helped them for free. He took on their case not because it would benefit him, but because it was the right thing to do. And he won. He relieved Jean’s family of their unjust legal burden.
Never again would Jean wonder what he was going to do with his life. His purpose had come into focus: He was going to do for others what that lawyer had done for his family.
An Unshakeable Resolve
In 2015, with a loose grasp of English and an unshakeable resolve to practice law, Jean moved to New Jersey. He got a job at a candy factory and enrolled in courses for English language learners at Essex County College, where a teacher quickly recognized his talent and encouraged him to pursue a degree.
Jean was skeptical at first because of his limited English skills. He wondered how he could possibly succeed in college without being fluent.
A few months later, he matriculated into the criminal justice program at Essex County College. He earned an associate’s degree before transferring to Rutgers University, where he not only earned a bachelor’s and a master’s, but also completed a research project with funding from the School of Criminal Justice. Under the supervision of the school’s dean, Jean researched perceptions of law enforcement officers in the predominantly Black community of Irvington, New Jersey. His efforts, including in-depth interviews with Irvington residents, culminated in 2022 with the publication of his paper, “Understanding the Relationship Between African Americans and Law Enforcement Officers: A Study Analyzing Police and Community Relations.”
A Full Plate
Soon after publishing his paper, Jean arrived at New England Law | Boston and immersed himself in the law school experience. When he wasn’t preparing for or participating in class, he was supporting several extracurricular projects, including the Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) Initiative and the Operational-Level Grievance Mechanism (OGM) Research Project.
Although Jean now realizes that he “bit off more than he could chew” as a 1L, anyone who looks at his résumé will struggle to find a period where he slowed down. After a summer internship at SouthCoast Fair Housing, Jean returned to school for his 2L year and immediately undertook an eight-month internship with District Court Judge Jason Chan (Class of 2007). Simultaneously, he served on the board of the Immigration Law Association and ran a successful food and clothing donation drive to support migrant families, including some from Haiti.
As soon as his judicial internship wrapped up in May 2024, Jean stepped into a student practitioner role in the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office, representing the state at arraignments, bail hearings, and pre-trial conferences under the supervision of a lawyer.
Now in his 3L year, Jean makes time for class, the Caribbean Law Students Association, and an internship at Greater Boston Legal Services, where he helps migrants from Haiti and elsewhere apply for Temporary Protected Status and other forms of relief.
If all goes according to plan, at this time next year Jean will be clerking for a judge. After that, he hopes to get a job as a prosecutor, perhaps in a district attorney’s office.
Jean’s desire to be a prosecutor may seem at odds with his mission of being a “voice for the voiceless,” but the way he sees it, it’s all part of the process of becoming a legal expert. In his view, gaining experience in both prosecution and defense will make him a more well-rounded advocate.
For now, though, Jean’s job is to be a 3L. As we wrapped up our last conversation, he told me about the three classes he needed to attend that afternoon and evening. And although I was the one interviewing him, it was he who asked the final question.
“I made a couple of Haitian patties to have as a snack in between classes. Will you split them with me?”