What I Learned About Inclusion and Why It Matters

WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT INCLUSION AND WHY IT MATTERS By: Sherif Guindi

McGehee, Cole, Guindi & Walling, P.C.

THE JOURNEY

I was born in Nottingham, England, to Egyptian parents who had arrived in the United Kingdom six years earlier. A year and a half later, we emigrated to the United States along with my baby brother. My parents brought with them their cultural values – a combination of Coptic Christianity, Arabic culture, and British etiquette – to the Appalachian mining town of Harlan, Kentucky. People find it surprising that I never felt like I was the “other” in Harlan. Perhaps it was because Harlan had quite a few foreign doctors, like my father, and their families. I’ve been told that I had a British accent until I was 5 years old and that by the time I attended high school in Knoxville, I had a noticeably thick mountain accent. Growing up in Harlan and attending its public school exposed me to kids from all walks of life and from different economic and educational backgrounds, ethnicities, and races. My educational journey took me from Harlan to Knoxville to Evanston to Tempe to Athens (Georgia), with short stops along the way in Brussels, Cairo, and Ensenada and longer stops in Atlanta and Lexington.

I made my way back home to Harlan after getting my law degree from the University of Georgia. I found myself at an older age and in very different roles in a town that had changed. After a short, informal internship with the Harlan Circuit Judge while I studied for, and waited for my results from, the Kentucky Bar Exam and a few months of work for a seasoned attorney, I began working for the public defender’s office. For most of my tenure there, one other attorney and I represented all of the indigent defendants in both the district court (where misdemeanors were tried and felonies got preliminary hearings) and the circuit court (where felonies were tried). I found myself defending people I knew and had grown up with. My role shifted again when I was hired by the Commonwealth’s attorney, the prosecutor in the circuit court. In addition to negotiating and trying cases, I found myself advising a grand jury that met almost every Monday, often all day. The work was fulfilling, even fun, and the grand jurors represented a revealing, albeit thin, cross-section of the community. Our first foreman was illiterate. My wife, an old friend from high school whom I bumped into, brought me back to my second home of Knoxville, where I center my general practice.

in·clu·sion /in’klooZHn/

1. the action or state of including or of being included within a group or structure.

2. the practice or policy of providing equal access to opportunities and resources for people who might otherwise be excluded or marginalized.

What have I learned from my meandering journey, where I have had the opportunity to be a part of, and bring others into, various communities? Inclusion of those with diverse cultural, ethnic, and racial backgrounds allows us to sympathize, and even empathize, with others, making us better lawyers, judges, and counselors.