Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Vickie Brett Amanda Selogie. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Vickie Brett, thanks for joining us today. Let’s kick things off with talking about how you serve the underserved, because in our view this is one of the most important things the small business community does for society – by serving those who the giant corporations ignore, small business helps create a more inclusive and just world for all of us.

Yes our law firm serves an underserved community. We specialize in providing advocacy services to children with disabilities. Within that underserved population we also service many families who speak Spanish. Typically, parents and families that are monolingual Spanish speakers are generally underserved because they are unable to adequately communicate with IEP teams and therefore are unable to appropriately advocate on behalf of their children with special needs. We had one client who could beautifully article her child’s needs in Spanish but when the school district used a translator, we found out the translator put their “own spin” and own personal opinions to what parent was stating which was inappropriate. Even when English is the primary language of families, the special education world is difficult to navigate, and adding the layer that the family does not primarily speak English makes the process that much more difficult. It is important to provide advocacy services for this underserved community because many attorneys are not able to speak the same language as their clients. According to a 2022 Diversity Report from the CA State Bar, only 6% of attorneys are Hispanic/Latinos. Being able to provide advocacy services to the Latino community is important form of representation for this community to continue to find ways to grow and thrive in the educational system.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Amanda and Vickie met in law school while studying abroad in Spain. After bonding over lunch, adventure, and desire for helping people, we began planning to establish a law firm together one day in the distant future. The plan to build a law firm together happened more quickly after law school than they originally thought. The legal system is not set up for families to effectively advocate for their children with unique learning needs in a quick and efficient way. There needed to be a better way to support students living with disabilities. The access to quality free legal aide was missing and we wanted to do more than one case at a time. From there the Inclusive Education Project (“IEP”) was born so we could educate families on special education rights and connect qualifying California families with free legal aid for Special Education advocacy.

Our community outreach as a nonprofit includes our podcast, training/workshops, and presentations, and political educational advocacy. We are known for supporting families and special populations of students that require support in accessing equal learning opportunities. We focus on a holistic and collaborative approach to helping our clients in supporting all aspects of their education which makes us different then the standard special education attorney. We are most proud of our collaboration with community and education partners who help us provide free or low cost resources to families. Our mission is to provide an equal opportunity for all children to access their education and through our legal advocacy, learning center, and community outreach we are well on our way to doing so.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

As female business owners, it was difficult to get our start up money through traditional financial institutions. We were both “unmarried” females and so were denied loans outright. Through the generosity of a close friend, we were provided some seed money to get an office set up and from there hustled as best as we could to build our client base.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

The best source of new clients for us has been general “word of mouth.” As you can imagine, one of our biggest hurdles is overcoming the fac that many people are not aware of the issues we are fighting against. Most families do not even know the legal issues that are affecting their child’s educational journey and so they find us later than they should. The most recent struggles of course came because of the pandemic, people continuing to see “disabilities” in a negative way, and the educational system continuing to try to use outdated research and systems to educate all students. Now, four years later, we have seen some “thinking outside of the box” with the educational system but new clients typically find us because a parents in their child’s class has hired us for advocacy services.

Contact Info:

• Website: InclusiveEducationProject.org
• Instagram: @InclusiveEducationProject
• Facebook: @InclusiveEducationProject

Image Credits
We do not typically take pictures of our clients for confidentiality purposes.