How Stevenson Connects With His Clients

     After reading Just Mercy for today, I thought it was really interesting to see how the author, Bryan Stevenson, truly cares for every individual client who needs his help. So far, Stevenson’s main case he is working with involves Walter McMillian who was falsely convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of a white woman. Then in chapter 6, he gets a late call from an older woman asking for help, this woman wanted Stevenson to help her 14 year old grandson, Charlie, who was in jail all the way in Virginia for murdering his mother’s boyfriend. Even though Stevenson was dealing with Walter’s case he is determined to help all the people who are in need of his assistance, he even states that he “hesitated before answering her” but Stevenson still decided to drive out all the way to Virginia to help Charlie. I thought this revealed how determined Stevenson is to help every single one of his clients, even if he needs to work in multiple cases, and it shows how genuine he is towards helping others and treating people fairly.   

    In addition, I thought it was really interesting to see how Stevenson is able to connect and communicate with with his clients at a personal level, and especially ones who are uncomfortable with talking, such as Charlie. After Stevenson drives an hour to Virginia, he meets with Charlie at his prison. Stevenson says that Charlie “wouldn’t make eye contact” with him, and Stevenson adds that, “he was staring intensely to my left, looking at the wall as if he saw something there,” (Stevenson 121). Even though Charlie was not cooperating with him it was really interesting to see how Stevenson was able to connect with Charlie. Stevenson attempts to get Charlie to talk by saying, “if I were you, I’d be pretty scared and really worried right now, but I’d also want someone to help me,” (Stevenson 122). Stevenson also says they don’t even need to talk about what happened, instead he offers to talk about Charlie’s mom, Stevenson ends up talking about fried chicken with collard greens and how he’s thinking about getting a new car. He put his arm around Charlie, and eventually, Charlie began crying and he decided to talk to Stevenson. What I thought was really interesting about this interaction was how Stevenson carefully talks to his clients. Stevenson understands the struggles these people are going through, so he tries to appeal to their emotions and he tries to talk about things personal to them. Additionally, he acts calmly and kindly towards his clients. Also he isn’t always focused on his case, Stevenson genuinely wants to talk and connect with his clients like they are his friend. Overall, he wants to treat these people as normal humans because they are treated extremely harsh in prison.