I’m Bruce Reilly. I’m the Deputy Director of Voice of the Experienced. I’m also at another organization called Voters Organized to Educate (VOTE). I come to the work that I do from growing up in foster homes, being homeless, going to prison for 12 years, getting out on parole, and then I moved to New Orleans to go to the one law school that admitted me.
I was a former jailhouse lawyer, which is when you’re on the inside and everyone comes to you and says, “Hey, here is my case,” or, “I gotta write a letter to the judge.” All the different issues that people tangle with, they would come to the guy who can write the petition for you, do the research. I was a lawyer before I was a lawyer.