Every month, we give the Amicus Mundi Award to an outstanding lawyer in our community who exemplifies our shared values of service and dedication to building a more just and equitable society. In honor of our 5th anniversary this week, we’re proud to give the next Amicus Mundi Award to a lawyer who has been with us since the very beginning and has completed several projects each year.
We hope the profile below inspires you to volunteer for one of our 130+ active projects. And if you’re already volunteering – thank you!
Congratulations, Pushpa Bhat!
A Self-Described Voting Nerd: Pushpa Bhat didn’t grow up dreaming of being a lawyer. But accompanying her dad to the polls as a kid turned her into a “voting nerd.”
While waiting for the results of her New York bar exam in 2016, Pushpa started volunteering for the voter protection hotline. “I really enjoy making sure people have the right information about voting. It sounds simple, but that information can be really hard to find state by state. Even as a voter, I had trouble navigating it.”
Helping people vote has been the focus of her pro bono work since then. “Volunteering is a way of fending off feelings of hopelessness. I was feeling down in 2017 and I’m glad WTA existed to channel that feeling into something I can actually do.”
“This isn’t something you just do in an election year”: After the 2016 election, Pushpa volunteered with a local group in New York to make voting more accessible.
“I realized this isn’t something you just do in an election year. This is ongoing. During an important election, it needs to be all hands on deck. To be successful in the fall, you need a good foundation, and that takes time.”
Pushpa has donated her time to our partners at Rock the Vote, When We All Vote, The Democracy Capacity Project, and Florida Rights Restoration Coalition – to name a few!
“This work would not be possible without volunteers like Pushpa,” says Sue Zachman, Director of The Democracy Capacity Project, an organization helping grassroots advocacy groups.
“Look for a project that speaks to you”: One of Pushpa’s favorite projects was with When We All Vote (WWAV) in 2020. She was tasked with making sure everything WWAV put on social media about voting was accurate.
“I would see that the posts on social media were getting a lot of shares and clicks. I knew my work was impactful.”
“Our work was made possible by volunteer lawyers like Pushpa who used her legal background to provide WWAV with up-to-the-minute information about the complex and frequently-changing election rules and deadlines across the country,” says Stephanie Young, Executive Director of WWAV and Senior Advisor of Civic Nation.
Stephanie Young, continues, “Since 2020, we've seen more than 500 voter suppression bills introduced or passed in states across the nation. Now is not the time to be complacent, and we need the action and support of lawyers like Pushpa as we fight to protect our sacred right to vote.”
You don't have to take our word for it: Pushpa shares We The Action’s passion for volunteerism and offers great advice for lawyers thinking about volunteering for the first time.
“There’s always something you can do to help. It doesn’t have to be a months-long thing. A couple hours of research can make an organization’s work so much easier.”
If you’re inspired and you love voting rights as much as Pushpa, here are a few project ideas for you!
On behalf of 42,000+ volunteer lawyers:
Thank you, Pushpa!
LAST THOUGHT: We The Action has been connecting lawyers with causes for five years! In honor of our 5th anniversary, we want to give a special shoutout to three volunteers (and past Amicus Mundi Award recipients) that have been with us since the beginning and have received a WTA badge for completing 10 or more projects! A huge thank you to Corey Preston, Deborah Tuchman, and Jeremy Coffey! Thank you for supporting our nonprofit partners and helping us reach this milestone.