Being rooted in community provides a very unique and difference-making perspective that assures an awareness of issues that ordinary individuals deal with that are routinely ignored by the upper echelons of power. Yet the ability to connect authentically and engage with regular people and achieve a genuine and greater understanding of their needs and aspirations is a necessary component of any good advocate, lawyers not excluded.
Attorney Patterson demonstrates this key quality in her multifaceted community engagements and prominent civic duties in Detroit, her hometown and the headquarters of Patterson Justice Counsel.
When not consulting with clients or taking on their cases in court, Attorney Patterson is fully immersed in her role as the President and Director of Research of The PuLSE Institute, a nationally renowned independent, nonpartisan anti-poverty think tank, the first of its kind, located in Detroit.
As President, Attorney Patterson oversees the overall operation of one of the most important independent anti-poverty institutions in the nation, whose work is deeply rooted in the history of giving voice to the claims of the oppressed and disenfranchised in society. In doing so, she ensures the Institute’s authentic and community-focused programming runs consistently, with high caliber, solutions-oriented presentations to address the challenges of poverty in the community.
A prolific writer, she regularly contributes columns published by the Institute that challenge the perceptive failures of government leadership to combat debilitating quality of life issues such as poverty and income inequality.
Patterson has also contributed her legal expertise and advocacy skills to The PuLSE Institute, authoring an amicus brief in support of the groundbreaking right to literacy for Black schoolchildren in Detroit in the historic Gary B. v Whitmer case. Her consistent support of the case in publicly advocating for poor school children in Detroit in her capacity as leader of The PuLSE Institute helped the plaintiffs in reaching a favorable settlement with the case.