Barbara K. Strickland: Defending the Community

Born in Hopewell, Virginia, Barbara Strickland and her family moved from town to town when she was young because her father worked for the state’s Department of Corrections. In the early Sixties, she arrived to Long Beach, California to study her last year of high school. 
“We were in the middle of the ‘60s. There was the Vietnam War, and the Social Rights movement, that’s when I got the idea of becoming a lawyer,” she said. “Back then, I didn’t know what would be my focus, I just knew I wanted to be a lawyer.” 
Strickland is a has degrees in political science and Spanish from UC Santa Barbara and Western State University Law School. Today, she has more than 40 years of experience, defending her clients’ rights through private practice, and several pro-bono cases. 
As a law school student, Barbara figured out what she wanted to focus her law career on. 
While Strickland was at enrolled Western State University Law School, a law clinic started up on campus, which let students practice law under a supervisor. One of the services provided were immigration services, which Barbara took a shine to. 
“I was working at the school’s law clinic. It was then when I wanted to focus on immigration for my career”, she said. “Back then, there was a huge change in immigration laws. Before, people could ask for a legal residency in the United States if they had children in the country. So at the law clinic, we focused on processing all the cases we could before the law changed.” 
After graduating from law school, Strickland worked as a lawyer in Orange County for approximately four years. Later, she moved to Mexico City, after her husband at the time received a job offer. 
While in Mexico, Barbara got a job offer that later opened doors for her in the United States. 
“I started working for the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Relations. I wasn’t working as a lawyer back then, but I worked with issues related to immigration and problems that Mexicans have when they are abroad,” she said. “I was in Mexico City for seven years, then I came to San Diego.” 
When she arrived to San Diego in 1990, she started working for the Mexican Consulate in San Diego as a legal advisor. Her job included serving people that asked for help at the consulate with legal problems in immigration, family matters, and even criminal cases. 
Before leaving her post at the consulate in 1999, to open her own lawyer’s office, she created a program which provided free legal consultation about immigration issues that still continues to operate at the Mexican Consulate in San Diego. The program operates every Tuesday from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. at the Mexican consular facilities located in Little Italy. Strickland still works with the program even though she started her private practice 17 years ago. 
Over the course of her career, Strickland has received the Wiley W. Manuel Award from the State Bar of California for her pro-bono legal work on three different occasions. She also received several awards from the American Bar Association Immigration Justice Project for providing pro-bono representation to aliens in removal proceedings. 
“I have always felt that if I can help other people I will feel good”, she said. “I’m motivated by keeping families together and helping people that have lived almost their entire life in the United States stay here.” 
At the beginning of 2016, Strickland left her own private practice to slowly retire. Strickland recently joined Stephanie Alcala Law Offices in National City, but only works a few cases. And even though her workload is lighter, her cases still make an impact in the community. 
In one of her recent cases, a person lost a case in an immigration court because the client had a criminal record in California. But a new California law that took effect on January 2016 could make that criminal record disappear. Strickland was able to erase the criminal record of her client because of the new law. Today, other lawyers take Strickland’s case as an example to help more people in the immigration courts. 
Besides the legacy she leaves with the cases she defends, Barbara also likes to do workshops and conferences at schools and churches to educate the people about their rights. 
“Even if someone is undocumented, they have rights. It’s important that people know this, so they don’t give up,” she said. “I feel very satisfied when I do a free community event. I don’t want people to go to notaries or consultants so they don’t end up as a fraud victim.” 
Strickland is a member of the San Diego Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyer Association and has served as a member, chair and co-chair of the Unauthorized Practice of Law committee.