A Q&A with Fernando Flores about Bravery, Love, and Accessible Legal Notices
At the Impact Fund, we believe that access to justice means a legal system that works for everyone. People deserve to be fairly represented and to know how the system is affecting them.
That's the core belief behind our Notice Project, which exists to help people in class action lawsuits understand the legal notices they receive. When a legal notice (typically in the form of a letter in the mail or an email) is confusing, overly-technical, or even written in the wrong language, something fundamental has broken down. Technically, notice was given. But practically, it wasn't received.
The Impact Fund’s heightened focus on immigrant justice extends to every corner of our organization, including our Notice Project. Spanish speakers should receive notices that they understand. Making sure those notices are clear and accurate in Spanish is a small but real part of making the legal process work for the people it's supposed to serve.
You can get our Spanish language notice templates, for free, here.
Fernando Flores, a civil rights attorney and partner at Vicuna Flores, generously donated his time to help strengthen our Spanish-language class notices. We sat down with him to talk about what's really at stake when legal notices fail and what it means to fight for someone's dignity inside a system that too often makes them feel invisible.
Fernando Flores, Partner at Vicuna Flores
Q: Looking back at your younger self in law school, what would surprise him about the work you do now?
A: What would surprise him most is that my practice is not just about knowing the law. It is about earning trust. It is about sitting across from someone who is scared, angry, embarrassed, or overwhelmed, and helping them feel less alone.
I think he would be proud that the work I do now lets me stand with people who are often underestimated, ignored, or made to feel invisible. He would probably be surprised that speaking Spanish, understanding culture, and listening deeply would become just as important to my lawyering as anything I learned in a casebook.
Q: What’s a case or issue you’re working on right now that you wish more people understood?
A: In the context of employment cases, I wish more people understood how much courage it takes for workers to come forward. As attorneys, we often focus on the legal issues, such as unpaid wages, retaliation, harassment, or discrimination.
But behind every claim is a person making a very difficult decision, particularly as immigrant workers during these very challenging times. They may be risking their job, their reputation, their financial stability, or their immigration security. They may be the first person in their family to challenge an employer or speak openly about mistreatment.
I wish more people understood (or remembered) that our clients' cases are about standing up for someone's dignity, and when someone decides to speak up, it is not a small thing, it is a huge act of bravery.
Q: Why does language access in legal notices matter, and what’s at stake when it’s done poorly?
A: Language access matters because notice without understanding is not real notice.
We cannot say that someone has been given a meaningful opportunity to participate in a legal process if the information was delivered in a language they cannot read or in a form they cannot understand. That is especially important in class actions, wage-and-hour cases, immigration-related matters, and any case involving vulnerable communities.
If our legal process only works for people who speak English fluently, understand legal terminology, and feel comfortable reading formal notices, then we are not really providing true access to justice. We are providing access to a narrow group of people and calling it fairness.
Q: What do most lawyers get wrong about communicating with non-English-speaking clients or class members?
Good communication with non-English speakers requires cultural understanding, patience, humility, and context. A technically accurate translation can still fail if it sounds cold, overly legalistic, or disconnected from the way people actually speak and make decisions. So the responsibility is on us to explain clients' rights in plain language and recognize that trust is built through tone, consistency, and respect.
A: What’s one piece of advice you’d give a young lawyer considering this kind of practice?
This practice can be deeply rewarding, but it can also be very challenging. Your clients will bring you their pain, their fear, their worries, and sometimes their trauma. You have to be prepared to honor that and not absorb it in a way that causes you to burn out.
I would also tell a young lawyer to become excellent at the fundamentals. Learn procedure. Learn evidence. Learn how to investigate. Learn how to write clearly. Learn how to prepare a case for trial. Compassion matters, but compassion without skill is not enough.
In law school, my mentor and professor for 3 of my courses was the late Justice Cruz Reynoso. He told me, "if you want to represent the Spanish-speaking immigrant community effectively, make sure you learn how to write effectively on their behalf, this is part of your obligation to your clients." So I did.
Q: What book, film, or piece of writing has shaped how you think about justice?
A: Matt Kahn’s Whatever Arises, Love That has shaped the way I think about justice in a very personal way. At first glance, it may not seem like a traditional book about law or justice.
But for me, it speaks directly to what this work requires. Justice requires presence. Clients often come to us carrying fear, anger, shame, grief, and uncertainty. The legal system can easily reduce those emotions into claims, facts, damages, and deadlines. Whatever Arises, Love That reminds me that before we can advocate well, we have to see the full humanity of the person in front of us.
Sometimes the strongest thing we can do is listen with compassion, stand with someone in their most vulnerable moment, and let them know that their experience matters, their voice matters, and we are going to fight on their behalf.