The Place: Radio Coffee and Beer. We opted for a patio table outside, in the gorgeous Fall sunshine.

The Cup: Regular, old coffee for me. Chantal had a Diet Dr. Pepper.

The Background: This circumstances of this coffee are definitely a first for me. A few weeks back I got an email from a man who explained that during some random internet rabbit hole exploration, he’d stumbled upon my Coffee With A Stranger project. He was intrigued and thought he had an ideal candidate for me to meet and proceeded to tell me a little about her and why I’d enjoy meeting her.

Turns out, ideal “candidate” was quite literal. She is running for District Judge and he is her campaign manager. I was definitely interested in hearing her story, but I had concerns that he’d somehow gotten the impression my project was somehow PR related. I sent a note back explaining this and letting him know that if Chantal was up for having coffee and just chatting, about life, that would be great. But I was clear that the conversation would not focus on her political aspirations and that I’d understand if she wanted to take a pass in light of this.

Chantal remained interested and that’s how she and I ended up sharing the sunbeams and how she ended up sharing her remarkable story of how she arrived at this point in her life. It’s been a wild ride and I’ll tell you all about it, but first, a few:

Common Grounds:

1. What’s your guilty pleasure? A glass of wine.
2. How did you make your first buck? I used to sell greeting cards door-to-door and I babysat when I was about 12. My first job was a hostess at Bonanza.
3. What is the best place to eat in Austin? Z’Tejas, Clay Pit, Madame Mam’s (now Sap’s) are some of our favorites.
4. What is the best way to unwind? Playing computer games. It’s mindless and gives my mind a chance to disconnect. I really do enjoy it.
5. What’s a food you can’t live without? When I was younger, I used to eat Pad Thai every day. It’s one of my all-time favorite foods! It’s s good!
6. What’s the best gift you ever got? It is a pair of square, glass earrings. I took my son to Gatti’s and he kept coming and asking me for more money for tokens. I saw him playing that claw game and he came up to me afterwards and he had spent the majority of his time trying to get me a pair of earrings that he thought were diamonds. He finally got them and he was so excited to give me *diamond* earrings. I love them! That’s the best gift I ever got! I will always have those earrings!
7. What is one of the best books you’ve ever read? Inherit the Wind. Also, The Odyssey is one of my all-time favorite books in the world. I’ve read it like a millions times.

Sometimes you hear a story that’s filled with heartbreak and loss and you wonder how the person has managed to carry-on. Chantal’s story is one of those tough tales. It’s peppered with moments of sadness and yet it was only in re-listening to our conversation that I realized this. Sitting across from her as we chatted, she was upbeat, optimistic and had a smile on her face nearly the whole time. Despite having suffered some significant losses in her life, Chantal seems to have made the decision to not let her past dictate her future.

New Beginnings

Chantal was born in California, the youngest of three children. Her parents met during World War 2, when her 18 year old military father was part of the Allied Forces that rescued Tunisia from the Nazis.  Her mom, just 16 at the time, was one of those rescued. Two years after meeting and falling in love, Chantal’s father asked her mother to marry him and sent her a ticket to fly to France. She said yes and bravely took that flight to a new land and a new life.

Chantal’s father continued to serve in the military until retiring the year she was born. Also that year, he discovered he had lung cancer. He didn’t let that stop him from going back to school and getting his law degree. Unfortunately, he’d never get the chance to put his education to work as his illness got worse with time and just before Chantal turned six, her father passed away.

He mother, who had already proven herself strong and brave, had to summon her courage to raise three small children on her own. Beyond just courage, she needed an income. Chantal’s mom took the civil service exam and applied for a position with the local post office. She was told because she was a foreigner and because she was a woman that she’d never get a job there. Those words were enough to light a fire within her that not only landed her a job with the postal service, but at the time of her retirement, after 20 years of service, Chantal’s mother was the Post Master of the very post office that has initially rejected her. Boom!

Before he passed away, Chantal’s father told her mother it was his dream that one of his children would follow in his footsteps and become a lawyer. Chantal decided, at age 5, that child would be her. Unlike many of us, who get to college with no real game plan, she set her sights on her career goal and never wavered.

Hitting Pause

Chantal really wanted to attend Stanford, but when she was wait listed and later found out she’d been denied acceptance, she decided to take a year off to travel the world. It’s an experience she never regretted. Even though she found herself in some pretty wild, sometimes dangerous situations, she says, “It was very liberating and it taught me I could get by on my own.” Chantal also said the experience also gave her a huge dose of much needed self-confidence.

Determined to not let that year of travel slow down her plans, she took extra classes and managed to graduate in just three years. Then on to law school where she discovered she loved attending a small school and that she had chosen the perfect profession. Chantal loved the law and that passion is what led to her gradating suma cum laude.

Chantal’s intention was to practice commercial business litigation. But sadly, a series of tragic events would cause her to change course.

Unexpected Changes

In 1994, Chantal got a call from her mother who explained that Chantal’s sister had been burned in a fire. She immediately flew home to Tennessee to be with her family. Her sister’s injuries were extensive – with third degree burns over 40% of her body. Chantal says. “It was horrible.” As she recounts the days her sister was hospitalized, the pain and heartbreak of the ordeal is still very present.

Chantal then shared that she got a visit from the fire marshall came to tell her he suspected it was arson. Her sister lived 24 days, and at that point, the arson investigation turned into a homicide investigation. Chantal said, “You don’t expect something so horrible and tragic to happen in your family.”

Unfortunately, the tragedy was compounded when Chantal learned that her brother had been charged with attempted murder. Charges resulting from a fight he’d gotten into with the boyfriend of their sister. The boyfriend who many suspected was to blame for the fire.

Chantal was shocked. She recalls when she heard the allegations against her brother thinking they sounded exaggerated. She wasn’t really worried about the charges, because she assumed the case would be thrown out. It wasn’t. And Chantal’s brother was convicted of attempted murder.

Chantal moved back to Tennessee to, as she puts it, “fix this miscarriage of justice”. They had hearings for a year. Eventually, Chantal’s mother hired criminal defense expert, Alan Dershowitz. With Chantal’s help, they successfully appealed her brothers conviction and changed state law in the process. Since then, Chantal has devoted her life to criminal defense.

Her sister’s murder remains unsolved.

Getting Away

Though Chantal had built a strong business and a reputation as an attorney people could trust and depend on in Tennessee, Chantal made the decision to relocate to somewhere more progressive when her son was beginning elementary school. She tells me she didn’t want him growing up in an environment that was a close minded as the one she was raised in.

Several cities made the contender list, but after a visit to Austin, Chantal was sold!

Her mother, who had battled colon cancer since Chantal’s son was born, moved to Austin with them. Chantal found the perfect home and decorated her mom’s room with poppy flowers which were common in her mom’s home country of Tunisia. Sadly, her mom never had the opportunity to see the room for herself. She had a heart attack and became very sick. After being hospitalized for many moths, Chantal’s mom passed away.

Her mom left her with many pearls of wisdom over the years. One piece that has shaped Chantal’s career was, “Do what you love and the money will come.”

Giving A Voice

Chantal tells me after moving to Austin, she started doing a lot of mental health cases. Defending people with mental illness makes up about 80% of her practice. And it’s her experience with this often forgotten population that is fueling her desire to run for District Court Judge. Part of her campaign mission statement reads: I believe that we must strive harder to address the issues which cause people to enter the system, such as mental health/intellectual & developmental disabilities (MH/IDD), substance abuse, unemployment and housing.  By improving the way we address these issues, we improve our chances of reducing recidivism, and by improving the lives of our defendants and their families, we, in turn, improve our community. 

Chantal has been so busy with the campaign, running her law practice and raising her son, now a senior in high school, she can hardly think of an answer to the question of “what’s the most significant thing that’s happened to you in the last 30 days?” She jokes that’s it’s just been all camp gain, all the time, adding, “I wish I could tell you it was some fabulous vacation or something.”

I love to find out what people would do with their time, if money were no object. Chantal says, “I feel happy every day. I tend to think I’d do exactly the same thing. I like to help people. If not this, then it would be working with animals. I have two dogs and a cat. I believe that animals contribute quite a lot to our lives.”

Who Can We Believe In?

The biggest issue facing society today, according to Chantal, is, “A breakdown in our government. And because of that, nothing’s getting done and it’s harming the American public. We have problems in our country and they aren’t being addressed. It’s causing the young people to become ambivalent because they see these people who aren’t getting anything done and not working “for the people” then they say, ‘why should I even go out there and vote because nothing gets done anyway’. I think that will be problematic in the future.

Citizens United is also a problem. I don’t think we should let corporations dump hundreds of millions of dollars into campaigns to influence them for their own purposes. I think that’s wrong. We need to reverse that decision and get money out of politics, if possible. So that politicians can feel free to do what’s right for the people as opposed to the people paying for their campaigns. If we could just solve that one problem, I think it would open us up to being able to solving a lot of other issues. Homeless, women’s health issues, working class families, livable wage issues, human rights…we have to have a working government in order to solve any of these issues.”

Second Chances

If she had 30 seconds to make a speech to the world, here is Chantal’s message: “I would like to strengthen and get back to the basics of rehabilitation. We have to look at housing, training, education, employment – those are the real blocks to people getting back on their feet and lifting them out of this cycle of poverty that they’re in so that they don’t recidivate. Most people commit crimes related to their mental health issues. We need to help people learn a trade and get a job so they can support themselves and their families. Then they aren’t going to come back to the criminal justice system. All of those success stories we hear are because someone extended a helping hand and someone found a way to get out of the cycle.”

Chantal has ambitious dreams and an optimistic vision for a world where people are given a chance. If not at first, then at least a proper second chance. People make mistakes. We’ve all made mistakes. Some little, some big. Some public, some private. But everyone should have the opportunity to change the course of their life if they want to. And it’s clear that for some, particularly those who are in poverty or suffering from mental health issues, the road ahead isn’t filled with many options. And once you remove the illegal ones, there’s really not much left.

Chantal believes it’s possible to change that. She has committed her career to helping those who need a voice. Who need another chance. Who need someone in their corner. And after spending 90 minutes talking with her, I can say I believe she’s capable of accomplishing anything she sets her mind to. And I also say, other people’s lives are better because she’s here.

Thinking back to how Chantal’s story began, I can see a theme in the legacy laid before her. A legacy of freeing people from injustice, offering refuge and hope, standing up for what’s right and demanding a fair chance. Her father and mother both lived by these principles and I have no doubt, they’d be proud of the legacy Chantal is setting for those who’ll carry the torch after her. Her life is an example of doing what’s right for all and for remembering that every person has a voice that deserves to be heard. Sometimes they just need someone to hold up a megaphone.

It’s been a long time since someone in politics left me feeling optimistic and inspired. Chantal did and she gets my vote!