Connecting Legal Practice with their Soul. Member Spotlight: Ana Luíza Panyagua Etchalus
Culminating a 40 year legal career, Ana Luíza Panyagua Etchalus is not the same kind of labor and civil litigation lawyer she came up as. Rather, her commitment to her family and the communities that formed around her led Etchalus to go back to school, study legal psychology, and use her masterful knowledge of the Brazilian Legal system to practice integrative law, bring people together, and “build the connection between her soul and her practice.”
Building Connections
Etchalus began practicing law in 1983. From civil and labor litigation, she moved to the banking industry, and finally founded her own law firm. Alongside her legal practice – throughout her whole adult life– Etchalus had a deep desire to connect with her Basque origins. Her father had told stories of the Basque country and dreamed of building familial connections, but had no written record, “nothing in his hands.” When the internet became more widespread, connections to the Basque country became easier for Ana Luíza to find.
In 2007, “under the light of a Blue Moon”, Etchalus was able to connect with relatives over the phone who were also researching the connection between Basque country and South America. Having found her family, Ana Luíza felt it was her duty to pay homage to her father and to her daughters to leave them with a material connection to their origins. She started writing a book and in 2008 visited Basque country for the first time, learning as much as she could from the people and literature she was able to find there.
Two years later in 2010, all of the research and connections resulted in Ana Luíza Panyagua Etchalus’ first book. Basque Soul was the first Portuguese language book to document Basque culture and history while also documenting Etchalus’ emotional journey connecting with her roots. By 2012, the book had been translated into Spanish and Ana Luíza was invited to present her book and research internationally.
The Person and the Lawyer
As a result of the book’s success, Ana Luíza began bringing people together, uniting them around Basque culture and origins rather than dividing people through lawsuits. “This whole situation happened more than a decade ago now, and just yesterday a woman found me because of the book. I wrote to her saying it is an honor to share with you a bit of my soul which is also your soul.”
Bringing people together changed Etchalus’ perspective on the legal profession, she enjoyed building communities and wanted to do more. Ana Luíza became a reference on Basque history and communities built around her dedicated to recovering the histories of families. Simultaneously, Etchalus wanted to get in touch with herself so she rededicated herself to academics. “I went through legal psychology, I did a masters in international trade law, then mediation, then collaboration and conscious contract.”
Echalus’ emphasis in legal psychology and eventually neuroscience enabled her to connect with different kinds of people on different levels, an invaluable skill for her work in the legal profession and mediation. “Now I have different tools that I can apply depending on the needs of the client. Different conflicts and people require different processes, litigation, mediation. I don’t deny any of the tools I have now.”
Through her education Ana Luíza connected with J. Kim Wright who became her close friend and mentor, “we realized that we were both capricorn women and very stubborn and determined and loved work, we had a lot in common including that she was the leader of the integrative law movement. Since then I have been practicing collaborative law and sometimes get hired as a mediator.”
Disaster Relief
The Rio Grande do Sul floods have devastated communities throughout Brazil, displacing over 500,000 people and requiring many to rely on shelters for survival. The conditions and communities being built in the shelters were becoming dangerous and did not promote healing in the face of this collective trauma, so Ana Luiza decided to step in.
“We had water all over the city so I wanted to help, but we needed a safe place for me to be able to help. So I presented a pilot program to the shelters and I brought in different lawyers and mediators to help create a protocol in the middle of the disaster, in the face of collective trauma, to welcome people and create an environment where the community can heal. We weren’t creating a new academic movement, we kept everything simple so we could help people who were suffering.”
Coming from her legal background, Etchalus felt she could bring certain skills that were lacking in the shelter setting. “We faced complexity and in the middle of the complex situation, you need to be discreet and simple… people were suffering and this background helped me to not cause damage.” The tools Echalus gained from focusing on integrative law and employing conscious contract practices helped to facilitate a healing environment.
Ana Luíza connected with Mediators Beyond Borders International to help her design and implement the program in the shelters. “I was present, I was there for them, but I didn’t have any specific trauma training and I was afraid to cause harm. I needed help to know how to help people.” Ana Luíza received guidance, generosity, and support from MBBI’s Prabha Sankaranarayan, Su Flickinger, Henry Yampolsky, and Loretta Raider. As a result, Etchalus constructed a team composed of Ana Luiza Michelon, Bianca Bertoni, and Estela Maris Almeida – all of whom are lawyers, mediators, and now MBBI members – to take decisive action in response to the floods.
Etchalus’ experience working in the shelter and building the new protocols has inspired a new essay documenting the work she did in those shelters and recording the procedures that changed the healing process following the disaster. “I was given feedback recently, they said our presence there brough harmony.”
As Etchalus looks to the future, she is refining her essay before publication, and spending time with the family she has found and surrounded herself with before traveling to the US to discuss her recent work and meet with her peers who helped her learn to help others in the face of the floods. As she continues her work, Etchalus is regularly hired as an integrative lawyer and committed to the conscious contract, “building relationships and bringing people together with legal effects. This is what I like to do nowadays.”
Article by Kieran Blunnie, MBBI Writer