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Desert Island Discs

Kimberley Motley, lawyer

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.413.7K Ratings

🗓️ 10 November 2019

⏱️ 51 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Kimberley Motley is an American attorney and the first foreign lawyer to practise in Afghanistan. Born in 1975 to an African-American father and a North Korean mother, she grew up in a poor neighbourhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where hers was the only mixed-race family - and the only family with two parents. Education was very important to her parents, who sent their four children to private schools and also paid for extra tutoring. After completing degrees in Criminal Justice and Law, Kimberley spent five years working as a Public Defender before taking up the opportunity in 2008 to go to Afghanistan for a year to train local lawyers. Her husband, Claude, stayed in the US to take care of their three children. When her one-year contract in Afghanistan came to an end, she decided to stay and started her own private legal practice. Initially she only took on foreign clients, but once she had familiarised herself with the intricacies of local laws and customs, she accepted her first Afghan client. She has gone on to build a thriving practice, with a 70-30% ratio of paid to pro-bono work. Her practice now extends to other parts of the world including Uganda, Ghana and the UAE and earlier this year she published a book about her working life. DISC ONE: Will Smith - A Nightmare on My Street DISC TWO: Elton John - I Guess That’s Why They Call it the Blues DISC THREE: LL Cool J - I'm Bad DISC FOUR: KT Tunstall - Suddenly I See DISC FIVE: Dizzee Rascal featuring Calvin Harris - Dance Wiv Me DISC SIX: Ed Sheeran - I See Fire DISC SEVEN: The Black Eyed Peas - Pump It DISC EIGHT: Kendrick Lamar - DNA BOOK CHOICE: 1984 by George Orwell LUXURY ITEM: Business card holder with photo of her children CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Pump It by Black Eyed Peas Presenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Cathy Drysdale

Transcript

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0:00.0

BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts

0:04.7

Hello, I'm Lauren LeVern and this is the Deser Island Disks podcast.

0:08.4

Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take

0:13.1

with them if they were cast away to a desert island.

0:16.4

This is an extended version of the original Radio 4 broadcast and for right reasons the

0:21.5

music is shorter than the original broadcast.

0:24.4

I hope you enjoy listening.

0:30.0

Music Music

0:46.4

My cast away this week is the lawyer Kimberly Motley.

0:49.7

If you happen to be an Afghanistan and run into trouble, hers is a useful name to know.

0:54.0

Or you could try her nickname 911, bestowed to denote her reputation as an unofficial emergency

0:59.8

service to Western embassies, foreign companies and the pro bono clients for whom she is usually

1:05.6

the only hope.

1:07.2

American by birth she was the first foreign litigator to practice in Afghanistan.

1:11.9

Not only is she a woman, using her voice in one of the world's most conservative male-dominated

1:16.4

cultures, she also uses the law.

1:19.5

She studied Sharia, the Islamic code that co-exist alongside the new Afghan constitution

1:24.8

and has represented clients in informal jurors, councils of elders who meet out justice

1:30.0

based on their interpretation of Islamic principles.

1:33.6

As she puts it, working the system from the inside out.

1:37.4

It's a far cry from her earlier life, 12 years ago she'd never left the US and was living

1:42.1

in working in her hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, raising three children and making ends meet

...

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