Immigration attorney heads Young Lawyers Division of Chattanooga Bar Association

Growing up in Oak Ridge, Brittany Faith was in a Spanish immersion program for 10 years and later took a couple of semesters of Spanish in college at Pennsylvania State University. Faith, who decided at Penn State she wanted to be a lawyer, figured she was done with foreign languages in college “and I thought I would never use my Spanish again.”

But while studying law at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Faith began doing pro bono work and encountered a former high school colleague whose parents were undocumented immigrants. As a so-called “dreamer,” the student who was studying nursing school found out she might not be able to get a nursing license. “It was an emotional experience that really peaked my interest in immigration law and how important it is for many people,” Faith says.

The 29-year-old lawyer now specializes in immigration and employment issue at the Chattanooga firm of Grant, Konvalinka and Harrison PLCC. Faith is also known as someone who can get things done, moving along meetings and projects to accomplish tasks. That skill helped convince her colleagues to elect her as this year’s president of the Young Lawyer’s Division of the Chattanooga Bar Association. As a service arm of the local Bar, the Young Lawyers group organizes community projects and seminars to help educate lawyers, learn about local judges and the Chattanooga bar, and help the community.

Faith is also president of the Southeast Tennessee Lawyers Association for Women, a board member for La Paz of Chattanooga and a member of the Foreign Ministry of Mexico’s PALE program, which provides legal advice to Mexican nationals residing in the United States.