Brennan Aberle ’08 still remembers meeting his first client as a Guilford County Public Defender. She was a single mother working two jobs – a grocery store by day and a packaging plant by night – who had been charged with solicitation for prostitution.

Brennan began talking to her. Not as a lawyer seeking facts, but as another human being who simply wanted to learn more about the woman sitting across the table from him.

“She started telling me about her son, and the medications he was on and taking his first steps,” Brennan recalled. “I just got lost and mesmerized listening to her story, because, as I would later learn, as an attorney, when you look at your client and you just go straight to the facts of guilt or innocence, they immediately distrust you. They want to be heard. They have a story, and there's human value to these people who enter the court system.”

The woman was found not guilty and Brennan’s legal career was off and running. Not only was his first case a winner, his client taught him an important lesson, one he still carries with him today as a criminal defense lawyer in Greensboro.

“Our criminal justice system alienates the human element from everything,” he says. “When you stop and learn about who another person is you can accomplish so much more about finding actual justice in this world.”

Brennan shared his story Oct. 28 in a crowded Gilmer Room on campus as part of The Honors Program at Guilford College's ongoing Dinner & Discussion Series. This year’s series is entitled “Listening with Love” and features Guilfordians and other working professionals sharing their thoughts on how they practice the series’ theme in their daily lives.

In September, Kristen Hairston, a Wake Forest University medical professor, spoke with Guilford students about listening to patients’ fears and frustrations.

“In a divisive society and contentious election year, we need to learn how to listen with love – and practice it,” says Heather Hayton, Robert K. Marshall Professor of English and Director of the College’s Honors Program.

Brennan, who was a Political Science major at Guilford and earned a law degree from Elon University School of Law, told students that Guilford and its Quaker roots continue to have an impact on him today.

“This became the place that really defined my philosophy and goals going forward,” he said. “Certainly my first few years I did not have my (act) together. I was not and neither do any of you have to have all your lives and everything figured out, but Guilford has been a compass to me all these years later.”