Motion Denied

As some of you may recall from April, my experience representing my first client did not end as we had hoped, and as we learned later, did not end at all. The experience has been priceless in showing the power of the court, as well as highlighting the responsibility of representatives in accepting client's cases.

To back pedal a bit...after the debacle that occurred in my client's hearing and after she continued to blatantly lie to us in the immediate aftermath, we filed a motion with the court to withdraw from further representation for a number of highly valid reasons. While we knew there was a chance, as there is with any motion, that the judge could deny our request, we hoped he would not and really believed that we had presented good arguments for our case. More than a month after filing the motion we go the judges order: Motion Denied. After the emotional roller coaster we had all hitched a ride on, it turned out we were not given passage off of it quite yet.

The news came a couple of days after my graduation. We were not wholly unprepared as we had talked about this possibility, my partner's and my responsibilities and rights, and a contingency plan if the worst were to occur. But to actually be faced with this reality had the same effect of having the wind knocked out of all of us. How were we supposed to go back to this woman who we could not trust and try and piece the truth together? How do you have faith in her as an individual?

Clinical programs are interesting--they present myriad choices for the students everyday. Some with distinct right and wrong decisions, but there's a lot of ambiguity to the choices we have to make as well. The first big one that I confronted was: do I stay on this case or do I bow out and let the others take the reins from here? After all, I no longer am a student at the school, our clinical grades had already come out. For all intents and purposes, I was done with the clinic. But then the grey area came quickly creeping in. This was my client. This was not an abstract "real life simulated" project that I could skip away from on a whim. My partner and I, no matter how dishonest our client was with us, had invested more time and work into her case than I've invested in almost anything. And we know her--we know her better than the advisers know her--we were in the position to be more effective than anyone else. The decision was made harder by the realization that her next court appearance is 11 days before I take the bar exam--studying for the bar while trying to fix the egregious issues that the hearing presented was daunting. But when I flipped it one more time, it was also daunting to know that the judge had ordered us to stay on. How do you wade through a choice like this?

I've never been one to easily walk away from a commitment I've made to people. I faced this in Peace Corps at one of my lowest hours, when I was sitting in our regional house, talking to my parents, feeling completely dejected, exhausted and frustrated and wanted to just come home. I had been there a little over a year and the effects of trying to help make change in a tiny village that as headed up by some of the most intensely chauvinistic men one could imagine was draining. I was explaining all of this to my parents and my dad said (and I'll never forget): Listen. You can come home right now if you want. No one will think less of you and no one will judge you. But if you think there is even the slightest chance that you could help make a lasting improvement and difference for this village you owe it to yourself to try. If you don't think so, then come on home. But don't quit just because it's "hard".

Basic advice, but true advice. I stayed and finished a remarkable project that is still highly successful, asserted myself as an individual and woman and made some of the most amazing friendships I could imagine. And I applied that same advice to this situation. Yes, it would have been infinitely easier to step back and hand over my roll to someone else. To walk away and let others sift through the rubble of my client's case. But would that have been the right thing to do? I didn't think so at the time and a month later I am absolutely convinced I made the right decision.

It was hard to sit with my client for the first time since we said goodbye to her and explain the ground rules for this time around. It was hard to look at her without April 11 swirling around in my mind. But I think my partner and I have been grown immensely individually and as representatives with the lessons we learned in round one. Over the past couple of weeks we've started a new foundation with her--one that is based less on the emotional pull of her story and more on the task at hand: repairing her credibility and trying to keep her in the U.S.

There are some members of our team who feel doing the bare minimum is all that's required for her. My partner and I disagree. If we're going to do this, we're going to do it fully and to the best of our abilities. We've made a lot of changes in our representation. Her husband is no longer present while we interview her, or involved in her case at all. We've laid out exactly what is on the line, and how bad it could actually be. But we've affirmed that we will do everything in our power to give her a second chance provided that she no longer is dishonest with her.

We waded through the lies last Sunday. And they don't actually affect her asylum claims at all--they do affect her credibility horribly. So game on. We're not expecting to win, but we're not prepared to fail either. I guess we're prepared merely to give her a second chance and do what we can to help that chance be successful. I suppose in the end that's the only thing any of us can hope for.