Page 64 of Counting Backwards

“Who?”

Will Carbone was my former law professor. He ran a clinic at NYU, but I’d only taken his course on evidence. The clinics allowed students to help with pro bono cases to gain experience while litigants benefited from free legal services. Many law schools had similar programs, and now I was sorry I hadn’t participated in the one at my school. Professor Carbone ran the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic along with a partner professor whose name I couldn’t recall. They focused on social justice issues in protecting newly arrived or detained immigrants. It could be a perfect fit. What’s more, if I remembered correctly, the clinic often partnered with outside community-based organizations that provided all kinds of pro bono legal services. Now that I had settled on this idea, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t reached out to them sooner. And NYU was hardly the only school with that kind of clinic. I could check in with Columbia, Cardozo, Fordham, and so many others. An entire team of legal partners was materializing in my mind’s eye, growing by the second.

After I explained all of this to Vance, he reached forward and hugged me.

“I knew you’d find the right support in the end.” He said it with relief, like it was what he’d been waiting for all along.

What I didn’t say in response was that I wasn’t doing this to lighten my own workload. I’d still be working my ass off because of the enormity, and the importance, of the case.

As he pulled back from the embrace, his expression told me he wanted everything to go back to normal between us. I wanted that too. I took in the soft light of his Coca-Cola eyes and the warmth on his face, and I tried to imagine picking up where we’d left off. A movie reel played in my mind as I pictured us moving forward together again—eating takeout on the sofa while we binged new shows, spending weekends with family, or doing our work side by side like before. And of course, now, becoming parents together. Yet the images in my mind left me feeling anxious and empty somehow, and I worried that the life I was imagining was simply no longer possible.

21

Jessa

May 2022

I turned down the narrow side street in Greenwich Village, weaving a path around other pedestrians on the bustling sidewalk. It was one of the first warm days of spring, and the streets were crowded with people enjoying the weather. I hurried along past quirky lunch spots, smoke shops, tattoo parlors, and hipster clothing stores. Most passersby probably wouldn’t even notice the narrow three-story structure where I was headed. But to me, the building was a beacon, a safe haven that seemed to call out to me as I approached.

For the past four weeks, I’d been stepping into the inconspicuous brick building that housed the Manhattan Immigrant Defense Center on a near-daily basis. I pushed open the heavy glass door, checking my watch again. I was relieved to see that despite the subway delay on my ride downtown, I wasn’t as late as I’d expected.

As I made my way toward the building’s interior stairwell, I rounded a corner and nearly collided with Will Carbone.

“Jessa!” he exclaimed as we each stepped back to avoid toppling the other. Will was dressed in one of his signature three-piece suits. His white hair was combed neatly to the side and his eyes, beneath round tortoiseshell glasses, were especially bright. “We’rereally getting there, kiddo,” he said, and I felt myself puff up at the pride in his voice. With each day that passed since I’d first told him about Hydeford, he’d proven how right I’d been to reach out.

“I’m running late for my granddaughter’s birthday,” he said with an air of apology. Then he made his way around me. “Lydia and I got so caught up.”

When I had contacted Professor Carbone the month before to ask about working with NYU’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, I didn’t think he’d even remember me. Eight years had passed since I finished law school, nine since I’d been a student in his evidence class. I needn’t have worried. When I reintroduced myself on the phone, he immediately referenced a law review article I’d written as a student and joked that he always lamented when promising young legal scholars landed at corporate firms instead of academic institutions. Buoyed by his apparent confidence in my abilities, I launched into the reason for my call, but as soon as I uttered the wordsclass action, he stopped me short.

It wasn’t going to work, he said. Although the students in the NYU clinic were very talented, he explained, a large class action lawsuit would be too complicated for them to manage without additional oversight. He suggested looping in Lydia Brass at the Manhattan Immigrant Defense Center to partner with us.

Since that time, we’d created a larger and more formidable team than I ever could have dreamed. Lydia and her colleagues contacted several other human rights organizations in New York and New Jersey, and even the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild in DC. I felt as if I’d barely blinked, and suddenly I was co-counsel alongside some of the biggest names in immigrant defense law.

And then there were the NYU clinic participants. Those students were devoting countless hours and providing invaluable support. At any given moment, I found myself surrounded byfour or five dedicated 2Ls and 3Ls who were worth their weight in gold.

I made my way to the project room on the third floor, a windowless conference space large enough for ten or twelve people to work together. Under the room’s fluorescent lighting, I found a group of students focused on their individual laptops. I walked to an empty seat at the large oval table and pulled out my own computer. The others acknowledged me quietly, glancing up with silent nods and small smiles.

While I waited for my computer to power up, my eyes roved over the four students seated near me, each of them working intensely. Wanda and Reese, two young women sitting beside each other, had been walking the six blocks to and from NYU’s Vanderbilt Hall multiple times a day to comb through case research, check case citations, and organize the growing piles of supporting documents. Sean, who’d joined the team only the week before, was working on a preliminary press release. Then there was Mia, in her wire-frame eyeglasses and hot pink combat boots, who was so well-versed in the requirements of various immigration orders that I had trouble remembering the young woman was still only a student.

In the four short weeks we’d been working together, there’d been laughter and hugs each time any of us found a new piece of law that worked in favor of our clients. With our shared passion and all the hours of quiet work together, I’d found myself feeling more connected to these colleagues than I had to any of my peers at Dillney. Although Will Carbone had offered to let me remain lead attorney, I’d declined. For the first time in as long as I could remember, it didn’t matter to me who oversaw a particular case. I was just glad we were all doing our best to help our clients. It felt pretty incredible to work alongside other people who were putting forth so much effort for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with their holiday bonuses.

As I returned my attention to my computer, opening Westlaw to continue my online research, Lydia appeared at the door with three large binders in her arms.

She spotted me and smiled warmly. With gray hair cut close to her head and a face that was only just beginning to wrinkle, she was dressed with her usual bohemian flair in tan bell-bottom pants, a flowing floral blouse, and long earrings made of pink feathers that reached below her shoulders. Despite her fun-loving style, she could tear apart a weak legal argument in a matter of seconds. She hurried around the table, making her way toward my seat.

“You’re just in time,” she said in a half whisper, then dumped the binders on the table. “I think it’s ready to go,” she continued in a hushed tone.

She was talking about the complaint. We’d been going over it with a fine-tooth comb for the past several days, making sure we hadn’t left out any important claims or any possible defendants. Once it was finalized, we’d send it over to our co-counsel, the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, who would file it on our behalf in the morning.

“The kids finished the cite checks last night. All that’s left is the final proofing now. You want to take a turn?”

Back in my life at Big Law, being tasked with proofreading could have been considered an insult, or at least a waste of a senior attorney’s valuable time. Proofing was a dreaded assignment endured only by junior associates and paralegals. But I was glad to be involved in all stages of the case. Instead of simply drafting theoretical documents, I was getting deep in the weeds, doing the tasks that kept a person feeling connected to a case. And anyway, Lydia had turned her focus toward discovery and the different sources from which the team would be seeking information. There were bucketloads of work involved in that too.

I nodded enthusiastically. “Give it here,” I said, reaching for a binder.

I picked up a pen and began reading from page one. It felt like I’d been over the familiar document a thousand times already, but judges could be sticklers for perfection, and I didn’t want to risk even the smallest error. As I read, I rubbed a hand against my belly. I still wasn’t showing, but my stomach wasn’t nearly as flat as it had been eleven weeks earlier. Only one more week remained until the coveted twelve-week mark, when the risk of miscarriage would drop dramatically. I was still trying to maintain some emotional distance from the baby growing inside me. Just in case. But I was doing a woefully poor job of staying aloof.

As I continued turning pages of the complaint, I became engrossed in the facts of the case all over again. Each time I was confronted with the details from Hydeford was just as jarring as when I first discovered what had been happening to the women. I could see the events unfolding all over again, like a horror movie playing in my mind.