Speaker 1: Class Action is a production of I Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: Sound Argument got It, and we are recording. So as
Speaker 1: somebody who's been doing this for more than twentysomething years,
Speaker 1: this being a trial lawyer, I'd love to know how
Speaker 1: you guys are feeling, because candidly, I'd like to feel
Speaker 1: a little bit better about kind of the state of play,
Speaker 1: because I'm a little bit disheartened by what's been going on.
Speaker 1: I'm more than happy to speak on that. I'm currently
Speaker 1: working as a legal intern for the New York Civil
Speaker 1: Liberties Union, and I mean their legal policy department. So
Speaker 1: as the jobs decision has come out, um, it's it's
Speaker 1: been a really interesting time to be working in civil
Speaker 1: rights litigation, and especially to be on the ground at
Speaker 1: City Hall in the middle of protests. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I truly never thought that I would be sitting studying
Speaker 1: for the bar and get a notification on my phone
Speaker 1: saying that Roe v. Wade was overturned like I was
Speaker 1: sitting in this seat. I don't think I'll ever forget it,
Speaker 1: doing like a MB practice set and then like that,
Speaker 1: I snapped my fingers in case the audio didn't pick
Speaker 1: that up. Then like that, you know, my rights were
Speaker 1: taken away from me. I actually had a similar thought
Speaker 1: like when this all happened, I was thinking, like I
Speaker 1: remember learning about Row and Casey and Grizzwold and all,
Speaker 1: like all these cases in comm law just a year ago,
Speaker 1: and I think I was with a friend come like
Speaker 1: at work. I remember I was sitting in the courtroom
Speaker 1: waiting actually for a trial to start, and the decision
Speaker 1: came out. In addition to like the just automatic devastation
Speaker 1: and not shocked, because it wasn't a surprise, to be honest,
Speaker 1: but like devastation and just confusion, was also like what
Speaker 1: does this mean for the future in terms of our
Speaker 1: legal education? Very upset and disheartened because I used to
Speaker 1: always say that the courts were a place of recourse.
Speaker 1: The courts were a place that you could go to
Speaker 1: get some sense or some semblance of reasoned explanation, decisions
Speaker 1: that had some bases that were grounded in law right,
Speaker 1: that had some type of reason to them, And that
Speaker 1: It's been very hard as a woman, as a mother,
Speaker 1: as a human to figure out how it's possible to
Speaker 1: have somebody regulate your uterus and your vagina but not
Speaker 1: regulate a firearm. I've been hearing a lot of this
Speaker 1: rhetoric that this system is broken, the judicial system is broken, um,
Speaker 1: And I disagree with that sentiment in a sense because
Speaker 1: I think for a system to be broken, it needs
Speaker 1: to be fully functioning to begin with, and I don't
Speaker 1: think that that was ever the case, UM, in any
Speaker 1: American institution. To be honest, I think that we are
Speaker 1: a society that was founded upon murder and racism and violence,
Speaker 1: and to be an educated American citizen you have to
Speaker 1: acknowledge that history. I think we are in extremely hypocritical nation.
Speaker 1: We invade other nations on the pretense of morality and
Speaker 1: human rights, but in our own backyard we are violating
Speaker 1: the eighth and thirteenth Amendment in prisons, and we are
Speaker 1: forcing ten year olds to carry a pregnancy to term
Speaker 1: when they're the victim of rape or incest. And we
Speaker 1: kill or injure over a hundred thousand Americans every year
Speaker 1: with guns. So I think I personally have always felt
Speaker 1: a sense of urgency and responsibility to advocate for everyone's
Speaker 1: equal rights, and that comes from a place of compassion
Speaker 1: and empathy. But I've shifted to a feeling of anger
Speaker 1: in the past couple of weeks when my own own
Speaker 1: personal rights have have been under attack and have been threatened.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you're now even more primed in
Speaker 1: light of all of the civil rights that are kind
Speaker 1: of at issue now because of the Supreme Court decisions?
Speaker 1: You guys feel like it's made you even more ready
Speaker 1: because you've you've had a test run now. I mean,
Speaker 1: you guys have have done, you know, mock litigation involving
Speaker 1: civil rights. And that's exactly what's about UM to really
Speaker 1: kind of come to a forefront and every state of
Speaker 1: this land, every state's going to have massive litigation which
Speaker 1: will eventually end up in front of the Supreme Court. Again,
Speaker 1: I think uncritical civil rights issues. I think that having
Speaker 1: this opportunity to do this particular competition two semesters ago
Speaker 1: was very important to me. I never had UM experienced.
Speaker 1: I used to work in personal injury and then I
Speaker 1: dabbled with criminal lat but like, this specific competition really
Speaker 1: kind of put me in the center of what it's
Speaker 1: really like. There's so much hate in this world, there's
Speaker 1: so much divide in this world. And again, the whole
Speaker 1: competition is about homeless people literally being persecuted because they
Speaker 1: were homeless, and that just adds on to everything and
Speaker 1: just intertwining it back to the real questions will be
Speaker 1: way question that you had before. It's just it's so
Speaker 1: ironic that we're lost, and so we're supposed to go
Speaker 1: out and defend people and stand up for people's rights.
Speaker 1: But I've never felt so hopeless and sad and angry
Speaker 1: then then now, and it's just I'm supposed to go
Speaker 1: out there and help people, and I'm just so hopeless
Speaker 1: myself right now. I mean, Antnia, I know that you
Speaker 1: want to focus on immigration. No shortage of massive immigration
Speaker 1: issues that have come out of the last administration, and
Speaker 1: the one right now there's title for you too that's
Speaker 1: going on the remain in Mexico Supreme Court dealt with that,
Speaker 1: gave the Biden administration and went on that but tied
Speaker 1: affortitude still there. I mean, that's just a small example
Speaker 1: of some of the issues that are going on. And
Speaker 1: that's just on the border. That doesn't encompass all immigration issues.
Speaker 1: But are you still focusing on that? You think when
Speaker 1: you graduate from law school or has the recent kind
Speaker 1: of slew of what I will editorialize say are bad
Speaker 1: decisions from Scotus changing your mind as well as it
Speaker 1: did for Catherine. Yeah, I'm still planning to do immigration law.
Speaker 1: That's kind of always been my compass um. This summer,
Speaker 1: I'm working at a public defender's office in New York
Speaker 1: in their immigration practice, and so you're seeing the overlay
Speaker 1: of immigration issues with criminal issues, with family issues, with
Speaker 1: civil issues, and it's like all of that together. Obviously,
Speaker 1: there are severe impacts on this population of folks that
Speaker 1: we're working with, given this terms decisions. But you know,
Speaker 1: for a long time, immigration has been a punching bag.
Speaker 1: It's been used as a bargaining chip by our government. Um,
Speaker 1: the Dreamers, they've been used as a bargaining chip. And
Speaker 1: you know, I think you know, folks in this room,
Speaker 1: they'll say, you know, obviously I'm angry, Obviously I'm I'm upset.
Speaker 1: But for so long immigration advocates have been dealing with this,
Speaker 1: and our populations have not had access to abortion rights,
Speaker 1: they've not had had access to interstate travel, and so
Speaker 1: we have been preparing for this in the immigration world.
Speaker 1: We have always dealt with these issues. And so to
Speaker 1: the extent that it's new or different, it is for
Speaker 1: a different population of people. Yeah, I'm I'm still walking
Speaker 1: that path. I think it's the most vulnerable group of
Speaker 1: people that you know you can you can work with
Speaker 1: in this country. And I say that with a grain assault,
Speaker 1: of course, because I hope someday that there are more
Speaker 1: rights afforded to undocumented folks and people who are seeking
Speaker 1: immigration relief and that the system becomes better. But that's
Speaker 1: that's my path. I'm still walking it and and we'll
Speaker 1: see how it goes, and hopefully I don't get burned
Speaker 1: out in the process. But I'm working on that too.
Speaker 1: So it's a journey. I think that there are just
Speaker 1: so many different things that are going on in this
Speaker 1: world today that if you can't identify with one thing,
Speaker 1: you can definitely identify with another or feel like you're
Speaker 1: being affective somehow. Just even I remember Antonie and I
Speaker 1: participated in UM We did a pro bono clinic with
Speaker 1: Safe Harbor Clinic from Brooklyn Law School to help with
Speaker 1: TPS Temporary Protected Status for Ukrainian refugees, and I just
Speaker 1: remember so many people from Brooklyn Law School, from other
Speaker 1: schools and other places showing up, you know, maybe no
Speaker 1: one having anything to do with Ukraine, having no ancestors
Speaker 1: or family members from there, and people were still willing
Speaker 1: to show up and help. And if people are still
Speaker 1: willing to do that, then you know, I'm very sure
Speaker 1: that there's going to be a lot of students who
Speaker 1: are changing their minds about which kind of law they
Speaker 1: want to practice here and what they want to do
Speaker 1: with their careers in the United States, within the United States.
Speaker 1: So I have no doubt that many people are going
Speaker 1: to that might be changing their career paths and what
Speaker 1: they want to practice. And how are you feeling, Catherine?
Speaker 1: I know that your mom was a lawyer in Ukraine,
Speaker 1: so you have a very personal connection to it. How
Speaker 1: are things going and do you how are you feeling
Speaker 1: about the fact that this is still an ongoing war
Speaker 1: in Ukraine and it hasn't ceased, and there's been some
Speaker 1: recent developments with admission for NATO, etcetera. But I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a lot. So how are things going for you
Speaker 1: and your family? I honestly, every morning I turn on
Speaker 1: the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, and
Speaker 1: it's usually like the front page on the on the Internet,
Speaker 1: and every day it's just people are dying, cities getting bombed.
Speaker 1: It's just insane, and my mom is always on the news.
Speaker 1: Anytime she has free time, she's reading something or listening
Speaker 1: to something and hoping. She like one day gets excited,
Speaker 1: she's like, Okay, I think this is going to come
Speaker 1: to an end, and then the next day something horrible
Speaker 1: happens in some part of Ukraine and she's just like,
Speaker 1: oh no, this is going to take a while. And
Speaker 1: we have family that has uh left to poland some
Speaker 1: to Canada. I have family coming in this month of
Speaker 1: here to our home, and it's sort of a bittersweet
Speaker 1: experience because I'm happy to see them, but I know
Speaker 1: why they're here and it breaks my heart. But my mom,
Speaker 1: she's a paralegal and she's always constantly doing research to
Speaker 1: see what kind of lawyers are out there, immigration lawyers
Speaker 1: who can help um, so that she stays connected and
Speaker 1: she has information to give out to people who are interested.
Speaker 1: So it's a struggle every day, but we're staying strong
Speaker 1: and we're going to stay positive. It's not a sense
Speaker 1: of anger for myself, but it's a sense of anger
Speaker 1: for the fact that time is a finite resource and
Speaker 1: we don't have time to be fighting these old battles
Speaker 1: we have so much progress that still needs to be
Speaker 1: made in terms of systemic racism, um, in terms of
Speaker 1: institutions like the education system, the criminal justice system, police reform,
Speaker 1: police brutality, um. Things that I'm deeply committed to myself,
Speaker 1: and we've fought these battles already, and so I'm angry
Speaker 1: in the sense that it's now hindering the progress that
Speaker 1: I'm personally working towards, and I know people who are
Speaker 1: invested in civil rights and civil liberties are working towards
Speaker 1: because we just we have so much more work to do. Echoing,
Speaker 1: I'll leave that, I'm going to make a decision to
Speaker 1: try to, you know, keep it together, stay strong, and
Speaker 1: still have faith that you know this country well one
Speaker 1: day go the right direction. But meeting you, all of you,
Speaker 1: and meeting all of the students underground and law school
Speaker 1: and the total unadulterated joy, passion desire to effect change
Speaker 1: makes me feel so much better about where this world
Speaker 1: is heading, where my little girl is going to have
Speaker 1: for her future, what type of place she's going to
Speaker 1: have a seat at the table. Because of women like you.
Speaker 1: It makes me feel a lot better because we live
Speaker 1: in a very difficult world with very selfish people that
Speaker 1: sit in seats of power. So to be able to
Speaker 1: listen to all of you say what you care about
Speaker 1: and how it impacts you and why it motivates you
Speaker 1: to do what you're going to do, helps me breathe
Speaker 1: a sigh of relief to say, Okay, the world's going
Speaker 1: to be in a good place and we're gonna be
Speaker 1: and I'm leaving this world, this world of law, the
Speaker 1: world in general, this world is being left in good hands.
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