Students talk with Bridget Crawford, Human Rights Lawyer

Juwanna Gant, Ahkeylist Simmons and I’Niya Moore sat down with Bridget Crawford who works for Immigration Equality - a national organization that has provided free legal services and advocacy for LGBTQ and HIV-positive non-citizens for the past 25 years. In more than 80 countries, it is either a crime or profoundly dangerous to be LGBTQ. Immigration Equality’s mission and expertise are centered around securing safety and freedom for LGBTQ and HIV-positive individuals fleeing persecution, as well as reuniting queer and trans bi-national couples and families.

J: Um, the first question is, how many years did it take you to become a lawyer?

B: Good question. Well, typically it takes someone seven years of post High School schooling, so you would go to college, and then you have three years of law school after that. So you have to have a graduate degree to get your JD, which is your Juris Doctor, which means you're an attorney. There is a way that you can take your bar exam and pass without that three years of law school, but I've never known anybody to do that. So that sort of traditional route is to go to law school.

I didn't become an attorney right away. Not everybody does. I took time off in between going to college to be an actor, actually. And that's what I did until I went back to grad school when I was 29. So people take different routes. Some people go straight through school, some people come back to it much later in life.

A: Have you ever had to do a case where you know what they did was wrong but you had to try and act like they were right?

B: So that is a very good question. Um, there are lots of different types of lawyers. The type of law I do right now is I represent immigrants who are trying to come to the United States, a lot of them are asylum seekers. So they've been hurt in their country, and they came to the United States, and they're trying to stay in the United States.

In that context, yeah, sometimes maybe somebody has said something that wasn't true. Maybe because they were scared, for a lot of different reasons. So yes, in those situations, I, as an attorney, I'm not allowed to say anything that's not truthful, I'm not allowed to let my client say anything that's not truthful. At the same time, sometimes these things are a little bit tough to deal with, right? Because you have somebody who really needs help. And they really are in danger if they go back to their country. And yet, maybe they said something that wasn't true.

I think this comes into play where you have somebody who is in the criminal justice system, I've only done a little work there. I did some work while I was in law school. And I had a client who had been accused of something. But, um, it was my job to defend that person. And there are a lot of things that come into play there - maybe what somebody did was wrong, but maybe the punishment or maybe what they've been accused of, doesn't match with what they actually did. Or maybe there's kind of inequality in the system where somebody else might have done the same thing and is not getting the same type of treatment. So I think that does come into play in a variety of different ways for attorneys. And I think for defense attorneys, people who are defending people in the criminal justice system, I remember one of my law professors said to me once, if you are defending somebody in the criminal justice system, maybe somebody who may or may not have committed a crime, you have to think about the fact that you're innocent until proven guilty.

And so you deserve, if you were accused of a crime, to have an attorney represent you, and do their best, to the best of that attorney's ability represent all of your interests, because you have to think a lot of times, people sort of jump to conclusions and assume someone is guilty before all the facts have been laid out. So I think it's really important for defense attorneys to always keep that in mind. And remember, you know, you're often the only person on the side of the person who has been accused of a crime. So you have a really important job to make sure that person has a fair trial, and that unfortunately, in our justice system doesn't happen often enough.

A: So my question is, when you go in like the courtroom? And they be asking you a question? Like the person that you're going against, like, they talk over you, like they try to get their word out? While you're talking? How do you handle that?

B: Good question. I think often you're in front of a judge, so you might have opposing counsel on the other side, it's really the judge’s job to keep order. And so my tactic and technique is always to remain very polite. And to point out to the judge, that what the other person is doing is inappropriate. Sometimes, if I have a witness on the stand and the other side starts interrupting my client, then I take a little different tactic, because I feel like that's my client. And I've got to make sure that I stand up for them. And so sometimes in that case, I talk right back over that other attorney and say, No, no, no, no, no, you can't do that. You can't harass my client. So it kind of depends on who's talking. You know, I think a judge ultimately, has a lot of power and authority. So usually, you have to be pretty respectful and polite to them. Sometimes you have great judges, and sometimes you don't have such great judges. But yeah, you know, being a lawyer is really about standing up for someone, it's about representing their interests. And they always say, there's something that we learn as lawyers, and that is you're supposed to zealously represent your client. And what that means is, with every, like ounce of your intelligence, you have to try to do the best for your client that you can. So it's like if you were to defend one of your friends against injustice, that's kind of what you do as an attorney. If you see something that's wrong or unjust, then you are tasked with trying to right that wrong in the context of a court or attorneys aren't always in court. Sometimes they do other things.

A: How much does it cost to get an attorney? For your case?

B: That's a good question. So it depends on who you are and what your case is and what the situation is, if you were in a, say, say somebody is picked up by the police, and they are charged with a crime, now we have a really important sort of rule in our country. And that is that every person who is in the criminal justice system has to be represented by an attorney. And there are people called public defenders who are sort of some of you know, the greatest attorneys that we have that represent all people in a criminal trial. Someone can either hire someone and pay money, but if you can't afford it, then you you've got a public defender.

Now, there are a lot of other situations where maybe somebody has wronged them in business, like you're a business owner, and something happens and you need to sue somebody, your landlord did something. And those cases you have to pay for your own attorney. And sometimes it's really hard for people because attorneys are quite expensive. So some attorneys might charge, you know, a set amount of money to help you with one thing, say you needed to buy a house, an attorney might say it costs so much I will help you, you know, do all the paperwork for this. But if you're in a kind of a case where you're suing somebody, it can cost you 1000s and 1000s of dollars, depending on the situation. So attorneys can be free or it can be quite expensive.

In my practice, where I represent immigrants, I work for a nonprofit, so we represent people completely for free. For immigrants who are in immigration proceedings, it's really tough because unlike people in the criminal justice system, if you're an immigrant, and you get picked up, maybe you overstayed your visa, and now you're put in something called removal proceedings or deportation proceedings, they're trying to, you know, the government thinks that you need to leave the country.

You're allowed to have an attorney, but the government doesn't have to pay for it for you. So a lot of people don't have attorneys in that situation. And it's not fair. In my view, other people might disagree with me, because it's very difficult to sort of go into immigration court by yourself. But my organization represents people for free.

There are also immigration attorneys that get paid, again, hundreds, or sometimes 1000s of dollars for representing someone so it’s a very vague answer for you, it kind of depends on the situation. Then if you look at the attorneys that defend giant companies, sometimes there are court cases where it's a giant company suing a giant company, and those court cases could cost millions of dollars. So really just depends on on, you know, what the situation is.

I: Um, what type of cases do you generally handle?

B: So I represent LGBTQ and HIV positive immigrants. So I work with people from who come from countries all over the world, who have been harmed or persecuted or threatened because they're gay, lesbian, queer, are HIV positive. So in about 69 countries in the world, it's it's basically illegal to be LGBTQ. And in a lot of these countries, in some of them, you know, LGBTQ relationships carry really harsh prison sentences. In some places, being gay is punishable by the death penalty.

So we have people that live in these countries and flee those countries to the United States, because maybe something really horrible has happened to them because they're gay. And they come to the United States. And they ask for something called asylum, which is basically protection. So they want to come to the United States, they want to become either a citizen or stay in the United States where they can live out their lives freely. They can pursue their dreams, they can live in safety. And so those are the people I represent, and I represent them in immigration courts, and also in theirs...you don't always have to go to court if you are, or if you're trying to get this type of protection.

I also oftentimes sue the US government, especially under the Trump administration. There are a lot of very, in my opinion, this is strictly my opinion, policies that were very bad for immigrants. And I didn't think they were, they were lawful. So my organization sued the Trump administration to say, Hey, what you've done isn't legal, and you can't do this to immigrants. And so that's also the type of work where we kind of tried to keep the government regardless of whether, you know, we very well could sue the Biden administration.

Another one of the lawsuits that we have against the government is, we have couples that are gay couples, whose children have not been given the same rights as different sex couples. So we have couples that come to the United States, they have a baby. And their baby hasn't been recognized as being an American citizen from the time they were born. And we have said to the government, this is wrong. That is not fair. You have to treat the babies of LGBTQ couples the same way that you treat the babies of non LGBTQ couples. So that those are the types of clients that I represent.

I: She said that she sued the United States, the United States government. So you can really like actually sue them?

B: Sure, you can. So the government has to abide by all of our laws, too. So things that they've they've said, you know, Trump has said, oh, we're gonna treat immigrants a certain way. And we looked at the laws. And we said, That's not what our laws say, you are mistreating immigrants in a way that our laws say is wrong. So we're going to sue you about it. And that's a really common way that human rights organizations, I work for a human rights organization, makes sure the government stays accountable, and does what is right by all of us, in my opinion. So you know, that a lot of lawyers do this type of work, not just in the immigration realm, but in other sort of civil rights arenas. You know, you see a lot the governments or organizations suing the government for mistreatment of, of, and discrimination of people based on their race, based on their sexual orientation.

Now, this is a really important tool that you could use as an attorney. If you're a human rights attorney to say to the government, you can't do that. And you can force them sometimes to stop mistreating people through lawsuits.

Brit (a friend of Ms. Brighid’s who has been helping with the transcription of these interviews joined us as well): Well, I had a question and something to tag on to what Bridget was saying about how people can afford an attorney sometimes, and how difficult it is with immigration. And specifically, I'm a part of a neighborhood group. We have a lot of people from Mexico in my neighborhood that have migrated here. And we pull money together as a community and help them pay for their lawyers. So I know there's a lot of great ways that the community can help with that, too. My question is, I know that compared to other types of lawyering, the asylum process can be really long. It can take many, many months. So I wondered how long you've been with maybe some of your clients walking them through all the steps of the process?

B: That's a good question. It can actually take more than months, it can take years and years. Again, it's kind of an example under the Trump administration. As I mentioned, The Trump administration was quite bad for immigrants in my opinion. And what's really awful is for a lot of people, immigrants have been placed in prison essentially. So while you're waiting, say, for example, say you're a lesbian woman, and you come to the United States, because something horrible happened to you in your country, and you and your partner, Run for your lives and you travel. And you get to the United States Mexico border, and you do what you're allowed to do under our laws, which is you say, the United States, please protect me.

First, under the government that, you know, in the Trump administration, they said, You know what, you're going to stay in Mexico while we figure out what's going to happen with your case. Well, the problem is, Mexico for a lot of people is unsafe if you're LGBTQ. So people were forced to stay in Mexico where they didn't have money, where they didn't have access to resources, instead of coming into the United States, which our laws say you can do. And we've in fact, been leaders in the world in giving protection to people because it's a value that we have to protect people. We care about humanity, we care about human rights. And then when people were let into the country, they were put in prisons. It's called immigration detention. But it's really no different than a prison, where people were forced, you know, into really horrible conditions. And because a lot of people who are coming to the states fleeing persecution are really scared when they get here. Sometimes they're mistreated horribly in immigration, detention, and are too afraid to do anything about it or tell anybody.

So what we've seen is a lot of people being horribly mistreated and being kept in prisons for a year or more, while they wait for their immigration proceeding to go forward. And then people who are outside of immigration detention, sometimes those people are waiting four or 5, 6, 7 years for the immigration proceeding to to finish up. And they might have a child or someone waiting in their home country who's stranded there. So it's a really tough situation for a lot of people.

A: Yeah. Okay, so my question is, so let's just say somebody in the government, let's say they crash into your car, right? And they try to bribe you, they say I’ll pay you $20,000 But why are you declining? It’s because you know, if you sue them, you can get more money. So in that case scenario, like, what, what would you do? Because even though they offered you money, would you still sue them? To get more money?

B: This is a good question. I think, you might have a, you might want to go into law, and you might want to work for sort of big business attorneys, because a lot of your job in that context, is negotiating settlements. And that seems to be what you're talking about. A lot of times in business when people sue each other. So out of the sort of human rights or criminal justice realm, it's all about kind of figuring out what's fair. And, and so it's a lot of what you're talking about. So maybe there's a car crash, like taking your scenario, and maybe or some other accident and one person says, Oh, don't sue me, and I'll give you $10,000. And then the other side decides to take their chances in court. Well, that's exactly what you're doing. You're sort of taking your chances.

So somebody might make a settlement offer to you saying, I'll give you $10,000 to just make this go away, because we all know that like a lawsuit and attorneys are expensive. And then the other side says, Nope, I'm gonna sue you because I think I can get more and you're kind of taking your chances. But I think that's, like really insightful because a lot of the what law is and what lawyers do is basically kind of settle disputes between parties. So an argument, something happens. A lot of the job, your job as an attorney is just to like, figure out the best thing for your client. You got to kind of like think and strategize and think like, what's the other side gonna agree to? Are we asking too much? Is this a bit of a gamble? So yeah, that's a lot of practice of law too.

J: My question is, have you ever felt like wanting to give up? Um, I don't really know how to put it. But have you ever felt like you? I don't know how to put it. But yeah. Um, okay. Basically, what I'm trying to ask is, have it ever been a time when you? Were you were doing a case? And you wanted to give up? But like, how did you deal with it?

B: That's a good question. Do you mean me? Because I couldn't figure out the answer, or me, or I wanted to give up because it was just too hard to win, or I was afraid we wouldn't win.

J: That you was afraid you actually wouldn't win?

B: Ah, that's a good question. I think a lot of the time, because you just don't know, it's hard, right? Because you become very invested in your clients, and you care what happens to them. So I think you can never really stop caring. And I think it is really hard for me.

I have a couple of those cases, right now, I have a woman who is a transgender woman from Mexico, who lost her case, she didn't have an attorney and she lost her case. And she's doing something called an appeal. So if you lose your case, you can go to an another court and say, I shouldn't have lost my case. But it's really hard to win when you get to that appeal stage. And I think that this woman is going to lose. And it's heartbreaking to me because I see that she's, if she has to go back to Mexico given to what what's happened to her, she's probably going to get harmed. And there's nothing that I can do about it, if that happens.

So I think I rely on my colleagues to sort of say, Hey, we all are just doing our best. And there are some things in the system that really stink. And so I'm doing my best for this client. And then what I'm also going to do is figure out ways to kind of try to fix the system at the same time. And then I think like, in any job, you kind of have to give yourself a break and realize like, I it's not, there are certain things that I can't control. And, and I think part of that is also always treating your clients with with compassion. But also, you know, with any occupation, I think all of you will learn that you kind of sometimes have to have your own life outside of it. So you can take a breath, go go sort of live your own life. Because Because if you don't, then you get burned out and you can't keep doing it.

J: The next question is what made you want to become a lawyer for people that are lgbtq?

B: Oh, that's a very good question. Um, so, in my organization, I'd say probably the vast majority of people that I work with all identify as LGBTQ. Um, I just in my life had so many friends and family members who were LGBTQ, and I saw even in the United States that they were mistreated. This affected me really profoundly. I went to law school because I thought it was really unfair, that that LGBTQ people couldn't get married. And I wanted to do something about that. And, you know, I, I always just felt very connected to the LGBTQ cause, so from the time I went to law school, it was something that I wanted to do. And actually, I sort of arrived at my position now, through doing a bunch of other things. But the two issues that I cared most about in law school based on my studies, or three issues were Criminal Defense work, immigrant work, and LGBTQ work. So I sort of cover two of them with my current position. It just was something that always jumped out to me and sort of touched on like, personal things in my personal life, too. So I drew from that for inspiration.

I: So what is your approach on winning a case?

B: My approach on winning a case? You mean? How do I strategize?

I: Or to represent it? How do you approach it?

B: Well when taking on cases, we, we basically interview the person, and we see if they sort of meet all the legal elements. But sometimes my concern is, there are people who are in the United States who are undocumented, so they don't have papers. Um, but they are living their lives, and the government isn't taking them into custody. During the Trump administration, it was quite scary for people, because a lot of people who maybe have been living and working in United States who didn't have papers, were all being targeted by the Trump administration and being put into immigration detention and then deported.

For me, I kind of look at it and I say, Hmm, is this does this person have a really strong case? If they have a really strong case, then we'll generally represent them. And I look at that by listening to the, I interview them, I have them tell me their story. And I look at the law and I say, Hmm, do they meet all of these sort of elements of the law? Do I think they're gonna win their case or have a good chance? Now if I don't, if somebody has a weaker case, I'll still take that case, because I want to fight for somebody, but only if the person wants to pursue that case, and they can do it safely.

But, you know, I think any attorney sort of looks at what the law says and looks at the facts and sees where they met match, and then sort of makes your own assessment. Hmm. Is this a good case? Should we take it? Most I have to say my organization wins, like 99% of their cases. So it's a pretty good situation. But also, one of those lawsuits that I talked about against the Trump administration was because the Trump administration wanted to change the law in a way that most of our clients would suddenly lose.

A: But, uh, did I ask how much could an attorney cost up to?

B: Do you like how much would you have to pay for an attorney or how much does an attorney earn?

A: Both.

B: hmm. So for how much does an attorney cost attorney might cost $50 an hour they might cost $900 an hour. depends on the type of work. If it's $900 an hour, it's usually because the attorney is working for like Facebook, a big corporation. There's they're doing work and they're charging that Corporation 900 bucks an hour, or $1,000 an hour. For individuals, somebody might take on your case and say I'll do the whole case for $2,000. Um, it just really depends on what your case is the type of work.

But remember, lawyers could do like a million different things. If any of you want to be lawyers you could do, it just depends on like, what what kind of law, you could be negotiating deals between giant corporations, you could be defending somebody who is accused of a crime, you could be prosecuting someone who was accused of a crime, you could be representing an immigrant, you could be doing IP, which is trademarks and copyrights. So that's like logos you see on things, protecting artworks, there are so many different things that you could do depending on like, what you like or what you find interesting.

So it's like, now what an attorney makes really depends on what type of law you do. An attorney does usually make a decent amount of money, which is good, because law school is often very expensive. So, you know, an attorney could make $40,000 a year, or an attorney could make $2 million a year, it just depends on the type of attorney and the type of work you do. And how long you've been doing it.

A: i’ve got one more. If you file for an appeal. Right? And you get accepted? How long does it take for like the person to get back to you so you can get the court date and stuff? Because like, I know from experience, it still has not gone through? Like the appeal has been accepted. But we still like can't get in touch with the person?

B: Ah, that's a good question. It really takes, it depends on the court. So it could take a couple months. Usually you file your bid depending on like, it varies in different proceedings in different courts and whatnot. But you'll file something that's like a notice of appeal, basically saying, I'm appealing this decision on these, you know, for these reasons, then usually you get a chance to like file briefs, which are like the long documents explaining the law and why you should win. And then the other side does that and then the court can sit on it for months, sometimes years. So it just really depends on what court you're in front of. But you can usually ask if you have an attorney, you can usually ask that attorney to sort of find out and figure it out for you. You could also call the clerk of the court. So you can usually look that up on the internet and say, Hey, we filed this appeal. Can you tell us how long things are taking? They might not be able to tell you but they might be able to give you some information.

A: Okay, okay, I got one more. This the last one. I promise you. This is the last one. Oh, so if you get falsely accused, and they put you in jail, right? Can you sue down for falsely accusing you like if you win your appeal? Can you sue them?

B: I actually don't know the answer to that question. I don't think so. But I think that you can Hmm, that's a really good question. I don't know the answer. If you're mistreated in some other way, you can, you can either sue because of the individual or you can sue the government but there's this thing called there's a really sort of in the weeds concept but there's there's a sort of protection that the government has, that you can't sue the government because over certain things.

So they're actually, in light of, you know, George Floyd and everything that's happened. With respect to police brutality, there are a lot of people advocating to sort of change this a bit, and not provide the government as much protection, to make sure that people can sue over, you know, when police departments mistreat people, there are some limitations, for instance, on that now, so I think a lot of people are advocating to change that, and hold the government more accountable. But if you get picked up on something, and you get put in, in jail, and then you're found innocent, you don't usually get to sue the government. Because of that, there are a lot of problems, I'm sure, I don't do a lot of work in the criminal justice system. But there are a lot of problems where people might get picked up, and you should be able to get out of jail by paying bail bond. And some people can't pay it. And so they remain in jail, which is really unfair, because there's a system that you get out because you have enough money, and it has nothing to do with, you know, what you did, and this is before you've actually been tried. So there are a lot of really unfair things in the system, which all of us should really try to work to advocate and find ways to change that. And that's a lot of lawyers job is to, is to look at the system and say, you know, there are different types of lawyers who really just like look at all these systems and say, That's not right, like, what can we do about it?

B: Well, thank you for having me. And thank you for asking such really, really smart and insightful questions and, and good luck in whatever career you choose. I think a lot of times people think of lawyers as what they see on TV people in court. And so sometimes people are dissuaded because they think oh, I don't, I'm sure I don't like to get up in front of people all the time. But there is a lot of law that doesn't require that. You can do a lot of really great work that is just you with your client or you talking to people and settling disputes. So there are a lot of different career paths within law, if you all are interested in that.