I spent over 40 years practicing law, primarily in the transactional world. At the beginning of my career, I was a deputy prosecutor, but trial work is a distant memory. My courtroom matters in recent years involved stipulated orders and quiet procedural hearings. Still, as immigration enforcement toughened and the human toll grew harder to ignore, I felt a keen moral responsibility to act. I believe in due process. I believe in the oath we take as lawyers. And so, as I contemplated retirement, I accepted my first pro bono asylum case, working with a local immigration rights legal project. I took seriously my duty to offer pro bono services under RPC 6.1, or the rules of professional conduct.
A client in detention, with everything at stake
My client was fleeing persecution in his African home country solely because of his sexual orientation. He had been violently attacked, and an LGBTQ+ family member had been killed. Other LGBTQ+ individuals in his community had also been murdered. He feared for his life.
Before I met him, he was represented by another attorney who filed an inaccurate asylum application with factual errors, omissions and unverified legal conclusions, and did nothing to prepare for the final hearing. While the man was detained and unfamiliar with U.S. legal procedures, this attorney pressured him to sign a blank asylum application, assuring him that it contained all the correct information. When my client later discovered the inaccuracies, he felt betrayed and trapped.
By the time I appeared in the case, my client had already spent over one year in detention. I had just over seven weeks to reconstruct the case and prepare for a final hearing. I received some support from the local immigration rights project, but the responsibility was mine alone. I never felt so limited by working as a solo practitioner.
The reality behind ‘just take one case’
I quickly realized that noble intentions are no substitute for preparation in immigration court. I spent more than 100 hours on the following:
● Researching asylum law, detailing credible fear conditions, arguing ineffective assistance of counsel and trying to master the inherent prejudices of the U.S. immigration system;
● Reconstructing the factual record and correcting previous counsel’s errors;
● Obtaining expert medical and psychological evaluations;
● Compiling supporting declarations;
● Gathering country-conditions evidence from authoritative human rights sources and State Department records;
● Preparing my client for testimony by using trauma-informed techniques.
Resources were limited. Witnesses abroad feared retaliation. Records were difficult to obtain. Detention conditions made communication slow. Yet, we still built what I felt was a robust record.
In court
At the final hearing, the court focused almost exclusively on the discrepancies between the flawed initial filing and the corrected record we proffered. My client explained he had been asked to sign the earlier application without reviewing it. Instead of treating that as a question of ineffective assistance of counsel and keeping an open mind as to context, the court framed it as proof that my client was either “lying then or lying now.”
Expert reports, death documentation and country-conditions evidence received minimal engagement. We tried to address discrepancies in police reports as a predictable consequence of trauma, fear of reprisal and cultural barriers to reporting. Still, those explanations were brushed aside rather than examined in context. Historical trauma disclosures, including childhood sexual violence and cultural barriers to reporting, were met with visible and disdainful skepticism.
At the end of the hearing, the judge denied all relief, stating flatly that he did not believe my client and did not find my client credible.
A witness’s confirmation
After the hearing, an eyewitness wrote to my client, expressing their dismay and shock when the judge began the hearing by demanding:
” ‘Are you lying now, or were you lying then?’ — a question that set a tone of disbelief from the outset …(The judge) took over the case while the government attorney sat back.…(The judge) would scoff at explanations, roll his eyes, and ignore documents and expert reports …(The judge appeared to view [the client with] outright disdain, and spoke to him like he was already guilty of lying before he even opened his mouth …(T) he judge appeared to have made up his mind before testimony even began, dismissing trauma evidence, death records, and corroborating expert evaluations …(N) othing you or your attorney said would make a difference.” (These are direct quotes taken from a handwritten letter to my client from an immigration advocate dated June 11, 2025.)
Systemic pressures
During case preparation, I discovered a new internal policy memorandum from the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, which encourages judges to pretermit, or abandon, and deny asylum claims deemed legally insufficient without a hearing. The guidance stated adjudicators “should take” steps to immediately dispose of cases lacking a “viable legal path,” even without live testimony.
For a system where credibility, cultural context and trauma are often central, the directive signaled a seismic shift toward denial and speed over individualized adjudication. This memorandum upends everything that I had long been taught: that testimony is a cornerstone of justice, not an optional exercise.
I do not claim that this memorandum was the sole reason for the outcome in my client’s case. I do believe it reflects the current immigration system that devalues the voices of vulnerable applicants and encourages skepticism as a default posture rather than the exploration of evidence.
The emotional weight
Leaving that courtroom, I felt something I had not expected after 44 years of law practice: profound disheartenment and chilling disillusionment. It is one thing to lose a case in a fair contest of law and fact. It is another to stand in a courtroom where the outcome appears predestined; where it feels as if the system is not merely overwhelmed but increasingly tilted against the very individuals it is meant to protect. This trial did not feel like a contest of evidence or credibility; it felt like walking into a predetermined decision.
I do not use this word lightly, but the experience had the unmistakable character of a rigged system without meaningful asylum protection. The judge’s posture, tone and immediate presumption of deceit signaled that nothing I could say and nothing my client could prove would change the trajectory.
The aftermath
Despite having strong grounds for an appeal and my advice to pursue it, my client chose not to. Continuing with the appeal would mean facing many more months in detention, with no guarantee of success. Even if the appeal were granted, the relief likely would be a new trial before the same judge. My client decided to waive the appeal and accept removal rather than endure further incarceration. This decision still haunts me, but it was his to make. Sadly, his best option was to surrender his asylum claim and take his chances back at home. It is a chilling indictment not of him, but of the system that failed him.
My client has filed a bar complaint against his first attorney. Maybe some justice will yet be served by trying to stop inept and negligent attorneys from representing vulnerable detained immigrants moving forward.
Why do this work, even when it hurts?
A fair question remains: Why would any attorney willingly walk into a courtroom where the odds are steep, the emotional toll is heavy and the possibility of losing — despite your best work — is real? Why volunteer to carry a case that may leave you exhausted, outraged and questioning the system itself?
Because some people have no one else. Because due process only exists where advocates are willing to stand and insist upon it. Because our presence forces accountability, exposes injustice and preserves the record for future correction. Because when systems fail silently, they calcify.
And also because, even in a case that ends painfully, the impact on a client’s life can be profound. Someone stood with them. Someone believed them. Someone affirmed that their story mattered and that they were worthy of dignity under the law.
Pro bono immigration advocacy is not only about winning cases — it is about insisting that the rule of law means something in the lives of the most vulnerable. It is about making invisible people visible again. It is about bearing witness and refusing to look away.
We do this work knowing it may cost us time, emotion and comfort. But the alternative is to surrender justice to indifference and fear. And that is a far heavier defeat than any single courtroom loss.
Our legal system does not defend itself. Lawyers do. To my fellow attorneys, those who are young in practice and those nearing retirement: Take an immigration asylum case. Fight the fight. Imagine the impact if every practicing attorney in King County accepted just one pro bono immigration case.
