First Impressions at Catholic Charities

Hello all:

I am interning with the Immigration and Refugee Services Department of Catholic Charities of The Archdiocese of New Yorkin New York City. The office is located on 1011 1st Avenue. The office includes attorneys, immigration counselors and refugee resettlement caseworkers that provide legal assistance to immigrants within the New York area.

I have only been working here since June 1st, but I have really enjoyed my time here so far. The office is filled with incredibly knowledgeable and friendly people. I have been and will be working with Abigail on a range of immigration issues ranging from applications for asylum and temporary protected status to adjustment of status (i.e. green card) applications. One particular area in which I will be working serves alien unaccompanied minors from the Children’s Village in the Jamaica Screening Center who have been detained as a result of breaking immigration laws.

For those who are unfamiliar with this, these are minors (children under the age of 21) who have been neglected, abused or otherwise unsupervised but do not maintian legal immigrant status because either their parents were illegal aliens or the circumstances surrounding their own entry into the U.S. was illegal. The common example of this is, of course, in the illegal traficking context.

I thought I might share some discussions that I have had recently with people in the office regarding the rules of professional responsibility and our obligations based on attorney-client priviledge.

According to my supervising attorney, Ms. Abigail Cushing, Esq., the New York Rules of Professional Responsibility dictate that an attorney, or law student intern, cannot reveal confidential information obtained through representing a client. At Catholic Charities, co-workers may share information within the office environment, but can never divulge information to others outside of the office relating to the client or his case, especially if that would put the client in danger or would be detrimental to the case.

Ms. Cushing mentioned one area where confidentiality becomes particularly important – when assisting unaccompanied alien minors. When attorneys from Catholic Charities visit the Children’s Village, the issues of client confidentiality are particularly salient. First and foremost, there are many children who have either been abused or have witnessed serious abuse. Divulging identifying information about these children might directly put them at risk for further harm or persecution, whether mental or physical. Their situation is particularly fragile because they are younger and are really unable to represent themselves and susceptible to the influence of others. As a result, she mentioned to be particularly protective of the vulnerability of these children.

Second, attorneys interview the staff doctors and psychiatrists, who are appointed by the government and ultimately represent the government's side of the case. These doctors will usually share information about the child’s mental and physical health, usually with the hope of receiving some feedback about the child’s history. Due to the limits of attorney-client confidentiality, however, the attorney cannot share any information about the client with the doctor without permission. As a result, the medical professionals are usually left feeling unsatisfied because they may have divulged information to the attorney without receiving anything in return. This might lead the doctors to withhold information in an attempt to induce the lawyers to reveal more. This of course in the end would seem counter-productive because the lawyers are trying to best serve the child, just as the doctors are, so it would seem prudent to divulge information to the lawyers in order to assist their case, regardless of whether they will receive any information in return. Of course the situation might be a little more complicated than my cursory knowledge of it at this point, but I will continue to probe and ask deeper questions.

Additionally, trust is especially vital with minors. These minors have generally are very distrustful of authorities because they have been unable to trust adults in the past. If an attorney divulged confidential information that the clients told them, the children would become more skeptical of revealing information to their attorneys because they would distrust them. This is further compounded by the fact that if an attorney broke client confidentiality by revealing information to the doctors, then the children within the Children’s Village would share with each other that certain attorneys cannot be trusted. If that happened, the attorney would not only be unable to adequately represent the specific client that he broke confidentiality with, but also with all of the other potential clients in the center. Thus, there are important policy reasons behind these rules of confidentiality that not only protect the client from possible future harm, but also allow the attorney to build trust with the client.

With these considerations in mind, I began to consider how I would be able to share my experience on this blog with others in a meaningful way. What I came up with was the following: I plan on sharing practice-related experiences very generally, without divulging any information identifying my clients or my clients’ background. I propose viewing client confidentiality not as a burden that inhibits my actions, but as a possible building block to establishing a better working relationship with my clients. I aim to share information that would be helpful to other classmates on a general level without jeopardizing my client’s safety, security or trust. I am sure that I will continue to think about these questions in the coming weeks, and into my career as an attorney, much more. I will also continue to ask more questions about the structure and hierarchy of the entire organization.

But for right now, that's what I've got.
Thanks and all the best to everyone. I hope you are all enjoying your respective summers.