CLINIC sat down to hear from Ezra Rash, an attorney and Immigrant Justice Corp fellow at the Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy in Charlotte, North Carolina. Rash is a former participant in CLINIC’s Mentorship Project (MP) who received direct guidance from CLINIC experts on two tough legal cases in the past year.

How did you first hear about the Mentorship Project?

Rebekah Niblock, the CLINIC attorney who manages the project, used to work at our organization, though our times here did not overlap.

What prompted you to reach out for mentorship?

I am a “baby attorney.” I have only been out of law school a few years and am relatively new to immigration law. Shortly after I started work as an immigration attorney, one of my asylum cases had an asylum interview scheduled, and I was panicking about it. I had never guided a client through the asylum process before, and it had been a while since my supervisor had, so we decided to reach out to the CLINIC team via the Mentorship Project.

Tell us a little about the cases you received help on and what the mentorship looked like.

I received help with two cases. The first one – the one which had the quickly scheduled asylum interview – was related to two brothers who came as unaccompanied minors, a 14-year-old and a 9-year-old. I had just two months to prepare all the supplemental materials for their case and get them ready for the interview. Rebekah and Maddie, the MP’s senior paralegal, walked me through every step, preparing the boys’ declarations and paperwork, and even did a full mock interview with the clients, with Rebekah pretending to be the immigration officer.

Afterward, my supervisor and I were able to model this and do a couple more preparatory interviews with the boys. It helped so much – all the advice, constructive feedback, comments on the declaration, etc.

The boys were able to go into the interview with less anxiety. They knew what to expect and how it would be structured. They did a great job.

And we won their case – they were granted asylum and were able to reunite with family here in the United States! I don’t believe we would have gotten the approval without the MP’s help.

The second case was with a 17-year-old Guatemalan girl who was fleeing persecution in Mexico. She came alone and has no family in the United States. The fact that her fear of persecution was based in a different country than her country of origin made her case quite tricky.

I approached the MP team about it, and they put me in touch with two experts in Mexico whom I could speak to who could help support the client’s claim of persecution.

Speaking with the two Mexican experts was remarkably helpful and I’m not sure I would have known where to turn without their knowledge and advice.

We’re still waiting for an asylum interview to be scheduled for that case.

How has the experience enriched your legal practice overall?

Oh, tremendously. After each mentorship experience, I downloaded and saved all the resources they shared with us. Now I can share my experience and new knowledge with my colleagues, to help teach others. Mentorship is hugely valuable beyond a single case. It impacts the whole organization.

Part of what is great about the program is it just gives you the confidence and assurance that someone experienced is looking over your work to make sure you’re not missing anything, someone who can ask the questions that maybe you hadn’t thought of. Then you can carry that knowledge and confidence with you going forward on your next case.