When Alyx S. Pattison was working towards her juris doctorate from Northwestern University School of Law, she knew she wanted to use her degree to save the world.
"One of the things I feel strongly about are civil rights," she said. "It doesn't matter what kind of minority group you are."
She believes in having a system that has the law protecting everyone's civil rights. While at Northwestern, she helped a Saudi Arabian woman seek asylum here in the United States because the Saudi's sexual orientation made her vulnerable to honor killings.
After graduating, she found herself burdened by debt, and unable to commit her entire career to those causes. Instead, while she works as a litigation partner at her day job with Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, she's always been able and willing to pick up pro bono work on the side.
Given her experience in school, when the National Immigration Justice Center sent out a notice looking for a lawyer to help with an asylum case for a Jordanian lesbian woman, Pattison knew she could handle it.
Four years, and many complications later, and the Jordanian woman is now living happily partnered here in the Midwest.
In Jordan and other parts of the Middle East, women face not only the kinds of persecutions and violence we may face here in the United States, but sanctioned death at the hands of male family members. The government condones honor killings for women who deviate from tradition customs and are believed to have shamed the family name. Because the Jordanian woman is still a member of the muslin community here in the Midwest, and has a daughter who is married in Jordan, she isn't out.
Pattison first met her client after she had been released from a federal prison that she had been held in for over a year. She came to this country shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, and was soon rounded up, and asked to turn on relatives who were ultimately determined not to be conspirators.
The first time she met with Pattison, she had her partner with her. She didn't speak English well, and she was uncomfortable talking about her sexual orientation. But her partner could understand her and help interpret.
"It was like they had their own language between the two of them."
Slowly, they began to build a report.
Pattison found out the Jordanian woman had reason to be skeptical. A fraudulent immigration attorney had wrongfully told her she had to publish her sexual identity in newspapers and online if she wanted to seek asylum. She missed a yearly deadline to apply out of fear. At the time, her three daughters were still in Jordan, and she was worried about their safety.
That was one of the most difficult aspects for Pattison.
"It wasn't the legal logistics, but the separation of her children," she said. She would call Pattison crying, begging to figure out a way for her to return to Jordan and bring her children.
However, because of Pattison's legal efforts, the client was able to excuse the one-year bar until the next deadline, and was able to bring two of her three daughters to the United States. The emotional phone call Pattison got when her daughters came to the country was one of the most rewarding moments for Pattison. Over the four years she worked on the case she grew very close with her client and partner.
"She also called me with the news of her first job here in the United States," she said. "It sounds cheesy, but it's nice to see someone taking advantage of the American Dream."
She feels privileged to be able to help. She's loved working on a case where she's so invested in the person she's working for. She encourages others in the law field to take up pro bono cases, and stresses creative legal thinking for those who do.
In the Jordanian woman's case, sexual orientation is not articulated outright for anything in immigration law. What is protected is being a member of a social group that faces life-threatening discrimination or persecution in a particular country.
"We made the immigration law work for her," she said, adding that this argument has worked similarly for effeminate gay men who've declared asylum from Mexico. For her, it's all about educating these people that they have rights here in the United States. "If they can just make it to American soil, then they can have their case heard."
Pattison is still close to her former client, and remembers one of her happiest moments was just watching her and her partner hold hands outside of a private room. She said they walked all the way through the building, and didn't let go until they made it to the busy Chicago streets outside the law office.
"She's special and she taught me a lot about how great this country is, or can be."
