Columbia Law School Scholarship Archive Faculty Scholarship Faculty Publications 1995 Reflections on a Case (of Motherhood) Jane M. Spinak Columbia Law School, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship Part of the Family Law Commons Recommended Citation Jane M. Spinak, Reflections on a Case (of Motherhood), 95 COLUM. L. REV. 1990 (1995). Available at: https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/205 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Publications at Scholarship Archive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of Scholarship Archive. For more information, please contact [email protected]. REFLECTIONS ON A CASE (OF MOTHERHOOD) Jane M. Spinak* I. Inanimate materials decay over time, but for the mind, time is not the principle of dissolution but rather the medium in which we create the present by reconstructing the past. Murray Edelman' She surveyed my office for signs of conspiracy. We had had two or three telephone conversations that had conveyed my ambivalence about representing her. A former colleague had urged her to call the clinic for help but I was reluctant to accept her case for the clinic: we rarely repre- sented foster parents and the procedural complexity of the case con- vinced me that I would be unable to assign students to represent this client so late in the semester. I was resigned, however, to help her find a lawyer, both because a former colleague had sent her and because the snippets of her story that I had heard so far were troubling. So, for a few weeks I had tried to find former students to take her case pro bono, but none was available. After failing to secure anyone's help, I telephoned her once more and listened to her story in more detail. I couldn't imag- ine what was compelling me to consider representing her myself. The * Edward Ross Aranow Clinical Professor, Columbia Law School (on leave); Attorney- in-Charge,Juvenile Rights Division, The Legal Aid Society of NewYork. An article of such long gestation owes thanks to many friends and colleagues. To begin, I would like to thank the participants of the 1992 Clinical Theory Workshop and the 1992 Feminism and Legal Theory Workshop, "Women and Representation," (both at Columbia Law School) as well as the participants at the 1992 AALS Clinical Section Conference for their comments and suggestions on Parts I and I. Peggy Davis, Nina Tarr, Mary Jo Eyster and Nancy Cook provided unsolicited and thought-provoking observations on the same sections. Throughout the process, Martha Fineman, Philip Genty, Tony Alfieri, Carol Liebman, JoAnn Clark, Mary Banach and the members of my ersatz reading group (Alice Dueker, Minna Kotkin, Carolyn Kearny, Sue Bryant, Barbara Schatz, Kathy Sullivan, and Jean Koh Peters) dispensed an unending supply of sustenance, critique and common sense. Steve Ellman provided, as he has for so many other clinicians, a safe, yet fruitful, place to begin the process. Kendall Thomas's recommendation to incorporate actual case documents within the article was pivotal. I would like to thank Lance Liebman for the critical time needed to finish writing and the Columbia Law School Alumni Research Fund for financial support. Delzora Preshae Wilson's recent production assistance smoothed a rough process. Jennifer Lemberg defied every belief I held about student editors; her careful, considerate and insightful readings enhanced what you read today. I had only one other editor during the last (almost) four years. He read every word, over and over, and suggested a few of his own. The walks from Tregadillet to St. Stephen's Hill sharpened and clarified my thinking. Thank you Warren, for always. Finally, this is dedicated tojenni and our children. 1. Murray Edelman, The Symbolic Uses of Politics 204 (1985). 1990 1995] REFLECTIONS ON A CASE (OF MOTHERHOOD) 1991 semester was well in progress. I was already thinking about the summer and balancing the time I wanted to spend with my year-old daughter, my clinic responsibilities, and some unfinished research. To protect myself, I told her that I was willing to meet with her and decide whether the office could represent her (I continued to use the office as a shield against tak- ing the case). I was sending very mixed messages and neither of us felt comfortable with this accommodation when our telephone conversation ended. Nevertheless, she persisted. My former colleague had told her about my experience in representing clients in foster care matters and I had reinforced that story in our discussion. My indecision contained ad- vice which might eventually have to satisfy her. The information I offered her told her I knew the system and was part of it. Thus she searched my office and my face for signs of allegiance with her enemies. Four women met in my office: two students (Martha and Ali), Ms. Parsons (the prospective client) and me.2 The students had volunteered to work with me on the case, in addition to their own clinic responsibili- ties, if the client were accepted. They were a particularly effective team- careful, reflective, engaged, and diverse: an African-American woman with a few years of relevant work experience and an enthusiastic white woman just out of college. Earlier in the semester, they struggled to es- tablish their own relationship and succeeded. They surveyed their differ- ences, compared their similarities, and recognized their combined strengths. Not an easy task. Their comfort with each other and with me would support the relationship we would have to develop with the client. When Ms. Parsons was introduced, her first smile was for Martha, the Black student. I saw the pleasure in her eyes. I believe she had expected only the law professor with the discouraging voice and she found some- thing more: a young woman in her own image. Ms. Parsons is of African and western European heritage. She considers herself part of the Afri- can-American community and believes, as I do, that minority families are assaulted by the state at all turns. But that came later. Now there was just the smile for Martha before we began the interview. For the next two hours Ms. Parsons told us her story. We sat in a circle in my office with no table between us. Ali and Marthajust listened and watched. From time to time I would ask a question, try to move her along or urge her to complete a thought. Mostly, I listened too. I checked off boxes on the form in my head: court proceedings, notice, counsel, dates of foster care placements, dates of reviews, provision of services, and status of children. The lawyer in me swam in the details, rushing from fact to fact, posturing theories, weighing options, assessing success. Twelve years of lawyering in the foster care system organized Ms. Parsons's story into a case file. This was not a case that lawyer wanted. At another time I would have redoubled my efforts to find her counsel, 2. Names in this Article have been altered in the interest of privacy and confi- dentiality. 1992 COLUMBIA LAW REV[EW [Vol. 95:1990 given her some advice and told her that the office couldn't undertake such a massive job as the end of the semester approached. I was going to have to do that with other prospective clients. But I couldn't say no that day. Her anguish as a mother overwhelmed me: her terror became mine. Her boys became my girl. My shoulders and chest ached under my dress as I listened to her loss. I let myself listen to the client for the first time as a mother and I couldn't say no. Now, much later, I need to write about the experience. I had thought, when contemplating motherhood, that the central impact on my work would be balancing my need to be a mother to a child with my need to be a teacher to students and a lawyer to clients. Even though I have always urged students to draw on their life experiences for their lawyering, I never considered that becoming a mother would change the way I considered the process of my work. In retrospect, this seems fool- ish. Some time after having become a parent, Martin Guggenheim wrote an important article about the limits of child advocacy.3 He had been a child advocate for many years and had been my first teacher of child ad- vocacy. His vision had changed and I had smugly laughed at the transfor- mation. Now I understand the need to explore my lawyering through this new filter. *********** * * Ms. Parsons became a foster mother when she was in her early for- ties. Her goal was to adopt children and taking foster children appeared to be the most effective route. She wanted to be a "pre-adoptive" foster parent, one who accepts foster children already freed or likely to be freed for adoption. The foster care agency knew she preferred two boys, toilet trained but not much older. She anticipated some of the difficulties of being a single mother and had elaborately organized her life, nursing schedule and home to minimize the chaos of suddenly being thrust into this new role. After more than a year of waiting, three small boys-Juan, Mati and Michael-appeared at her door one night, aged seven, four and two. One more than expected and one needing a crib and diapers: the first step away from control over chaos. Herjoy at beginning her life as a mother was tempered by her fear that her plans were altered.