Meet Zitrin Anti-Court Secrecy Senior Attorney Jackie Aranda Osorno
How did you get into this work? And what radicalized or moved you to participate in the area of law that you specialize in.
My area of law is very, very niche. I am the anti-court secrecy attorney at Public Justice. It’s not really an area of practice for very many people.
I became interested in court secrecy was after years of litigating large class cases where I was complicit in sealing information that was important for the public to know. When I saw the job posting for this position, I was intrigued by the idea of dedicating my practice to ensuring important information saw the light of day So here I am!
Building on that question, is there an example from your past cases that you wish you would have taken on that battle of confidentiality and done something different.
I have an example that is about a small battle that we did end up picking. Even though it was, in the larger scope of the case, something very tiny. It felt very significant to me and some of my coworkers at the time.
I litigated a large class action against the Alabama Department of Corrections. The main claim was an 8th Amendment claim, alleging that the correctional system did not provide adequate mental health care. As you know, we cannot talk about mass incarceration without talking about race. But in this case, we never talked about race. And part of why we never talked about race is because we didn’t have race-related claim. We had an 8th Amendment claim, and racial disparities were not an element of our claim. And so, you have this large case about the wellbeing of thousands of Black and brown people, and we had evidence produced in discovery that showed that people of color were disproportionately placed in segregation. My coworkers and I felt like these racial disparities were important for the public to know about, and so in a random filing relating to some segregation issues, we included a footnote with statistics we derived from discovery. It was one of the first times that anyone had talked about race in the case. I’m very proud of that footnote!
Every journey begins with a first step. Jackie, that might have been your first step towards more anti-court secrecy work.
What is the biggest challenge or reward you face doing this work?
I think one of the biggest challenges for me is being able to process disconnects between legal victories and on the ground realities.
As an example. I’ll talk about the big class action against the Alabama Department of Corrections. We had a six-week federal trial. The judge found the Department of Corrections was violating the Constitution because it was providing was horrendously inadequate mental health care.
And that was in mid-2017. Now, many years and many remedial trials later, I do not think that things are appreciably better inside the Department of Corrections, which has been hugely disappointing. Another disappointment with this case: our lawsuit was weaponized against our clients by when the state used it as a reason to funnel more money into the prison system.
We’d brought this lawsuit with a theory that if you make it really expensive for a correctional system to operate, the government will incarcerate less people. But that’s not actually how most of these prison conditions cases shake out. And that was true here. Instead, the state argued to the legislature that it needs more money to build bigger and newer facilities that would allow the state to meet its constitutional obligations. This Illustrates an even bigger challenge in this profession – making sure that in remedying a problem, you don’t inadvertently legitimize a purported solution that is harmful in a different way.
What is your go-to leisure activity when you are not working?
Swimming. I grew up near the beach and spent a lot of time in the water, but I never learned how to swim properly. I could swim with my head up, splash around, frolic and not drown.
But I didn’t have good technique. I did not learn how to swim until a couple of years ago. My husband was a swimmer in high school, when I told him that I didn’t love putting my face in the water and wish that I could swim laps for fitness, not to splash around for fun – he offered to teach me how to swim. I was a little bit resistant because I am (probably unsurprisingly) a person who likes to do things they’re good at, and I felt like I was too old to learn something new. It turns out it is not too late, and I’m happy to report that I can swim laps now! When I travel for work, I try to pack my goggles and jump in the in the pool if I can. I love being in the water!
If you could meet anyone from the past, who would it be? And why?
I would love to meet someone 8 to 10 generations back on my mom’s side.
I’ve gotten pretty interested in genealogy, and my little brother has as well, and he has been able to recreate part of our family tree on my father’s side, which traces back to our family descendants in Spain. But based on my DNA results, I know that on my mom’s side of the family we are descendants of Aztec Indigenous communities in Central Mexico. and I just wish that I could find someone along the family line who could help me put together the other half of my family tree. I would really love to connect a little bit more with my indigenous roots.
That’s powerful. I appreciate that because I believe that once we learn more about our history, it allows us to be more solid in who we are today. When we get more in touch with our ancestral origins, or at least that was my experience with it. More power in my lived experience today.
Do you have one skill you would like to develop or sharpen in the next year?
Giving presentations and leading trainings. In this job, I get to travel and talk about court secrecy across the country. Now that I’ve been doing this for almost two years and have started to identify different litigation trends, I have the opportunity to be really thoughtful about the content that I focus on.
What is the best piece of career advice you’ve received? And would you adapt it or change it to share with other attorneys.
The best piece advice that I have received is to ask for the opportunities that you want.
I don’t think the attorney that gave me this advice was necessarily thinking about it through any political lens. I think this would be advice that she gave to all young attorneys. But as a woman of color, I have grown to really appreciate that maybe I needed that advice more than other of my peers because, in my experience I am less likely to be given an opportunity if I don’t ask for it.
I would definitely give that advice to other attorneys, but I would also acknowledge the fact that the reason why you may need to ask for opportunities is because you’re pushing up against racism, sexism, and other isms. I’d want to make sure that the person receiving the advice didn’t feel like I was burdening them with taking on those ism-s by telling them, “You are the one that is in charge of the opportunities that you get.”
With that context aside, I think it is powerful to remember that you have agency over your career, and that sometimes you’re not given certain opportunities just because someone doesn’t know that you’re interested in something. Partly for that reason, when I work with younger attorneys, I take inventory of the opportunities that may be available in a particular case and give younger attorneys a menu of options. Sometimes you don’t know which opportunities even exist for you to pick from.
What was the last book that you read?
I am in the middle of the Book of the Delights by Ross Gay. It’s a collection of short essays. Some of them are very, very short, maybe even a couple of paragraphs. And each essay celebrates a completely ordinary thing that brings delight to the author.
I’ve tried to engage with mindfulness and gratitude for many years, and it’s not something that I’ve been particularly successful at. I try to make dedicated efforts to meditate and then it sort of falls through the wayside. I love this book because it’s fill of reminders to be present and be grateful for things that are around you. And this book, more than anything, has made me take more notice of the wonderful and ordinary things around me. I really recommend it.
What would be the theme song of your life right now?
I have an entire playlist to pick from, because I recently made a themed playlist for one of my cases. I love playlists.
We are in the middle of really active discovery in Proch v. King. We have a First Amendment claim relating to a mail restriction and a conspiracy claim alleging the mail restrictions were motivated by a desire to make money. So, the playlist has songs about finding and discovering things, lies, money, and letters. I’ve been listening to this nonstop for the past week, and I’m going to be listening to it for many months to come.
If I must pick one song, it is Search, Find by the Bee Gees.
It is a great song for discovery in both lyric and genre.