Where are they now?: Casey Mangan
In the “Where are they now?” series, we introduce you to IJC alumni and share their stories.
Casey Mangan, a 2020 Justice Fellow, dove into detention work when he began his fellowship, eager to help as many people as he could. But he quickly learned he had to find a balance to make the work sustainable. And now he wants to teach young attorneys how to find their balance too.
Casey now works as a Senior Attorney at New Mexico Immigrant Law Center.
Casey Mangan knew he wanted a career that helped people.
“I wanted to use my time and abilities to make a difference for people, to help people have better lives and to make society more equitable,” Casey said.
So when people told him to go to law school, he shirked at the suggestion.
“Why would I do that?,” he thought. “A lot of people that go to law school end up helping big corporations make lots of money, helping keep the world how it is and not moving the world towards what it should be.”
But while completing a Fulbright fellowship in Turkey after college, Casey got his first glimpse at the power attorneys can have to do good.
“I was meeting people that were trying to be resettled as refugees, and I learned about the ways attorneys can help people find stability,” he said. “Attorneys can help keep families together, keep communities together.”
He was hooked. In 2017, he started at University of Southern California Gould School of Law, taking immigration courses and learning more about the impact the work could have.
“As a lawyer, you have power in society to advocate for people,” Casey said. “There’s always going to be someone willing to take a big paycheck to represent some big, fancy corporation. There are not always going to be people looking out for those that typically don’t even have money to pay for an attorney.”
Casey had heard about Immigrant Justice Corps, and was further convinced to apply by a classmate a year ahead of him, Rebecca Taylor, who started an IJC fellowship in 2019. He applied, and in September 2020, he began work in El Paso, Texas at the Innovation Law Lab.
From day one, Casey hit the ground running, working exclusively on detained removal defense cases. The learning curve was steep, but Casey got creative to help his clients. The judges he appeared before were most often older white men, he noted. And someone else he knew was also in that demographic – his dad.
“How would you convince your one friend who hates immigrants that this is actually a good case?” Casey would ask his dad when planning out his arguments.
He learned a lot from his dad about how to appeal to the judge’s sensibilities, he said.
“My dad is of that generation, and he has a much better idea of how those people were raised and how they think,” Casey said.
While the work was difficult, it was also rewarding. His favorite part was the first conversation with a client after they had been released from detention.
“They were no longer stuck in some weird cement building against their will,” Casey said. “They can go wherever they want to go, and they can do whatever they want to do, and they’re really, really happy.”
He was learning how to be a good immigration attorney, getting hundreds of people out of ICE detention centers and dipping his toe into appellate work. But the work was stressful and the hours were long.
After one of his clients was placed on suicide watch, Casey began to feel that the vicarious trauma he was experiencing every day was becoming overwhelming. He had to figure out a new way to balance his work and his mental health.
“Through therapy and taking care of myself, I was able to get my brain right and get back to doing quality work,” Casey said.
He left Innovation Law Lab and joined New Mexico Immigrant Law Center.
“I learned to advocate for myself and do what’s right for me,” Casey said of the change. “As immigration lawyers, if our brains aren’t working as they should, it probably means we need therapy and rest.”
And needing that space and support is not a sign of failure or an inability to do the work of an immigration attorney.
“It just reflects on something that we’re experiencing at the current moment that’s maybe inhibiting our short term potential but doesn’t inhibit our long term potential,” Casey said. “And if other people view it that way, then that’s their loss.”
Casey now works as a Senior Attorney, taking on more of a supervisory role. And the work feels sustainable.
“If we are working at unsustainable levels, and we end up leaving earlier because of that, we miss out on the opportunity to help a larger amount of people over a larger period of time,” Casey said. “I know if I’m working here, I can keep going.”
And Casey has also worked to build his own supports outside of work, to ensure he can maintain a balance. In his free time, you can find him rock climbing with friends, running, and trying new restaurants.
“If I feel stressed about the work week, I go climbing and by the end of the day, I don’t even remember what I was stressed about,” Casey said.
In his current position, Casey hopes he can help new attorneys find their own way to make the work sustainable, and find their own version of rock climbing. He’s enjoying teaching them to draw boundaries and advocate for themselves.
“The legal profession generally doesn’t teach people or even give them encouragement to find their own way to make the work sustainable,” Casey said. “And it’s different for everyone. Most people aren’t going to want to go climb boulders all day Saturday to keep their work sustainable. They have to find their own way.”
