With only three weeks of law firm experience behind her, 29-year-old attorney Amber Seay sounds more seasoned than she should. But she’s earned it. For three years, she labored at the Memphis Immigration Court, clerking for judges who had over 3,000 cases apiece on their dockets.
Immigration law was her passion, though, so she’d asked for it.
“That was a lot of work, and it was difficult because I couldn’t separate myself from what I was doing,” she says. “I wrote the decisions about whether or not people were going to be able to stay in the U.S. or were going to be sent home.”
A gut-punch experience, Memphis only solidified Seay’s desire to help immigrants through the practice of law. It also gave her a direction of sorts. As Seay researched cases for the judges for which she was working, she became familiar with the immigration consequences of criminal acts. Because the Memphis court has jurisdiction over immigration matters in several states, she saw how the same crime had different consequences depending on where it was committed. Seay then learned how to mitigate the fallout.
“I saw firsthand how different states do things – if you shoplift in one state, you’ll be okay, but in another state, the same crime will put you in removal proceedings,” she says. “When you know the consequences of a crime, you can lessen its impact in immigration court by how you plea.”
During her brief time so far at Baker Donelson in Chattanooga, Seay has advised criminal defense lawyers on how to handle their clients’ cases. While she’s enjoyed using her knowledge and experience in this manner, she has yet to make use of another unique body of knowledge she acquired while clerking.
“Memphis is diverse. There are cases from China, Central America, and the Middle East. There are also a lot of cases from Mauritania, of all places,” she says, laughing and shaking her head. “So I know a lot about the history of the people and the political upheaval of Mauritania, which is random.”
Seay’s journey to the law was anything but random. Rather, a series of encounters and experiences touched her heart, sparked her intellect, and led her lock step to the legal profession.
The future immigration attorney grew up in Ooltewah and then attended the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, where she majored in pschology until she realized her job prospects would be slim to none. She also studied Spanish, which she liked and wanted to improve. This led to a semester in Costa Rica. Most of her classes were at night, so she taught English to poor public students during the day.
“We’d have Parents Day, but often, a grandmother or aunt would come instead,” Seay says. “So I would ask where mom or dad was, and they would say ‘In the U.S.’ These were fourth grade kids, so I would then ask how long they’d been gone, and they would say, ‘Four or five years.’ Having grown up in East Tennessee, that blew my mind.”
When Seay returned to the U.S., she continued to teach free English classes to foreign students. During this time, she met a lot immigrants, many of whom were in the U.S. illegally. Some were teenagers who’d come to the U.S. on their own; some had paid thousands of dollars to thieves who’d promised to resolve their immigration issues but then disappeared with their money; and in one case, she met an immigrant who was growing sick from an injury he’d suffered at work but was afraid to go to a hospital for fear of being arrested and removed.
Seay began to wonder why these people had immigrated to the U.S., and what the laws were concerning their presence in the country. She also began to see a need.
“I’d never wanted to be a lawyer because I’m not big on conflict, but I saw a need in East Tennessee for someone who knew what he or she was doing and wasn’t out to just take money from these people,” she says.
Seay decided to attend law school, and chose the University of Florida for its proximity to immigrants. Surprised at the lack of an immigration law association, she started one with a fellow law student. They learned to vet their speakers after one was poorly received. “We brought in a speaker from California who wound up being racist. We had Cubans yelling at the guy,” she says, dropping her head.
Seay also did an internship at the Orlando immigration court, where she watched as the judges removed most of the hundreds of immigrants that stood before them. She researched the law, wrote motions, and watched as families were torn apart. “The law is strict. It doesn’t matter if you’re a child; and it doesn’t matter if you’re married to a U.S. citizen, or have children with a U.S. citizen,” she says.
When Seay would return to Tennessee, people would ask her why she was studying immigration law. She became good at defending what she was doing. “Corporate law might be interesting and challenging, but at the end of the day, you might not see your client, and you might not make a difference. If you practice criminal law, you run the risk of either imprisoning an innocent person or setting a guilty person free. I dabbled in family law, and it was horrible; I watched people scream at each other across a table. But with immigration law, at worse, you’re helping someone escape persecution, and at best, you’re helping someone to build the American dream.”
During her last year in law school, Seay landed a fellowship with the Florida Bar Association, through which she worked with an attorney on pro bono cases. She then applied for the Department of Justice Honors Program, which landed her in Memphis.
Seay brings to Baker Donelson an ability to deal with removal matters that exceeds her handful of years as an attorney. But she still has much to learn, including family- and employment-based immigration law. “We do a lot of employment visas here,” she says. “I would like to become an expert in every area.”
Whatever lies ahead, Sea is settling in nicely. “Lawyers talk about job stress and long hours, but I’m really liking this. The work has been interesting.”
As Seay looks to the future, she sees more than work. She spreads her fingers to show the lack of a ring, but says she has a boyfriend in Memphis she’s trying import. She also wants to visit every state – a quest she started during road trips with her family when she was young. Only Alaska remains to be crossed off the list. In the meantime, trying new restaurants, backpacking, and watching college football fill the rest of her free time.
“I bought a Tennesse [Vols] bowtie for my dog, but my boyfriend is an Alabama fan, so he turned around and bought a [Crimson Tide] bowtie. Now Saturdays are about who can get to my dog first,” she says, laughing.
Whereas some of Seay’s peers might come across as naïve, humbled before the law, and grateful to be working, Seay is poised, seems confident, and speaks in a manner that reveals reasoned intelligence. And whereas her other peers might have emerged from law school crackling with optimism, idealism, and a desire to change the world, her thoughts about her practice seem well-balanced and practical.
Right now, her goal is to learn. Changing the world, or at least having a hand in changing some lives for the better, will surely follow.