The Possible Dream
Charles Kuck, lover of both Don Quixote and Atlas Shrugged,
has five ways to reform immigration law
BY JERRY GRILLO
PHOTOGRAPHY BY STAN KAADY
THE INK ON CHARLES KUCK’S UNFRAMED
law school diploma was barely dry when
he realized that helping people was much
more rewarding than suing people.
It was 1989, the summer following his
graduation from law school at Arizona State
University, and he was employed at the
Phoenix office of Mariscal, Weeks, McIntyre
& Friedlander. He wanted to be a litigator
but knew most first- and second-year
lawyers rarely see the inside of a courtroom,
and he hadn’t even passed the bar yet. Then
a colleague made a suggestion.
“There’s this really cool place called
immigration court,” Kuck recalls his friend
saying. “There are no rules of discovery,
no rules of evidence, and you can take pro
bono cases right now because you don’t
have to pass the bar yet to take a case.”
At the time, Kuck had no interest in
immigration law. “I thought it was for
liberals and wackos,” he says. “I wanted to
sue people, take them to court.”
But the thought of actually trying a
case won him over and the first case
changed his life.
“It was a little Guatemalan guy and
his wife,” Kuck says. “They were fleeing
persecution. This was Central America in
the late ’80s, early ’90s. There was a civil
war going on that our country started. He
was an Indian from the mountains who
feared for his life, and the paramilitary
and the left-wing guerillas were both
after him.”
That’s how Kuck ended up winning a
case before he passed the bar.
“It was an awesome feeling,” says
Kuck, now the managing partner of Kuck
Immigration Partners, based in Atlanta.
“Of course, I wanted to do it again. So I
called the local pro bono organization I
was working through [Friendly House] and
asked if they had any more cases.”
Over the next two years, in addition to
his insurance and personal injury work at
the firm, Kuck took on seven asylum cases
for Friendly House, eventually joining its
board of directors. “Refugees from Central
America were pouring into Arizona at the
time,” he says. “Most of those guys couldn’t
get into Arizona today.”
