By: Elaine McArdle
Just two months before the trial date for a complicated divorce case, two students in the Family Justice Clinic, Grace Elizabeth Cauble ’27 and Jae Jin Lee ’27, agreed to take it on.
Cauble and Lee were days into their second year of law school, and neither had any trial experience. But when Marianna Yang, clinical instructor and co-director of the Family Justice Clinic (FJC), asked if they would take the case, they readily accepted.
“Jae Jin and I said, ‘Sure, it sounds great,’” recalls Cauble, who during college worked at a restaurant with undocumented workers, and enrolled at HLS with the desire to help people on the margins navigate the legal system. “And yes, we were totally thrown into the deep end.”
The daunting deadline wasn’t their only challenge. The case had languished for over four years, and their client had gone through two previous lawyers, then represented herself pro se before finally calling the Clinic. The deadline for discovery had passed so the FJC team was precluded from getting additional information from the other side that might assist their position.
With little time to spare, the students divvied up the tasks. Cauble would present the opening statement at trial and handle the direct exam of the client. She also served as the primary contact with the client, who is a single mom for whom English is not her first language. Cauble met and spoke with the client many times, building trust and rapport that served as an indispensable cornerstone to the attorney-client relationship.
“She’d been carrying this burden for so long, and I knew it was important for her to feel heard by someone and feel validated,” says Cauble, who chose FJC for the opportunity to work with women as they navigate difficult personal matters.
At trial, Lee was to handle cross examination of the husband and present the closing argument, and he took primary responsibility for communicating with opposing counsel. With some experience in financial statements from working at a legal services organization before law school, Lee also assumed the task of combing through the parties’ financial records.
The ultimate triable issue in the case was whether alimony should be awarded to the Clinic’s client. Importantly, the students became experts in a new case they believed supported their argument for alimony, which the client’s husband insisted was precluded given his interpretation of the facts. In 2022, in Cavanagh v. Cavanagh, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issued a landmark opinion creating a new method to calculate alimony in relation to child support. And in 2025, the Appeals Court provided additional guidance in a second round of appellate proceedings in the Cavanagh case. Since these rulings were relatively new, the students in the Clinic, along with practitioners and judges at large, were still learning to correctly apply the standards.
Through meticulous scrutiny of the husband’s financial records, Lee discovered discrepancies that suggested he had more assets than he was letting on, and which, when the new standards were applied, allowed for a stronger argument in favor of the Clinic’s position. Armed with detailed factual support and a sound legal argument propelled by the recent clarifications, Lee prepared charts and exhibits with a persuasive rendering of the complex calculations and analysis called for by Cavanagh.
When the trial date arrived, Cauble and Lee were more than ready to present their case in court—which is precisely why they never got the chance.
That morning in the bustling courthouse, Cauble, Lee, and Yang sat at counsel table waiting for their client, who was running late after dropping her child off at school, Lee recalls. While waiting, “opposing counsel approached us with a new settlement offer”—which, for the first time, conceded that alimony was applicable and included a corresponding amount, he says.
“Jae Jin laid out the numbers in a way that was very persuasive,” adds Cauble.
When their client arrived, the FJC team met with her privately with the news. With the client’s consent, Lee took an aggressive negotiation strategy for an alimony and child support amount that was much higher than what the client was willing to accept.
“Jae Jin was dealing with someone far more experienced, yet he held his own—clearly,” says Yang. And, she adds, “There was tremendous work done by Grace Elizabeth. She guided the client through our complex and adversarial legal system, which allowed the client to quickly make well-informed decisions.”
After the other side counteroffered, the parties settled on an amount of alimony and child support higher than what the client sought during prior negotiations. For the FJC team, it was a significant victory.
“As disappointed as I was that we didn’t get to do the opening and closing and direct and cross, I was ultimately incredibly relieved because we secured the outcome we wanted for our client,” says Cauble. “Settling the case meant she got child support and alimony starting that week, as opposed to waiting months for the judge to come up with a judgment. Knowing that she would be able to walk away that day and have money deposited in her back account that Friday felt like a huge win.”
“This was a client who was going to food banks,” says Rebecca Greening, clinical instructor and co-director of the Family Justice Clinic, who with Yang had mooted the students as they practiced for their trial presentation.
The successful outcome was a direct result of the students’ high level of dedication, says Yang. “It
highlights the quality of work that they produced in a very short time—work that doesn’t always end in a flashy trial but is just as valuable nonetheless, given that it would be the client who always bears the risks of trial,” she says.
And their experience demonstrates the educational value of the FJC. “Many law graduates go into litigation, but likely it will be years before they see the inside of a courtroom, let alone take the lead in case strategy and legal strategy,” explains Yang. This team took the reins and jumped right in, she says, adding, “I could not be more impressed with their dedication to their client and the work that needed to be done throughout.”
Lee says the experience “was a lesson in client-centered lawyering. Even though we were not able to put all our arguments on display for the judge, all the preparation we did helped our client reach a favorable settlement and start a new life going forward.”
“Honestly, it was incredibly overwhelming at first, which is why it was so amazing to work [in a team] with Jae Jing,” says Cauble, “because we had each other to help go through everything.”
For more on the Family Justice Clinic: HERE