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Susan F. Zinn, managing attorney, Texas RioGrande Legal Aid and solo practitioner, San Antonio
Image: Wendi Poole
Extraordinary Women in Law: Susan F. Zinn
September 29, 2008
Susan F. Zinn
Managing Attorney, Texas RioGrande Legal Aid
Solo Practitioner, The Law Offices of Susan F. Zinn
San Antonio
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Fighting for health care for millions of poor children. Taking Texas to the U.S. Supreme Court and winning. Playing a key role in securing nearly $2 billion more in Medicaid funding. And doing a lot of that work for free. Susan Zinn's impact on the well-being of low-income kids in the Lone Star State can't be overstated.
It's been a long and winding road for her since 1993, when she filed Frew, et al. v. Hawkins, et al., a federal class-action suit on behalf of 1.5 million indigent children seeking better health care in Texas under Medicaid.
The class has grown to 2.9 million as the state's population grew -- roughly one-third of all children in Texas, Zinn says.
She says indigent children in Texas have a hard time finding doctors who will treat them under Medicaid, which "means the problems get worse while the children are waiting or trying to find a doctor to take care of them."
After the suit began, Congress passed legislation in 1996, barring legal services offices that received federal grants from taking part in class-actions. That's when Zinn reduced her role at Texas RioGrande Legal Aid to part time, opened her solo practice and -- from time to time -- worked on the class action from her own office.
"Sometimes I had to take leave from my legal aid job without pay," says Zinn, a 1983 graduate of the University of Texas School of Law.
The case settled in 1996, but Zinn took the state back to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District in 2000, arguing Texas wasn't living up to the settlement's consent decree. The court agreed, ordering the state to propose corrections, but Texas appealed. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the lower court in 2002 on 11th Amendment jurisdictional grounds. Zinn appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which granted certiorari and heard the case the next year.
Zinn argued that the 11th Amendment did not bar the federal court from enforcing the consent decree. She won a unanimous ruling in her favor in 2004. The state unsuccessfully tried again in 2005 to dissolve the consent decree at the trial court level, the 5th Circuit and the Supreme Court, which denied cert in 2007. That fight led to a corrective action order from the district court, and the Texas Legislature appropriated additional money to the program in 2007. With matching federal funds, it boosted the children's Medicaid budget in Texas by $1.8 billion, Zinn says.
She now monitors the state's activities and says she'll go back to court, if she has to.
