Rohingya people wait in line for supplies at a refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. Credit: Ismail Ferdous/Bloomberg

A refugee once told me he had pushed his disabled father from Syria to Turkey in a wheelchair. When they reached the border, it was too dangerous to cross because guards were shooting at refugees. A smuggler told the son to wait for the sun to go down and cross the border alone. He said he would take the father by a different route on horseback and they would reconnect at a prearranged meeting point in a village on the other side.

The son didn't know what to do. If he turned back, his father could die in the war in Syria. If he tried to take him across the border in the wheelchair, the guards could kill him. He gave the smuggler all the money he had, waited until nighttime, and crossed the border alone.

Have you ever tried your hardest to protect someone you love, not knowing if things will work out the way you hope? Have you ever taken a blind risk, not because you were fearless, but because the universe was merciless at that moment? This happened that night.

The son arrived in the designated village, but there was no sign of his father. He waited all that night, and the next night, and the next. When his father didn't arrive, he looked for him all over the country. When he didn't find him in Turkey, he crossed the Mediterranean in a rubber boat and looked all over Greece. When I met him, he was still searching, traveling from camp to camp, thrusting a faded photograph of his beloved into the hands of anyone who would listen.

The son couldn't forgive himself for crossing the border without his father. He replayed the events leading up to their separation again and again, overwhelmed by grief and remorse. Some people questioned how he could have left without his father or trusted the smuggler. It's easy to imagine we would have made a different choice.

But do any of us really know what we would do, with a war at our backs and border police shooting at us? I don't know what became of the son. He was talking about returning to Syria. But even today I think of him whenever I hear stories of families torn apart during flight. I imagine that the heartbreak of being lost from each other must never heal.

How to Interview

Have you ever interviewed someone who has suffered profound trauma? This is, for me, one of the most complex aspects of practicing refugee law. As lawyers, we want specificity and consistency in our interviews. Yet when we represent refugees, the facts often don't line up, there are gaps in a history, and it's impossible to create a coherent timeline. Why do you suppose that is?

Some cynical groups say inconsistencies are proof of lying. My attitude about the issue is different. I see confusion and half-memories as evidence of trauma. It isn't that refugees have forgotten what happened to them. Often the opposite is true. Traumatic memories leave an imprint on the mind that cannot be erased or forgotten. Yet refugees may lack words to describe the harm, except to name a feeling, like terror or pain or the wish to die. Often these overwhelming feelings wash out timelines and facts, making it difficult to reconstruct experiences.

Another reason for buried facts may relate to shame. Certain forms of torture, like sexual torture, are not talked about in many cultures. Cultural silence is matched in the silence of refugee narratives. The absence of common language around the most dehumanizing forms of torture prevents telling what happened. The result is a half-story. No refugee will admit this. But he doesn't need to; his silence is proof enough.

Sometimes a refugee who has suffered torture is able to describe what he observed in his jail cell in gripping detail: the size and smell of the cell, the screams of other prisoners. Yet he is unable to face the more painful task of recalling what he experienced in the cell, the method of torture, how long he was there, how many guards tortured him.

If you press for answers to these questions your client may become flooded. More often, in my experience, there are no tears. Emotional detachment creates a barrier between the client and what he is remembering. His reporting becomes like a movie, far away. He watches himself telling, but he isn't in his body. His voice becomes flat. He holds himself perfectly still throughout each scene. This is a way to survive.

I'll share an example. I was once interviewing a Bedouin shepherd from Iraq in our center in Jordan. The shepherd was married. He had a wife and four children. They weren't with him. They were in hiding. I pieced together his case from strips of pain.

He had a brother. The militia shot him. Did he witness it? Yes. And then what happened? He died. And then? They shot me too. And then what happened? I don't remember. What is the next thing you remember? I was in a cell. Where? I don't know. What was it like? I don't know. Why? I was blindfolded. What happened next? They tortured me. How long were you there? I don't know. What thoughts went through you mind? That I would die.

The shepherd answered the last question without looking at me. His voice had become flat. His breathing was uneven. I remember how he held himself erect, bracing himself for the next question. I didn't ask. I didn't ask about the methods of torture, or how many times the guards tortured him, or what words they used while they tortured him. I wanted to ask. But a part of me knew it would be unethical to go deeper, so I told him I had no more questions that day.

The truth is that as a less-experienced lawyer my natural impulse was to cross-examine and investigate and control the line of questioning. It was hard for me to allow the client to set the pace. It didn't seem logical to avoid the most probing questions or leave out the most horrific details. I thought this was how you built a case. I needed many years of working with refugees before I began to comprehend the importance of giving them control over their interview.

Today it seems clear: Persecution and torture are about taking away control, about overpowering, about breaking down will. I've come to believe that the most effective legal representation, as far as it is possible, involves returning control to our refugee clients, allowing them to set the pace in interviews, following their lead when recording their history.

The first thing that surprised me when I let go of control is that I learned many more details, and there were many more layers to a story. When I thought an interview was finished, the client would surprise me by going deeper. I found the language of a case much richer when I let the client lead the discussion. It was their language, not mine. The words reflected their experience, not my assumptions about it.

I found it much easier to build trust when I wasn't interrogating my clients about gaps or broken timelines. Now it's unusual for me to ever record a history in chronological order. We work in scenes, not timelines. I ask about feelings to deepen an interview. What hurt the most? What was the hardest part? What did you fear? What thoughts went through your mind when that happened?

I build timelines by organizing scenes into a storyline. I uncover forgotten dates by relating them to events—it was the beginning of Ramadan; it was a month after the war began; it was my son's birthday. It's impossible to build a strong case in one or two interviews. It takes time to develop trust. Sometimes we don't have this luxury, so we do our best with the time we have (when our client is detained, for example). But often we have time to go slowly, and to adjust to the needs of the client.

What I'm trying to say and haven't said is that I've become aware of my limitations as a lawyer. My role is to create a safe space for uncovering, to listen, and to record. Sometimes people say lawyers are a voice for refugees, but I know that is not true. Refugees have their own voice. Their story, and their case, belongs to them.

Jayne E. Fleming is pro bono counsel to Reed Smith, where she leads the firm's human rights team, which comprises more than 100 lawyers firmwide.