From Jeopardy! Contender to an Advocate for the Wrongfully Convicted
NSBHF paralegal Lucia Geng developed a taste for trivia after joining her high school’s Quiz Bowl team, so much that she earned herself a place on the Jeopardy! Teen Tournament in 2016. While she didn’t achieve champion status, she held her own up to the semi-final, won $10,000, and got to meet the legendary Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek – a highlight of her experience.
Lucia’s work on wrongful conviction cases at NSBHF is anything but trivial, but the skills she developed as a Jeopardy! contender – a strong recall for facts, an ability to focus under stress and an affinity for research – have served her well in working on behalf of clients whose lives, quite literally, have been placed in jeopardy due to wrongful convictions.
Lucia graduated from the University of Chicago in 2022 with a major in Political Science and minors in Human Rights and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. Her encounters with incarcerated youth as a college tutor in a creative writing workshop sparked her interest in pursuing a career in criminal legal reform, which deepened following internships with the Exoneration Project, the Orleans Public Defenders, and the ACLU’s National Prison Project. During her senior year, a friend and mentor who had gone on to work as an NSBHF paralegal encouraged Lucia to apply to the firm’s highly competitive program (open to post-college applicants). Lucia did so, eager to gain experience in working with some of the top civil rights attorneys in the country.
“It’s like we’re putting the oil in the well-oiled machine,” Lucia says of NSBHF’s paralegal program. “Logistical stuff is really important,” she adds, noting that the firm, must meet the disparate court filing instructions of a host of jurisdictions across the country, down to the font size of documents and varying legal deadlines for submissions. She understands that nothing is trivial when it comes to represented wrongfully convicted individuals.
While such administrative work is expected of paralegals, NSBHF is unusual in that it includes junior team members in larger meetings with co-counsel and at depositions. Lucia vividly recalls sitting “less than 10 feet away” from an intimidating police officer, watching NSBHF senior partner Nick Brustin go through the officer’s tainted testimony. She watched as Brustin expertly wore the man down, getting him to admit certain facts and later contradict himself.
The night before, Lucia had helped prep Brustin’s documents and exhibits, ensuring that every moment of the seven-hour deposition (the limit allowed by federal law) was used to good effect.
Lucia also worked directly with NSBHF’s clients and grew especially close to one client. “I was amazed at how resilient and generous he is,” Lucia says. “It made me really angry, hearing his account of what was done to him.”
Lucia is now channeling that anger into a career in the criminal legal system. She’s taken an investigator position with the holistic public defense organization The Bronx Defenders, where she investigates cases. After that, law school or a joint degree might be on the horizon. Whatever path she chooses, the skills Lucia honed at NSBHF are sure to contribute to a stellar and rewarding career.
