YOUNG LAWYER, OLD ISSUE: SEEKING SOCIAL JUSTICE

So let's get this straight. Vanita Gupta is all of 28, a 2001 graduate of
New York University Law School and a lead lawyer in the Tulia, Tex., case
in which more than a tenth of the town's black population was arrested in a
drug sting based on the uncorroborated testimony of one out-of-control
undercover officer. Ms. Gupta is one of the lawyers who swooped into the
desolate West Texas town, mounting a defense that caused prosecutors to
concede they had made a catastrophic mistake, and led a Texas judge to
recommend recently that every conviction be overturned, saying the officer
was simply not a credible witness.

It's a fantastic victory. Yet on a recent afternoon, Ms. Gupta is doing a
good job of showing only muted reaction as she sits in her office at the
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund on Hudson Street. A bumper sticker
is pasted on her office door: "Hallelujah, I'm from Tulia." A bit of
unknowing irony from Tulia's chamber of commerce. "It's just too good," Ms.
Gupta says, smiling wryly.

She is cautious because the case, which has become a national symbol of
racial injustice, is not completely over. Defense lawyers hope the Texas
Court of Criminal Appeals will approve the judge's recommendation in a
matter of months. "I think I'm still trying to process what happened," she
says. "It's completely overwhelming."

Ms. Gupta is small-boned, with a long, serious face that softens when she
flashes a smile. She is focused and confident in a way that makes it easy
to imagine her grilling witnesses, recruiting nearly three dozen lawyers,
many of them seasoned attorneys from Washington, New York and California,
and coordinating their litigation strategy. Her disarming manner perhaps
explains why lawyers gush in praise of her, and why Tulia residents thanked
her with a plaque for "doing justice, loving mercy and walking humbly in
Tulia, Texas." A Houston Chronicle reporter even wrote that one should not
be surprised if Ms. Gupta winds up on the Supreme Court one day. She cracks
up at that, wailing about "how over the top it is," and finally confesses:
"I don't even know what to say." O.K. "People are excited about the case
and that kind of is where it's at right now," she says. "There are a lot of
hands in making it happen."

Ms. Gupta, please, no space for modesty here. Let's talk about your age.
"I'm always kind of aware," she says, 'do I look young?' But it may be
something inside my head."

"I just think it's been a phenomenal experience to start out my legal
career on this case and to see how I'm ever going to top it," she says.
"It's a case not just in terms of prominence, but with the power to affect
systemic reform. It's been a totally wild ride."

As Ms. Gupta settles into the interview, little things begin to slip out.
Seems as if she loves the hot seat. "I'm definitely a magnet for the kinds
of situations where you're not in a comfortable setting, a new setting,"
she says, "and you're trying to understand what the problem is and trying
to solve it."

She began by making more than 15 weeklong trips to Tulia (population
5,000), starting in November 2001, shortly after she started work for the
NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Her salary was financed by the Open Society
Institute as a Soros postgraduate fellow. She had passed the New York bar
that July.

After her initial visit to Texas, she circulated a memo at the defense
fund, recommending its involvement in the case. She pulls out a long,
tattered spreadsheet, detailing the circumstances of 46 defendants in a
1999 drug sweep that lawyers call a misguided attempt to claim victories at
any cost in the war on drugs.

There are all sorts of reasons for Ms. Gupta to be on a high. There's the
Tulia case, and then there's her wedding in May, to another lawyer. Later
on this day, she will be visiting her parents in Philadelphia to go over
invitations for about 200 guests. "I'm totally excited," she says.

Ms. Gupta, who studied at Yale before N.Y.U., can't say for sure when she
developed her interest in social justice issues. Much of her childhood was
spent in England and France, where her father worked as a business manager
for an international company. But she distinctly recalls an incident in
London in which skinheads hurled an ethnic slur at her family, including a
grandmother visiting from India, as they ate in a McDonald's restaurant.

IT was just a very vivid demonstration of what it's like to grow up as a
person of color in a very troubled time," she says.

As Ms. Gupta talks, she has so much unflagging energy that you have to ask:
Does she ever feel wiped out? She says she runs six miles at least three
times a week to ease stress.

Still, she looks surprised at the question. She feels she has no right to
feel tired. She has only to look at the large map next to her desk. It
pinpoints Tulia, merely a speck.

"It's not an isolated problem," she says. "The kinds of things at play in
Tulia are at play all over the country; the racial bias that infects our
criminal justice system."