In December, as Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration approached, a friend and former boss gave New York resident Leslie Martinez an intriguing offer.

Martinez’s friend Justin Hendrix was meeting with CUNY Clear, a project by City University of New York School of Law to help Muslim, Arab, South Asian and other communities in New York City with their unmet legal needs. Martinez was eager to help in any way she could, and became part of the wave of citizen action that followed Trump’s election.

“Some of the things we talked about were how students can collaborate with CUNY Clear by doing things like redesigning their website or helping them create ‘know your rights’ digital projects,” says Martinez. A designer who received her master’s degree from New York University in integrated digital media in 2016, she had long been interested in immigration law. Martinez had worked as a paralegal at the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center (now known as Americans for Immigrant Justice) in Miami between college and graduate school.