"In all their hours of planning and speculating, the one thing the two young, inexperienced lawyers never discussed or even considered was their boldness in planning to challenge a state law. This was because the idea of taking on a state government or even the federal government, for that matter, was not as unusual or difficult a task in the late 1960s as it has since become. In those heady days of civil rights activity, countless lawyers, many of them fresh out of law school and imbued with a sense of idealism, were hoping and praying to make their mark somewhere. At issue was not so much whether they would challenge a law, but which law they would challenge. Coffee and Weddington later admitted they were simply too young and inexperienced to understand fully what they were taking on. In one of her rare expansive moods, Coffee told me, “When you’re young, you have high aspirations, and you just do what needs to be done.”"