"Weddington was confident. Her parents had raised her and her younger siblings to believe, she later recalled, that they “could do whatever they wanted,” and so she had—from soloing in the church choir to serving as secretary of her college student body. But her body of legal work was sparse—a few divorces and wills, an adoption. She suggested that the group hire a lawyer in a firm, she recalled, “with research and secretarial backup.” The women, however, wanted Weddington. So back to the library she went, comforted by the thought, she later wrote, that any suit she filed would simply back the growing number of suits that already contested abortion laws in other states. Still, the drafting of documents was daunting. Weddington again wondered if the case might be better handled by a lawyer with knowledge of federal courts and procedure. A former classmate turned clerk leapt to mind. On December 3, she phoned Linda Coffee. Coffee was delighted. She’d arrived at this same juncture and simply needed a plaintiff. Weddington suggested that Coffee file suit on behalf of the alumnae group in Austin. Coffee agreed and typed Weddington a letter the next day. “Would you consider being co-counsel in the event that a suit is actually filed?” she wrote. “I have always found that it is a great deal more fun to work with someone on a lawsuit of this nature.” Weddington phoned to accept. Coffee worried, however, that because the Austin group was not a pregnant woman, it might not have standing in the eyes of the court. Besides, only a case filed in Dallas could land on the sympathetic desk of Coffee’s mentor, Judge Hughes. The search for a plaintiff thus continued, extending into late January, when an exultant Coffee phoned Weddington to tell of the pregnant woman who’d just left her office."