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Judge's Remarks Cause Stir Over Goal of Pro Bono Work
Friday, October 31, 2008
Chief Judge Dennis Jacobs of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit raised some hackles earlier this month with a speech on pro bono lawyering at a Federalist Society dinner in Rochester. The speech, entitled "Pro Bono for Fun and Profit," promised at the outset to be "unusually provocative" and the judge said straight away, "My point, in a nutshell, is that much of what we call legal work for the public interest is essentially self-serving: Lawyers use public interest litigation to promote their own agendas, social and political - and (on a wider plane) to promote the power and the role of the legal profession itself."
SPONSOR SPOTLIGHT
Pro Bono Team Wins $4.6 Million For Aggrieved Food Deliverymen
Friday, October 31, 2008
Thirty-six bicycle deliverymen will soon split a $4.6 million bounty won on their behalf in litigation against a restaurant that cheated them out of fair wages, assessed illegal "fines" for "perceived infractions" of work rules and then fired them when the owners sensed they might be sued. Lawyers for the Chinese immigrants say the decision could provide precedential value to others on issues of suspending statute of limitations under provisions of the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act and liquidated damages under state and federal statutes.
Touro's Public Advocacy Center Benefits Students, Community
Friday, October 24, 2008
The William Randolph Hearst Public Advocacy Center of Long Island, a warren of tiny offices on the Central Islip campus of Touro Law Center, was created for the likes of Maria T. DeGennaro. As a law student with familiarity with the questionable practices of her former line of work in the mortgage loan industry, Ms. DeGennaro was a natural fit for Long Island Housing Services, one of 16 public interest agencies housed on campus at the public advocacy center. The nonprofit agencies each pay $100 monthly for office, phone and Internet service - along with access to the Touro Law library and faculty, as well as proximity to state and federal courts adjacent to the campus. In return, the agencies pledge to use the passions of Touro Law students as legal support.
Accolades
Friday, October 24, 2008
Two hundred lawyers representing 40 private firms and corporate law offices were honored earlier this month by MFY Legal Services for their volunteer counsel to indigent New Yorkers. Also, attorneys from 18 Manhattan firms and a Westchester County law school are set to be honored for their assistance to women and children victimized by domestic violence this Monday at a benefit dinner for Sanctuary for Families.
Public Interest Projects
Friday, October 17, 2008
After years of litigation against the Bush administration, attorneys from Kramer Levin and Bingham McCutchen have won release of their ethnic Chinese clients, 17 men from a Muslim and Turkic-speaking enclave in the remote Xinjiang province, from custody at the Guantánamo Bay naval base. Also, legal information Web site www.LawHelp.org/NY has expanded its immigration section so clients do not fall prey to common notary public scams causing false hope of obtaining legal status, and fourteen new members of Legal Services of New York City were recently named to the organization's board of directors.
'Actual Factual' Innocence?
Friday, October 10, 2008
The fate of Fernando Bermudez, ever hopeful of leaving the cell he has occupied at Sing Sing since his 1992 conviction in the fatal shooting of a teen following a dispute at the Marc Ballroom on Union Square, now rests with a solo practitioner who operates from her suburban home office, backed up by a large-firm lawyer who helped get the conviction of Martin Tankleff overturned last December.
Accolades
Friday, September 26, 2008
This year for the first time, the American Association for Justice issued a Pro Bono Award during its annual convention in Philadelphia July 12-16. Recipient of the inaugural award was Andrew J. Maloney, a partner with the New York office of Kreindler & Kreindler who prevailed in a long legal struggle with the DOJ on behalf of the late Glenn Winuk, a partner at Holland & Knight who died at the World Trade Center on 9/11.
Judge Upsets Conviction, Finding Murder 'Intentional'
Friday, September 26, 2008
The 1997 murder conviction of Richard D. "Richie" DiGuglielmo, a former New York City police officer, was overturned last week, the result of years of appellate work by his tenacious lawyer, Andrew H. Schapiro of Mayer Brown. But after nearly 11 years' incarceration in the maximum security Eastern New York Correctional Facility in Ulster County, where he was serving a 20-years-to-life sentence, the fate of Mr. DiGuglielmo remains unsettled.
Sonnenschein Chairman Is KEEN on Aiding Disabled Youths
Friday, September 19, 2008
Elliott I. Portnoy calls his longstanding involvement with an international pro bono project that helps children with mental and physical disabilities to engage in athletics an "extraordinary and transformative" experience, both personal and professional. "It's taught me a great deal about patience and perseverance - about focusing on capacity rather than limitation in approaching people," he said.
Public Interest Projects
Friday, September 19, 2008
A team of junior associates at Cahill Gordon & Reindel has begun teaching a course called "Surviving the Streets: Know Your Rights" for New York City teens served by The Door, a nonprofit youth services agency. Also, earlier this month, an associate from Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe traveled to Rwanda to join forces with a former associate from Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld who left his firm in 2006 to found Indego Africa, a nonprofit economic development organization that helps villagers market art objects at fair trade rates.
Humans Rights Group Enlists Firms to Monitor War Crimes
Friday, August 22, 2008
With only four lawyers besides herself to monitor and analyze jurisprudence and courtroom policy in historic trials of dictators accused of monstrous crimes, Elise Keppler called for help at two large Manhattan law firms whose volunteer attorneys now occupy seats on a stage the whole world is watching. Ms. Keppler, senior counsel for the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch, forged pro bono partnerships - first with Weil, Gotshal & Manges in early 2007, then with Stroock & Stroock & Lavan in January - in the cause of justice through the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
Free With Registration: With New Hire, Pace Law Launches Public Interest Center
Friday, August 8, 2008
On Monday, Jennifer Friedman will report to work at Pace Law School as director of the Public Interest Law Center, an initiative long in the talking stage among faculty and students at the White Plains campus and now finally made real. "We need to bring under a single roof all the various public interest activities already going on, and expand into areas that are not strong at the moment," said Ms. Friedman.
Public Interest Projects
Friday, August 8, 2008
A former prosecutor and an immigrant scientist from England, both now at Fish & Richardson, are pro bono counsel in federal civil litigation following the headline-grabbing criminal case of a wealthy Long Island couple convicted in May of enslaving two Indonesian women as maids in their Muttontown home. Also, the first major fundraising event for the Greg Wolf Fund - named for the late son of Herrick Feinstein's managing director, George Wolf - pulled in $471,310 for leukemia research and financial assistance to leukemia patients and their families, and more good works by the ladies anfd gentlemen of the New York bar.
Accolades
Friday, July 18, 2008
For success in a federal class action suit on behalf of disabled New York City children, Douglas W. Henkin received the Jill Chaifetz Award for Excellence in Educational Advocacy from Advocates for Children during the organization's annual benefit last month. Also last month, practitioners, law professors and judges deemed "pioneers" of women's rights by the Veteran Feminists of America in the "seminal years of second-wave feminism" were honored, and Professor George W. Johnson III of Brooklyn Law School was honored with a proclamation from the U.S. District Courthouse in Brooklyn citing his 25 years of "outstanding and exemplary service" as head of the Eastern District Civil Litigation Fund.
Free With Registration: Immigration Team Tackles I.D. Case
Friday, July 18, 2008
A decision last week by Connecticut's Freedom of Information Commission preserves, at least for the time being, a controversial pact of confidentiality between the city of New Haven and thousands of undocumented immigrants who hold municipal identification cards allowing them access to banks and public services. The July 9 ruling marked success for a pro bono team of lawyers from Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson on behalf of the immigrants.
Public Interest Projects
Friday, June 27, 2008
New York City police officers are walking their beats with more jingle in their pockets, thanks to a legal team from Kaye Scholer that partnered with the general counsel of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association in a state-mandated arbitration proceeding that, for the first time since 1898, broke 'pay parity' with firefighters. Also, attorneys from McDermott Will & Emery have teamed with Lambda Legal in a suit against the federal government on behalf of a disabled gay father whose repeated requests for financial assistance in raising his two children were allegedly ignored.
The 'General Counsel' Model
Friday, June 20, 2008
Daniel L. Greenberg means to prevent the sort of managerial chaos that can easily hobble a public service mission that fails to take care of business. He has adopted for his firm the "general counsel" model of assistance, in which the firm provides an on-call relationship with lawyers across all practice areas. While nonprofits have the occasional need of litigation - long a practice area full of pro bono opportunity - most have even greater need of transactional counsel, said Mr. Greenberg.
Saving St Brigid's
Friday, June 13, 2008
Roman Catholic parishioners of a historic church in Manhattan's East Village are fighting a legal struggle against annihilation by wrecking ball, a city epic coming to closure, thanks to the intervention of a mysterious financial savior and in part to attorneys believed by a lay leader to be "angels from God."
Accolades
Friday, May 30, 2008
Four public interest lawyers and one non-attorney were recipients of the 19th annual Legal Service Awards, given by the New York City Bar Association in recognition of "outstanding civil legal assistance to New York's poor." Read abouth this and other New York attorneys recently acknowledged for their good works.
