Super Lawyers Pro Bono Award Recipients

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR 2011 PRO BONO AWARD RECIPIENTS:

 

Learn more about each award recipient in the upcoming 2012 Pro Bono Digital Edition of Super Lawyers magazine 

 

PAUL ALSTON, Attorney; Alston Hunt Floyd & Ing; Honolulu, HI

Paul Alston is an attorney at Alston Hunt Floyd & Ing, the fourth-largest law firm in Hawaii. He is a past president of the Hawai’I State Bar Association and a founder of two successful pro bono projects. His business practice areas include business litigation, appellate and civil rights/First Amendment. He was selected to the Hawaii Super Lawyers list in 2008, 2010, and 2011, and was featured in 2011 Super Lawyers Business Edition.

During 2011, Alston and his firm partnered with the Hawaii Appleseed Center on Law and Economic Justice, a public interest non-profit law firm that engages in systemic advocacy primary through class action litigation. As lead counsel, he was involved in two federal court class actions involving the state’s historical failure to maintain its largest and second-largest housing projects, as well as provide residents the rights they have under the Americans with Disabilities Act. After three years of litigation, both high-rise complexes were completely rehabilitated and in full future compliance with the ADA.

Additionally, Alston was lead counsel on a federal court class action against the State of Hawaii’s Department of Human Services for its failure to process food stamp applications in a timely manner. In late 2011, the federal court issued a preliminary injunction mandating the Department to implement a corrective plan that will benefit thousands of applicants each month.

Alston also led a matter defending the granting of a preliminary injunction based on the state’s violation of the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. Alston obtained an injunction in 2010 prohibiting the State of Hawaii from severely restricting critical access to health care for the 8,000 Micronesians in Hawaii. The state has appealed this victory.

During 2011, Alston also served as lead counsel with the Hawaii Disability Rights Center that led to a ruling that the state illegally implemented drastic cuts in services for mentally ill adults throughout Hawaii.

 

JOHN RAFFERTY, Law Student; Villanova Law School; Villanova, PA

John Rafferty is a third-year law school student at Villanova University School of Law in Pennsylvania. Rafferty began working with victims of human trafficking while serving with the Navy in Bahrain, and chose a career in the law to enable him to most effectively give a voice to survivors of both sex and labor trafficking. He is one of Villanova Law School’s Public Interest Scholars, an elite group of students who are selected based on their commitment to public interest and outstanding academic and service achievements.

In 2011, prompted by a request from the community, Rafferty singlehandedly organized a new spring break service trip to provide legal services to central Florida farm workers. He recruited and led a group of 19 Villanova University law students, law professors and undergraduate interpreters, as well as law students and professors from the Florida A&M University and Barry University Law Schools. The group met with and provided brief advice and referral or longer term representation for more than 100 low-wage workers in central Florida who had never before had access to legal assistance.

Over the summer, Rafferty worked for the U.N. International Organization for Migration’s Anti-Human Trafficking Team in Quito, Ecuador and continued to volunteer for the group after returning to school.  Rafferty is currently working with the Philadelphia Anti-Trafficking Coalition to start a Prostitution First Offender Diversionary Program in Philadelphia. He is drafting a resolution for the Pennsylvania Bar Association on ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. He is also working to help his asylum client reunite with her young son.

In 2011, Rafferty also held consecutive positions on the VLS Public Interest Fellowship Program Board. Rafferty has spoken at local churches, colleges, international human rights conferences and has worked with the Pentagon in an effort to increase awareness about human trafficking. He is currently assisting the ABA’s labor and employment law section’s immigration committee to organize a seminar on human trafficking.

In just two years, Rafferty completed over 300 hours of noncredited, unpaid pro bono service. He has given all of his spring and winter breaks to service, working in Ecuador, Washington D.C., North Carolina, Florida and Mexico with low-wage workers or victims of sex trafficking. In his second year of law school, Rafferty helped a Honduran victim of sever domestic violence win asylum in the United States.

 

AMELIA McCARTHY, Attorney; Gass Weber Mullins; Milwaukee, WI

Amelia McCarthy is a Member and trial attorney at Gass Weber Mullins LLC, a 12 attorney trial law and litigation boutique firm in Milwaukee. Her primary practice areas include general commercial, products liability and food safety litigation. She has been selected to a Super Lawyers list six times and was featured in 2011 Super Lawyers Business Edition. 

McCarthy recently returned from two years of public service in Africa. There, she served as a nongovernmental organization adviser to Oonte Orphans and Vulnerable Children Organization in Ondangwa, Namibia. Oonte serves over 450 children who are orphans or otherwise vulnerable as a result of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. McCarthy helped Oonte become recognized as a charitable nonprofit registered with the Namibian Ministry of Trade and Industry (Namibia’s equivalent 501(c)(3) status) which helped increase Oonte’s visibility and access to grant and other funding.

Using this status, McCarthy helped Oonte increase its self-sustainability by expanding Oonte’s Integrated Garden Exposure and Training Center (a center made up of three different types of gardens, a fish pond and small animal farm that once fully operational will support feeding the children without outside donor support); and she helped create Oonte’s Hope Garden’s program (a program designed to bring family self-sustainability through home garden kits and training to distant homesteads and communities).  McCarthy also helped secure funding from Namibia’s French Embassy to construct a building for glass bottle recycling which allows the children to generate income for themselves and Oonte through transforming discarded glass bottles into works of art to be sold at tourist destinations.  The recycling building also houses an early childhood development program for children who do not have access to or have been turned away from the public schools.

Additionally, McCarthy got the opportunity to help lawyers, judges and Namibian lawmakers in their effort to reform Namibia’s child care and protection laws.  These laws had been enacted in the 1960s during apartheid and pre-Namibian independence from South Africa. The nation’s legal assistance center gathered lawyers and judges from across southern Africa to participate in multiple national and local technical conferences to address the wide-ranging issues in the Bill. In addition to participating in the conferences, Ms. McCarthy provided research, edits and drafts of multiple versions of the Bill with particular focus on children’s court procedures, child employment and places children gather for entertainment. 

 

ANDREA L. JOHNSON, Law Student; Columbia Law School; New York, NY

Andrea L. Johnson is a third year law student at Columbia Law School in New York. Andrea founded a new Columbia Law School spring break initiative, a pro bono “Care-a-Van,” that brought Columbia Law students to five Wisconsin tribal reservations in order to provide legal services. The students, in partnership with a local organization, hosted wills clinics where they met individually with tribal members to discuss the importance of estate planning and draft wills. In four days, the eleven students drafted 75 wills—more than the host organization could have drafted in a year and a half on its own.

Columbia Law School will not only send another group of students to Wisconsin this spring but will also expand the Care-a-Van projects to two reservations in the Southwest. Moreover, as a result of Johnson’s work in organizing the project, several other law schools in the Midwest and Southwest now plan similar activities.

Johnson’s peers have recognized her unique dedication, energy and talents. One of her peers said, “The Care-A-Van was an intense cultural experience for students who spent hours working one-on-one with grandmothers and grandfathers, aunts and uncles who shared stories of how their families have been deeply affected by drug trafficking, alcohol and poverty.” Students worked substantively with federal Indian law and estate law to help clients make sure their families would be cared for. During the trip, Care-A-Van participants identified additional pro bono projects for the Indian tribes on which they will be working throughout the semester.

Johnson’s pro bono work extends beyond her work on tribal reservations. She has done significant pro bono work for the Law School’s Center for Sexuality and Gender Law. She has also worked with Sanctuary for Families’ Battered Immigrant Women’s Project and its Courtroom Advocates Project; Columbia Society for Immigrant & Refugee Rights; and other organizations.

 

LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO SCHOOL OF LAW – LIFE AFTER INNOCENCE PROJECT, Law School Effort; Chicago, IL

Life After Innocence at Loyola University Chicago School of Law has addressed a gaping hole in the criminal justice system—support for innocent people once they have been exonerated. In fact, LAI is the first organization of its kind in the country, and the first “after-innocence” program to be admitted to the Innocence Network (an international organization devoted to addressing wrongful convictions).

Aside from the high cost that wrongful convictions present for taxpayers, the real cost is paid by exonerees who, when ultimately found innocent and released, often find themselves homeless, unemployed, and without a significant support system. Upon release, they start from nothing—no cell phone, laptop, not even a wallet or an article of clothing. Even social services targeted at ex-felons are usually unavailable to exonerees because they are technically not felons.

LAI provides individualized legal and support services for exonerees. By reaching out to the community and partnering with social services organizations, LAI provides clients financial education, housing assistance, job placement and interview preparation, as well as medical and dental services. LAI employs no staff. Instead, student members are motivated, passionate and devoted to the project. Year round, the project is run by director Laura Caldwell and approximately 10 to 15 students.

In 2011, in addition to working with exonerees, LAI was also involved in working with the Legislature to address inconsistencies in the law concerning exonerees. Although cuts for mental health benefits were predominant in 2011, LAI drafted, lobbied and was able to pass legislation to provide mental health benefits to exonerees. In addition, the legislation provided for expungement of records (although their cases may be overturned and an official declaration of innocence declared by the court, the conviction for a violent crime remains on the exonoree’s record).

The students are now actively in the implementation process with the Department of Public Health and the Department of Employment Security. Furthermore, through participation with LAI, Loyola law students gain invaluable legal experience drafting and pursuing pleadings and networking with attorneys, judges and others active in the law.

 

MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LAW – LEGAL CLINIC, Law School Effort; East Lansing, MI

In 2011, Michigan State University College of Law's Legal Clinic provided service to individuals throughout Michigan. MSU Law's Legal Clinic ensures that those who cannot secure needed legal rights, or who cannot obtain refined legal services, will be able to do so in an environment that is respectful, diligent, thoughtful and committed.

In 2011, MSU Law added a Civil Rights Law Clinic, designed to assist prisoners incarcerated in Michigan with litigation of their federal civil rights claims. The Law College also recently added a First Amendment Law Clinic, an Immigration Law Clinic, and a Plea & Sentencing Clinic to the four clinics that have been in place for some time (Housing Law, Tax Law, Chance at Childhood, and Small Business/Nonprofit).

The following are some of the highlights of MSU Law's Legal Clinic during 2011: (1) The Tax Clinic litigated a case to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, one of several similar matters pending in federal courts of appeals in 2011, that involved an issue of first impression, whether a two-year limitations period applies to innocent spouse relief under IRC sec. 6015(f). The IRS abandoned its position (that a two-year limitations period did apply), so that relief was accorded to the clinic’s client and all others similarly situated; (2) With the exception of those clinics that are not outreach-focused ( e.g., Plea & Sentencing, Civil Rights and First Amendment), all of the clinics were intensively engaged in outreach programs involving such things as outreach at an area homeless event, instruction for landlords about Michigan's medical marijuana legislation, several outreaches designed to cultivate entrepreneurial skills for Chinese students at Michigan State University, and tax-related outreaches designed to assist taxpayers in Kalamazoo, Jackson and Lansing.

In October 2011, MSU College of Law launched a mobile law clinic that will travel throughout the state to bring legal services to those who cannot travel to East Lansing to take advantage of the clinics' legal services. Because Michigan is a far-flung state, residents in the northern Lower Peninsula and the Upper Peninsula may be obtaining services in East Lansing; now, MSU can provide services on the road.

Finally, the Tax Clinic in 2011 again sponsored MSU Law's Alternative Spring Break, taking place in March. Each year, 12 or more law students give up spring break to travel to New Orleans to assist indigent taxpayers with preparation of their tax returns. Bottom of Form

 

DAVIS POLK & WARDWELL LLP, Law Firm; New York, NY

Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP is a global law firm operating in 10 offices in New York, Menlo Park, CA, Washington D.C., São Paulo, London, Paris, Madrid, Hong Kong, Beijing and Tokyo. Davis Polk has a long and distinguished history of providing pro bono legal services to those who could not otherwise obtain legal representation, and it expects each of its lawyers to work on pro bono matters throughout their careers at the firm. The focus of this award was on the New York office, consisting of 600-plus attorneys.

Davis Polk’s lawyers devoted more than 61,000 hours to pro bono efforts in 2011. A large area of the firm’s pro bono focus is criminal justice. Efforts include securing a new trial for a man on death row in Tennessee based on ineffective assistance of counsel; working with the Innocence Project and others on a number of cases involving individuals believed to be innocent of crimes for which they have been convicted; serving as counsel to the New York State Justice Task Force; handling criminal appeals; petitioning for resentencings for individuals sentenced under the Rockefeller drug laws; participating as a founding member of Legal Aid’s Criminal Defense Pro Bono Project; working with Legal Aid on setting standards for funding of and caseloads for indigent defense work; serving on the Criminal Justice Act Panel in the Southern District of New York, handling cases for indigent defendants; and sponsoring externships for associates at the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office and Legal Aid. Davis Polk recently also took on another death penalty case from Louisiana.

In additional to its criminal justice work, the pro bono program spans areas such as workers’ rights; asylum; civil liberties and civil rights; corporate, IP, real estate and tax advice; arts and community matters; education; election protection; family law and domestic violence; international human rights; microfinance; special education; transgender matters; Bet Tzedek; and veterans’ benefits. Pro bono work is considered to be of equal stature to billable matters and is conducted in the firm’s name.

 

KLEE, TUCHIN, BOGDANOFF & STERN LLP, Law Firm; Los Angeles, CA

Klee, Tuchin, Bogdanoff & Stern LLP is a business reorganization and corporate insolvency boutique law firm involved in many of thje largest and most complex bankruptcy cases in the country. In 2011, the firm volunteered to represent two consumer debtors whose lawful same-sex marriage was not recognized under federal law.

Gene Balas and Carlos Morales, one of the 18,000 same-sex couples who married in California before the passage of Proposition 8, filed a joint chapter 13 bankruptcy case. Under the Bankruptcy Code, only spouses may file joint petitions, and by virtue of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), only opposite-sex couples qualify as “spouses” for purposes of federal law. The local U.S. Trustee’s office moved to dismiss the debtors’ joint bankruptcy petition on the ground that “the debtors appear to be two males,” and thus their marriage is not recognized under federal law – even though they are validly married under the laws of the State of California.

In June 2011, twenty U.S. Bankruptcy Judges for the Central District of California issued a joint opinion holding DOMA unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause. The Court concluded that “no legally married couple should be entitled to fewer bankruptcy rights than any other legally married couple.” The Government initially appealed the decision, but then withdrew the challenge and instead changed its policy nationwide to no longer seek dismissal of jointly filed bankruptcy cases filed by couples (gay or straight) who are lawfully married under state law.

As a result, any legally married same-sex couple anywhere in the country may now file a joint plan of reorganization without objection from the U.S. Government. Joint cases are less costly than separate cases, and they allow married couples (if they so choose) to deal with their creditors on a single, consolidated basis (the same way that many families treat their income and expenses).