Justice Delivered
In a remarkably busy year for pro bono, Big Law assisted asylum-seekers, protected election integrity, held police accountable and more. These matters represent just a small selection of the important work law firms did in the quest for justice.
By Ben Seal
15 Pro Bono Highlights
Design by Hyeon Jin Kim/ALM; Illustration by jozefmicic/Adobe Stock
Alston & Bird
When the Department of Agriculture issued a rule in December 2019 that tightened work-related requirements on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, nearly 700,000 Americans were at risk of losing access to food stamps. Alston & Bird joined D.C. Legal Aid to file a lawsuit on behalf of Bread for the City challenging the rule. The firm helped develop legal arguments under the Administrative Procedure Act and establish that an injunction was needed to prevent irreparable harm. Coordinating with state attorneys general on a parallel case, as well as the U.S. House of Representatives, the firm helped secure summary judgment from the U.S. District Court for the District of D.C., preserving the benefits. Photo: Jonathan Weiss/Shutterstock
After President Donald Trump issued an executive order that proposed sanctions against officials of the International Criminal Court, which investigates and prosecutes war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity, Foley Hoag obtained a preliminary injunction on behalf of the Open Society Justice Initiative and four law professors who argued their freedom of speech was unconstitutionally violated by the order, preventing them from aiding the ICC in pursuit of human rights and international justice. Photo: Vincent van Zeijst via Wikimedia Commons
Foley Hoag
In response to updated U.S. Postal Service policies that threatened to delay election-related mail and disenfranchise voters, Covington & Burling filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asking the court to use the same legal framework used in voting rights cases in considering the policies’ constitutionality. After securing a preliminary injunction that prevented USPS from limiting late and extra trips to deliver mail on time, the firm successfully reached agreements with USPS to take extraordinary measures to timely deliver mail ballots for both the general election and January’s Senate runoffs in Georgia. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM
Covington & Burling
In a year full of civil unrest and public protests across the country, Gibson Dunn stood up for the rights of peaceful protesters in three separate lawsuits. In one, the firm filed suit against the Trump administration on behalf of individuals who were protesting in Washington, D.C.’s Lafayette Square on the day the military cleared it for President Donald Trump to take photos at a nearby church. The firm also represented an Asbury Park Press reporter alleging violations of his constitutional rights after he was arrested and jailed while reporting at a Black Lives Matter protest, in addition to seeking a court order prohibiting the use of rubber bullets by the Los Angeles Police Department on behalf of a man who was shot in the face with one. Photo: Alex Brandon/AP
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher
Jenner & Block represented Jimcy McGirt, a member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, in a U.S. Supreme Court case that declared much of eastern Oklahoma to be an Indian reservation. After McGirt was accused of committing a crime within the Muscogee (Creek) Nation’s reservation boundaries, the justices held in a 5-4 ruling that the state lacked jurisdiction to prosecute McGirt there, a decision that was hailed as one of the most consequential for Native Americans in decades and could have a significant impact on their relationship to the criminal justice system. Photo: sladkozaponi/ Shutterstock
Jenner & Block
As the United States embarked on the census in 2020, the Trump administration sought to tighten the timeline for the constitutionally-required count. Latham & Watkins led a collection of municipalities and civil rights organizations challenging the attempt to rush the count, securing victories that prevented the administration from prematurely closing the window, which would have negatively impacted low-income communities. The firm also successfully challenged the administration’s attempt to exclude undocumented immigrants from the apportionment count that is used to determine congressional representation. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM
Latham & Watkins
As a result of the U.S. government’s policy known as “metering,” which limits the number of asylum-seekers processed each day at the U.S.-Mexico border, thousands of individuals seeking asylum have faced dangerous and unsafe conditions at the border as they wait their turn. In Al Otro Lado v. Mayorkas, a class action, Mayer Brown challenged the U.S. policy of turning individuals away at ports of entry. Cross-motions for summary judgment are pending, but the firm already obtained a preliminary injunction blocking a rule that had banned entry by anyone who transited through a third country on the way to the southern border. Photo: Nicolo Filippo Rosso/Bloomberg
Mayer Brown
Former Chicago Police commander Jon Burge allegedly spent decades torturing and coercing false confessions from suspects in custody, and in 2009 the Illinois Legislature passed the Torture Inquiry Relief Commission Act to review torture claims. Kirkland & Ellis lawyers worked with the program to help screen cases to determine if they fall under the commission’s jurisdiction, reviewing court records and police files, interviewing witnesses and drafting recommendations for the commission on whether claims should be referred for judicial review. The firm handled 64 such matters in 2020. Photo: Charles Rex Arbogast/AP
Kirkland & Ellis
After the All Muslim Association of America, a nonprofit that provides low-cost burial and funeral services to Muslims, purchased land in Stafford County, Virginia, in 2015 zoned for cemetery use, county officials rewrote ordinances that hindered its development. Milbank represented the AMAA in its successful effort to lift a block on the cemetery’s construction. After the organization filed a religious freedom lawsuit against the county, the county voted last October to repeal the ordinances that posed a problem. Photo: Google
Milbank
After the Trump administration attempted to change the asylum rules to rewrite who qualifies as a refugee, effectively preventing nearly all LGBTQ and HIV-positive refugees fleeing persecution from receiving asylum, Kramer Levin worked alongside Lambda Legal and Immigration Equality to secure a preliminary injunction blocking the change. The proposed rule would also have severely limited the ability of refugees with gender-based claims or those fleeing nonstate violence from receiving asylum. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM
Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel
In two separate matters, these firms worked to address police transparency and accountability following the repeal of Section 50-a of New York’s Civil Rights Law, which prevented the public from accessing police disciplinary records. Orrick helped Communities United for Police Reform intervene in a Southern District of New York lawsuit filed by police unions following the repeal. The court granted the motion for intervention and denied the unions’ request to block publication of New York Police Department misconduct databases. Shearman filed Freedom of Information Law requests with police departments in Buffalo and Rochester, New York, seeking to identify patterns of race-based police misconduct and also filed motions to intervene in police unions’ attempts to fight the repeal. Photo: Bigstock
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe; Shearman & Sterling
In Ramos v. Louisiana, O’Melveny & Myers and the Stanford Law School Supreme Court Litigation Clinic successfully argued to the high court that the U.S. Constitution forbids conviction by a nonunanimous jury. In its decision, the court noted the “racist origins” of the Oregon and Louisiana laws that had previously allowed state juries to convict with only 10 of 12 jurors in agreement. The court pointed out that the Louisiana rule, in particular, was part of a process to negate the voices of Black jurors. Photo: Rick Kopstein
O’Melveny & Myers
Sidley Austin was active throughout 2020 in representing immigrant rights groups challenging regulations that limited asylum relief. The firm helped obtain an injunction preventing the Department of Homeland Security from imposing a nonwaivable $50 application fee for asylum, as well as an injunction preventing enforcement of a rule that would have barred asylum eligibility for individuals convicted of a wide range of minor offenses, and it also filed suit over what opponents referred to as the “death to asylum” rule, which prevented many applicants from establishing claims—a rule that was enjoined earlier this year. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM
Sidley Austin
The Department of Health and Human Services, under the Trump administration, proposed a rule carving out LGBTQ individuals from the nondiscrimination protections in the Affordable Care Act that protect against discrimination based on gender identity, transgender status or sex stereotypes. In Whitman-Walker Clinic v. HHS, Steptoe & Johnson and Lambda Legal successfully challenged the rule, securing a preliminary injunction. The court enjoined the rule’s elimination of the definition of discrimination on the basis of sex, as well as its incorporation of Title IX religious exemption. Photo: Ink Drop/Shutterstock
Steptoe & Johnson
In an attempt to improve the dire conditions facing migrant detainees in U.S. Customs and Border Protection facilities, Morrison & Foerster and its public interest allies won a decision in Doe v. Wolf that found CBP must meet detainees’ basic human needs if they are held for more than 48 hours. That includes sleeping in a bed with a blanket, a shower, acceptable food, potable water and a medical assessment. The February 2020 decision was the culmination of five years of litigation. Photo: Matt York/AP
Morrison & Foerster
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Jenner & Block represented Jimcy McGirt, a member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, in a U.S. Supreme Court case that declared much of eastern Oklahoma to be an Indian reservation. After McGirt was accused of committing a crime within the Muscogee (Creek) Nation’s reservation boundaries, the justices held in a 5-4 ruling that the state lacked jurisdiction to prosecute McGirt there, a decision that was hailed as one of the most consequential for Native Americans in decades and could have a significant impact on their relationship to the criminal justice system. Photo: sladkozaponi/Shutterstock
