DC Pro Bono Week Profiles: Pro Bono Partnership that Increase Capacity for Advocacy
27 September 2024 Blog, DC Pro Bono Week, Featured
As sponsors of one of Tzedek DC’s prior Equal Justice Works Fellows, PayPal and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP expressed interest in pro bono opportunities at Tzedek DC. Together, the organizations decided that having PayPal and Orrick employees conduct intakes would be the most helpful to Tzedek DC and provide an easy and rewarding opportunity to volunteers. When volunteers conduct intakes, Tzedek DC staff attorneys can devote more time to their other cases, increasing the capacity of Tzedek DC to assist DC residents.
DC Pro Bono Week Profiles: Shaun Boedicker and Gammon Fain
19 September 2024 Blog, DC Pro Bono Week, Featured
DCALF and Steptoe LLP are thrilled to profile a recent, tremendous pro bono collaboration. One of DCALF’s long-standing clients had been awaiting an asylum interview for nearly 7 years when we had the opportunity to collaborate with the Steptoe team. Shaun Boedicker and Gammon Fain, with the support of Pro Bono Partner, Paul Lee. The team quickly rallied to file a mandamus brief in federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia demanding that USCIS hear our client’s long-pending asylum case. Our client is a gay man who suffered persecution in his home country in west Africa where being gay is illegal. With Steptoe’s filing, within weeks, the 7-year wait was over – USCIS quickly scheduled him for an asylum interview and was granted asylum. Our client’s fears and anxieties are now lifted and he is able to plan for his future and continue his small business.
DC Pro Bono Week 2024: Schedule of Events
05 September 2024 Blog, DC Pro Bono Week, Featured
DC Pro Bono Week 2024 takes place from October 20–26 and offers lots of opportunities to do pro bono work, learn new pro bono skills, meet other pro bono lawyers, and expand your pro bono horizons.
The Full Schedule of Events is below. There are also many Affiliated Trainings taking place before, during, and after Pro Bono Week.
Welcome Our New Board Members!
02 September 2024 Blog, Featured
Join us in welcoming Laurie Ball Cooper, Bryan Concepcion, Danielle Rowan, Stephanie Troyer! We are thrilled to have these incredible leaders join our Board. You can meet our new board members at the 2024 Fall Kickoff on September 25 at 6:00 pm at Goodwin Procter.
Nominate a Pro Bono Champion for our Justice Impact Awards!
20 August 2024 Blog
Annually, Washington Council of Lawyers is thrilled to celebrate us! – the hundreds of public-interest and pro bono professionals who dedicate time, expertise, finances, and compassion to helping their neighbors. Our Justice Impact Awards is a time for us to come together, recharge our collective batteries, celebrate our accomplishments, commiserate on our challenges, and be inspired. Each year, we also honor exceptional individuals who go above and beyond and deserve special recognition. Help us recognize the outstanding advocates who make exceptional contributions to the pro bono and public-interest community while bringing our larger community together by nominating a pro bono superstar.
DC Pro Bono Week 2024 – Preparing Programming, Profiles & More!
It’s time to start preparing for DC Pro Bono Week 2024 by planning our programs and profiles! Each year, we publish pro bono profiles in the weeks leading up to Pro Bono Week. We are also preparing events for the annual National Celebration of Pro Bono takes place from October 20th to 26th, 2024!
Summer Forum 2024: Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Recap
On Thursday, June 27 Washington Council of Lawyers hosted the Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Panel, which covered the current work being done in this area and ways to get involved! The panel was moderated by Amandeep Sidu (co-founder of Sikh Coalition), this was a conversation amongst leaders of 4 public interest or nonprofit organizations regarding their backgrounds, their current work, the challenges in the current legal landscape and more. Antonio is currently at the Legal Defense Fund, however he took a nontraditional pathway to his work. He was a Biglaw associate at Morrison & Forrester, law clerk, Fulbright fellow and worked in Africa and then returned to the U.S. as a law clerk. His experiences with micro-aggressions at Yale University as well as race relations in the legal field led him to the Legal Defense Fund. He’s drawn to issues he’s impacted by. Maria Morris is at the National Prisons Project – ACLU. She did prison work at the Southern Poverty Law Center. She had been involved in human rights work prior to law school. Her passion is focusing on prisoners’ rights issues. There are disability and religious rights issues. Rewarding to do work on such gross human rights violations. Alena Sayo is at the National Disability Rights Network. She was previously a special education teacher. She was a Guardian Ad Litem. She believes that public service is who she is. Janson Wu recently joined the Trevor Project after being at GLAD. Challenges Currently Facing in Current Legal/Judicial Landscape: In prisons, challenges include opioid use disorder treatment, addressing mental health care and the administrative burden For the LBTQ community, the Supreme Court is now a risky place and there is a need to revert back to advocacy on the state level instead of litigating in the courts. However, almost half of the states now ban gender affirming care for youth so advocating on the state level is also challenging. The landscape for the Legal Defense Fund (educational equity, criminal justice, political participation, economic justice) has expanded to pro truth work involving attacks in higher education. There is an intersection between race and queer community. The disability rights movement was hand-in-hand with the civil rights movement. She talked about how it’s still legal in many states to be in sheltered workshops. Institutionalization is making a comeback particularly those who are unhoused. Intersectionality amongst identities is a recurring theme. The Victories Organizations are Seeing: People with disabilities scored a victory during Covid with access to services and government such as the right to vote independently and privately from home. The same system used by military and Americans abroad were provided to people with disabilities in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts The LQBTQ community saw a victory recently in Rhode Island, which prevents harassment to providers of gender affirming care. In Pennsylvania, young people are now protected from conversion therapy via a recent Executive Order. In the prison reform arena, there was recently a case In Arizona in which it was determined that prisoners under 18 years old could not be in solitary confinement. People in long term solitary confinement dropped by 80%. All of the panelists suggested the following ways for new law school graduates to get involved: Fellowships Development of broad skillsets Policy-related work Be well-versed with outcomes Bar Association committees and getting involved by attending school board meetings. Future of civil rights movement will be in the public narrative.
Best Practices in Pro Bono: Using AI to Further Access to Justice – Where Do We Start? Recap
On July 17th, we hosted a follow-up panel to our previous session on Best Practices in Pro Bono. The last event sparked many questions about leveraging AI to enhance access to justice and the considerations for its responsible use. How can we ensure equity and quality service delivery to clients? This follow-up expert panel delved into these questions and more, providing valuable insights into the ever-changing field of AI.
Managing Student Debt Recap and Resources
On Tuesday, July 16, we gathered virtually for Managing Student Debt. Aoife Delargy Lowe, the Vice President of Law School Engagement & Advocacy at Equal Justice Works. We discussed the many resources and opportunities for repayment support and loan forgiveness available to current borrowers. Our conversation highlighted the below resources, review these resources for how you can become more confident about repaying your student loans.