PRoskauer Rose LLP Eleven Times Square THE STaTS New York, NY 10036-8299 Phone: (212) 969-3000 No. of attorneys: 700 www.proskauer.com No. of offices: 13 chairman: Joseph M. leccese locaTions EMPLOYMENT coNTACT Boca Raton, Fl • Boston, Ma • chicago, IL • los angeles, CA • New orleans, LA • New York, NY • Newark, NJ • Washington, caroline K. Menes Dc • Beijing • Hong Kong • london • Paris • São Paulo Director of legal Recruiting Phone: (212) 969-5072 Email: [email protected] MaJoR DEPaRTMENTS & PRACTICES antitrust • Bankruptcy/creditors’ Rights • corporate • Entertainment • Health care • immigration • intellectual Property • international • labor and Employment • litigation • lodging and Gaming • Nonprofit/Exempt organizations • Personal and Estate Planning • Real Estate • Sports and Media • Tax • Technology ® 511 Vault Guide to Law Firm Pro Bono Programs, 2013 Edition Proskauer Rose LLP WHo’S WHo organizations with which the firm has a relationship or they may suggest a pro bono matter of their own design, subject to Does the firm have one or more pro bono coordinators and/or firm conflict procedures and policies. partners? If so, how many? 2 Has the firm signed on to the Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge? Yes For each of your pro bono coordinators and/or partners, please specify how much of his/her time is spent on pro bono work and/ or administering the firm’s pro bono program. What are some of the areas of law in which your firm has performed pro bono legal work since 2010? Pro Bono Coordinator/Partner 1 All of his/her time Arts and historic preservation, Asylum, Bankruptcy, Civil rights, Community economic development, Death penalty Pro Bono Coordinator/Partner 2 defense, Disability benefits, Domestic violence, Education, Elder All of his/her time law, Employment, Environment, Fair housing/tenants rights, Family law, First Amendment and constitutional issues, HIV/ AIDS advocacy, Homeless advocacy, Immigration, Indigent Please provide the primary pro bono contact(s)’s information criminal defense, International human rights, Juvenile justice below. reform/children’s rights, Nonprofit corporate law, Nonprofit Stacey O’Haire Fahey incorporation/tax exemptions, Nonprofit intellectual property, Firmwide Pro Bono Counsel Prisoners’ rights, Probate law, Public benefits, Real estate Phone: (212) 969-3952 transactions, Social Security law, Veterans’ benefits/appeals, Email: [email protected] Voting rights Lauren McGlockton Are there areas of law in which, as a matter of policy or practice, Pro Bono Coordinator your firm does not perform pro bono work? Phone: (212) 969-5119 Email: [email protected] We do not handle employee-side employment matters. Does the firm have a pro bono committee? List up to 10 of your firm’s pro bono clients or partners since 2010, including legal service providers or clearinghouses. Yes • Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law How often does the committee meet? • The Legal Aid Society Quarterly • New York Legal Assistance Group • inMotion Please describe the composition of the committee. • New York Lawyers for the Public Interest Proskauer’s pro bono committee is made up of designees from • Public Counsel each office and department and includes partners, senior counsel, and associates as well as representatives from Diversity, • Greater Boston Legal Services Client Communications, Professional Resources, and Business • Immigration Equality Development departments. The committee is chaired by Scott Harshbarger, Esq. • Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence • Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund THE SCOOP List up to three representative examples of your firm’s pro bono matters since 2010. Please limit your answer to a short Does your firm have a written pro bono policy? paragraph per matter. Yes • Our Los Angeles office has recently partnered with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA) on the Unlawful Can associates bring pro bono matters of interest to the firm? Detainer Pro Bono Project to represent clients facing unlawful eviction. Since the launch of this collaboration, Yes Proskauer attorneys have already taken on five unlawful detainer cases with generous outcomes for our clients. Most How does the firm decide whether to take on a pro bono matter? recently, a Proskauer partner represented a low-income client who had lived in his unit for more than 39 years. The Each potential matter is evaluated on a case-by-case basis. client recently fell on tough times and paid his rent one day Lawyers may select a matter offered by any of the referral 512 © 2012 Vault.com inc. Vault Guide to Law Firm Pro Bono Programs, 2013 Edition Proskauer Rose LLP late. The landlord served him with a 3-day notice-to-pay- List up to three pro bono matters that are highlights (e.g., or-quit and also admitted that he wanted to evict the tenant a Supreme Court case). Please limit your answer to a short because he wanted to rehabilitate the unit and rent it out for paragraph per matter. significantly more money. The partner was able to negotiate • We helped as many as 140,000 Americans nationwide get an excellent settlement for the client: a $12,000 relocation their Social Security or Supplemental Security Income payment and 120 days to move out at a reduced rental rate. benefits restored as a result of an order issued by Judge • An associate in our Boca Raton office won a complete Sidney H. Stein in a federal class action lawsuit in which we victory for her pro bono asylum client who fled Venezuela represented the plaintiffs pro bono along with the Mental after being repeatedly harassed and abused by Venezuelan Health Project of the Urban Justice Center and the National police officers because of his sexual orientation. Facing the Senior Citizens Law Center. The benefits in question date scorn of his family and society, the client chose to keep back to October 2006 and may total as much as $1 billion. his sexual orientation hidden and become a productive The order is the culmination of more than five years of member of society through a college education. On three litigation in Clark v. Astrue, a case brought against the separate occasions, however, corrupt police officers harassed U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) challenging its and mistreated the client solely because he was a gay man practice of relying exclusively on outstanding probation and who dared to express his sexuality in public. Finally, after parole warrants as evidence that individuals are violating a week of being followed around by men in an SUV and a condition of probation or parole as a basis for denying realizing that the government was unwilling to provide him benefits. Rather than check the facts of a case, SSA matched any protection, the client escaped Venezuela and arrived in warrant databases against its records. When it found a Miami on a visitor’s visa. Having been recently diagnosed as probation or parole warrant in the name of someone who HIV-positive, the client knew that going back to Venezuela was receiving benefits, SSA checked with law enforcement meant certain death. With the associate’s help, the client filed and, if the law enforcement agency was not actively pursuing for affirmative asylum on account of his past persecution and the individual, SSA would cut off that individual’s benefits. fear of future persecution because he was a gay, HIV-positive In March 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Venezuelan man. To support his application for asylum, our Circuit ruled that the agency’s practice of relying solely on associate filed a detailed declaration by the client and nearly outstanding probation or parole violation arrest warrants to 50 country conditions reports, news articles, photographs suspend or deny benefits conflicted with the plain meaning and sworn affidavits from friends in Venezuela. At the asylum of the Social Security Act. Following certification of a interview in Miami, with the help of a translator, the client nationwide class, Judge Stein entered a final order enjoining described in great detail each incident with the police, his the SSA from denying or suspending benefits in this manner failed efforts to get help and his continuing nightmares of what and requiring the reinstatement of all previously suspended would happen to him if he were forced to return to Venezuela. benefits retroactive to the date the benefits were suspended. Two weeks after the initial interview, the client picked up his • We obtained a favorable settlement in a pro bono matter on decision letter at the Miami asylum office, and was thrilled to behalf of members of the Swartzentruber Amish community learn that his application for asylum had been approved. in Morristown, New York, that will allow them to continue • An associate in our New York office successfully represented building their houses and classrooms in accordance with a client afflicted with several severe psychological and their religious beliefs. The case, Yoder, et al. v. Town of physical impairments in an appeal for disability benefits Morristown, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the before the Social Security Administration’s Office of Northern District of New York on January 6, 2009 to address Disability Adjudication and Review. The client, who was religious discrimination by the Town of Morristown, which is forty-seven years old and had not worked since 2008, suffered situated near the St. Lawrence River on the Canadian border, from bipolar disorder, morbid obesity, Type II diabetes, liver based on the selective enforcement of Local Law 4 of 2006, disorder, and hypertension. He lived alone in a New York an ordinance which purported to implement the New York City Housing Authority apartment and received assistance State building code. Pursuant to this local law, the Town of nearly every day from a friend who handles almost all Morristown denied members of the Swartzentruber Amish routine household tasks.