The Pro Bono Tradition at Debevoise

Debevoise has a deep and longstanding commitment to pro bono legal service. Our work on behalf of pro bono clients involves all areas of our practice, and our pro bono engagements range from major impact litigations of national and international import to representations of individuals in the communities in which our offices are located. We strongly encourage our lawyers to participate in pro bono activities from their first days with the firm, and we support their pro bono work throughout their Debevoise careers. We believe that pro bono work not only provides desperately needed legal services in the communities in which we live and practice, but also that it enriches the lives and practices of our lawyers. Debevoise is a charter signatory to the Pro Bono Institute’s Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge, under which we have agreed to commit time to pro bono matters (as defined by the Challenge) equal to at least five percent of our billed time each year.

Our Pro Bono Commitment

Our dedication to pro bono legal service is evidenced not only by the large number and extensive range of pro bono matters we handle each year, but also by our consistent ranking among the nation's top law firms for pro bono work.  For the past four years in a row, The American Lawyer’s A-List ranked Debevoise the number one law firm in the United States based in part on our commitment to pro bono legal service. Debevoise has also ranked first among New York City law firms in The American Lawyer’s AmLaw 100 pro bono survey for nine of the past ten years, and in the top 10 nationally for ten years running. The firm’s Washington, D.C. office has garnered special recognition for its own pro bono efforts. In September 2004, Legal Times ranked Debevoise among the top 10 firms in Washington, D.C. for pro bono work. The following month, in the American Lawyer’s annual “Associate Survey,” Debevoise ranked second among Washington, D.C. firms for attitude towards pro bono work.

In recent years, Debevoise has been recognized for its pro bono work by a variety of other organizations. Most recently, the American Bar Association named Debevoise a recipient of its 2006 Pro Bono Publico Award, recognizing "outstanding contributions of legal services to those who cannot afford representation." Also in 2006, Debevoise received a Special Recognition Award from the Center for Constitutional Rights. In 2005 and 2006, Debevoise was honored by The Legal Aid Society for its work as co-counsel with their Prisoners’ Rights Project on Amador, et al., and in 2006 for its work on Rockefeller Drug Law re-sentencing cases. In 2004, Debevoise was honored with the first Marvin E. Frankel Pro Bono Award by Human Rights First, in recognition of the firm’s longstanding commitment to pro bono work.

Sources of Our Pro Bono Work

Debevoise lawyers obtain pro bono work from a variety of sources. In many cases, pro bono assignments are referred to Debevoise by some of the many legal service organizations with which the firm has longstanding relationships, such as The Legal Aid Society, Human Rights First and New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, Inc. Other pro bono projects grow out of interests that our lawyers pursue outside of the firm. In all instances, our lawyers are encouraged to present proposals for pro bono engagements to the firm’s pro bono committee, which approves all such engagements before they are undertaken by the firm. Once an engagement is approved, it is handled as is any matter, with the dedication of all available firm resources appropriate to the needs of the representation.

Broad Partnerships

We have ongoing relationships with many public interest legal service organizations including Lawyers Alliance for New York, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Human Rights First (formerly the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights), The Legal Aid Society, Center for Constitutional Rights, inMotion (formerly Network for Women's Services), New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, Inc., the Robin Hood Foundation, Center for Reproductive Rights and the Urban Justice Center. Our lawyers also regularly perform pro bono criminal defense work, through participation in assignments from the federal Criminal Justice Act panel and membership in the Office of the Appellate Defender.

Additionally, in recent years summer associates have participated in one- and two-week externships at organizations such as the Vera Institute, MFY Legal Services, Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation A, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, the Legal Action Center, ACORN, The Legal Aid Society’s Juvenile Rights Division, Mental Hygiene Legal Services, the Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation, PRLDEF, the Center for Reproductive Rights, Legal Momentum, the Anti-Discrimination Center and the Housing Court Summer Assistance Project of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.

In addition to its longstanding dedication to pro bono legal service, Debevoise has a deep and lasting commitment to public service. One of the many ways in which this commitment manifests itself is through the number of Debevoise lawyers who serve on the boards of directors of legal service organizations, arts organizations, educational institutions and other charitable institutions. Among other organizations, Debevoise lawyers serve on the boards of directors of the Brennan Center for Justice; Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation A; Human Rights First; Justice Resource Center; Lawyers Alliance for New York; Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; The Legal Aid Society; Legal Services for New York City; MFY Legal Services, Inc.; New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, Inc.; South Brooklyn Legal Services; Urban Justice Center; Volunteers of Legal Service; Welfare Law Center; America Harvest, Inc.; Catalyst, Inc.; Citymeals on Wheels; Classic Stage Company; Cornell University; Dutchess Land Conservancy; Freer Gallery of Art/Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution; Friends of Khmer Culture; Neighborhood Coalition for Shelter; New School University; The New York Historical Society; Posse Foundation; Prep for Prep; The Symphony Space, Inc., and Union Settlement Association.

Pro Bono and Corporate Lawyers

Although many of our largest pro bono projects involve litigation, a number of our corporate lawyers are actively involved in ongoing pro bono matters. We have provided a wide range of legal services through our transactional pro bono program. Our lawyers provide legal advice to inner-city micro-enterprises through partnerships with the Business Outreach Center, the Neighborhood Entrepreneur Law Project and the New York Alliance for New Americans. We assisted the Neighborhood Coalition for Shelter in drafting a loan agreement for rehabilitating its Manhattan residence for homeless people. Our lawyers are also working on a potential joint venture housing project in the Bronx. We provided tax advice to Nazareth Housing, an organization dedicated to preventing homelessness, during their creation of the Marion Agnes House that will be home to 15 very low-income families. We helped the New York Mortgage Coalition, a group of lending institutions that provides affordable mortgage counseling to low and moderate-income individuals and families, in reviewing service provider agreements with community-based organizations. Our corporate lawyers in London attend regular legal advice clinics at the Hackney Community Law Centre.

Debevoise Pro Bono by the Numbers

• In 2006, Debevoise attorneys in the U.S. performed 60,973 hours of pro bono work, averaging 140.8 hours per attorney in the firm’s U.S. offices.
• 94% of attorneys in the firm’s U.S. offices did pro bono work, and 66% did at least 20 hours of pro bono work.
• In 2006, 87% of Debevoise summer associates participated in pro bono matters.

• Representing a death row inmate in state habeas corpus proceedings in Georgia. Debevoise associates collected over 125 witness affidavits and conducted many more interviews in conjunction with Georgia counsel and investigators in preparation for a five-day evidentiary hearing in Butts County, Georgia, which Debevoise lawyers conducted along with Georgia counsel at the end of June 2006.
• Successfully litigating before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) the rights of 51 Mexican nationals on death row in the United States under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. This litigation began before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which held in March 2004, in Avena and other Mexican Nationals (Mexico v. United States), that the United States had violated the Vienna Convention in the cases of these individuals, and ordered U.S. courts to review and reconsider their convictions in light of the violations. Since securing this victory before the ICJ, Debevoise lawyers have litigated cases in the United States involving the review of individual convictions as ordered by the ICJ. In March 2005, Debevoise lawyers argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in Medellin v. Dretke, the appeal of a Mexican national sentenced to death by a Texas state court, in which the Supreme Court had agreed to decide whether courts in the United States were required to comply with the ICJ judgment in Avena. In April 2005, however, the Supreme Court declined, after hearing oral argument, to decide whether the Avena judgment was enforceable in United States courts because President Bush had determined that state courts would provide the required review and reconsideration. The Supreme Court's decision explicitly contemplated, however, that Mr. Medellín would have an opportunity to return to the Supreme Court to seek review of the state court's treatment of his petition. In September 2005, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals heard argument on whether Texas must give effect to the Avena judgment and the President's determination. In November 2006, the Texas court denied relief, expressly holding that the President of the United States has no authority to enforce the undisputed treaty obligation of the United States to abide by the Avena judgment in the cases of the Mexican nationals addressed in that judgment. Mr. Medellín's current petition for certiorari before the Supreme Court was granted in April 2007. Debevoise has since played a major role in cases involving the other individuals affected by Avena, most recently by preparing briefs in Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon, in which the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in March 2006.
• Representing Yemeni and Sudanese detainees at Guantánamo Bay with the Center for Constitutional Rights, filing habeas petitions for our clients’ release and to improve the conditions of detention.
• Working with the Center for Reproductive Rights on Hill, et al. v. Kemp, et al., a First and Fourteenth Amendment challenge to Oklahoma’s special license plate system, and in particular its “Choose Life” and “Respect Life” license plates (where no pro-choice license plates are available) and associated funding provisions.
• Joining the Prisoners’ Rights Project of The Legal Aid Society in a class action lawsuit, Amador, et al. v. DOC Superintendent Anginell Andrews, et al., that seeks to end sexual abuse of female inmates by male guards in New York State women’s prisons.
• After a four week jury trial, winning an acquittal on seven counts of a federal indictment filed against a client, whom the firm represents pursuant to the Criminal Justice Act (CJA), in the Southern District of New York. The client was convicted on two related counts but would have faced life in prison if he had been convicted on all of the charges. These convictions will likely result in a sentence that would be significantly less than half of the last offer made by the government in plea negotiations before trial.
• Achieving a landmark settlement in Brad H., et al. v. City of New York, a class action challenge to New York City’s practice of releasing mentally ill jail inmates without planning for their continued, post-release treatment in the community. The settlement came after years of litigation in which Debevoise secured and defended on appeal a sweeping preliminary injunction against the City. Our lawyers continue to work with two court appointees to monitor the City’s implementation of this comprehensive settlement.
• Working with Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund to challenge the illegal and discriminatory practices of a labor union on behalf of a class of the union’s African American and Hispanic members in E.E.O.C., et al. v. Local 28 of the Sheet Metal Workers’ Int’l Assoc. The union was held liable for discriminating against its black and Hispanic members in 1975. However, during subsequent decades, the union had been held in contempt of court on three separate occasions. A group of objectors to a proposed settlement agreed to by the government plaintiffs (including the EEOC and the New York State Division of Human Rights) retained Debevoise in April 2003. With co-counsel, we defeated the proposed settlement, successfully moved for intervention as plaintiffs and certification of a class, and obtained an order in April 2005, after a three-day trial, in which the court once again held the union in continuing contempt of longstanding remedial orders. In July 2005, the parties entered into a new proposed settlement, subject to court approval, with terms substantially favorable to our clients, compared to the settlement rejected in 2003.
• Representing the Committee to Protect Journalists in support of its efforts to combat violations of press freedom worldwide. We have filed amicus briefs for CPJ in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the courts of Croatia and Taiwan to challenge criminal libel prosecutions of journalists. In addition, we advocated against a proposed law in Hong Kong that would have grievously curtailed freedom of expression.
• Supervising a free legal advice service at the Hackney Community Law Centre in London in conjunction with a leading law school and public interest charities. As one of the service’s many innovative features, primary responsibility for the weekly sessions rests with law students, under the supervision of qualified and experienced lawyers from the firm. Rather than simply shadowing the lawyers, the students take a hands-on role in assisting clients. Lord Irvine of Lairg, the former English Lord Chancellor, has publicly commended the project, which benefits the students as well as their pro bono clients.
• Providing a legal advice clinic in London for social entrepreneurs in collaboration with UnLtd, the Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs, and pro bono charity LawWorks. Debevoise lawyers provide legal advice on topics such as charity, company and contract law.
• Routinely representing individual political asylum seekers, individuals challenging adverse public housing determinations, individuals seeking Social Security disability benefits, individuals in matrimonial and other family law disputes, and numerous others.
• Providing support to victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Through the City Bar Justice Center Initiative, Debevoise associates staffed a weekly shift at the legal help desk located at the New York City Office of Emergency Management’s Disaster Assistance Service Center, where they conducted intake services. In addition, Debevoise is providing Southeast Louisiana Legal Services with ongoing assistance, in response to Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, with pro bono legal services and financial support.