9/11 Victim Compensation Fund Clinics Continue

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Administrator

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On May 7th, the reopened 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund (VCF) clinics continued at the City Bar Justice Center, with 50 lawyers from 12 firms and corporations helping potential claimants navigate the “road map” through the application process.

To date, over 100 potential claimants have been helped.

A dozen WilmerHale attorneys, led by City Bar Justice Center Board Chair Jay Holtmeier, staffed tables, as did half a dozen attorneys from DLA Piper, led by Heidi Levine.

The next VCF clinic will be on July 10th, from 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. For more information, email Melissa Stanger.

From left: Carol Bockner, CBJC Director of Pro Bono Initiatives; Lynn Kelly, CBJC Executive Director; WilmerHale attorneys Shalev Roisman, James Fawcett, Lisa Firenze, David M. Burkoff, Tetyana Gaponenko, John Heath, Bilyana Georgieva, Craig Heeren, Fiona Kaye, Jay Holtmeier, Chris Herrling, John Pierce.

 

Back row, from left: DLA Piper's Michael Hepworth, Christine Farrelly, Heidi Levine, Dee Ibraheim, Andrew Andrzejewski, and Frank Gonzalez. Front row: Stacy Nathanson, Crowell & Moring; Lynn Kelly, City Bar Justice Center

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Partnering on Pro Bono with the Neighborhood Entrepreneur Law Project

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Administrator

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Following training by the City Bar Justice Center, last week ten attorneys from New York Life Insurance Company and their law firm, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, assisted micro-entrepreneurs at a small business legal clinic in Harlem. The clinic was organized by the Justice Center’s Neighborhood Entrepreneur Law Project (NELP) in partnership with the New York City Business Solutions – Upper Manhattan Center.

Over the course of the evening, the attorneys met one-on-one with twenty entrepreneurs who were either starting up a new business or had issues with an existing one. Businesses spanned the areas of fashion, jewelry, household products, restaurants, consulting, architecture and furniture. Several of the consulting sessions were conducted in Spanish.

The entrepreneurs received advice and guidance on matters including the appropriate legal structure for their businesses, corporate formation procedures and costs, reviewing of business contracts, small business employment issues, and intellectual property protection. Those entrepreneurs who require ongoing legal assistance will have the opportunity to apply for direct pro bono representation through NELP. Several attendees had contracts reviewed.

With a dozen projects in the areas of Economic and Immigrant Justice, the Justice Center offers lawyers a wide variety of pro bono work to choose from. NELP is popular with lawyers for a couple of reasons. One is that it allows transactional lawyers the opportunity to share their business-oriented skills directly with micro-entrepreneurs. The other is that it seems conducive to partnerships between law firms and their in-house clients.

“I think it’s a combination of the clinic model NELP often utilizes, which lends itself to teamwork, along with the subject matter,” said Lynn Kelly, Executive Director of the Justice Center. “A lot of these lawyers have a real entrepreneurial mindset themselves, so they get a kick out of helping people start up their own businesses.”

Judy Hopkins, Assistant General Counsel at New York Life, said, “It was such a pleasure to partner with Morgan Lewis outside of our typical litigation matters and focus on providing a social good to aspiring entrepreneurs. We all learned so much from this rewarding experience. We look forward to working with Morgan Lewis on similar projects in the future.”

“Partnering with New York Life has been a wonderful experience,” said Amanda D. Smith, Pro Bono Partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP. “We get to develop a deeper relationship with our clients and leverage our skills to help low income entrepreneurs at the same time. A win-win!”

Micro-entrepreneurs who can’t afford a lawyer can apply for NELP’s pro bono services by calling their intake line at 212-382-6633, or email nelp(at)nycbar.org. Lawyers wishing to volunteer on NELP can fill out an online volunteer form.

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9/11 Victim Compensation Fund Update

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Administrator

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The City Bar Justice Center continues to hold clinics in connection with the reopened 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund (VCF). Last week, the Justice Center held a clinic where 39 potential claimants received a free consultation from a volunteer attorney. Most of the clients at the clinics so far are former office cleaning crews and workers from the World Trade Center neighborhood with conditions that became evident after the first fund closed.

In-house corporate counsel were well represented by BNY Mellon, UBS and Barclays Capital, with many lawyers teaming up with their outside counsel to interview clients. Law firms providing pro bono services at the clinic included Fried Frank, Proskauer Rose, Crowell & Moring, Ropes & Gray, Reed Smith, Morgan Lewis, SNR Denton, Fulbright & Jaworski, Dewey LeBoeuf, Bingham McCutchen, Weil Gotshal, Winston & Strawn, Morgan Lewis and Cleary Gottlieb.

Based on feedback from the clients at the clinic, the Justice Center worked with the VCF to help organize law school spring-break clinics at Columbia and Cardozo to assist claimants who need help filing claims electronically. The pilot law school clinic at Columbia is up and running, with the Cardozo Law School clinic to take place in April. Clinic details are posted on the VCF website.

Heidi Levine, right, at the “complex issues” table.

The Justice Center gives special thanks to Heidi Levine, a partner at DLA Piper who helped the Justice Center with the initial training, provides all forms and materials for the clinics, and has mobilized a terrific team of firm volunteers to staff the complex issues tables at the legal clinics and to provide legal back-up to the law student electronic filing clinics this spring.

 

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Vietnam War Veteran wins Long-Overdue Disability Benefits through Veterans Assistance Project

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Administrator

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Charles Manice of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP has successfully secured over $100,000 worth of long-overdue disability benefits for a Vietnam veteran through participation in the City Bar Justice Center’s Veterans Assistance Project.

Client A had been seeking disability benefits since June 15, 2005. His chief disability is PTSD, caused by the routine mortar and rocket attacks that he endured while stationed at a military base in Vietnam. He suffered from nightmares and intense bouts of terror and anxiety. For years Client A dealt with his problems privately, but after a time he could no longer contain his symptoms, and required professional help.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) had denied Client A service-connected disability benefits under a claim for PTSD on the basis of a lack of corroborative evidence. Due to the nature of his assignment, Client A’s personnel record did not indicate an assignment to his base and Client A was only able to offer his personal testimony as proof of the stressful events in his claim for benefits. The VA, despite treating Client A’s condition, did not find his testimony to be sufficient proof.

Client A came to the Veterans Assistance Project at the City Bar Justice Center in October 2007 as one of the first clients of the project. There he met with attorney Manice, who discovered new military evidence that placed Client A on the base in question, and that the base

Charles Manice

Charles Manice

was attacked when he was there. He also obtained an affidavit from a fellow serviceman placing Client A at the scene of the stressful events. Manice assisted his client in obtaining a disability rating of 50% disabled, and then applied for an increase to 70%, along with an application for an additional benefit of Individual Unemployability (IU), which is an additional form of compensation that allows severely disabled veterans who are unable to secure employment to be temporarily compensated at the highest level.

Client A learned in December 2011 that the VA awarded him the 70% disability and the 100% for IU, and apologized for their prior denial. Client A is now receiving approximately $2,800 each month from the VA, as well as retroactive benefits back to June 2005 that amount to over $100,000.

“I can’t thank you enough,” Client A told Manice. For his part, reflecting on the five-plus years it took for the VA to award Client A the benefits to which he is entitled, Manice called the case “a prime example of why attorney assistance is needed” for benefit-entitled veterans.

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2011 Refugee Assistance Highlights

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Administrator

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In 2011, 28 individuals from countries including Chad, China, Colombia, Mauritania, Mexico, Nepal, Tibet, and Ukraine, were granted asylum or other immigration relief in the U.S. through the efforts of pro bono attorneys working with the Refugee Assistance Project at the City Bar Justice Center.

Two notable cases, on behalf of clients from the Ivory Coast and Mexico, illustrate the types of issues the Justice Center’s volunteer attorneys handle. Aileen McGill and Stephanie Teplin from Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP represented a young man who had fled Mexico after years of threats and violence due to his sexual orientation. The Patterson team was able to highlight the reality of cultural and social conditions in Mexico, in contrast to recent pro-LGBT legislative accomplishments that they argued are as yet only paper tigers, and win asylum for their client in October.

Morgan Clark, Kristin McNamara Pauley, Nicole Naples and Mei Lin Kwan-Gett from Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP represented a client who had been subjected to female genital mutilation as a child and fled the Ivory Coast to escape a forced marriage. Soon after arriving in the United States, she was diagnosed with HIV and then eventually AIDS. With the help of her Willkie team, the client was able to overcome a difficult 11-year filing deadline issue and win asylum in December.

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Difficult Removal Cancellation Case Closed

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Administrator

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As a child, Mr. Z had been abused, removed from his home by the Administration for Children’s Service, and endured homelessness. As a result of minor run-ins with law enforcement when he was a teenager, he was now, as an adult, facing removal from the United States to China, where he had not been since he was brought to the U.S. as a young boy. That’s when he came to the Varick Removal Defense Project at the City Bar Justice Center for help.

Andrew Kleiman and Garrett Wright of Proskauer Rose LLP took on Mr. Z’s case knowing that, although modest, his criminal history presented a substantial hurdle for his ability to remain in the United States. Their strategy focused on retaining an expert in trauma, who ultimately concluded that Mr. Z’s Post Traumatic Stress Disorder resulting from his childhood abuse contributed to the poor choices that led him to have contact with law enforcement. After nine months in detention, Mr. Z was granted cancellation by the immigration court.

“The team’s skillful preparation of witnesses, particularly in helping Mr. Z overcome his timidity to articulate his claim effectively, was remarkable,” said Barbara Camacho, Fragomen Fellow with the City Bar Justice Center. “There is no doubt in my mind that had their client been represented by less able attorneys, he would not have been granted cancellation.”

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Emerging Issues with Trafficked Youth

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Administrator

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The City Bar Justice Center’s Immigrant Women and Children Project, together with Greenberg Traurig and the New York Anti-Trafficking Network, hosted a panel discussion on National Human Trafficking Awareness Day, January 11, to highlight emerging issues with trafficked youth in New York City.

The discussion was moderated by Suzanne Tomatore, Director of the Immigrant Women and Children Project at the City Bar Justice Center. Featured speakers included Christa Stewart, Coordinator of Human Trafficking Programming and Supervisor of the Newcomer Transition Unit at the NYS Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance; Laura Matthews-Jolly, Equal Justice Works Fellow at the Immigrant Women and Children Project at the City Bar Justice Center; Jayne Bigelsen, Director of Anti-Human Trafficking Initiatives at Covenant House International; and Martina Vandenberg, Open Society Fellow.

The audience included many people from law firms, non-profit organizations, and both federal and NY state government. Speakers discussed a range of issues, including unmet legal needs, recent trends in trafficked youth cases, the role of service providers, and ways pro bono attorneys can address them.

Trafficking panel

From left: Suzanne Tomatore, Christa Stewart, Laura Matthews-Jolly, Jayne Bigelsen, Martina Vandenberg

January 11th was designated National Human Trafficking Awareness Day by the U.S. Senate in 2007. The resolution was passed with the intention of raising awareness of, and opposition to, human trafficking. Additionally, President Obama has proclaimed January to be National Human Trafficking Awareness Month. In his White House Presidential Proclamation, he stated, “Throughout the month of January, we highlight the many fronts in the ongoing battle for civil rights—including the efforts of our Federal agencies; State, local, and tribal law enforcement partners; international partners; nonprofit social service providers; private industry and nongovernmental organizations around the world who are working to end human trafficking.”

Thus, throughout the month of January, Americans are urged to educate themselves about the forms, signs, and consequences of human trafficking and observe the month with appropriate programs and activities.

 

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City Bar Justice Center Releases Economic Empowerment Resource Guide

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Administrator

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The City Bar Justice Center’s Immigrant Women and Children (IWC) Project has produced an Economic Empowerment Resource Guide, providing resource information for immigrant victims of violent crimes and low-income New York City residents in general. Topics covered in the guide include public benefits, job training and placement, employment agencies, personal finance, financial aid for higher education, and small business resources.

The Immigrant Women and Children Project (IWC), one of the Justice Center’s core initiatives, was launched in 1996 in response to new developments in immigration law brought about by the 1994 Violence Against Women Act. IWC has assisted hundreds of survivors of domestic and other violence with regularizing their immigration status in the U.S. In addition to immigration issues, IWC’s low-income clients often experience a range of challenging legal, financial, and personal problems, for which the IWC often refers them to other legal and social service organizations.

“We realized that a single resource compiling contact information for organizations would be extremely helpful for our clients,” said IWC Program Director Suzanne Tomatore. “Many of our clients are receiving employment authorization for the first time, or they or their children are interested in going to college or perhaps starting a business. In our work we have found many terrific programs that we would like to link our clients up with, and other service providers could benefit from this guide as well.”

The Economic Empowerment Guide can be downloaded here.

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Model Anti-Trafficking Legislation

Posted on December 15, 2011 by Administrator

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Earlier this month, Suzanne Tomatore, Project Director of the City Bar Justice Center’s Immigrant Women & Children Project, attended a drafting committee meeting of the Uniform Law Commission (ULC).

Established in 1892, the ULC provides states with nonpartisan draft legislation designed to provide clarity and stability to critical areas of state statutory law. The open drafting process draws on the expertise of commissioners appointed by the states, and it also utilizes input from legal experts, advisers and observers representing the views of other legal organizations and interested groups.

Ms. Tomatore had been invited by the commission along with other experts in the field to observe a ULC committee that is working on model state anti-human trafficking legislation, which had been proposed last year by the ULC, and to participate in the process. The scope of the project is specifically focused on (a) human trafficking for sexual purposes, in which a sex act is induced by force, fraud or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform a sex act has not attained the age of majority, and (b) human trafficking in which force, fraud or coercion is used to obtain the labor or services of an individual under circumstances that amount to involuntary servitude.

Currently, 41 states in the U.S. have human trafficking laws. However, the quality and comprehensiveness vary from state to state. New York has one of the nation’s more comprehensive laws, which includes prosecution tools and victim benefits components, and which was recently further strengthened by a new law that allows victims of sex trafficking to vacate prior convictions if they can show they were trafficked into such criminal acts. Other states have little or no protections for victims.

The ‘reporter’ for the project is Professor Susan Deller Ross of Georgetown University Law Center, who is also the director of the International Women’s Human Rights Clinic there, where she has been working closely with her clinic students on this project. The committee members, observers, and advisers had a review period of some three weeks before attending the recent two-day meeting in New Orleans.

“The draft prepared for the committee was very comprehensive, and the work by Professor Ross and her students was a strong first step toward developing this important legislation,” said Tomatore, who, along with other commissioners, observers and advisers, was offered the opportunity to give line-by-line feedback on the 34-page document. “It draws from current state laws, model legislation drafted by other groups, and suggestions from prosecutors and victims’ advocates, and it includes many benefits for trafficking victims,” she said.

The committee will meet again in San Antonio in February to review the next draft, and next July at the annual meeting of the ULC. The overall process should take two years, after which the document will be released to the states for their consideration as uniform legislation to assist in the prosecution of offenders and improve the treatment of our nation’s trafficking victims.

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Justice Center’s Lynn Kelly Testifies Before New York City Council on Immigrant Detention

Posted on December 14, 2011 by Administrator

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City Bar Justice Center Executive Director Lynn M. Kelly testified on December 13th before the New York City Council’s Committee on Immigration on the topic of “Oversight–Treatment of NYC’s Immigrants in Detention Centers.”

Kelly’s testimony was based largely on the Justice Center’s experience counseling detainees at the Varick Street detention facility beginning about three years ago, at a pro bono clinic set up by the Justice Center along with The Legal Aid Society and the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Since the closing of Varick in 2010, the project has adapted and, working with volunteer lawyers, the Justice Center has interviewed more than 400 detained New Yorkers and obtained the release and restoration to their families of more than a dozen.

“The Justice Center starts from the proposition that the biggest problem with immigration detention is the lack of counsel,” said Kelly in her submitted testimony. “To be clear, there is no right to government assigned counsel for anyone facing removal, including those with green cards (lawful permanent residents). According to a recent study by the Vera Institute of Justice, an immigrant with a lawyer who has been released from detention or never been detained has a 74% success rate in a removal hearing, compared to a dismal 3% success rate for immigrants who were detained and lacked counsel. Immigrants who obtain release are more likely to obtain their own attorneys so the goal should be to decrease the numbers of non-violent offenders who are detained and increase counsel for those who are detained, to ensure that all of their legal defenses are raised. In this regard, the recent city funding for additional immigration attorneys at the defenders and domestic violence programs is a very good idea.”

Kelly’s complete testimony can be read here.

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