GT Pro Bono - Helping To Change The World For The Better

In a world in which change is a constant, communities throughout the United States and abroad need the help of lawyers who commit their time to pro bono. GT lawyers from across the firm regularly help the people in their communities on matters as wide-reaching as human rights and economic development and as personal as domestic violence, children’s issues and immigration. Change has no borders. Neither does GT’s commitment to helping change the world for the better.

Our attorneys dedicate their time and talents to providing volunteer legal services to the indigent and working poor, as well as to numerous civic and charitable organizations dedicated to assisting them. Along with those areas mentioned above, our attorneys also do pro bono work focusing on civil rights and affirmative action, custody and visitation, guardianship, criminal appeals, immigration/political asylum, housing and homelessness, and health care.

In handling pro bono matters, GT works with numerous organizations around the United States, including the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, inMotion (Network for Women’s Services), Children and Family Justice Center, Just Neighbors Immigrant Ministry, Center for Community Change, University of Miami School of Law’s Children and Youth Law Clinic, Legal Counsel for the Elderly, D.C. Employment Justice Center, ABA Death Penalty Representation Project and the Archdiocesan Legal Network.

While we work on numerous pro bono projects around the country – and are continually exploring and initiating new opportunities – the following are highlights of our recent work.

Pro Bono Highlights

• The New York office, along with a major financial institution client and in collaboration with the New York City Family Court and five other law firms, is spearheading a pro bono effort to provide advice and counsel to unrepresented litigants through 30-minute one-on-one sessions on various family law topics. Since its inception in November 2006, the project has helped more than 250 people. Volunteer firms have committed to staff the project, which is run out of the Family Court in Brooklyn, one day per month. It is GT’s hope to expand in 2007 to the other boroughs as well and serve as a model for the entire state Family Court system. 
• Orlando attorney Greg Herbert served as lead counsel for Lance Dutson, a Media Bloggers Association (MBA) member targeted with a multimillion dollar federal lawsuit by the Warren Kremer Paino advertising agency for the content of his blog’s reporting and commentary. In what has been called a great victory for the First Amendment rights of bloggers, the suit was withdrawn following a media campaign orchestrated by the MBA, highlighting the heavy-handed tactics of the ad agency, a state contractor in Maine. 
• The Washington, D.C. office is currently representing a Death Row inmate in Alabama. We have just completed the first stage of State habeas corpus proceedings and the case is on appeal. On February 7, 2006 we filed an appeal brief in the Court of Criminal Appeals for the State of Alabama asking the court to reverse the decisions of the court below, and remand the case for a new Rule 32 hearing. In May of 2006, GT argued the State habeas corpus appeal before the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals. We are still waiting for a decision from the court. 
• GT’s Las Vegas office handles all of the IP needs of the National Crime Victim Law Institute (NCVLI), a non-profit research and educational organization at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon. NCVLI is the only national organization working to assert victims’ rights in the criminal trial courts. 
• Phoenix attorney Gretchen Jacobs went before the Arizona Department of Developmental Disabilities and the state legislature to secure $2.5 million for increased autism services, which included money specifically dedicated to all autism organizations for the training and supervision of ABA therapists. She also testified in support of the legislative bill that appropriated $7.1 million for autism research in Arizona. 
• GT attorneys Jeffrey B. Sklaroff, Julie Rodriguez and Jennifer Smith filed an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of a group of more than 140 former judges, U.S. Attorneys General, U.S. Attorneys and other former high-ranking Justice Department officials. The brief seeks to overturn a 55-year mandatory minimum prison sentence imposed on a first-time, low-level marijuana offender. 
• The Miami office has formed an alliance with Accion USA, a non-profit organization that provides small and short-term loans to low- and moderate-income commercial borrowers. Our lawyers provide business-related legal services, including review of contracts and advice about structuring businesses and creating buy-sell agreements, to Accion’s South Florida-based borrowers. 
• Attorneys in the New York office are working with the New York State Anti-Human Trafficking Coalition to encourage the state to adopt a strong anti-trafficking law. Thousands of people fall prey to this horrible crime in New York each year. 
• Phoenix attorney Mary Bruno regularly works on pro bono matters as a member of the Navajo Nation Bar. Currently, Mary is appointed as the guardian ad litem for three minor children in the Navajo Nation in a parental deposition case filed by the Navajo Nation against their mother and the father of one child, as well as in a petition for permanent guardianship filed by their paternal grandparents. 
• West Palm Beach attorney Gary Dunkel is on the board of the Palm Beach County Legal Aid Society. 
• Since 1999, GT has served as a corporate partner of inMotion, a New York City-based non-profit organization that provides low-income, under-served or abused women with free, quality legal services. As well as providing financial support, to date 74 volunteers from the firm have represented 36 inMotion clients in Family and Supreme Court. 
• The Washington, D.C. office has taken on cases through the Archdiocesan Legal Network and the Legal Counsel for the Elderly representing low-income residents of the District of Columbia in home ownership, family law, conservatorship and consumer protection matters. 
• GT is representing a Bangladeshi woman and her two children in their claim for asylum in the United States. The case is a complex application based on both political and religious persecution and is intricately interwoven with issues of cultural and historical attitudes towards women in Bangladesh. The Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center (FIAC) referred the case to GT, and has proven invaluable as a consultant. 
• As part of GT’s ongoing work with Advocates for Children of New York, Inc. (AFC), New York attorney Caroline J. Heller partnered with an AFC attorney (a former GT Fellow) to petition the Department of Education for compensatory services for a 12-year-old boy diagnosed with a severe language-based learning disability. After a three-day hearing, the Hearing Officer awarded him the equivalent of $80,000 of tutoring services in a method geared toward his disability. 
• The Washington D.C. office is acting as Special Master/Hearing Officer in a series of cases resulting from a class action suit brought in federal court concerning special education students placed in private schools by the D.C. Public Schools and the funding of those private services.

Awards and Recognition 

• Legal Aid Society of New York honored corporate paralegal Rebecca Morse at its 2007 Pro Bono Publico Awards ceremony for her outstanding pro bono service. She works on a GT/Legal Aid project to help extend educational opportunities to children in foster care, providing early intervention and special education advocacy for children in New York City's foster care system. 
• GT's New York office received a 2007 Pro Bono Service Award from the New York City Family Court. 
• Sanctuary for Families honored GT attorneys Jennifer Smith and Jordan Wolff during their 2007 awards ceremony in New York for their "dedication, hard work, and remarkable pro bono advocacy" in providing legal services to battered women. 
• The Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center honored GT with the 2007 Sr. Maureen T. Kelleher Altruism Award, in recognition of the firm and our attorneys’ pro bono work in assisting women and children detained in immigration centers in Florida. 
• Shareholder Heather Meeker was honored in 2007 with the James T. Caleshu Award from the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the Bay Area for her leadership, commitment and outstanding pro bono contributions to the organization’s Legal Services for Entrepreneurs Program. 
• GT shareholder, Bill Silverman, received the 2006 Matthew G. Leonard Award for Pro Bono Excellence from MFY Legal Services, Inc., for his leadership of our Pro Bono program and his work in launching the Pro Bono Kinship Caregiver Law Project and Self-Represented Legal Services Project.
• In 2006, GT received an Appleseed Special Hurricane Relief Award from Texas Appleseed, honoring the firm’s efforts on behalf of victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, including our sponsorship of a GT Fellow dedicated to hurricane relief work in Texas.
• GT received a Community Partnership Award (honorable mention) for 2006 from the Mutual of America Foundation. The award recognized the firm’s sponsorship of an Equal Justice Works fellow who developed the DC Partnership for Immigrant Children during her fellowship at Ayuda, Inc., a center for legal and social services for immigrants in Washington, D.C. 
• GT attorney Caroline J. Heller was honored with a 2006 associate Commitment to Justice Award from inMotion. 
• inMotion recognized GT with its 2005 law firm Commitment to Justice Award. 
• In 2005, the Dade County Bar Association and Put Something Back honored GT shareholders Carl Fornaris and Benjamin Reiss with awards recognizing their service as co-coordinators of Accion USA, a non-profit organization that provides pro bono legal advice and services to low- and moderate-income commercial borrowers.

Articles and Press Releases