Firmwide Pro Bono Hours At All-Time High
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP is pleased to announce the firm's annual Frank Wheat Memorial Award recipients in recognition of outstanding pro bono work at the firm. The award is given to a Gibson Dunn case team and an individual attorney who displayed leadership and initiative, obtained significant results and served as a source of inspiration to others through their pro bono work.
This year, the team award will be presented to a team of associates in the firm's Orange County office for their work on behalf of low-income tenants of a dilapidated apartment complex in Santa Ana, Calif., and the individual award will be presented to a former New York associate for his work in facilitating legal guardianships for people with mental retardation and developmental disabilities. The recipients of the team award will receive $5,000 to be donated to a pro bono organization of their choice.
In addition, Gibson Dunn has increased its annual number of pro bono hours by 81 percent, to 64,949 donated attorney hours in 2006.
"We are very proud of the recipients of this year’s Frank Wheat Memorial Award," said Scott Edelman, Chair of Gibson Dunn’s Pro Bono Committee. "We have a long tradition at Gibson Dunn of giving back to the community, one best exemplified by the work of this year's award winners. Their dedication and commitment serves as an example for all of us."
"We are also proud of our collective efforts as a firm, which resulted in a substantial increase in our pro bono hours this year," added Edelman. "With this achievement, we have met Pro Bono Institute’s Pro Bono Challenge, which asks law firms to donate 60 hours per attorney to pro bono work, in the first full year since we signed the Challenge. We could not have accomplished this without the support, commitment and enthusiasm of our lawyers."
About the Team Award Project – Garcia v. Kao
A team of Gibson Dunn lawyers in Orange County have won significant victories on behalf of a group of low-income tenants living in a dilapidated 20-unit apartment complex in Santa Ana, Calif. Arising from their defense of one tenant family facing eviction, Gibson Dunn's work on behalf of the tenants living at the dilapidated complex has resulted in the application of an effective, rarely used procedure – the appointment of a health and safety code receiver – and a multi-claim class action.
Gibson Dunn’s involvement began through a referral from the Orange County Public Law Center. The team – which now includes Orange County associates Kevin Roosevelt, Kelly Leggio, Christopher Campbell and Lise Johnson, as well as former associate Lori Ginex-Orinion – volunteered to defend a tenant family in an eviction proceeding in early 2005, assuming the case only one week before the unlawful detainer action was set for trial.
In that week, the team conducted numerous interviews of the tenants and city officials and were stunned to learn that the City of Santa Ana had previously cited over 260 code violations at the subject apartment building, which was literally crumbling due to water damage, plumbing and electrical problems and was infested by rats and roaches. Despite three years of demands for repair from the City, the landlords allowed the property to continue to deteriorate. Given Gibson Dunn team's preparations and after reviewing the trial brief, the attorney for the landlords appeared in court the morning of trial and dismissed the action.
The team continued to represent the family, negotiating with the landlords’ attorneys in an effort to convince them to make necessary repairs. Faced with the daily deterioration of the building's condition and inaction by the landlords the team filed a class action complaint against the landlord in April 2005. Since then, the Gibson Dunn team has continued to document the building's uninhabitable conditions and has won significant victories on the tenants' behalf, including persuading the landlords to stop collecting rent and obtaining the appointment of a habitability receiver, a procedure rarely used in Orange County, to take control of the apartment building and begin repairs. The receiver was allowed to take out a loan on the property of over $1 million dollars, and repairs are well under way.
In August 2006, the Gibson Dunn team obtained a ruling from the court that the tenants had a "substantial likelihood" of success on their punitive damages claims. Then in October 2006, the Gibson Dunn team achieved further success by obtaining class certification. Under the court's order, all current and former tenants who have lived in the Santa Ana slum apartment complex since 2001 now have an opportunity to recover damages.
About the Individual Award Project – Guardianship Saturday
Former New York associate Mark Bini, now an Assistant District Attorney in the New York County District Attorney's office, is recognized for his work as the creator of "Guardianship Saturday," a new volunteer program that puts private lawyers and legal staff to work on a volunteer basis to prepare and present the legal petition necessary to seek legal guardianships for people with mental retardation and developmental disabilities.
Working with the Association for the Help of Retarded Children in New York, Bini developed the project to eliminate the current multiple-year wait by some 300 families and to assure the future legal protection for their loved ones with these disabilities. The first Guardianship Saturday at Gibson Dunn was in November 2003 and was repeated in March 2006, with a total of 40 lawyers aiding more than 30 families. Bini's tremendous contribution in this area earned him a seat on the Board of Directors of the AHRC.
About the Frank Wheat Memorial Award
The award is named for the late Frank Wheat, a former Gibson Dunn partner who was deeply committed to community service and pro bono work. A recognized leader in corporate transactions, Wheat served as a commissioner of the Securities Exchange Commission and as president of the Los Angeles County Bar. He also founded the Alliance for Children’s Rights and served as founder and trustee of the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, a leader of the Sierra Club and a board member of the Center for Law in the Public Interest, which established a fellowship in his name to train young lawyers in public interest litigation.