Gibson Dunn today announced that a pro bono team of litigators has secured a settlement on behalf of client Dr. Bidisha Rudra, who was the victim of an unprovoked and violent assault unleashed on a group of Indian American women. While the terms of the settlement were not disclosed, the matter has been resolved to the parties’ satisfaction.
The suit arose from an August 24, 2022 incident in which Esmeralda Upton began an unprovoked and violent assault on Dr. Rudra and three other Indian American women, Sabori Saha, Indrani Banerjee, and Anamika Chatterjee, in the parking lot of a Plano, Texas restaurant. The attack lasted several minutes, during which Ms. Upton screamed racial epithets, struck the women, and threatened to shoot them. The victims were able to record Ms. Upton’s disturbing behavior on their cell phones while they waited for police to arrive.
Media coverage of the recorded attack sparked national outrage. Following a joint state and federal investigation, Ms. Upton pleaded guilty to three criminal counts of assault and one criminal count of making terroristic threats, with each count accompanied by hate-crime enhancements.
Dr. Rudra, along with Ms. Saha, Ms. Banerjee, and Ms. Chatterjee, filed a civil suit against Ms. Upton for assault, battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Gibson Dunn received Dr. Rudra’s case by referral from The Alliance for Asian American Justice (The Alliance), a national pro bono organization that advocates for victims of anti-Asian hate crimes. The Alliance co-founder and Gibson Dunn partner Debra Wong Yang said: “The Alliance was formed to try to deter acts of hate but to also protect our community of AANHPIs in America and show them they are not alone. We all stand together in condemning acts of hate.”
Following the civil suit settlement, Dr. Rudra looks forward to focusing on the future. Earlier this year, motivated by a desire to serve her community and bolstered by her experience working in the healthcare industry, Dr. Rudra opened the Frisco, Texas office of Senior Helpers, an organization that provides compassionate care to seniors in the Dallas-Fort Worth community while offering much-needed support for primary caregivers.
Commenting on the settlement, Dr. Rudra said: “While this settlement offers a measure of closure, the deep scar left by the racial hate crime I endured remains with me. The pain and trauma are not easily erased, and they fuel my resolve to keep fighting. This crusade against racism is far from over. I will stand as an ally and a voice for those who are too afraid or hesitant to speak out. I am also grateful to Gibson Dunn and The Alliance for Asian American Justice for their support and legal expertise in the fight against racism and bigotry. Together, we must continue the fight to eradicate racial hate and build a more just and equitable society. This journey toward justice continues—for me, for all of us.”
Poonam Kumar, partner at Gibson Dunn, remarked, “Gibson Dunn is proud to have represented Dr. Bidisha Rudra in the wake of this attack and throughout this multi-year litigation. While this case is now over, we look forward to continuing to work with Dr. Rudra and others in the ongoing fight against hatred and bias.”
The Gibson Dunn team representing Dr. Rudra was led by partners Debra Wong Yang, Betty X. Yang, and Poonam Kumar; and included associates Claire Piepenburg, Bina Nayee, Ryan Mak, Arjun Ogale, Maya M. Halthore, Nancy Ding, and Brianna N. Banks.
A Gibson Dunn pro bono team won an important victory for an elderly Berkeley homeowner in a significant case against a Receiver appointed by the City of Berkeley, ostensibly to correct a set of minor code violations in our client’s two-story Harmon Street home.
The first phase of the bifurcated case went to trial in February 2024, addressing the reasonableness of the work performed by the Receiver and the first installment of the Receiver’s fees. The Gibson Dunn team compiled a formidable record at the trial court level to support our client’s challenge to the Receiver’s actions, including for purposes of any ultimate appeal. The trial evidence showed that our client, a U.S. Army veteran and U.S. Post Office retiree who worked part-time as a Berkeley school crossing guard, bought his 1910 house as a fixer-upper in 1975 with his wife, who passed away 20 years ago. In 2014, he received a Notice from the City of 33 health and safety code violations at his home, ranging from broken window glass and rotted stair rails to exposed electrical wires and peeling paint. Although it’s unclear what prompted the City’s inspection, press reports suggested it was triggered by neighbor complaints or a police visit on an unrelated matter. On receiving the Notice of Violation (NOV), our client and his sons immediately undertook to correct the violations, including by engaging contractors to perform any specialized work. By the time the Receiver was appointed, all 33 issues listed in the NOV had been corrected or addressed in estimates provided by outside contractors.
At trial, Gibson Dunn argued that the Receiver’s authority was limited to correcting the code violations that triggered the receivership, and presented expert evidence showing that the work could have been done for under $65,000—even putting aside the corrections our client and his sons already made. The Receiver nonetheless undertook a course of major renovations and construction, almost all unrelated to the 33 NOV items. Among other such work, the Receiver converted the home to a duplex from the single-family framework that had supported our client’s family for four decades, entirely renovated the kitchen with granite countertops and other high-end features that our client neither requested nor needed, removed sliding pocket doors and other solid doors from the home and replaced them with hollow doors, and cut down a stand of decades-old juniper trees that the family had planted and nourished. There was strong evidence that the Receiver’s plan was to flip the home—a troubling prospect for a senior citizen and homeowner living in a historically Black neighborhood that already had seen a sharp decline in Black families in recent decades. The Gibson Dunn team argued that the construction costs of nearly $550,000—all of which were imposed on our client by means of direct charges or the addition of debt to the home itself—were grossly excessive compared with what would have been required to fix the code violations.
Although the trial court sided with the Receiver on whether the construction work was authorized by the court’s prior orders—an issue the Gibson Dunn team fully preserved for appeal—it agreed with Gibson Dunn that the Receiver waived his right to about $165,000 in fees, clearing the way for a refund to our client of amounts he already paid.
In the second and final phase of the case, the Receiver sought another $285,500 in fees and costs—including nearly $215,000 in legal fees incurred during the first phase of the case. The trial court disallowed almost half of the fees the Receiver sought based on the “significant portion” of fees it had disallowed in the first phase.
Following the ruling in the second phase, the Receiver sought to secure his outstanding fees through an immediately enforceable, super-priority lien against our client’s home—a potentially devastating result for our client that may have triggered foreclosure. Gibson Dunn argued the Receiver’s allowed fees should be secured by a lien subordinate to our client’s existing mortgage and should not be enforceable until six months after the resolution of any appeal. The Gibson Dunn team also asked the trial court to waive the bond requirement on appeal, arguing that the Receiver’s monetary relief would be fully secured by the lien.
The trial court agreed with Gibson Dunn on all counts. The court’s decision will allow our client and the Gibson Dunn team to pursue a full appeal from the trial court’s adverse rulings without the threat of the Receiver forcing foreclosure and the additional hurdles of posting a six-figure bond as a senior on a fixed income.
The Gibson Dunn team was led by partners Marcellus McRae, Kristin Linsley, Andrew LeGrand, and Jeff Krause, and associates Jeremy Ochsenbein, Lauren Dansey, Kelsey Matevish, Yana Nebuchina, Warren Loegering, Matt Getz, Jesse Schupack, and Lindsay Laird.
Gibson Dunn is proud to launch the Justice for Women and Girls initiative, which will deepen and expand our firm’s longstanding commitment to achieving justice for women and girls around the world in five key areas: (1) educational equity; (2) access to healthcare; (3) legal and social equity; (4) economic empowerment; and (5) prevention of violence against women.
Gibson Dunn has been awarded the Family Violence Appellate Project’s inaugural California Pro Bono Cup. The award honors exceptional pro bono contributions that help survivors of domestic violence access justice and safety through the appellate process. Since 2015, Gibson Dunn lawyers “have collectively provided over 4,900 hours of pro bono legal assistance to secure protections for survivors and their children.” The award was presented at the 2024 Battle of the Bands: Banding Together to End Domestic Violence, an annual fundraiser benefiting San Francisco’s Family Violence Appellate Project. The award was presented on September 26, 2024.
Gibson Dunn’s pro bono practice empowers our lawyers to use their skills to make a positive impact on our communities, tackle the most critical social justice issues of the day, and fight for justice and equality under the law. Our pro bono practice brings together lawyers and skills from across the firm’s offices and practice groups, resulting in a diverse practice that reflects the varied interests of our nearly 2,000 lawyers while also being responsive to the most pressing needs of our communities. In addition to the diversity of our practice, we take great pride in the volume of the work and significance of the impact we achieve by coming together across the firm.
In the first half of 2024, Gibson Dunn lawyers devoted more than 100,000 hours to pro bono work. Our latest Pro Bono Newsletter provides insight into the incredible pro bono work of our colleagues.
Judge Carol Whitehurst of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana issued a Report and Recommendation denying Defendants’ motion to dismiss a civil rights lawsuit seeking to hold Louisiana District Attorney’s office liable for the unconstitutional incarceration of innocent third-party witness for more than six months in flagrant disregard of her constitutional rights.
Lafayette, La. Magistrate Judge Carol Whitehurst has recommended denial of the defendants’ motion to dismiss a civil rights action filed by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP and Barrasso Usdin Kupperman Freeman & Sarver, LLC on behalf of Tayjha Alfred against Martin Bofill (“Bo”) Duhé, the District Attorney for the 16th Judicial District of Louisiana, and Assistant District Attorney Alister Charrier. The suit seeks damages and injunctive relief for the constitutional violations Ms. Alfred suffered when the defendants caused her to be incarcerated as a material witness for more than six months despite never charging her with a crime, and for similar constitutional violations against other material witnesses. The suit also seeks to have Louisiana’s material-witness statute declared facially unconstitutional.
In 2019, Ms. Alfred happened to be in the vicinity of an area that later became the scene of a murder and voluntarily told police who she saw in the area before any crime occurred. More than three years passed before Bo Duhé and Alister Charrier decided they wanted Ms. Alfred to testify at the trial for the murder suspect. In the interim, Ms. Alfred had obtained a nursing degree and became a traveling nurse, providing care to the nation’s most vulnerable at the height of the COVID-19 Pandemic. In February 2023, rather than serve Ms. Alfred with a subpoena, they caused Ms. Alfred to be arrested and incarcerated for more than six months as a material witness until she testified at the trial. Ms. Alfred was never charged with committing any crime, nor was she a suspect. During her incarceration, Ms. Alfred was never appointed counsel—as every accused criminal defendant receives upon arrest—nor was she provided with an appearance bond or any meaningful hearing to challenge her incarceration. Ms. Alfred lost her job and her spot in an advanced nursing program while she was incarcerated and suffered severe mental and emotional distress.
Mr. Duhé and Ms. Charrier moved to dismiss Ms. Alfred’s complaint on multiple grounds, including that they are immune from any liability for their actions against Ms. Alfred. Ms. Alfred opposed that motion, and Judge Whitehurst recommended denying it in full. Judge Whitehurst recognized that Mr. Duhé’s and Ms. Charrier’s actions of allowing an innocent third-party witness “to remain in jail for six months without the chance to defend herself and without the most basic rights given even to accused criminals” are not protected by prosecutorial immunity. She also held that they are not entitled to qualified immunity, because Mr. Duhé and Ms. Charrier should have known of the “obvious constitutional problems of incarcerating an innocent witness for an extended period of time without access to counsel, the opportunity for bail or bond, or the opportunity to defend herself.”
Judge Whitehurst also rejected the defendants’ attempts to dismiss Ms. Alfred’s claims against Mr. Duhé in his official capacity as district attorney, finding that Ms. Alfred had alleged that Mr. Duhé’s office had misused the material witness statute 100% of the time it had invoked the statute. And Judge Whitehurst recommended denying dismissal of Ms. Alfred’s claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress, and requests for declaratory and injunctive relief and damages for reputational harm. Mr. Duhé and Ms. Charrier have until September 11, 2024 to file objections to Judge Whitehurst’s Report and Recommendation to the district court.
Katherine Marquart, partner and chair of Gibson Dunn’s pro bono program, stated: “We are grateful to the Court for its ruling, recommending denial of the District Attorney’s motion to dismiss Ms. Alfred’s civil rights lawsuit. As the Court recognized, imprisoning an innocent witness for 6 months to testify at a trial for 30 minutes is an obvious and outrageous constitutional violation. District Attorney Bo Duhé and Assistant District Attorney Alister Charrier put Ms. Alfred in jail and threw away the keys, without providing even the barest procedural processes. This unconscionable conduct cost Ms. Alfred her nursing job and educational opportunities she had earned to advance her career even further. We look forward to holding the Defendants accountable.”
Judge Whitehurst’s order recommending denial of the defendants’ motion to dismiss is available here: Report and Recommendation, Alfred v. Duhé.
The Amended Complaint is available here: Tayjha Alfred v. Martin Bofill (“Bo”) Duhé, in his individual capacity and in his official capacity as the 16th Judicial District Attorney; and Alister Charrier, in her individual capacity.
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Keith Puckett, a Black resident of the City of El Segundo, against the City of El Segundo for racial profiling and unlawful detention by the El Segundo Police Department (ESPD). The lawsuit seeks compensatory damages and an injunction barring the City from engaging in unconstitutional conduct and requiring the adoption of appropriate policies and training of ESPD officers.
Empirical data collected by El Segundo under the Racial and Identity Profiling Act confirms ESPD is engaged in widespread racial profiling. Most notably, even though fewer than 5 percent of El Segundo’s residents are Black, more than 20 percent of all ESPD stops are of Black people. Recently, a documentary film called “Black in Mayberry” premiered at a local El Segundo museum. The film incudes powerful stories of racism experienced by El Segundo residents, many of which were echoed in the experiences of community members Gibson Dunn interviewed while preparing Mr. Puckett’s complaint.
Mr. Puckett has directly experienced racial profiling by ESPD, having been targeted for his race and unlawfully detained twice in 2021. In one incident, six ESPD officers arrived outside Mr. Puckett’s home in the middle of the night and questioned him after having seen a Black man (a guest of Mr. Puckett) outside Mr. Puckett’s home. Eventually, the officers said it was all a simple misunderstanding with the Department of Motor Vehicles, and then they left.
Less than two months later, when Mr. Puckett drove to a gym to play basketball with his son, an ESPD officer drove past him in the opposite direction. The officer did a U-turn and stopped Mr. Puckett, falsely claiming the light above Mr. Puckett’s rear license plate wasn’t working. When the officer failed to discover any evidence of wrongdoing, he let Mr. Puckett go.
Mr. Puckett reported these incidents to the Chief of Police, City Manager and Deputy City Manager, and has advocated for policy changes to improve the treatment of Black people in El Segundo and reduce the use of blatant profiling tactics. But he continues to meet with resistance and the ESPD practices haven’t stopped. Mr. Puckett himself has been followed by ESPD on multiple occasions, and ESPD officers regularly follow, stop, and use displays of force and numbers to interrogate Black residents – including Black children on their way home from school – for no reason.
Mr. Puckett is an active community member, who has worked as a parent volunteer, PTA member, recreational youth sports coach, basketball coach at his son’s school, volunteer crossing guard, and lunchtime security support member.
“Racism by law enforcement is unlawful, unconstitutional and harmful to everyone who experiences it, even when it doesn’t involve violence,” said Lauren Blas, Gibson Dunn partner and counsel for Mr. Puckett. “Even if it doesn’t make national news, it’s the kind of harassing, demeaning, insidious conduct that Black people and people of color have to contend with every day. We have brought this action to protect Mr. Puckett’s constitutional rights, to hold the City accountable for its unlawful conduct and to compel it to stop racially profiling the residents of the El Segundo community.”
Blas added, “Mr. Puckett cares deeply about racial justice. El Segundo is his home, and he wants to live there without fearing that ESPD will continue to violate his constitutional rights and the rights of other Black community members. This lawsuit is a final effort to hold the City accountable for its unlawful conduct and to compel it to end racial profiling by the ESPD.”
The complaint is available here.
The National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) has named Gibson Dunn one of its 2024 Beacon of Justice Award recipients, which recognizes honorees “for their efforts to address issues related to civil & human rights. ” The award is in recognition of the firm’s substantial pro bono work, including: (i) winning a historic jury verdict for Deon Jones, a peaceful protestor subjected to police violence; (ii) defending the Fearless Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides Black women business-owners with charitable grants and mentorship; and (iii) assisting more than 300 Afghans with their humanitarian parole applications.
The Legal Benchmarking Group named Gibson Dunn as the winner of the 2024 Social Impact Pro Bono Firm of the Year award, at its inaugural 2024 Social Impact Awards Americas ceremony, “celebrating social impact and inclusion,” and recognizing “strides made by trailblazing firms in fostering diverse, equitable, and inclusive environments.”
Gibson Dunn lawyers were honored by the Daily Journal with its 2024 California Lawyer Award for their role in a “first-of-its-kind jury verdict in a historic civil rights case” in Deon Jones v. City of Los Angeles. The Award recognizes the best legal teams in California for their work over the past year.
In a sweeping victory for speech rights against overreach by state officials, Gibson Dunn and Elias Law Group convinced a D.C. federal court to enjoin an investigation by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton into Media Matters, a non-profit research and information center that reports on misinformation and political extremism in the U.S. media. On November 16, 2023, Media Matters published a post reporting that ads for Apple, Bravo, IBM, Oracle, and Xfinity were showing up next to antisemitic content on X (formerly Twitter). In response, X’s owner Elon Musk posted that he would bring a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against Media Matters, filing suit on November 30, 2023 in the Northern District of Texas—despite Media Matters being located in Washington, D.C.
Virtually simultaneously, Texas AG Paxton opened an investigation of Media Matters for potential fraudulent activity in violation of Texas’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA). Invoking the DTPA’s authority, Paxton served a broad and intrusive Civil Investigative Demand (CID) upon Media Matters, seeking a broad array of records relating to Media Matters’s reporting, funding, and reporter and editorial communications—despite Media Matters’s lack of any relevant connection to Texas. Gibson Dunn and Elias Law Group sought a preliminary injunction in the D.C. federal court, arguing that Paxton lacked jurisdiction to issue and enforce the CID, that the CID was a retaliatory action for speech in violation of the First Amendment, and that the overbroad document requests violated D.C. and Maryland reporters’ shield laws. Enforcement of the CID had chilled and would further chill Media Matters’s core First Amendment-protected speech, the motion argued, and was a direct assault on its newsgathering function.
The United States District Court for D.C. ruled in favor of Media Matters, issuing a preliminary injunction enjoining Paxton and his office from enforcing the CID. The court ruled that it had personal jurisdiction over Paxton under D.C.’s long-arm statute, that Media Matters had suffered cognizable First Amendment injury, that D.C. was the right venue, and that plaintiffs have proven a likelihood of success on the merits, noting that the threat of administrative intrusion into the newsgathering process would likely deter protected speech and undermine newsgathering and reporting in violation of the First Amendment. The victory sets valuable precedent for journalistic outfits and other entities targeted by overreaching out-of-state AGs, allowing them to fight back without having to submit to the jurisdiction of the AG’s home state.
The Gibson Dunn team includes partners Ted Boutrous (Los Angeles), Amer S. Ahmed (New York), Anne Champion (New York), and Jay Srinivasan (Los Angeles), as well as New York associates Iason Togias and Apratim Vidyarthi.
Our latest Pro Bono Newsletter reflects on Black History Month, Gibson Dunn’s longstanding commitment to addressing racial justice and equity issues, and the many racial equity-focused matters to which our lawyers dedicate tens of thousands of pro bono hours each year. These include efforts focused on advice to Black-owned small businesses, representing nonprofits and organizations serving the Black community across the U.S., criminal justice reform, litigation defending the rights of individuals targeted by law enforcement while peacefully protesting the murder of George Floyd, and police reform and accountability efforts, among other matters.
A team of Gibson Dunn lawyers, working with The Promise of Justice Initiative (PJI) in New Orleans, has secured the release of pro bono client B.T., who in 1983 was convicted by an unconstitutional, non-unanimous jury in Louisiana. Over the dissenting votes of two jurors—who, like B.T., were Black—B.T. was found guilty of an alleged armed robbery. After his counsel failed to present any arguments on his behalf during sentencing, B.T. was sentenced to 99 years at hard labor without benefit of probation, parole, or suspension. B.T., then 19 years of age, received what was effectively a life sentence despite important mitigating facts: the alleged robbery was of $400, B.T. had never before been accused of a violent crime, he had lived a difficult childhood, no one was physically injured during the alleged robbery, and two jurors had reasonable doubt he was guilty at all. After spending the past 40 years incarcerated in Louisiana state prisons, including Angola, B.T. received an amended sentence reduced to time served. He was released as a free man on November 17, 2023.
Gibson Dunn has been working with PJI to help individuals like B.T. seek justice after being convicted by Jim Crow juries. The U.S. Supreme Court held non-unanimous juries to be unconstitutional in Ramos v. Louisiana in 2020, but the Court’s subsequent decision in Edwards v. Vannoy held that Ramos would not apply retroactively, leaving those already convicted and incarcerated prior to 2020 without hope of relief.
Despite these challenges, Gibson Dunn and PJI successfully negotiated with the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office to file an uncontested post-conviction relief application that provided B.T. with a new sentencing hearing under state law. The application for a hearing was granted, and during the hearing, the judge resentenced B.T. to 40 years, with full credit for time served.
B.T. was released into a three-year reentry program created by Criminal District Court Judges in Orleans Parish that will provide comprehensive resources and support as he adjusts to life outside of incarceration. B.T.—who is known by those around him for his selflessness, wisdom, and unwavering optimism—is excelling in the program.
The Gibson Dunn team includes associates Anna Aguillard, Alexandra Buettner, and Sam Whipple, with supervision by partner M. Kendall Day.
Gibson Dunn’s Pro Bono Committee is thrilled to announce the winners of this year’s Frank Wheat Memorial Awards. As in past years, this year’s winners (and nominees) all exemplify excellence and serve as an inspiration to us all. The nominees this year are as diverse as they are impressive, hailing from offices around the world and representing a wide variety of clients and interests. The common thread among these efforts and attorneys is unfailing determination to use their unique and privileged power as lawyers to make a difference in the lives of their clients and their broader global community.
Frank Wheat was a former Los Angeles partner, a superb transactional lawyer, SEC commissioner, and president of the Los Angeles County Bar. He was also a giant in the nonprofit community, having founded the Alliance for Children’s Rights in addition to serving as a leader of the Sierra Club and as a founding director of the Center for Law in the Public Interest. He exemplified the commitment to the community and to pro bono service that has always been a core tenet of the Gibson Dunn culture. Recipients of the Frank Wheat Memorial Award each receive a $2,500 prize to be donated to pro bono organizations designated by the recipients.
This year’s Frank Wheat Award winners showcase important aspects of the Firm’s diverse and vibrant pro bono practice, which includes advising small businesses and nonprofits, appellate litigation, immigration, racial justice and criminal justice reform, veterans advocacy, and many other important initiatives. In 2023, more than 1,700 Gibson Dunn attorneys around the world have devoted more than 150,000 hours to pro bono work. In total, these matters were valued at approximately $168 million.
Gibson Dunn has received the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) 2023 Advancement Animal Law Pro Bono Achievement Award, which “honors dedicated legal professionals and law firms who help the Animal Legal Defense Fund achieve its mission to protect the lives and advance the interests of animals through the legal system.” This is the second consecutive year that the firm has been honored with this award.
We have partnered with the ALDF since 2019 in representing the United Pegasus Foundation and the CARU Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in a Riverside Superior Court action to remedy the starvation and abuse of approximately 75 horses and donkeys on a purported animal “sanctuary” in San Jacinto, California. Following a favorable discovery ruling, our lawyers obtained a settlement in December 2020 that requires, among other things, regular independent monitoring of the horses’ welfare and conditions, and that the defendants surrender any unhealthy horses to our clients or another horse sanctuary; those inspections are ongoing.
We have also been working with the ALDF on litigation strategy related to challenging the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s decision to issue animal exhibitor licenses to roadside zoos that engage in practices that violate the Animal Welfare Act, such as maternal deprivation of bear cubs and bottle feeding. Our work has included analyzing arguments to support admitting extra-record evidence and evaluating the best avenues for the ALDF to prove standing to bring these administrative law challenges.
Many Gibson Dunn lawyers contribute to the ALDF’s work, including Perlette Jura, Matthew Rozen, Shannon Mader, Joseph Gorman, Negin Nazemi, Becca Smith, Matthew Reagan, Jessica Pearigen, Nathan Powell, and Viola Li.
Gibson Dunn and the nine other law firms that form the Domestic Abuse Response Alliance (DARA) have received the PILnet Local Impact Award for the best, innovative pro bono legal project with an impact felt at the local or national level.
DARA is the largest pro bono project ever assembled in England and Wales to provide end-to-end representation and advocacy support for domestic abuse survivors seeking protective orders against their abusers. It represents survivors of domestic abuse who are not eligible for legal aid but who cannot afford to pay for private representation. DARA comprises a special combination of expertise to deliver social justice: legal prowess and support from 10 of the world’s top law firms, governance from LawWorks, clients from the National Centre for Domestic Violence and FLOWS (Finding Legal Options for Women Survivors), and specialist family law oversight on every case from Beck Fitzgerald.
Since DARA was launched in 2022, Gibson Dunn lawyers have obtained 12 final non-molestation orders for their DARA clients.
Established in 1997 as the Public Interest Law Initiative in Transitional Societies at Columbia University in New York, PILnet provides free legal assistance to hundreds of civil society organizations around the world every year in partnership with law firms and independent practitioners. The PILnet Local Impact Award was announced on October 17 during PILnet’s 2023 Global Forum in Brussels.
As Hispanic Heritage Month draws to a close, we wanted to highlight some of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP’s recent pro bono work on behalf of members of the Latinx community. Of course, the Latinx community is incredibly diverse, reflecting a wide range of histories, cultures, and experiences. Our pro bono work on behalf of Latinx clients is similarly broad in scope. We have represented nonprofits and small businesses that serve Latinx individuals, helping to maintain and promote Latinx culture in their wider communities. On a larger scale, we have advocated for students and educators fighting for the freedom to study and discuss Latinx culture. And on an individual level, we have represented clients from throughout Latin America in their immigration proceedings—from political dissidents to LGBTQ+ individuals, and from women who have survived gender-based violence to children who have overcome abuse and neglect.
We are proud to work on these matters, and are committed to continuing this important work in the years to come.
The Los Angeles Superior Court has granted a two-year domestic violence restraining order in favor of Gibson Dunn’s pro bono client, a low-income mother of a developmentally delayed child, who suffered years of physical, psychological and financial abuse from her husband. Before Gibson Dunn joined the case, our client’s temporary restraining order did not include a move-out order against her husband or an order for possession of her vehicle, leaving our client without stable housing or reliable transportation. Our team successfully amended the request for a temporary restraining order to seek the additional relief.
At the evidentiary hearing, our lawyers presented compelling evidence that our client suffered abuse from her husband throughout their 11-year marriage. After the hearing, including cross-examination of the husband—who testified that he had never physically or otherwise abused our client, and attempted to argue that our client was the abuser—the court sided with our client, concluding that she was more credible than her husband. In addition to the restraining order against her husband, the court awarded our client sole legal and physical custody of their child, exclusive use of the residence and immediate return of her vehicle. The court also ordered limited professionally monitored child visitation with the husband.
Los Angeles associate Summer Wall led the team and conducted the examinations, with valuable assistance from associates Camille Houle and Chelsea D’Olivo (Washington, D.C.), and supervision from partner Michael Holecek and senior associate Patrick Murray. The team received outstanding support from our pro bono partners at the Los Angeles Center for Law and Justice and from Gibson Dunn support staff, including Austin Kang.
Ms. X fled to the U.S. from El Salvador in 2016 to escape targeted gang violence. Her family staunchly and vocally opposed the gang’s control of their community and reported the gang’s activities to the police. In retaliation, the gang threatened the family with death. One of Ms. X’s cousins was murdered and dismembered by gang members, and Ms. X herself was directly threatened. After being assaulted by the gang’s local leader, Ms. X fled to the U.S.
Over the next seven years, Gibson Dunn represented Ms. X in partnership with Kids In Need of Defense (KIND). Her case was shuffled among three different judges at three different immigration courts.
Gibson Dunn faced difficult strategic choices along the way. In particular, the team learned that neither of Ms. X’s primary persecutors remained in El Salvador: one had been killed by the police, and one had traveled to the U.S. The team disclosed this information to the Court and burnished Ms. X’s asylum application with the testimony of two expert witnesses who detailed the risk of persecution Ms. X would still face at the hands of gang members who remained in El Salvador.
El Salvador’s recent Régimen de Excepción (State of Exception) also raised unexpected challenges. Under the State of Exception, the Salvadoran military has arrested and detained more than 68,000 purported gang members, often solely on the basis of anonymous tips. In the wake of these mass arrests, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has begun arguing that El Salvador no longer has a gang problem and that asylum seekers who fled gang-based violence, like Ms. X, should be returned to El Salvador. In fact, the opposite is true: individuals like Ms. X now face two separate persecutors—the gangs, and the Salvadoran government itself, which has been arresting deportees and individuals previously targeted by gangs for so-called “association” or “collaboration” with the very gangs that persecuted them.
On the day of the hearing, Ms. X provided powerful direct-examination and cross-examination testimony, and Gibson Dunn secured DHS’s stipulation to refrain from challenging her experts’ testimony and, notably, her application for asylum. The court entered an oral grant of asylum from the bench, and DHS waived its right to appeal.
Washington, D.C. associate Tessa Gellerson was the lead attorney during the individual merits hearing, with Joseph West as supervising partner. The team, which included former associates Ariel Fishman, Nicholas Fuenzalida, Haley Morrisson, Alison Friberg, and Nanding Chen, received outstanding support from its pro bono partners at KIND and several members of the Gibson Dunn support staff, including Ileana Rivera and Sandra Andrade, who provided invaluable assistance with translation, and the D.C. Copy Center team, who saved the day more than once with monumental printing requests.
Gibson Dunn has secured a six-figure settlement awarding attorneys’ fees for its representation of the New Jersey Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA-NJ) against the federal Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) in the District of New Jersey.
The settlement follows a February 2023 ruling that held that immigration judges at the Newark Immigration Court violated a stipulation by failing to timely adjudicate motions made by immigration attorneys to appear remotely and neglecting to provide adequate reasoning when denying those motions. The judge dismissed EOIR’s explanation that “bandwidth issues” compelled the Newark Immigration Court’s sudden switch to default in-person hearings or justified denying motions for WebEx hearings, finding that it was unsupported by the evidence.
After stipulating in February 2021 to timely adjudicate requests to appear remotely, EOIR abruptly changed course in August 2022, citing “bandwidth issues” at the court. The Gibson Dunn team filed an Emergency Motion to Enforce the Stipulation in October 2022, alleging that the policy change was a violation of EOIR’s commitment. At a two-day evidentiary hearing, the Gibson Dunn team presented two witnesses, AILA-NJ’s Chapter President and a Department of Homeland Security attorney and union representative. Both testified that their members faced an impossible choice between representing their clients in person or risking their or their immunocompromised loved ones’ safety. The Gibson Dunn team also cross-examined the government’s IT expert, who conceded that there was no factual basis for EOIR’s “bandwidth issues” rationale.
In its March 2023 Final Order, the Court granted AILA-NJ permission to file a motion for attorneys’ fees as the prevailing party. Following negotiations, EOIR then agreed to a substantial settlement.
The Gibson Dunn team included partner Akiva Shapiro and associates Seton Hartnett O’Brien, Salah Hawkins, Dasha Dubinsky, Tawkir Chowdhury, and Edmund Bannister.