2022
Frank Wheat Memorial Awards

Gibson Dunn’s Pro Bono Committee is thrilled to announce the winners of this year’s Frank Wheat Memorial Awards. As always, the winners showcase characteristics all Gibson Dunn attorneys aspire to: an unfailing dedication to pro bono, a commitment to excellence, and a passion for service. The winners also reflect the diversity of the Firm’s pro bono practice, as well as the impact of pro bono matters big and small.

Frank Wheat, a former Los Angeles partner, was 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.

At the close of each year, the Pro Bono Committee invites our offices to nominate pro bono teams and individual attorneys in recognition of their pro bono achievements.  The Pro Bono Committee then selects winners who demonstrated leadership and initiative in their pro bono work, obtained significant results for their pro bono clients, and served as a source of inspiration to others. Recipients of the Frank Wheat Memorial Award each receive a $2,500 prize to be donated to pro bono organizations designated by the recipients.

In recognition of the nominees’ exceptional efforts on behalf of their pro bono clients, this year we selected two winners in each category. In the team category, we chose to recognize a London-based team of attorneys that spent six years advocating for the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe from arbitrary detention in Iran.  We also are recognizing a cross-office team of attorneys who provided counsel to the Boys & Girls Club of America as it executed a nationwide organizational restructuring.  In the individual category, we honored William J. Moccia, a New York attorney who helped a Coast Guard veteran correct her military discharge records and secure a medical retirement based on PTSD she developed after being raped by her direct superior while on active duty, as well as Emily Sauer, a Los Angeles attorney who achieved a significant settlement for a man who was held in solitary confinement for eight-and-a-half years while awaiting trial.

This year, we are also proud to recognize the work of four members of the Gibson Dunn staff who went above and beyond in their support of the Firm’s pro bono practice:  Ileana Rivera, supervisor of the New York Mail Room, who works tirelessly to provide Spanish-language translation and interpretation on countless pro bono matters; Lexine Ruffins, a legal secretary in Houston on whom the office has relied for assistance in a large number of family law cases; Angel Taylor, a legal secretary in Washington DC  who provides invaluable assistance to attorneys taking on new pro bono matters; and Lauren Womack, a paralegal in Dallas who was instrumental to the Firm’s response to the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.

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 2022, more than 1,450 Gibson Dunn attorneys around the world devoted nearly 140,000 hours to pro bono work.  In total, these matters were valued at more than $133 million.

Please read on to learn about the inspiring work of this year’s winners, and please join us in congratulating them for all they have accomplished.

Team Award Winners

Advocacy for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s Release from Arbitrary Detention (London Office)

In April 2016, Iran illegally and arbitrarily detained Iranian-British dual citizen Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe on false espionage charges.  Nazanin, then an employee of the nonprofit charity Thomson Reuters Foundation, was on vacation visiting family in Iran with her 20-month-old daughter Gabriella when she was convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for allegedly plotting to overthrow the Iranian government.  Nazanin, who was interrogated for a month and left in solitary confinement for long periods, adamantly denied the allegations.  In the UK, her husband, Richard, fought tirelessly for her release, with pro bono assistance from a team of Gibson Dunn attorneys in the London office.

Throughout the course of the representation, the team engaged with the UK Foreign Office and Consular teams of the UK Government to push for the Government to (1) acknowledge Nazanin’s detention as arbitrary and illegal; (2) accept that her treatment in prison (and particularly in solitary confinement) constituted torture and a violation of her human rights; and (3) demand that Iran release her and allow her to come home to her family. Over the years, the team supported Richard on regular calls with the Foreign Office and in meetings with multiple successive Foreign Secretaries. In March 2019, Diplomatic Protection was finally granted for Nazanin in a ground-breaking decision by Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt—the first and only time Diplomatic Protection has ever been invoked for an individual British national.

Central to the case was a £400 million debt that a UK Government-owned arms company owed to the Iranian Ministry of Defense.  This debt had gone unpaid since 1979, and it became clear that Iran would not release Nazanin until the UK agreed to repay it.   As part of our advocacy in this case, Gibson Dunn repeatedly challenged the Government’s continued breach of its internationally-owed legal obligations with regard to this unpaid debt, and battled publicly and privately to force the UK to take action to protect their citizens and take responsibility for the consequences of its disregard of the Rule of Law

During the six years that Nazanin was imprisoned, her case gained significant national and international attention—and raised serious questions about the UK Government’s responsibilities to British nationals detained abroad, as well as the transparency surrounding the UK arms trade and its potential impact on innocent citizens. Both Nazanin and Richard undertook prolonged and devastating hunger strikes in protest against her mistreatment in Iran and the lack of meaningful action taken in the UK. The UK’s historic debt to Iran’s Ministry of Defense was finally settled in March 2022, after which Nazanin was finally allowed to fly home and be reunited with Richard and Gabriella, now a seven-year-old child.

In total, Gibson Dunn attorneys dedicated over 4,500 hours valued at nearly $4 million to this matter.  The team was led by Penny Madden and also includes Syamack Afshar, Harriet Codd, Georgia Derbyshire, Sara Doré, Kirsty Everley, Clementine Hollyer, Tamas Lorinczy, Piers Plumptre, Theodore Tyrrell, and Nadia Wahba.

Boys & Girls Club of America Great Futures 2025 Initiative (Cross-Office Team)

Boys & Girls Clubs of America (“BGCA”) is a national nonprofit dedicated to providing safe, affordable places for kids and teens to meet, play, and learn.  It provides life-changing programs and services to more than four million young men and women across the country and on U.S. military bases abroad.

Several years ago, BGCA launched its “Great Futures 2025” initiative, a strategic plan focused on strengthening local clubs, improving program quality, advocating for youth development, and increasing the number of youth served.  As part of this effort, BGCA targets local clubs in need of improvement.  A major component of this effort has been the exploration of organizational restructuring, especially in areas where there are many clubs in close geographic proximity, where clubs are underperforming, or where clubs have limited resources.

In furtherance of BGCA’s efforts to strengthen local organizations, Gibson Dunn has provided significant pro bono counsel and resources to both the national organization and local clubs considering and executing organizational restructuring.  Because BGCA wanted to ensure that every club was represented by solid legal counsel, Gibson Dunn reached out to other law firms to help form what came to be known as the BGCA Legal Advisory Workforce.  Together, the cohort of firms has helped effectuate a great number of transactions over the last several years.  Much of Gibson Dunn’s work has taken place throughout the states of California and Texas, including for the Boys & Girls Club of Metro Los Angeles, the Boys & Girls Club of Anaheim, the Boys & Girls Club of North San Luis Obispo, the Boys & Girls Club of Farmington, the Boys & Girls Club of Fort Worth, and the Boys & Girls Club of Stanislaus.

In total over the last several years, the Firm has donated nearly 8,400 hours valued at nearly $6 million in free legal services to the Great Futures 2025 Initiative.  The following attorneys, representing nearly all U.S. offices, dedicated 20 or more hours to the project:  partners Scott J. Calfas, Jeffrey A. Chapman, Catherine A. Conway, Gregory T. Davidson, Christopher D. Dillon, Andrew A. Lance, Kevin S. Masuda, Deepak Nanda, Tiffany X. Phan, Katherine V.A. Smith, and John M. Williams III; of counsel Alli Balick, Melissa Leigh Barshop, and Todd J. Trattner; and associates Thomas J. Alexander, Fahad Ali, Thomas L. Canny, Lauren M. Fischer, Joseph I. Herman, Stephen B. Herndon, Samuel M. King, David A. Koch-Weser, Shelby N. Lindholm, Candice D. Lundquist, Andria Montoya Iles,  Negin Nazemi, Anna Peterson, Jordan Garrett Rex, Kiel E. Sauerman, Meghan A. Sherley, Scott R. Toussaint, Lauren A. Traina, Victor Twu, Jasmine Lalaine Vitug, and Anna N. Williams.

Individual Award Winners

William J. Moccia, New York The Firm is pleased to honor William J. Moccia, of counsel in the New York office, for securing a sweeping victory for a pro bono client who has been struggling for years to correct her military discharge records and secure a medical retirement based on PTSD she developed in 2001, when she was raped by her direct superior while on active duty in the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard’s decision to grant the relief requested,

including full backpay and benefits, brings a tragic two-decade saga to a close and vindicates the rights of a young woman who suffered unimaginable trauma while honorably serving her country and was then left to fend for herself in the years that followed.

At the time of the rape in 2001, the client was denied a PTSD diagnosis based on an egregious misdiagnosis by the civilian psychologist who examined her. Specifically, the psychologist determined that the rape was not “sufficiently traumatic” to support a PTSD diagnosis and, for this reason alone, instead diagnosed her with an “adjustment disorder.” As a result, she was administratively separated from the Coast Guard, which compounded the psychologist’s error by attributing the discharge to a “personality disorder”—even though no such disorder had or could have been diagnosed. The client, who did not understand what any of this meant at the time, lived with her debilitating PTSD symptoms for nearly fifteen years, before a friend witnessed one of her panic attacks in 2015 and encouraged her to apply for disability benefits through the Department of Veterans Affairs.

After consulting with the VA and multiple pro bono organizations, the client was referred to Gibson Dunn in May 2019, by which time the statute of limitations on a claim for correction of military records had already expired. Undaunted, Will immediately set to work to correct this obvious injustice, interviewing witnesses, engaging experts at the George Mason University Center for Psychological Services, and preparing an application on the client’s behalf to the Board for Correction of Military Records of the Coast Guard and to request the client’s separation from the Coast Guard be changed from a discharge to a medical retirement. That application, submitted in the fall of 2019, was opposed in substantial part by the Coast Guard, which agreed that the “personality disorder” references should be removed from the client’s record but otherwise urged the Board to deny the request for a medical retirement.

In May 2022, more than two decades after the rape and the client’s discharge from the Coast Guard, the Board granted the client’s application. Among other things, the Board waived the statute of limitations in the interest of justice, rejected the psychologist’s 2001 diagnosis, expressly held that the client did, in fact, have PTSD at the time of her discharge, and ordered the Coast Guard to submit her case for processing through the Coast Guard’s Physical Disability Evaluation System. In September 2022, based entirely on the service treatment records already submitted, the Coast Guard informed Gibson Dunn that the client would be awarded a permanent medical retirement for her PTSD, with backpay and full benefits, and that her discharge papers would be corrected to reflect the same.

Emily Sauer, Los Angeles The Firm is pleased to honor Emily Sauer, a litigation associate in the Los Angeles office, for her work on behalf of Anthony Wright, a man who was held in solitary confinement in a Phoenix jail for eight-and-a-half years while awaiting trial.  Mr. Wright brought suit in the District of Arizona against the sheriff and other officers in their personal and official capacities under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violating his Fourteenth

Amendment right not to be punished as a pretrial detainee, among other claims.  In May 2020, the district court granted the defendants summary judgment on all of Mr. Wright’s claims.  After seeing Mr. Wright’s case among a list of referrals circulated by the Ninth Circuit for potential pro bono representation, Emily sought appointment as pro bono counsel on appeal in early 2021.

The appellate briefs argued that the Ninth Circuit should reverse on Mr. Wright’s (1) substantive due-process claim for housing him in solitary confinement for eight-and-a-half years while he was a pretrial detainee, (2) procedural due-process claim for failing to provide him any meaningful review of his confinement conditions, (3) separate substantive due-process claim for subjecting him to continuous lighting for eight-and-a-half years, and (4) inadequate medical care claim.  Emily was the main point of contact for the client, devised the core arguments and strategy, drafted the brief, participated in mediation on appeal, and ultimately argued before the Ninth Circuit.  After Emily’s argument, the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s grant of summary judgment on Mr. Wright’s substantive due process and procedural due process claims (the two most important claims in the case) and remanded for trial on those claims.

Emily, who was eager to continue representing Mr. Wright in the trial court following the remand, led the briefing in the trial court to move to reopen discovery to allow Mr. Wright to appoint medical and damages experts, depose the defendants, and pursue relevant document discovery.  While that briefing was ongoing, defendants asked to mediate the case.  On October 18, 2022, defendants agreed to settle the case for $975,000—a substantial sum, especially considering the district and the defendants—all of which will go to Mr. Wright and his family. Emily again took the lead in drafting the settlement agreement, handling any outstanding negotiations with defendants, and seeing the settlement across the finish line.

Staff Award Winners

Ileana Rivera, New York In recent years, Ileana has made herself an indispensable part of the Firm’s pro bono practice.  A native Spanish speaker, Ileana provides interpretation and translation assistance on dozens of pro bono matters in New York and around the Firm.  To ensure she provides the highest quality assistance to the Firm’s pro bono clients, Ileana even became a certified translator.  As supervisor of the New York Mail Room,

she also ensures that pro bono mailings are routed to the correct pro bono teams across the Firm.

Lexine Ruffins, Houston Lexine has gone above and beyond in her support of pro bono teams.  In her role as a legal secretary, she taken it upon herself to assist attorneys in the Houston office with a large number of family law cases.  Her enthusiasm, initiative, and expertise have made it possible for the Houston office to expand its pro bono work in this area. She ensures every court filing is completed correctly, guides associates and partners

alike through the court filing process, and provides a calming presence for clients during a nerve-wracking period in their lives.

Angel Taylor, Washington, D.C. Angel, a legal secretary in Washington DC, plays a key role in helping open new pro bono matters. She fields questions from legal secretaries and attorneys alike, reviews the paperwork necessary to onboard new pro bono matters, and ensures the materials are perfect before they are submitted for approval. Her expertise in this area makes the onboarding process run smoothly and helps others in her office feel confident throughout the process.

Lauren Womack, Dallas Lauren, a paralegal in Dallas, played an important role in the Firm’s response to the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.  When the Firm first took on humanitarian parole applications on behalf of Afghans seeking to flee Taliban persecution, it was an entirely new area of practice for the Firm.  Lauren worked on several of the Firm’s first humanitarian parole applications, working closely with the attorneys on the team to ensure the

applications met all the requirements for submissions, were compiled correctly, and were filed expeditiously.  These initial applications then served as templates for the applications submitted by dozens of other teams.