Individual Pro Bono Initiatives

Appleseed/Teacher Housing Project

Associates work on an exciting initiative in collaboration with Appleseed, a non-profit network of public interest justice centers in the U.S. and Mexico, to provide affordable housing for New York City teachers.  Appleseed uncovers and corrects injustices and barriers to opportunity through legal, legislative and market-based structural reform.  This project is based on the premise that New York City has difficulty recruiting and retaining teachers and education administrators because of the lack of affordable housing.

Art/Artists Groups

• Lawyers in S&C’s Washington, D.C. and New York offices represent The Battery Conservancy, a not-for-profit educational organization with the mission of rebuilding and revitalizing the Battery and Castle Clinton National Monument in lower Manhattan.  Current matters handled on behalf of the Conservancy include representing the organization in its interactions with artists and currently defending the organization on a pro bono publico basis against a suit filed against it in the Southern District of New York.
• The Firm also handles a wide variety of pro bono matters for Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts (“VLA”), an organization that serves low income and indigent artists and nonprofit arts and cultural organizations in every imaginable discipline.  S&C’s work for VLA has included:
  • Representing composers, singers, songwriters, dancers and authors on matters ranging from copyright disputes to publishing contracts;
  • Assisting a hip-hop artist in negotiating a contract with his prospective manager;
  • Advising an author in her breach of contract dispute with a co-collaborator;
  • Representing a composer in a copyright dispute involving an independent musical; and
  • Advising a successful record producer on publishing contracts for his memoirs.

Bridges Community Ventures, London

Internationally, S&C is representing Bridges Community Ventures (“BCV”) with their private equity investments.  BCV describes itself as the UK’s first community development venture capital company, established to invest in ambitious businesses in the most under-invested parts of England.

Capital Defense and Habeas Cases

The Firm represents pro bono clients around the country in various habeas corpus matters, including the ongoing representation of an incarcerated client since 1998.  After the client’s first trial resulted in a mistrial, the court denied the defense’s request to admit the testimony from the first trial of its most credible exculpatory witness, whom the defense was unable to locate during the second trial.  At the conclusion of the second trial, the client was convicted and sentenced to a seven-year prison term.  In 2005, S&C argued the appeal and successfully persuaded the Second Circuit to reverse and remand the District Court’s decision denying the client’s habeas petition.  The Second Circuit held that the state court’s decision to exclude the former testimony from the second trial violated the client’s constitutional right to present a defense. 

Criminal Defense

In May 2006, S&C lawyers concluded an 11-year representation, obtaining acquittal for pro bono client Bruce Sons who was previously convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole for the 1994 shooting death of a California highway patrolman. A California jury instead convicted Sons of voluntary manslaughter. Because he had already served more than the maximum sentence for manslaughter, Sons was released immediately following the verdict.

The Firm also represented death row inmates seeking post-conviction relief and assists indigent criminal defendants in federal narcotics prosecutions. In addition, the Firm assists the Legal Aid Society in providing legal representation to inmates who are serving sentences of an indeterminate term under the notoriously harsh Rockefeller drug laws and who now, under recent amendments to those laws, have the opportunity to apply for re-sentencing. S&C associates also serve as Special Assistant District Attorneys in the Kings County District Attorney’s Office Appeals Bureau. Working under the supervision of a full-time Assistant District Attorney in the Appeals Bureau, the associates who serve as Special Assistant District Attorneys represent the Office in criminal appeals filed in the New York State Supreme Court, Second Appellate Division. 

Criminal Justice Act Panel

Sullivan & Cromwell lawyers are selected to serve pro bono on the Criminal Justice Act Panels in the U.S. District Courts in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York. As such, they represent indigent defendants in federal criminal cases pre-trial, at trial, and on appeal.  As members of this panel, the lawyers regularly handle matters involving alleged narcotics trafficking, violent crimes, immigration offenses, and fraud. Their successes have included the awarding of a downward departure for a defendant who was subsequently set to be released from prison, as he had already served the amount of his new sentence.

Family Issues

S&C lawyers represent and counsel battered women in conjunction with organizations such as inMotion, Inc., Sanctuary for Families and Refugee Assistance Center to assist battered immigrant women and children gain legal residency under the federal Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and provide representation in Family Court and contested and uncontested divorce proceedings. Ongoing matters include, among many others, representing a woman from Latvia in seeking to reopen deportation proceedings by filing a VAWA petition, representing a client in seeking the continuation of a protective order and sole custody of her son, and representing a victim of domestic violence in seeking an uncontested divorce.

Freedom of Speech

In May 2008, S&C lawyers joined with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to protect a student’s freedom of speech in support of equal rights. Following a two-day trial, Judge Richard Smoak of the U.S. District Court, Northern District of Florida, Panama City Division, issued an order ruling that a student’s right to wear clothing or items demonstrating support of equal rights for gay and lesbian people is protected by the First Amendment. The student sought help from counsel after she was forbidden from wearing certain clothing and symbols by school officials who claimed the items were disruptive to the academic environment. The judge stated that the school officials’ actions violated the student’s rights protected under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, and permanently enjoined school officials from "restraining, prohibiting, or suppressing" students from expressing their support for the respect and equal treatment of gay and lesbian people. The judge also ordered the school district to inform in writing the student body and school officials throughout the county that students are permitted to express support for the "respect, equal treatment and fair acceptance of" gay and lesbian persons.

Housing Conservation Coordinators, New York

S&C lawyers frequently represent indigent individuals in eviction and other housing-related proceedings.  Recently, S&C prevented the eviction of an elderly indigent woman in a matter referred by Housing Conservation Coordinators.  An S&C associate and former pro bono fellow briefed and argued an appeal to a five-judge panel of New York’s Appellate Division and obtained a highly favorable decision reversing the lower court’s ruling to evict the woman from her rent-stabilized home of more than 30 years.

Innocence Project and the Greater D.C. Cares Social Circle, Washington, D.C.

The Firm has advised the Innocence Project and the Greater D.C. Cares Social Circle on organizational and operational issues.

International Impact

• S&C lawyers are assisting the Public International Law & Policy Group’s Constitutional Committee in Baghdad on the drafting of a new constitution for Iraq.
• The Firm handled the initial incorporation and organization of Rwanda Gift for Life, a not-for-profit organization that supports women in Rwanda who were raped during the genocide and are now living with AIDS.
• S&C is assisting FINCA International in developing a strategy and approach for transforming local financial institutions into deposit-taking banks in a number of countries.

The Legal Aid Society, New York

As co-counsel with The Legal Aid Society, S&C attorneys achieved in 2006 the successful settlement of a prisoners’ rights class action, leading to reform of use of force policies and practices in New York City jails.  The Court noted that “in the best pro bono publico tradition of the New York City law firms, Sullivan & Cromwell . . . provided extraordinary lawyering and support.”

The Partnership for the Homeless, New York

The Firm is handling a corporate governance review for The Partnership for the Homeless, Inc., a not-for-profit organization that provides services to homeless persons in New York City and advocates for policies to help eliminate the root causes of homelessness.  The corporate governance review is intended to help enhance the organization’s overall efficiency with regard to board oversight and management policies and procedure.

Prisoners’ Rights

• S&C lawyers obtained a significant settlement for a prisoner in a disability-rights suit after prevailing on a cutting-edge sovereign immunity issue.  S&C’s pro bono client, an HIV-positive, wheelchair-bound former New York State inmate, soudght damages under the Americans with Disabilities Act arising out of the prison’s refusal to allow him to participate in certain programs that would have potentially qualified him for early release from prison on the basis that the former inmate was disabled.  S&C lawyers successfully defended against the defendants’ motion for summary judgment and motion for reconsideration, and settled the case just before the appeal briefs were due in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
• S&C lawyers recently achieved a favorable decision for a group of pro bono clients who are Shiite Muslim inmates in New York State’s prisons who for a decade have been seeking prayer services separate from those provided to Sunni Muslim inmates. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently ruled in their favor, vacating the district court’s grant of summary judgment against them and remanding for further proceedings.

Refugees

In conjunction with organizations including Human Rights First, Sanctuary for Families, and Refugee Assistance Center, S&C lawyers have successfully assisted numerous refugees from around the world in their efforts to obtain asylum from political, religious and gender-based persecution.  Recent achievements in this area include:

• Obtaining asylum for a young Malian woman who was subject to domestic abuse and gender persecution.
• Obtaining asylum for three Togolese immigrants, two on the basis of political persecution and the other on the basis of gender persecution.
• Successfully advising an Uzbek teenager in obtaining a grant of asylum from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, on the grounds that he would have faced persecution, torture and imprisonment for his political activities if forced to return to Uzbekistan.
• Successfully assisting a Chadian client in obtaining asylum before an Asylum Officer of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services after eight months of interviewing and preparing the client, collecting corroborating evidence from Chadian and U.S. sources and obtaining multiple medical export reports.

School on Wheels, California

Lawyers in S&C’s Los Angeles office are advising School on Wheels in connection with the provision of social welfare benefits to its clients.  School on Wheels is a non-profit organization whose sole focus is educational assistance to homeless children.

SDNY Mediation Program

Sullivan & Cromwell lawyers volunteer their time to be a part of the Employment Discrimination Pro Bono Mediation Panel for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.  Under this program, S&C lawyers represent plaintiffs in employment discrimination cases pending in that court solely for purposes of a mutually agreed-upon mediation.  The lawyers offer their indispensable assistance and skills to those less fortunate, with the purpose of helping each litigant obtain equal justice that might not have otherwise been available to them.

Sexual Orientation Discrimination

• The ACLU has referred a number of sexual orientation discrimination matters to S&C.  Recent matters include:
  • S&C lawyers have entered into co-counsel arrangements with the ACLU LGBT Project on two sexual orientation discrimination issues.  The first relates to benefits at the NYPD, which does not offer the same benefits to officers’ same-sex domestic partners as it does to married officers’ spouses.  The second relates to litigation alleging discrimination of students on the basis of sexual orientation.
  • S&C lawyers prepared an amicus brief for several child welfare organizations supporting a challenge by the ACLU to a Florida law that bars gay men and lesbians from adopting children.
• The Firm also represented the Council of the City of New York in an action to compel the Mayor to enforce the Equal Benefits Law, which prohibits contractors from discriminating against domestic partners in providing benefits to married employees.
• In another matter, S&C lawyers prepared an amicus brief for the National Association of Social Workers in support of an action challenging the constitutionality of New York’s exclusion of gay men and lesbians from civil marriage.