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| Prisoners' Rights | Article - Pro Bono, Worldwide
| Summer, 2004
When Marc Kadish joined the firm as Director of Pro Bono, he brought with him a raft of criminal cases he had undertaken while still a clinical professor of law at Chicago Kent Law School. The cases served as a training program to refocus the pro bono program. Although Marc and a number of partners, associates, and summer associates from the Chicago office tried or pled 18 criminal cases, including nine murder cases, in five years, he decided to limit the Chicago office's work in criminal cases.
Gradually, a decision was made to seek prisoners' civil rights cases in federal courts. Initially, it occurred quite by accident when Marc ran into a federal judge who asked if we could handle a case that was set for trial six months later. Although we lost the jury trial, it was an excellent learning experience for the associate, who tried the case while Marc supervised. Approximately two years ago, we accepted an appointment in downstate Illinois in another case that had to be prepared on short notice. Marc again supervised while an associate did the entire trial. This time the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff prisoner.
Jury Win
Based on these two cases, Marc urged the other offices to look for prisoners' rights cases as a means of gaining trial experience for associates and doing meaningful pro bono work for a population that is often ignored by society. Last summer, New York associate Matt Ingber, supervised by partner and pro bono committee member Andrew Schapiro, successfully completed a jury trial in a case forwarded to the firm by the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest involving an inmate in Sing-Sing suing a prison guard for assault by deliberately and maliciously throwing cleaning fluid in the inmate's eyes following a dispute. We convinced the judge to reopen discovery and, over two months, we conducted several fact and expert depositions, drafted extensive motions in limine, prepared for trial and ultimately won a favorable verdict.
Casting the Net
By last year, the Chicago office settled nine other court-appointed prisoners' cases. The trials and settlements led us to try to build something through which we could share our knowledge within and outside the firm.
In spring 2003, Marc met Mark O'Brien from Pro Bono.Net at the Solicitors Pro Bono Conference in London. O'Brien's organization specializes in using technology to support pro bono and public interest lawyers. A major portion of its resources are spent building substantive area-specific sites, called "practice areas" to assist lawyers working on pro bono cases and full time poverty lawyers. These practice areas become part of the larger national probono.net network (www.probono.net), which supports advocates across the country. Probono.net captures the work product of lawyers already working in the field for use by other volunteer and public interest lawyers. Using the tools on the site, lawyers with expertise can support each other, publicize important cases and developments, and share information in order to develop consistent precedent.
Each practice area is hosted by one or more public interest legal organizations and is matched with one or more law firms. Together, they take responsibility for creating, organizing and maintaining the library, news and calendar pages. For the initial meeting to discuss a Prisoners' Rights practice area, Mark O'Brien brought probono.net staff lawyer Laren Spirer and also invited John Boston and Betsy Ginsberg of the Prisoners' Rights Project of the Legal Aid Society; Tom Terrizzi from Prisoners' Legal Services of New York; Carrie Flintoft, an associate at New York's Sullivan and Cromwell currently holding a fellowship focusing on prisoners' rights cases; Ron Tabak, the pro bono partner at Skadden Arps (who envisioned a similar project early on); and Kevin Curnin, pro bono counsel at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP, both firms that handle prisoners' rights cases on a pro bono basis.
Marc Kadish attended the initial and subsequent meetings. He also brought in Jim Chapman, a long-time Chicago prisoners' rights lawyer. Marc and Jim are developing a Chicago site with the help of the Illinois Technology Center from Chicago Kent Law School. The Technology Center and probono.net have agreed to share resources and publish simultaneously on the ITC site and on the Pro Bono.Net Prisoners' Rights site.
Content Providers
Jim Chapman is head of the Illinois Institute for Community Law and serves as a consultant to the federal courts in prisoners' rights cases. Since most of these cases are assigned to inexperienced volunteer lawyers, the courts have Jim under contract to train and consult with them. He also advises the supervising lawyer of the program in assigning cases. Jim is a 25-year veteran of prisoners' rights law and has amassed both practical and technical experience to be shared. Much of the material he uses in his classes will be posted on-line as training material for interested lawyers unable to attend classes. He also plans to post FAQs on the subject, forms, legal materials, other relevant legal sources, research sites and interactive sites, as well as e-mail. New York-based content has been provided largely by John Boston, Betsy Ginsberg and Kevin Curnin. Carrie Flintoft worked on developing the overall structure of the probono.net practice area library and Aisha Greene, a law student from Columbia Law School, spent a portion of her spring semester posting resources.
Eye-Opening
Prisoners' rights work can be especially enlightening to those habituated to corporate law: "The work gives you a kind of privileged view of this strange prison culture," according to Jim Chapman. "It humanizes these people." Jim believes prisoners' rights are an inspiring field for a young lawyer. "I won't deny that many young lawyers approach this kind of law with distaste and even fear. The prison culture is not for the squeamish. But it's also exciting - maybe even addictive." A number of Jim's early converts to the practice have stayed with it for years.
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