| "Social Justice" is our own construct. While this work could be listed with a number of our other projects, we consider this to be our "cutting edge" work. It can involve appellate or trial-level work. Examples of this work would be the amicus briefs we filed in the U.S. Supreme Court in the so-called Guantanamo Bay cases. It involved our representation of a Burmese political refugee. We placed our Washington, D.C. partner, Richard Ben-Veniste's membership on the 9/11 Commission in this category also.
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 | Mayer Brown Lawyers Win Social Security Disability Appeal
In a case assigned by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Rick McCombs and Therese King won an appeal on behalf of an indigent, disabled woman seeking Social Security disability benefits. The woman, a life-long resident of Chicago, sustained severe back and knee injuries in a car accident while driving a van for her employer. Until the accident, the woman had worked steadily at physically-taxing jobs, such as mail delivery services, and had led an active life. After the accident, despite months of physical therapy, she was largely home-bound, unable to drive, stand or walk for prolonged periods of time. With no means of financial support, she relied largely on her family's kindness to survive. Read >>
| | | NLADA Honors Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw For Guantanamo Work
20 June 2007 - Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw is a co-recipient of the National Legal Aid & Defender Association's 2007 Beacon of Justice Award. The award honors the firm's work on behalf of Guantanamo detainees. Read >>
| | | Victory in "Enemy Combatant" Case
13 June 2007 - The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered the release from military custody of a civilian who has been held "without criminal charge or process" since 2003. Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw attorneys James Schroeder, Gary Isaac and Heather Lewis filed an amicus brief in the case, al-Marri v. Wright, on behalf of eight former senior Justice Department officials, including former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno and our own Philip Lacovara, advocating against the government's indefinite detention as a putative "enemy combatant" of a legal alien arrested and held in the United States. Read >>
| |  | Fellowships
Spring 2007 - Developing Future Leaders through Fellowships Read >>
| | | Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw files amicus brief in al-Marri v. Wright on behalf of former senior Justice Department officials, including former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno
15 December 2006 - Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw LLP attorneys James Schroeder, Gary Isaac, and Heather Lewis filed an amicus brief in the Fourth Circuit in Al-Marri v. Wright on behalf of eight former Justice Department officials, including former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno and Mayer, Brown senior counsel and former U.S. Deputy Solicitor General Philip Lacovara, advocating against the government's indefinite detention of terrorism suspects arrested and held in the United States. Read >>
| | | Insurance Company Agrees to Cover High Dose Chemotherapy after Judge Issues Temporary Restraining Order
Spring 2006 - Gerald Dolezal was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a potentially fatal blood cancer, in April 2005. His doctors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago initially treated him with oral chemotherapy to slow progression of the cancer and then prescribed that he undergo high-dose chemotherapy with autologous stem cell transplantation. "The doctors said this was the best shot at a better quality of life as well as extending my life expectancy," said Mr. Dolezal. Read >>
| | | Center for Constitutional Rights Honors Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw
19 May 2006, Chicago - Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw LLP, and counsel Gary Isaac, were honored by the Center for Constitutional Rights ("CCR") at its 2006 President's Reception for the firm's work on the Guantánamo detainee litigation. Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw was presented with the 2006 Law Firm Award for Pro Bono Service, while Gary Isaac was honored with the 2006 President's Award. Read >>
| | | "No More Than Spectators at a Funeral"
Summer, 2005 - Marc Krickbaum is a law student at Harvard University, who worked as a summer associate with our Chicago office in 2004. In addition to his other work, he worked on certain pro bono projects, including a capital case and a research project investigating possible wrongful executions in the United States. Marc sought to pursue his interest in international human rights law by applying to work in one of three possible venues: The Hague International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the Special Court of Sierra Leone, or the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Along with the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, each court is experimenting with a version of "restorative justice," which seeks to establish humane resolution of past injustices in post-conflict states. Marc Kadish wrote letters of recommendation and Rich Williamson phoned valuable contacts in support of his cause. Marc Krickbaum eventually signed on with the Rwanda project, taking temporary leave from law school. He recently sent us this report of his experiences there. Read >>
| | | Romani Refugee Discrimination
Summer, 2005 - The London office acted on a pro bono basis for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (the international refugee agency set up by the General Assembly in 1950), who was intervening in a case ultimately decided by the highest court in England and Wales, the House of Lords. The governments of Britain and the Czech Republic had entered into an agreement in 2001 whereby British immigration officers were stationed at Prague airport and gave or refused leave for passengers to enter the United Kingdom before they boarded aircraft in Prague. This was challenged by the European Roma Rights Centre and six individual appellants who had been refused leave to enter, along with UNHCR acting as intervener. Read >>
| | | Nobel Peace Laureate Wins Relief from U.S. Embargo
Summer, 2005 - The U.S. Treasury Department recently revised regulations that required government licenses for the publication of books and other materials by citizens of embargoed nations. As argued in court papers filed by Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw LLP, such a law had the effect of exerting an unconstitutional prior restraint on the publishing activities of Mayer Brown's client, the celebrated human rights activist Shirin Ebadi, 2003 Nobel Peace laureate and an Iranian national. Ms Ebadi and her literary agency, The Strothman Agency LLC of Boston, also represented by Mayer Brown and, separately, PEN American Center and Arcade Publishing, filed lawsuits that successfully pressured the government to change its regulations. Read >>
| | | Beyond Reckoning
Summer, 2005 - In what he described as "the most rewarding experience I have had in my practice of law," New York partner Joe De Simone led a team of Mayer Brown lawyers in the high-profile and emotionally wrenching hearings of 20 families of Cantor Fitzgerald survivors before the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund Special Master, Kenneth R. Feinberg. As many know, the investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald suffered the single-most losses of personnel in the World Trade Center Attacks on September 11, 2001 - 658 of the office's 1,000 employees perished. Following the establishment of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund to provide economic and non-economic help to victims' families, Cantor Fitzgerald asked us to handle the applications and hearings for 20 families of Cantor employees who perished on 9/11. Read >>
| | | An International Case of Discrimination
Summer, 2005 - A tangled disciplinary case within the Carabineros de Chile (Chilean National Police Force), involving domestic violence, institutional machismo, and human rights violations, has become an international cause célèbre and a pro bono case for our Houston office. Marcela Valdés Diaz, an officer in the Carabineros, was discharged from the force in January 2000 for the apparently minor infraction of going outside the chain of command in an attempt to accelerate a ruling on her appeal disputing a Carabineros disciplinary measure arising from a spousal abuse claim she had initiated. Read >>
| | | Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw Recovers $65.5 Million for the Families of Deceased Victims of the September 11th Terrorist Attacks
30 December 2004 - In July 2002, the General Counsel of Cantor Fitzgerald telephoned New York associate Joseph De Simone with an intriguing proposition: would Mayer Brown agree to represent 20 families of Cantor Fitzgerald employees who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 in their claims before the newly created Victim Compensation Fund. Congress established the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund to compensate the families of 9/11 victims for their economic and non-economic loss relating to the tragedy. Read >>
| | | Second Circuit Affirms Rare Grant of Habeas Corpus Petition and the Government Subsequently Offers a Favorable Plea in Lieu of a State Court Retrial
23 September 2004 - In an action involving our pro bono client, Donald Benjamin, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently affirmed the district court's Opinion granting Benjamin's petition for habeas corpus and overturning his state court conviction. Benjamin v. Fischer, 2004 WL 206215 (2d Cir. Feb. 2, 2004). New York associate Joseph De Simone argued before the Second Circuit behalf of Benjamin. Read >>
| | | C.J. Summers Wins Seventh Circuit Reversal
7 July 2004 - The Seventh Circuit issued its opinion in McCormick v. Waukegan School District #60, No. 02-1538, reversing the district court's dismissal of Eron McCormick's claims for damages. Eron has a rare form of muscular dystrophy that makes even mild physical exertion dangerous. Read >>
| | | Supreme Court Rules Detainees Have Access to U.S. Courts
28 June 2004, Washington, D.C. - The Supreme Court ruled today that people being held by the United States as enemy combatants can challenge their detention in American courts. Read >>
| | | Win in War Powers Battle
Summer, 2004 - In two parallel and politically celebrated cases challenging the Bush Administration's treatment of "enemy combatants" post-9/11, Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw filed pro bono amicus briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the government's treatment violates the Geneva Convention and thereby jeopardizes our own troops' welfare as POWs in future wars. On 28 June, the Court issued an opinion agreeing with the positions taken by our briefs. Read >>
| | | Hard-Earned Idealism
Summer, 2004 - Mirna E. Adjami, our current Equal Justice Works Fellow who worked on the Guantanamo brief, brings a remarkably broad perspective to her work for the Midwest Immigrant and Human Rights Center (MIHRC). Mirna was born in Jakarta, Indonesia, to a Syrian Catholic father and a Swiss mother. At the age of 30, she can claim some hard-earned idealism. Read >>
| | | Belize Pro Bono Project
Summer, 2004 - In October 2003, Sara Ellis Owen, an employment solicitor in Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw's London office, travelled to Belize to begin a three-month placement arranged by Challenges Worldwide, a Scottish charity that specializes in sending professionals on overseas projects. Sara's placement was with an NGO in Belize City called the National Committee for Families and Children, and her task was to review the laws of Belize to determine their compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Read >>
| | | National Voices - Work on the 9/11 Commission
Summer, 2004 - Our D.C. partner, Richard Ben-Veniste, is serving on the 9/11 Commission. Richard spoke at last year's Pro Bono luncheon and focused his remarks on the Commission's work. The Commission's report was released on July 22, so we thought that now would be a good time to follow up with Richard for an early look back on the experience. Read >>
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