Pro Bono
Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP

Pro Bono Experience



  • MFY Legal Services
    DiGiorgio v. 1109-1113 Manhattan Avenue Partners
    Weil and MFY Legal Services obtained a significant victory for their pro bono clients, residents of a single room occupancy hotel, who were the victims of an allege profiteering scheme. Weil and MFY initially filed a putative class action complaint in Brooklyn Supreme Court seeking declaratory and injunctive relief based on allegations that the defendant landlords were violating various laws and rules, coercing new residents into “waiving” their housing rights under rent stabilization and other laws, and compelling residents to attend outpatient treatment at one of the defendant's facilities – even if the individual did not need treatment or would have been better off seeking it elsewhere. Residents who did not comply were unlawfully threatened with loss of basic services or eviction. After initially granting a TRO, the trial court granted defendants’ motions to dismiss without addressing the merits of the claims asserted. Weil and MFY appealed to the Appellate Division, Second Department, and on January 16, 2013, the Appellate Division reversed, reinstating the residents’ class action lawsuit and remanding the matter to a different trial court judge due to “bias” against plaintiffs shown by the original judge. The Appellate Division’s ruling came just weeks before the landlord was due to seek warrants of eviction against the based on the trial court’s (now-reversed) ruling.
  • Hurricane Katrina Victims Class
    Ridgely et al v. Federal Emergency Management Agency et al.
    Since early 2007, Weil has represented victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in a class action suit against the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), securing in late 2010 final approval from the US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana for a proposed $2.65 million settlement agreement. The plaintiffs are low-income residents displaced from their homes as a direct result of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita who received financial housing assistance from FEMA pursuant to the Stafford Act. The complaint alleged that FEMA violated their constitutional rights by discontinuing that assistance without adequate notice or the opportunity for a meaningful appeal. The suit also challenged FEMA’s standards and procedures for recovering allegedly overpaid housing assistance. The court certified two classes and granted plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary injunction. After FEMA appealed the injunction, the case was remanded for further factual development. FEMA later voluntarily withdrew all of its thousands of pending repayment demands, announcing that it would review and adopt new procedures before attempting to recover allegedly overpaid assistance. Since that time, Weil had conducted extensive settlement negotiations, resulting in the class settlement.
  • C.S., et al. v. New York City Department of Education, et al.
    Weil, with the Advocates for Children of New York, brought suit on behalf of six students against the New York City Department of Education (DOE), challenging the DOE’s failure to provide free breakfast and lunch to disabled, indigent children who had to attend special education private schools because the DOE could not offer them an appropriate public school placement. In February 2009, the court denied the DOE’s motion for judgment on the pleadings, holding that the plaintiffs had stated a claim for violation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The court emphasized that “[d]isabled students should not have to choose whether to learn or to eat, and the law does not require them to choose.”
  • El Salvadorean Asylum-Seeker
    El Salvador Refugee Case
    Obtained asylum for our client, a 15-year-old refugee from El Salvador, who fled to the United States after witnessing the murder of his best friend by members of the notorious gang, Mara 18.
  • Disabled American Veterans|National Veterans Legal Services Program
    Kirkendall v. Department Of Army
    Successfully represented, as amici, the Disabled American Veterans and the National Veterans Legal Services Program on an appeal that reversed the anti-disabled veteran state of the law in two key areas.
  • New York City Bar Association's Vance Center for International Justice Initiatives
    Colombia Same-Sex Partnership Rights
    Drafted an amicus brief for submission to the Constitutional Court of Colombia, that led to a landmark decision by the Court that same-sex couples are entitled to register their domestic partnerships and receive certain economic benefits on equal terms with opposite-sex couples.
  • Non-Native English Speaking Teachers (Lowell MA)
    AALDEF/Lowell Teachers; Vandy Dutch, et al. v. City of Lowell
    Weil Gotshal won a major pro bono victory on behalf of non-native-speaking teachers from the Lowell, Massachusetts school system, fired when they failed an English fluency test. The arbitrator found the terminations were without just cause and reinstated the teachers with full back pay, all seniority rights, health care benefits, and pension benefits. The arbitrator further found that Lowell’s policy impermissibly discriminated against non-native-speaking teachers and that the teachers’ constitutional rights were violated when Lowell failed to observe the teachers and examine their past teaching history. On January 16, 2007, a single justice of the Appeals Court ruled in favor of the teachers and denied Lowell’s motion to stay. The teachers are now back at work while the appeal is pending. more
  • Ashoka Foundation
    Ashoka Foundation/Friends of Integration Association “Barrier-Free Poland” Campaign
    Assisted the Friends of Integration Association, a prominent Polish non-governmental organization that is focused on promoting the social integration of people with disabilities with drafting leaflets and a “law in practice” guide that instructs individuals on how to initiate administrative proceedings to remove obstacles that prevent disabled individuals from having access to urban infrastructure.
  • Council for Senior Centers & Services of New York City, Inc.
    Council for Senior Centers and Services assessment
    Participated in the second annual “Legal Assessment and Training Day,” coordinated by Lawyers Alliance for New York, to assist the Council for Senior Centers & Services of New York City, Inc. with a variety of legal issues affecting not-for-profit senior centers, including corporate governance, contracts, employment and real estate law.
  • Oxfam
    Hunger Banquet
    Involved in creating programs to educate the public about Oxfam, including the development of a 50-minute workplace version of the Oxfam Hunger Banquet to teach participants about global hunger.
  • Fatoumata Lamarana Diallo
    Diallo Asylum
    Obtained asylum for abused Guinean woman.
  • Center for International Human Rights
    U.S. v. Salim Ahmed Hamdan
    David Berz is working with the Center for International Human Rights at the Northwestern School of Law, to prepare an amicus curiae brief in this matter. The defendant was charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes. He is being tried for his crimes by a Military Commission. The Center for Human Rights states that the hearings violate international due process requirements and standards set forth in the Geneva Conventions.
  • Chilean Nationalist
    Pro Bono victory for family under Hague Convention on International Child Abduction
    Tried and won a case under The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction in Alabama federal court.
  • Elizabeth Davis Frizell
    Dallas City Council v. Judge Frizell
    Represented City of Dallas Municipal Court Judge, Elizabeth Davis Frizell in a case where the Dallas City Council attempted to remove Judge Frizell from her position as a Municipal Judge because she is running for a state judicial position.
  • Cameroonian Asylee
    Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs/ Cameroonian Asylee
    Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP secured asylum on behalf of a Cameroonian widow who was abused and persecuted by her late husband's politically powerful tribal family. more
  • Guantanamo Bay Detainees
    Abdulla Thani Faris Al-Anazi, et al. v. George W. Bush, et al.
    Filed habeas petitions on behalf of five Saudi Arabian citizens held by the US at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
  • Tenafly Eruv Association Inc.
    Tenafly Eruv Association, Inc. v. The Borough of Tenafly
    In a major First Amendment case of first impression that went to the United States Supreme Court, Weil Gotshal successfully obtained a preliminary injunction barring a New Jersey town from removing plastic strips that a group of Orthodox Jews had affixed to telephone poles in order to create an "eruv." The eruv is a ritual boundary within which Orthodox Jews may conduct certain activities on the Sabbath that would otherwise be confined to the home. more
  • ACORN, et al. v. Bysiewicz
    ACORN, et al. v. Bysiewicz
    Represented plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging as unconstitutional Connecticut’s 14-day voter registration deadline, which imposes different rules for access to the franchise. more
  • Make-A-Wish Foundation of America
    Make-A-Wish Foundation of America
    Filed a complaint and motion for a temporary restraining order seeking to stop US Office of Personnel Management OPM from publishing a listing of CFC-eligible charities that did not include Make-A-Wish. more
  • Sergio Suarez Martinez
    Crawford v. Suarez Martinez
    WGM filed an amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of a number of major refugee resettlement and advocacy organizations, including the International Rescue Committee and Immigrant and Refugee Services of America in the case, Crawford v. Suarez Martinez (No. 03-878). The case examines the statutory and constitutional limits on the federal government’s ability to detain aliens (that is, non-US citizens) who have not been admitted as permanent residents and who are subject to an order of removal under the immigration laws requiring them to leave the country. The amicus brief argued that indefinite detention was inconsistent with various international treaties governing treatment of refugees, as well as principles of customary international law, and that the applicable US statute should be interpreted consistently with these international law doctrines.
  • Empire State Development Corporation
    Empire State Development Corporation
    Defended the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), the parent entity of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC), in an Article 78 proceeding before the New York Supreme Court. New York City television station NY1 News sought under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIL) access to videotaped discussions between New York Governor George Pataki, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and the LMDC World Trade Center Memorial Jury, the entity charged with picking the World Trade Center Memorial. The Judge's ruling is the first opinion that has ever extended FOIL protection to private citizens that were not compensated for the services that they rendered on behalf of a public agency.
  • European Roma Rights Centre
    In re School segregation case in Alsózsolca
    Prepare a submission to the Equal Treatment Authority (ETA) requesting it to declare that the segregation of schools and kindergartens is a violation of equal treatment rights.
  • Arlene Burger
    Burger v. Singh
    In conjunction with South Brooklyn Legal Services ("SBLS"), Weil Gotshal obtained justice for Arlene Burger, a 60 year-old disabled woman whose house, where she had lived most of her life, was stolen by a ring of house thieves operating in Brooklyn and Queens. The decision returned title and possession to Ms. Burger. more
  • Prairie View Chapter of the NAACP
    Prairie View Chapter of the NAACP, et al. v. Oliver S. Kitzman
    Represented the NAACP’s Prairie View, Texas chapter in lawsuits addressing election-time violations by District Attorney Oliver S. Kitzman and the Commissioners’ Court of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Voting Rights Act. more
  • The "Tulia Litigations"
    The "Tulia Litigations"
    In this Pro Bono matter, working with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and alongside a number of other law firms, lawyers from Dallas and Houston handled two of the notorious "Tulia" cases, which involved the improper convictions of approximately 10% of the African American population in the small town of Tulia, Texas, on bogus drug charges, all based on the uncorroborated testimony of a rogue undercover agent. The convictions were ultimately overturned after it was determined by the Court that the undercover agent was not credible and that the prosecution had failed to disclose impeachment evidence concerning the agent. The prosecution ultimately acknowledged the errors as well. more
  • Hoots
    Hoots v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
    Pro Bono success where, working alongside the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law, Weil Gotshal lawyers from NY and DC obtained an order requiring the State of Pennsylvania and the Woodland Hills School District to equalize education oppportunities for minority students in their district. The Court's historic order recognized that school districts must continue to enforce court-ordered remedies designed to provide equal educational opportunities for all students in their district until the completion of the desegregation process. more
  • Ever Cabrera
    Ever Cabrera v. Dan Butler
    Represented Ever Cabrera, a victim of police brutailty, in a civil rights action filed in the Eastern District of Virginia. The federal case settled favorably in the middle of discovery.
  • AALDEF
    Voting Rights Lawsuit Against the New York City Board of Elections
    Representing several individual and organizational plaintiffs in a lawsuit alleging violations of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) by the New York City Board of Elections.
  • Adoption Project
    Pro Bono Adoption Project
    Represented prospective adoptive parents seeking to adopt children in foster care, and assisted other adoptive parents in connection with post-adoption legal hurdles involving government subsidies and custody disputes. more
  • Arturo Otero
    Voting Rights Suit - Arthur Otero
    WGM represented Arturo Otero, a Hispanic citizen of Puerto Rican heritage and candidate who seeks to intervene in a voting rights suit against Osceola County, Florida. The US Department of Justice alleges that the at large system currently in place for electing the members of Osceola County’s Board of Commissioners violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Mr. Otero disagrees with that contention and sees the lawsuit and its objectives as greater hindrances to the exercise of political power by Hispanics. A separate suit challenges Kissimmee’s similar at-large system for electing its city commissioners.
  • Clarence Elkins
    Innocence Project - Clarence Elkins
    Weil Gotshal joined the case to draft an amicus brief on behalf of NIN to appeal the denial of Mr. Elkins’s request for a new trial, but our role quickly expanded as more new evidence was discovered and the need for additional litigation strategies and resources became apparent. The case, which garnered national attention, arose from the wrongful conviction of Mr. Elkins for the 1998 rape and murder of his mother-in-law and the rape and attempted murder of his then six-year-old niece. In 2004, Mr. Elkins’s attorneys used a new “Y-STR” type of DNA testing on critical evidence to demonstrate that Mr. Elkins was excluded as the perpetrator of these heinous crimes. Evidence collected from the crime scene was matched to a convicted child rapist and the prosecutor finally agreed to Mr. Elkins’s release. more
  • Countries Seeking Trade Liberalization
    Trade Liberalization of countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific
    Prepared a memo addressing how the degree and pace of trade liberalization in Africa, the Caribbean, and Pacific countries would affect the countries’ ability to meet minimum requirements of trade agreements with the European Union. more
  • Disabled American Veterans
    Department of Veterans Administration
    Assisted Disabled American Veterans who were challenging the Department of Veterans Administration current regulation. The group is petitioning the US Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari to review a ruling of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that upheld the challenged regulation.
  • Disabled New Yorker
    New York Lawyers for the Public Interest/Medical Equipment for Disabled
    Assisted an elderly and disabled Harlem resident to obtain necessary durable medical equipment.
  • Elmaghraby and Iqbal
    Urban Justice Center/Detainees; Elmaghraby and Iqbal v. Ashcroft, et. al.
    Weil Gotshal joined the Urban Justice Center and Koob & Magoolaghan to represent detainees held by the US Government in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks. Claims on behalf of plaintiff Ehab Elmaghraby were settled in February 2006, in the amount of $300,000, the first reported settlement between the U.S. Government and any persons detained in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks. The case continues on behalf of plaintiff Javaid Iqbal. On June 14, 2007, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the vast majority of a district court ruling, holding that the exigencies of 9/11 did not entitle high-level officials to qualified immunity for claims related to religious and racial discrimination and the abuse plaintiffs suffered while detained in solitary confinement.
  • Habitat for Humanity
    Governance and Infrastructure Matters
    Representing the Budapest chapter of Habitat for Humanity, a not-for-profit that operates worldwide raising funds and resources to build homes for the poor and those who have lost their homes due to natural disasters, in connection with a public prosecutor’s action against it regarding the legal operation of two entities in Hungary.
  • Human Rights Watch
    Human Rights Watch - Amicus Brief
    Weil represented Human Rights Watch (HRW), a leading international human rights organization, as an amicus curiae before the Special Court for Sierra Leone. We argued that the activities of human rights workers are so vital to the ravaged communities that they serve and the public interest generally that their relationships with their informants must be subject to an absolute privilege as long as the worker is not testifying to the guilt or innocence of the particular defendant. more
  • InfoDev
    E-Government for Developing Countries
    Involved in a pioneering e-government pro bono project for InfoDev, a group of non-governmental organizations led by Internews and the Center for Democracy and Technology.
  • Innocence Project
    Parole Application
    Working with the Innocence Project representing a client in his application for parole stemming from a rape conviction in 1985.
  • Jeffrey E.
    New York Lawyers for the Public Interest/Jeffrey E.
    Represented a 10-year-old diagnosed with cerebral palsy, a seizure disorder and hyperactivity in connection with a suit against Medicaid.
  • Legal Aid Immigrant Disability Benefit Project
    Legal Aid Immigrant Disability Benefit Project
    Represented an elderly, blind and disabled immigrants lawfully residing in New York, being wrongfully denied necessary public assistance by New York State. more
  • Legal Aid Shelter Allowance Litigation
    Legal Aid Shelter Allowance Litigation
    WGM in conjunction with The Legal Aid Society worked to obtain a preliminary injunction preventing the evictions of families who are unable to afford their rent due to the inadequacy of the current shelter allowances under New York State’s Safety Net Assistance (SNA) program. Plaintiffs argued that New York Social Services Law Section 350, which the New York Court of Appeals held to require the State to provide adequate shelter allowances for families with children under the state’s FA program, extends to families with minor children receiving allowances under the state’s SNA program. Justice Moskowitz concluded that Section 350 was enacted so that all families with minor children, whether on FA or SNA, receive adequate allowance.
  • Legal Aid Society
    Defending Prisoners' Rights
    Weil Gotshal obtained a complete plaintiff’s verdict on behalf of a client who was physically assaulted by five corrections officers while incarcerated at Fishkill Correctional Facility in upstate New York. The beating, which lasted almost three minutes and took place while our client was still handcuffed, resulted in at least 12 documented injuries to his face, jaw, abdomen, and back. The jury awarded $200,000 in compensatory damages and $550,000 in punitive damages, for a total damages award of $750,000. After New York State agreed to indemnify the defendants, the case settled for $200.000” more
  • Mediation Advisory Services
    Restructuring of Mediation Advisory Services
    Advised Mediation Advisory Services on a number of insolvency, property, corporate and employment issues that were crucial to its immediate survival and, subsequently, to its orderly restructuring.
  • Megan Z.
    New York Lawyers for the Public Interest/Megan Z.
    Represented a 15-year- old who suffers from spastic quadriplegia and cerebral palsy, in connection with her Medicaid request for a motorized wheelchair.
  • National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
    Mexican Parental Abduction
    Represented a Mexican citizen and resident whose six-year-old daughter and four-year-old son were abducted by their mother and brought to the US.
  • National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children
    Asylum for El Salvadorian Refugees
    Secured asylum for two young girls from El Salvador who were the victims of gang violence in El Salvador.
  • National Wildlife Federation and the Wyoming Wildlife Federation
    National Wildlife Federation Ranch Dispute
    Represented, as amici curiae, the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), a private not-for-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of natural resources, and the Wyoming Wildlife Federation (WWF), which works to protect and enhance wildlife habitat, to protect citizens’ rights to use public lands and waters and to promote ethical hunting and fishing.
  • Oxfam
    Post-Katrina Gulf Recovery
    Assisted Oxfam with research, advice and drafting assistance to Oxfam in its efforts to ensure that low- and moderate-income households, renters and minorities were not excluded disproportionately from the federal Katrina Recovery Homeowner Grant Program and that the State of Mississippi’s action plan fulfilled the basic tenets of the Fair Housing Act.
  • Oxfam
    Law Firm Consortium
    Helping Oxfam coordinate a Law Firm Consortium to develop and implement innovative strategies for Oxfam.
  • The Center for Reproductive Rights
    Analysis of UN’s Monitor of Women’s Reproductive Rights
    Assisting the Center for Reproductive Rights, a nonprofit legal advocacy organization dedicated to promoting and defending women’s reproductive rights worldwide, in updating Bringing Rights to Bear: An Analysis of the Work of UN Treaty Monitoring Bodies on Reproductive and Sexual Rights. more
  • The Legal Aid Society
    Guide to Small Businesses
    Assisted The Legal Aid Society in preparing a presentation to train pro bono attorneys from New York City’s major law firms who provide legal assistance to the Legal Aid’s small business clients.
  • Tibetan Buddist
    Asylum Case
    WGM represented Sangay, a Tibetan Buddhist persecuted and imprisoned by the Chinese authorities for his religious and political beliefs, in obtaining political asylum in August of 2002. Post-9/11 immigration policies and the endless bureaucracy of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) quashed our efforts to reunite Sangay with his family. We are happy to report that Sangay's wife and three children were granted permanent visas and arrived in New York last week, more than five years since their separation. The client is obviously overwhelmingly happy and very grateful for the endless efforts of Weil Gotshal and others on his behalf.
  • Undisclosed
    Death Penalty Appeal
    Working with General Electric’s general counsel, Weil Gotshal is pursuing habeas corpus relief from the death penalty sentence of our client who was convicted of capital murder and two additional counts of murder in 1995 in DeSoto County, Mississippi.
  • Western Shoshone Defense Project
    Legal Protections for Cultural Resources
    Prepared analysis of legal protections available for cultural resources for Oxfam partner the Western Shoshone Defense Project. more
Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP

This website is maintained by Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP in New York, NY.
Copyright © 2013 Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, All Rights Reserved. The contents of this website may contain
attorney advertising under the laws of various states. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.