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Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
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Civil Rights
Experience
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Innocence Project
Parole Application
Working with the Innocence Project representing a client in his application for parole stemming from a rape conviction in 1985.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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