Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs

2004 Outstanding Achievement Award Recipients

Equal Employment Opportunity
Fair Housing
Public Accommodations
Disability Rights
Immigrant and Refugee Rights
Special Programs

Equal Employment Opportunity

Shearman & Sterling LLP

Shearman & Sterling provided exceptional representation to client Timothy Anderson, an African-American bank executive who hit the proverbial glass ceiling when he was discriminatorily denied a senior vice president position and then, after complaining, was subjected to a campaign of retaliatory harassment that culminated in his wrongful discharge. The strength of Mr. Anderson’s case was the result of the firm’s aggressive pursuit of discovery, which revealed much disparate treatment and evidence of retaliatory motive. After successfully defeating the defendant’s motion for summary judgment, Shearman & Sterling went on to represent Mr. Anderson in court-sponsored mediation, during which the parties reached a confidential agreement on mutually acceptable terms.

Steptoe & Johnson LLP

Steptoe & Johnson, along with the Committee, brought suit on behalf of an African-American electric lineman at a local power company, Southern Maryland Electric Company, who had been fired unjustly after 22 years of service. Extensive discovery revealed a widespread pattern and practice of discrimination against African-American employees. Steptoe attorneys then successfully negotiated a consent decree that, in addition to providing for a substantial monetary payment to our client, requires the power company to institute a program of mandatory diversity training for every employee, and adopt a streamlined program of investigating discrimination complaints by an outside discrimination compliance officer, with all such complaints being personally reviewed by the president. The injunctive relief also includes several measures aimed at increasing the numbers of African-Americans in management positions. Consistent with its decades-long history of support for the Committee, Steptoe generously donated to the Committee 100% of its share of the attorneys’ fees.

Fair Housing

Jenner & Block LLP and Tycko, Zavareei & Spiva LLP

An outstanding team of attorneys from Jenner & Block LLP and Tycko, Zavareei & Spiva LLP successfully litigated a ground-breaking fair housing lawsuit against the District of Columbia. The lawsuit challenged a housing code enforcement initiative that threatened to displace a large number of Latino immigrants living in the Columbia Heights neighborhood, an area of the city that has undergone rapid gentrification in recent years. The firms’ attorneys, as co-counsel with the Fair Housing and Immigrant and Refugee Rights Projects of the Committee, represented a group of Latino tenants who lived in buildings that the District placarded for closure or actually closed in 2000 and 2001. The case went to trial in April 2004 and resulted in a resounding victory for the plaintiffs. A twelve-member jury unanimously concluded that the District’s housing code enforcement practices had a negative disparate impact on Latinos and violated the Fair Housing Act. The jury awarded seven affected tenant households almost $200,000 in damages.

Public Accommodations

Crowell & Moring LLP
Covington & Burling
Piper Rudnick LLP
Shaw Pittman LLP
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP
Wiggins, Childs, Quinn & Pantazis, P.C.

Over the past two years, Crowell & Moring LLP; Covington & Burling; Piper Rudnick LLP; Shaw Pittman LLP; Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP; and Wiggins, Childs, Quinn & Pantazis, P.C. have served as counsel with the Committee in series of cases alleging a pattern and practice of racial discrimination in the treatment of African-American customers by Cracker Barrel Restaurants. The plaintiffs in these cases are over one hundred African-American customers and the NAACP. With the full support and cooperation of the Committee and its volunteer firms, the Department of Justice has recently entered into a far reaching consent decree with Cracker Barrel, requiring the company to adopt major changes in its policies and procedures for dealing with complaints of discrimination. These changes include the retention of an independent monitor and strong measures to investigate future allegations of discriminatory conduct. The combined efforts of the team of firms in simultaneously pursuing extremely hard-fought litigation in four states and the result obtained by way of the Justice Department decree represent one of the finest examples of civil rights advocacy in the Committee’s history.

Hogan & Hartson LLP

As part of an ongoing effort to address the issue of pervasive racial discrimination in taxi cab service in the District of Columbia, Hogan & Hartson worked with Committee staff to prepare and issue a comprehensive report—Service Denied: Taxicab Discrimination in the District of Columbia—documenting the nature of the problem and setting out an extensive set of recommendations for addressing it. The report served as a catalyst for a hearing held before the D.C. Council at which firm lawyers provided testimony. Legislation encompassing the primary reforms recommended by the report is in preparation. Concurrent with its legislative advocay, the firm has also pursued administrative complaints against several cab companies and drivers challenging discriminatory service to African-American patrons.

Disability Rights

Howrey Simon Arnold & White, LLP

This firm won a major and precedent-setting victory in an ADA trial upholding the rights of many Florida voters with disabilities to cast a secret ballot for the first time in their lives. Voting equipment that permits independent and secret voting by individuals who are blind or have manual impairments is readily available, but new equipment purchased by Duval County in Florida was inaccessible. This landmark Federal District Court decision requires that twenty percent of the County’s polling places have at least one voting machine that is accessible to people who are blind or who have manual impairments by the August 2004 primaries.

Immigrant and Refugee Rights

Holland & Knight LLP

Holland & Knight formed a unique and impressive team of attorneys specializing in both advocacy and litigation to obtain relief for a juvenile political asylum seeker from Guinea with mental retardation. Immigration authorities abandoned the client, Malik Jarno, in rural jails for nine months before allowing him to appear before an Immigration Judge to ask for asylum, and revealed confidential information about him to the Guinean authorities whom he fears. Mr. Jarno was also beaten by prison guards while held in immigration detention at a jail in Farmville, Virginia. The Holland & Knight attorneys pursued constitutional and tort claims against the immigration authorities and the Farmville jail and its officers. Despite an outstanding litigation effort, the case was unsuccessful. However, the proceedings allowed Mr. Jarno to remain in the country while additional Holland & Knight attorneys worked forcefully to seek an administrative solution. In December 2003, these efforts were successful — the Department of Homeland Security freed Mr. Jarno after almost three years of detention and reopened his asylum case.

Williams & Connolly LLP

A team of attorneys from Williams & Connolly successfully litigated innovative refugee claims in Immigration Court to obtain asylum for the members of an Egyptian family. The family feared that two of their daughters, who are United States citizens, would undergo female genital mutilation if the parents were forced to return to Egypt, taking the children with them. The mother had originally filed an extremely compelling asylum case based on the fact that she had undergone female circumcision. However, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service refused asylum and referred the case to Immigration Court because of her failure to meet the deadline for filing an asylum claim, which is one year after entry into the United States. The Williams & Connolly attorneys worked long hours gathering psychological and other evidence to show that an exception to the filing deadline was applicable and that the family merited asylum based on the mother’s experience as well as the risk that her two young daughters, born in the United States, would similarly undergo female genital mutilation if taken to Egypt.

Special Programs

Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP

Over the past four years Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr has worked with the Committee and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence on a lawsuit challenging the marketing and distribution practices of twenty-five gun manufacturers. The plaintiffs in this case are the District of Columbia and nine individuals (either victims or surviving members of their families) who were victims of gun violence in the District of Columbia. On April 29th, the firm secured a major decision from a unanimous panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals upholding the constitutionality of the District’s Strict Liability Act. This decision, which marks an important victory, paves the way for the case to move forward and will likely encourage other cities and states to enact similar legislation.