Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs

2005 Outstanding Achievement Award Recipients

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

Equal Employment Opportunity

Shearman & Sterling LLP

In a precedential case raising multiple issues of first impression, Shearman & Sterling represented Mary Linklater, the former music director of a local church who had been victimized — through sexual harassment, retaliatory harassment, wrongful termination and other tortious activity – by the church and its pastor. The case raised important issues of first impression under Title VII, the First Amendment and Maryland law regarding whether religious institutions are immune from liability for discriminatory and tortious acts committed against their employees. In this rapidly evolving area of civil rights law, Shearman & Sterling achieved a precedent-shattering result: following a 2½ week trial in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, Ms. Linklater was awarded damages totaling $1,350,000 for intentional infliction of emotional distress, including $1,000,000 in punitive damages against the church’s pastor.

Fair Housing

Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll, P.L.L.C.

A team of attorneys from Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll represented the Equal Rights Center and several other national disability organizations in a ground-breaking disability rights case against Archstone Smith Trust, the 7th largest developer of apartment complexes in the country. The case, filed last December in federal district court in Maryland, was resolved by a consent decree approved by the Court on June 8, 2005. The consent decree requires Archstone-Smith to retrofit as many as 12,000 inaccessible apartments at an estimated cost of over $20 million dollars and to pay an additional $1.2 million dollars in damages and fees. The required alterations include removal of steps at entrances, widening interior doors, expansion of floor space in kitchens and bathrooms, and relocation of switches, controls and electric outlets to accessible locations.

Hogan & Hartson L.L.P.

A team of attorneys from Hogan & Hartson successfully litigated a ground-breaking fair housing lawsuit alleging discrimination against Section 8 voucher holders by a D.C. apartment management company. The lawsuit challenged Barac Co. Inc.’s practice of denying housing to persons who intended to use a Housing Choice Voucher, a federal rent subsidy, to pay for part of their rent. There are over 40,000 people on the waiting list for vouchers in D.C. The firm’s attorneys, as co-counsel with the Fair Housing Project of the Committee, represented the Equal Rights Center and a woman who, after many years on the waiting list, finally obtained a voucher only to find she could not use it at any Barac property. The complaint, filed in D.C. Superior Court, alleged discrimination on the basis of source of income in violation of the D.C. Human Rights Act. The case was resolved by a consent decree, approved by the court on December 23, 2004, in which the defendant agreed to change its policy, accept vouchers without discrimination, and pay $35,000 in damages, costs and fees. The case is believed to be the first in D.C. Superior Court challenging a management company’s practice of refusing to accept vouchers.

Public Accommodations

Kirkland & Ellis LLP
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
Reed Smith LLP
Ross Dixon & Bell, LLP

Patton Boggs LLP

The firm of Patton Boggs represented the NAACP and 13 individual plaintiffs in a highly successful lawsuit challenging the discriminatory policies applied to African-American guests by a leading hotel in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, during Black Bike Week. The terms of the settlement of the case included broad-reaching injunctive relief and the creation of a special fund to compensate victims. More than 400 individuals will participate in this fund.

Disability Rights

Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton LLP

Since 2001, the firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton has worked with the Disability Project on a major access case against the May Company, parent to the Hecht’s and Lord & Taylor department store chains. In January, due to the significant efforts of the firm, an important settlement agreement was announced, ensuring wheelchair navigable aisles to most merchandise at fifteen Hecht’s and Lord & Taylor stores in the D.C. metropolitan area. Periodic audits will be performed to ensure that such access is maintained. The Agreement also provides for removal of architectural and other barriers in fitting rooms and restrooms, and installation of accessible merchandise checkout facilities, as well as bridal and baby registry computers. This significant agreement has already made it noticeably easier for customers with mobility impairments to shop in all area outlets of both of these major local retailers.

Goodwin Procter LLP

Goodwin Procter won a precedent-setting settlement in a challenging case on behalf of a deaf man who was incarcerated wrongly, for well over a year, at the D.C. Jail. The case resulted in a record-setting monetary payment of $1.1 million to the plaintiff.

Hunton & Williams

Last year, the barriers faced by shoppers using wheelchairs at National Wholesale Liquidators stores were twofold. Many of the stores had entrances that were completely inaccessible due to cart corrals with locked swing gates. In addition, cluttered aisles and poorly placed displays impeded access to merchandise in the stores. A dedicated team from Hunton & Williams worked tirelessly to assist the Committee’s Disability Rights Project in negotiating nationwide relief from this growing discount retail chain, including: staff training, an accessibility survey of all its stores; readily achievable barrier removal; removal of cart corrals; and an assurance of accessible pathways throughout all stores.

Morrison & Foerster LLP

Effective communication for deaf patients at area hospitals has been a major focus of the Disability Rights Project’s work in the past year. This award to Morrison & Foerster recognizes the firm’s work on this critical issue. In a difficult case against a suburban hospital, the firm achieved an important settlement that will ensure that deaf patients at the hospital will receive sign language interpreter services.

Immigrant and Refugee Rights

King & Spalding LLP

Since the beginning of 2004, attorneys from King and Spalding have contributed over 700 pro bono hours to provide representation for asylum seekers from Angola, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sierra Leone. They have won political asylum for seven individuals. In the past year alone, attorneys successfully litigated two challenging cases in Immigration Court. One case involved a young man from Guatemala who fled to the United States after he was abused and almost killed by his stepfather, a member of a well-known gang. The other case involved a young woman who had fled Guinea when her family had tried to force her to undergo female genital mutilation as a prelude to a polygamous marriage. In that case, the attorneys also had to establish exceptional circumstances for the juvenile’s failure to file her asylum application within one year after she arrived in the United States. Attorneys also succeeded in a case before the Arlington Asylum Office involving a minister from Sierra Leone who had been severely traumatized as a result of his detention with rebel soldiers during his country’s violent civil war.

Crowell & Moring LLP

Attorneys from Crowell and Moring have gained asylum over the past few years for seven individuals from Burma, Cameroon, Colombia and Russia, and are currently representing a man from Cameroon. One of the cases granted asylum by the Arlington Asylum Office involved a Christian Burmese man targeted by the government because of his ethnicity and his religion. In addition to providing proof of his client’s persecution by the Burmese government, the attorney made an extraordinary effort to gather evidence that established the date of his client’s unofficial arrival in the United States; this evidence enabled the client to show that he had filed a timely asylum application, and was therefore eligible for relief. Also through the efforts of attorneys from Crowell and Moring, a woman from Colombia who had long been targeted by right-wing paramilitary groups won her affirmative asylum case.

Latham & Watkins LLP

Latham & Watkins has been working with the Committee for several years on the matter of Malik Jarno, an orphaned juvenile asylum seeker from Guinea with mental retardation. The attorneys from Latham & Watkins provided legal representation in the political asylum case, which is currently on appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals, after having been denied twice by the Immigration Judge. Latham & Watkins is currently involved with efforts to gain legal status for the asylum-seeker through a private bill that was recently introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman Van Hollen. A team of attorneys from Latham also gained political asylum recently for an economist from Cameroon.

Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP

Weil, Gotshal & Manges contributed to the Committee’s successful attempts under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain documents that were improperly withheld from the attorneys representing Malik Jarno in his asylum case. As a result of litigation in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, the Project obtained an award of attorney fees from the Department of Homeland Security. Over the past few years, a team of attorneys from the firm has been representing a juvenile from El Salvador who had fled his country because of threats from gang members. The case is currently on appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals.

Special Programs

Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP

In April of this year, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr secured a landmark en banc decision from the District of Columbia Court of Appeals upholding the constitutionality of the District of Columbia’s Assault Weapons Manufacturing Strict Liability Act. The decision was issued in a case brought in June of 2000 on behalf of nine individuals who were victims or surviving family members of gun violence in the District of Columbia. Wilmer Cutler’s excellent work in this case is part of the firm’s longstanding committment to legal advocacy opposing gun violence.

Public Education

Sidley Austin Brown & Wood LLP

A team of lawyers from Sidley Austin Brown & Wood worked with the Committee staff and a panel of civic leaders to prepare a comprehensive report assessing the quality of public education in Washington 50 years after desegregation. The report, “Separate and Unequal: The State of the District of Columbia Public Schools Fifty Years After Brown and Bolling”, documented a myriad of problems in the schools, many of which relate to chronic underfunding and inadequate community support. The study received substantial media attention and has stimulated a public campaign to build a civic consensus for school reform and needed funding.

Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P.

Working with a team of law students and faculty at American University, lawyers at Fulbright & Jaworski undertook a major research project examining state constitutional provisions governing standards for public education guaranteed to their citizens. The results of their research, which were noted in a report issued by Parents United in March, established that the constitutions of virtually every state in the country mandate a minimum standard of public education. In many instances, state courts have issued decisions requiring adequate funding and specific levels of instructional support.