Our success is driven by our clients’ courage and their personal commitment to equal justice for all.
Client Testimonials
Sonya Zollicoffer shares her experience working for the Prince George’s County Police Department (PGPD). Sonya was one of 10 officers of color that sued the Department after enduring a work environment rife with race discrimination and retaliation.
Maurice Alexander’s housing application was wrongly rejected due to a 7-year-old, non-violent, non-drug related misdemeanor. He shares his story about why he wants to make sure others will not suffer the same injustice.
For years, Domingo Zamora and his fellow workers were underpaid for long, hard hours of work. He shared the devastating impact of wage theft on himself and his family. In the end, his courage helped secure over $645,000 for 25 plaintiffs.
Our client Louis Sawyer recently talked about the parole process and returning citizens. The Committee’s DC Prisoners’ Project trains pro bono representatives to assist prisoners with their parole grant hearings, and advocates for the rights of returning citizens.
Jackie Cote shares her story of fighting for health insurance for her wife, Dee, and the rights of LGBTQ workers. Her class action lawsuit charged Walmart with discriminating against employees who were married to same-sex spouses by denying their spouses health insurance benefits. In May 2017, a federal judge approved a $7.5 million class settlement.
In the early 1990s, the Washington Lawyers’ Committee exposed rampant discrimination against African American patrons at Denny’s restaurants. Black patrons were denied seating, required to pay first, or made to sit in the back of the restaurant.
The largest bar exam preparation company in the nation, BarBri, Inc., failed to provide equal access to key parts of its bar preparation courses to blind students.
Columbia Heights is one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the District. It is also one of the most rapidly changing. An African American neighborhood for most of the last half of the last century that welcomed Latinx immigrants escaping the Wars in Central American in the 1980’s and 1990’s, has rapidly gentrified.
In a recent landmark decision, the Fourth Circuit held that the failure to provide a videophone to a prisoner who is deaf so that he can communicate with people outside of prison may violate his First Amendment rights.
In the early 1990s, the Washington Lawyers’ Committee exposed rampant discrimination against African American patrons at Denny’s restaurants. Black patrons were denied seating, required to pay first, or made to sit in the back of the restaurant.
The Administrative Maximum (ADX) Facility in Florence, Colorado is the highest security prison in the federal prison system. This supermax prison engages in extreme forms of isolation.
With the help of Washington Lawyers’ Committee, a group of African American applicants and employees received a groundbreaking $6.5 million settlement from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) — and a chance to work.
Domingo Zamora and his fellow construction workers were working shifts as long as 48 hours straight, moving from one project to another — and never receiving overtime. We sued and secured substantial back pay.
In April 2017, with representation from the Washington Lawyers’ Committee and WilmerHale, the Equal Rights Center (ERC) sued The Lenkin Company Management/Residential, Inc., for refusing to rent to recipients of Housing Choice Vouchers—and won.
The DC Department of Human Services (DHS) repeatedly failed to provide language access services to DC residents, violating the civil rights of individual residents and harming the overall health of the community.