Pro Bono

Ropes & Gray lawyers have fashioned careers at the firm that have enabled them to do top-notch work while at the same time participating meaningfully in a wide array of pro bono activities. This public service tradition at Ropes & Gray is rooted in the example set by its founders nearly a century and a half ago. In 1865, John Codman Ropes and John Chipman Gray joined together to form the law practice that is today Ropes & Gray. Each brought to the newly-formed firm both legal skills of the highest order and a commitment to use his skills to address not only the needs of the firm’s clients, but also matters of public concern. The public service commitment of the firm’s founders has remained a hallmark of Ropes & Gray and its lawyers ever since. As the current pro bono matters highlighted below show, client service and public service continue to go hand-in-hand at Ropes & Gray, just as they have since 1865.

Ropes & Gray’s commitment to pro bono work is facilitated by an active Pro Bono Committee, chaired by litigation partner, Ana Francisco, which identifies and considers prospective initiatives, and by a Pro Bono Manager and her staff who administer and foster the firm’s pro bono program. In 2008 and 2009, the attorneys, summer associates, paralegals, and staff of Ropes & Gray dedicated over 150,000 hours to pro bono clients, ranging from transactional work for nonprofits to cases for individuals referred to us by nonprofit legal service providers. For questions about the pro bono program, please contact Rosalyn Garbose Nasdor, Pro Bono Manager, at .

Ropes & Gray encourages our lawyers and staff to engage in pro bono work. We do not distinguish between pro bono clients and paying clients in terms of the quality of legal services provided or for purposes of associate reviews and compensation. By giving our associates as much credit for time spent on pro bono matters as for time spent representing the firm’s paying clients, we ensure our pro bono clients receive the same high level of service that is Ropes & Gray’s hallmark.

Ropes & Gray's pro bono activities are too extensive to address comprehensively on this website. The examples below provide a flavor of the depth and breadth of the firm's pro bono program. To learn more about the firm’s pro bono work, please take a look at our most recent 2009 Pro Bono and Community Service Annual Report.

Asylum and Immigration
Ropes & Gray has long been a leading provider of pro bono representation to those fleeing repression based on political or religious beliefs, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, and safeguarding rights of immigrants. In 2009 alone, Ropes & Gray assisted over 110 asylum seekers and refugees.

Political Asylum/Immigration Representation (PAIR)
For more than 15 years, Ropes & Gray attorneys have represented indigent PAIR clients seeking political asylum in the United States. The firm and its lawyers have received several awards from PAIR in recognition of the significant contribution to its goal of providing legal representation to those fleeing persecution. Jenny Rikoski is the most recent Ropes & Gray associate to be honored with PAIR's Oustanding Service Award for her work with Iraqi asylum seekers. In 2009, PAIR honored partner Ana Francisco with their Outstanding Service Award for her continued dedication to the asylum project. In addition, a team of associates was selected for the 2008 PAIR Mentor Award for its exceptional work as mentors for the Ropes & Gray attorneys representing PAIR clients, and the firm received the 2007 PAIR Pro Bono Outstanding Service Award.

Immigration Equality
Immigration Equality is a national organization fighting for equal immigration rights for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and HIV-positive (LGBT/H) community. In 2009 alone, the firm secured asylum for 12 clients in the LGBT/H community. In recognition of our exemplary work on behalf of Immigration Equality's clients, the firm was selected to receive one of Immigration Equality's Safe Haven awards in 2010.

Human Rights First (HRF)
The firm also represents asylum-seekers referred by HRF, an international human rights organization. In 2009, we won asylum for an Iraqi journalist, who due to her association with several American publications, was the target of threats against her life and had her office bombed.

Health Care
Medical Legal Partnership | Boston
Ropes & Gray is one of the first firms to participate in the "Adopt a Health Center" program sponsored by Medical Legal Partnership | Boston (MLP). This innovative program promotes health through preventive legal services in community-based health and social services centers. The primary goal of the program is to help low-income families address non-biologic factors (e.g., food, education, housing) known to influence child health.

Ropes & Gray staffs a weekly legal clinic at "Dot House," located in the Dorchester section of Boston, and provides ongoing representation for patients referred to the legal clinic by the center's medical staff. By assisting needy families and children with housing, immigration, public benefits, education, and family law issues, we strengthen families and help level the playing field for needy children.

Maryland Women's Coalition for Health Care Reform
The Maryland Women's Coalition's mission is to ensure that all residents of Maryland haev comprehensive, affordable, accessible, high quality health care. Our attorneys advised this grassroots organization on federal and state health care proposals. With our help, the Coalition won passage of legislation to expand access to health care through increasing the Maryland Medicaid program's income eligibility standards, improving access to quality health care for sick and indigent individuals.

Housing and Homelessness
Ropes & Gray has made the preservation of housing and enforcement of basic housing standards a focus of its pro bono program. Lawyers across our offices have represented low-income tenants in eviction proceedings, and have filed suits to challenge appalling housing conditions, including lack of heat, bug and rodent infestation, mold, and other potential harmful conditions.

Among our recent clients were a mother of two with an abusive spouse facing eviction and loss of public housing benefits, a man who was being overcharged on rent for a deteriorating apartment, and a young mother forced to live in an apartment with a rodent infestation, inadequate plumbing, and severe electrical problems. Ropes & Gray attorneys assisted these clients in either staying in their homes after repairs had been made or in finding new living situations.

Small Business
Samasource
Ropes & Gray attorneys have provided general corporate representation to Samasource that has assisted it in increasing the reach and viability of its mission, bringing dignified, computer-based work to women, youth and refugees living in poverty. Samasource selects locally-owned small businesses, nonprofits, and groups of home-based workers from the poorest parts of the world to act as service partners; provides the service partners with free computer training; and connects them to paying clients through a team based in San Francisco. The result is that marginalized people, from refugees in Kenya to women in Pakistan, are able to receive life-changing work opportunities via the Internet.

Brockton Economic Justice Project
Ropes & Gray attorneys hold legal workshops and clinics for entrepreneurs in the City of Brockton, MA, through the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights' Economic Justice Project (EJP). EJP's mission is to assist small businesses and entrepreneurs in depressed and low-income communities. By providing pro bono representation to those who would not otherwise have access to counsel, we hope to contribute to the revitalization of the community. The workshops give an overview of areas of law that impact small businesses on a daily basis (e.g., contracts, leasing, bankruptcy, corporate formation). The legal clinic provides an opportunity for individual consultation. Among our current clients are an individual looking to set up a historical preservation society dedicated to the City of Brockton, and another entrepreneur with two ventures, one a for-profit business that will provide off-site secretarial/administrative services, the other a not-for-profit to teach English as a second language.

CropCircle Kitchen
Ropes & Gray attorneys helped client CropCircle Kitchen, Inc. to acquire and continue the operations of a culinary business incubator program. The program was a source of much-needed entrepreneurial assistance, providing training and advice to start-up food services companies. It faced closure when its sponsor could no longer devote the necessary resources, but CropCircle Kitchen stepped in to keep the program going. Ropes & Gray helped structure the acquisition to minimize interruption of operations and personal financial risk for CropCircle Kitchen's principals.

Jade Chocolates
We represented a single mother seeking to incorporate her business and take steps to protect its name and logo. The client established Jade Chocolates, a gourmet chocolatier which blends tea and spices from Asia and the Pacific Islands into small batch, handmade chocolates. Jade Chocolates now employs several part-time assistants, bringing jobs to the Bay Area. Ropes & Gray helped incorporate the business and provided trademark advice for the company name and the names of some of the candy bars, such as Dragon's Breath and Orient Espresso. Now that Jade Chocolates is a legal entity, it can apply for small business grants, expand its business opportunities, enter into contracts with larger customers and really grow from a small business started by one person, to an international distributor of fine chocolates.

Nonprofit Assistance
Ropes & Gray regularly represents nonprofit organizations in a variety of pro bono matters, including gaining tax-exempt status, acquiring property, defending against lawsuits, and protecting their intellectual property. The following are some highlights of what we have accomplished for these worthwhile organizations.

Carter Burden Center for the Aging
The Carter Burden Center serves senior citizens, providing a diverse set of programs including a luncheon club, exercise classes, computer training, arts classes, and cultural programs. The Carter Burden Center sought our assistance with devising a trademark strategy to protect the brands of several existing and new programs at the Center while also ensuring that the Center was not infringing any marks of other organizations. Our advice allowed the Center to expand its programs and advertise those programs with greater legal security.

Ala Costa Center
We advised Ala Costa Center, a program for the developmentally disabled, regarding revisions to its bylaws and articles of incorporation. The program operates day centers for children and adults with developmental disabilities and provides them with opportunities to develop the skills necessary for successful participation in age-appropriate community activities, promoting their independence and social integration.

LIFT
LIFT provides comprehensive services to low-income individuals, first helping them address immediate needs (such as employment, shelter, health care, basic necessities like clothing and food, or education), then providing long-term support designed to help families break the cycle of poverty. Since its inception ten years ago, LIFT has helped more than 30,000 families and individuals across the country pull away from poverty and homelessness. We assisted LIFT in adopting best practices corporate governance policies, such as a new conflict of interest policy and a code of ethics. We continue to advise the organization on general corporate matters such as personnel matters, leases and other contracts.

Nonprofit Incorporation and Tax Matters
The firm’s corporate and tax attorneys have helped many nonprofit groups form legal entities and address associated tax matters. These include:

Girls International
Working closely with its founder, a young woman from Southern Sudan who experienced first-hand the despair faced by the young girls who struggle to access even basic education, we incorporated Malek Girls International (MGI) as a nonprofit. Its mission is to improve the health, education level and well-being of girls and young women in the Sudan by building a school to provide them with life skills and a basic education. MGI intends to expand regionally to nearby villages as a way to spread girls’ literacy and build community partnership to further its mission.

Elder Health Care Disparities Coalition
The Elder Health Care Disparities Coalition educates African American elders about illnesses that may affect them, promotes general wellness in the African American community through exercise, proper nutrition and self-empowerment, and advocates for elder health care reform. Ropes & Gray attorneys are assisting the organization, which has been under the fiscal sponsorship of another nonprofit, in registering as its own tax-exempt organization.

Clinics
Massachusetts Legal Clinic for the Homeless (MLCH)
Under the auspices of the Lawyers Clearinghouse on Affordable Housing and Homelessness, a team of Ropes & Gray lawyers and paralegals conducts half-day legal clinics for the disadvantaged twice a year at area homeless shelters. At these clinics, our lawyers meet with indigent individuals to select those matters in which we can be of assistance. We have represented many homeless people on a variety of matters, including obtaining Social Security benefits, obtaining public housing assistance, appealing evictions, negotiating criminal surrenders, and settling disputes with creditors, taxing authorities, employers, and landlords.

Suffolk Probate Court — Lawyer for the Day Program
Our lawyers serve as the "Lawyer for the Day" at the Suffolk County Probate and Family Court and provide indigent individuals with legal advice concerning any matter before the court. The matters range from child custody, to paternity testing and divorce, to guardianships, probating wills, and more traditional probate matters.

Boston Housing Court — Attorney for a Day Program and the Trial Attorney Project
Attorneys serve as the "Attorney for a Day" in Boston Housing Court providing legal advice to pro se indigent parties with matters before the court. Lawyers have advised on eviction proceedings and claims for compensation for uninhabitable dwellings.

Through the Trial Attorney Project our lawyers also provide pro se parties with the benefits of having counsel inside the courtroom as well. The volunteer attorneys provide representation at jury-waived or jury summary process trials. Ropes & Gray piloted the program that has since grown to include other Boston law firms. In recognition of our work, Ropes & Gray was awarded the Dennis Maguire Pro Bono Award from the Volunteer Lawyers Project in 2008.

Guardian Scholars
With the goal of empowering recently emancipated foster youth enrolled in the Guardian Youth Scholars Program to better deal with a range of legal issues that directly impact their lives, Ropes & Gray attorneys researched and developed a tailored legal curriculum and have presented workshops on topics such as rights to foster care records, employment law and landlord/tenant law. Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and the students have requested additional presentations.

NYC Family Court Self-Represented Legal Services Project
Attorneys in the New York office participate in the NYC Family Court Self-Represented Legal Services Project. This Brooklyn, Bronx and Manhattan-based project is a first-of-its-kind pro bono project where pro bono attorneys provide advice and counsel during 30-minute one-on-one sessions with pro se litigants who come to Family Court on matters involving child support, visitation, custody, guardianship, and paternity. This project has been extremely well received by the clients who have been served. It also affords pro bono attorneys an excellent opportunity to make a big impact without a significant time commitment.

Death Penalty Cases
Ropes & Gray has two pending death penalty cases. By helping these clients utilize the various avenues of relief available to them to appeal and, if successful, undo their death sentences, Ropes & Gray joins other firms that seek to ensure that those on death row have received adequate representation.

One of our clients Christopher Lee Price was sentenced to death in Alabama state court in 1993 for a crime that he committed when he was 19 years old. Price's trial counsel failed to conduct an adequate investigation into his personal background and thus failed to learn that Price had been physically, mentally, and sexually abused by various family members from childhood though adolescence. As a result, his trial counsel presented virtually no mitigation evidence during the penalty phase of the trial. Other serious errors by the prosecution and the trial court also rendered the penalty phase fundamentally unfair. Ropes & Gray has been seeking to have Price's death sentence vacated for nearly 10 years. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in late 2009 that Price's federal petition for habeas corpus presents several constitutional claims that warrant appellate review.

The District Attorney’s Office Assistant DA Program
Ropes & Gray sends a litigation associate to Middlesex County and to Kings County every six months, for a six-month term, to work as a full-time assistant district attorney.

Walk to the Hill
The Boston Bar Association and the Massachusetts Bar Association again sponsored the "Walk to the Hill for Legal Aid." The goal of the Walk is to bring hundreds of private attorneys to Beacon Hill to talk to their legislators about the importance of increasing funding for civil legal aid programs.

A large group of Ropes & Gray attorneys, including our Managing Partner, participated in the Walk in 2010. It was critically important that the private bar make a strong showing to ask Massachusetts legislators to expand funding to better meet the critical, long documented need for civil legal services.

Honors and Awards
Each year the firm awards the Deborah Levi Award for Outstanding Pro Bono Service to one or more lawyers for their outstanding pro bono efforts on behalf of the firm. The award was named in honor of Ropes & Gray attorney Deb Levi, who lost her courageous battle with cancer in 2002. Among her many contributions to Ropes & Gray, Deb worked tirelessly and devotedly on pro bono and public service projects large and small.

In 2009 Ropes & Gray bestowed its inaugural Ropes & Gray Award for Outstanding Partner Pro Bono Service to DC-based partner Sam Buffone for his service as a mentor to associates performing pro bono work, and his 30-year commitment to helping victims of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Ropes & Gray’s dedication to pro bono work has also been recognized by our pro bono partners.

In 2009, Ropes & Gray attorneys received the following honors: ten associates were named to the Volunteer Lawyers Project Honor Roll for their civil legal assistance to low-income residents of Boston; a partner received the Boston University School of Law's inaugural Public Service Award; Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law of the Boston Bar honored an associate for his work in civil rights and housing matters; the Political Asylum/Immigration Representation Project presented a partner with their 2009 Outstanding Service Award; an associate was honored by the Massachusetts Legal Clinic for the Homeless for her work coordinating the firm's efforts on their behalf; the Legal Aid Society awarded its 2009 Pro Bono Publico Award to one of our partners for his service to the Society and its clients; the New York City Family Court Volunteer Lawyer Program recognized twenty-six associates who participated in its family court clinic; the Boston Bar Association and the Equal Justice Coalition recognized the firm and Pro Bono Assistant Kathy Falkenstrom for our efforts with the 2009 Walk to the Hill.

In the previous year, the firm received the 2008 Hope Award from RESOLVE, Inc. Also in 2008, the Ropes & Gray Housing Court team received the 2008 Dennis Maguire Pro Bono Award from the Volunteer Lawyers Project of the Boston Bar Association; four associates were honored the 2008 PAIR Pro Bono Mentor Award; New York Lawyers for the Public Interest recognized three attorneys at their Pro Bono Advocate Awards; Lawyers Clearinghouse recognized ten attorneys for their participation in the Community Legal Referral Program; inMotion named three associates as recipients of their 2008 Commitment to Justice Award for Outstanding Legal Team; and the Student Hurricane Network honored an associate with a Service Recognition Award for her involvement and commitment to Gulf Coast recovery in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.