pro bono success stories
Grameen Foundation and Microfinance
Inspired by the work of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and its founder, Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Foundation was created to accelerate the impact of microfinance on the world’s poorest people. With tiny loans, financial services, and information and communications technology, Grameen Foundation empowers people, mostly women, to start self-sustaining businesses to pull themselves out of poverty. Based in Washington, D.C., the Foundation’s global network of programs has impacted an estimated 16 million lives in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the Middle East. We recently represented the Foundation with its two unsecured financings to microfinance institutions in China, the largest potential microfinance market in the world. We analyzed the Chinese legal system with regard to foreign loans, particularly those to charitable “social entities” in China. We also structured several practical alternatives that may facilitate this complex transaction while still complying with Chinese regulations.
Merger Transaction for Tenderloin AIDS Resource Center
The Tenderloin AIDS Resource Center is a San Francisco-based nonprofit agency that provides a range of essential services to poor people living with or at high risk of contracting HIV and AIDS. The agency, which helps more than 13,000 people annually, was looking to expand and merge with another neighborhood agency. For 10 months, we represented TARC on the transaction, which closed in 2006. The deal created a new agency called “Tenderloin Health” with a budget of more than US$7.5 million and a staff of more than 70.
Hurricane Katrina Victims
Immediately following the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina, we began to assist evacuees through the Hurricane Katrina Relief Project, an emergency legal aid clinic that served disaster victims who were evacuated to Southern California. We helped evacuees assess their eligibility for various relief and benefit programs. For example, when an instructor at a New Orleans middle school lost his apartment, most of his personal belongings, and his car during Hurricane Katrina, he relocated to Los Angeles to start a new life. We assisted him, and many others, in finding housing and obtaining reimbursement for his property loss. As part of our disaster-relief initiative, we continue to provide assistance to the Mississippi Center for Justice and its many clients. We conduct research and write legal memoranda for the Center relating to various legal issues arising after Katrina, including notice requirements for mobile home evictions, structuring rent escrow accounts for needed repairs, automobile salvage title disclosure requirements, and matters concerning child custody. Additionally, we represent more than 50 families who, in the aftermath of the hurricane, fell victim to unscrupulous and fraudulent contractors.
The Brennan Center for Justice, the National Council of La Raza, and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund
We are counseling these civil rights organizations regarding certain aspects of immigration reform legislation under consideration by the US Congress. Our lawyers analyzed the legislative history of the provisions that seek to establish English as the national language and evaluated their potential impact on federal funding for programs that assist individuals with limited English proficiency. We will continue to provide strategic counseling support to these organizations as the proposed laws make their way through the legislative process.
Harassment of Low-Income Tenants
When a landlord unleashed a campaign of harassment and intimidation against low-income tenants living in a dilapidated apartment building in Los Angeles, O’Melveny came to their aid. The landlord demanded rent that exceeded legal maximums under applicable rent control laws and, when the tenants refused to pay the illegal additional amounts, he tried to evict them. We served as co-counsel in a suit brought by four tenants who alleged malicious prosecution and abuse of process, among other causes of action. Our legal team, working in conjunction with the pro bono legal services organization Bet Tzedek, prevailed in a three-day bench trial that yielded compensatory damages of US$94,000. We also proved that the landlord acted with "malice, oppression, or fraud," entitling our clients to an additional US$100,000 in punitive damages.
Voting Rights - Indiana State Democratic Party v. Rokita
O’Melveny authored amicus briefs to the US Supreme Court in the closely-watched case Indiana State Democratic Party v. Rokita on behalf of the Democratic Party. The matter involved a challenge to the voter identification requirement imposed by the state. We argued that there was no social science to support the need for such a requirement, explaining the difficulties that poor and historically disenfranchised communities would have in seeking to vote in the face of such requirements. From a civil rights perspective, these requirements fostered historical efforts to disenfranchise Latino and other minority voting groups.
Bet Tzedek Holocaust Survivors Justice Network
O'Melveny has joined other law firms helping to expand the Bet Tzedek Holocaust Survivors Justice Network of free legal clinics beyond its Los Angeles home base. The project began in November 2007 with Bet Tzedek and its law firm partners, including O'Melveny, creating the network as a series of clinics in Los Angeles to help Holocaust survivors apply for reparations. Beginning in June 2008 with O'Melveny's help, Bet Tzedek successfully launched clinics in cities outside Los Angeles. O’Melveny assumed the role of lead coordinating firm in the New York City area, setting-up weekly clinics, serving hundreds of survivors, throughout the City and beyond. The clinics, staffed by pro bono lawyers, are now operating in 29 cities in the United States and in Toronto.