Pro Bono Week in DC
Saturday marks the end of 2015's DC Pro Bono Week. In a week chock-full of events, part of the agenda was getting the next generation of lawyers excited. Steptoe hosted an event sponsored by Catholic, Georgetown Law, AU, GW, and Howard where DC law students listened to pro bono pros discuss using law to advance social justice when it comes to homelessness and veterans rights issues, immigrant rights, race discrimination, voting rights, and wrongful incarceration. GW Assistant Dean for Pro Bono & Advocacy David Johnson kicked off the event.
We snapped AU Washington College of Law Immigrant Justice Clinic's Jayesh Rathod, Homeless Persons Representation Project's Antonia Fasanelli, Arnold & Porter's Doug Quzack, the Advancement Project's Jasmyn Richardson, and the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project's Eily Raman. Jayesh says that DC is emerging as a "gateway city" for foreign-born persons, meaning that there's a lot of immigration law work, and immigration law is increasingly an intersectional practice. There are four main focuses: removal defense (a "massive practice area"), civil rights, workers' rights (eg, a woman fired for having an accent and guest workers who've been taken advantage of), and gender and LGBT issues.
