McDermott Honored in Connection with the Holocaust Survivors Justice Network Receiving the 2009 ABA Pro Bono Publico Award
CHICAGO (July 6, 2009) — McDermott Will & Emery LLP will be honored as a coordinating and participating member of the Holocaust Survivors Justice Network (HSJN), which will be receiving the 2009 ABA Pro Bono Publico Award, the profession's highest recognition for pro bono legal work. The Pro Bono Publico Award will be presented on August 3, 2009 at the American Bar Association's annual meeting in Chicago.
Organized by Los Angeles-based nonprofit law firm Bet Tzedek Legal Services and Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP, the HSJN is an international initiative established to assist Holocaust survivors in obtaining reparation payments under the Ghetto Work Payment Program (GWPP) established by the German government in October 2007. The GWPP offers a one-time payment of €2,000 (approximately U.S. $2,800) to Holocaust survivors who performed "voluntary" labor in German-controlled ghettos during World War II.
McDermott, along with DLA Piper and Winston & Strawn, coordinated the development of a Holocaust Reparations Clinic in Chicago, and McDermott lawyers and staff participated in a series of clinics in Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Orange County, Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C. To date, more than 80 McDermott lawyers have devoted over 1,000 hours to assisting Holocaust survivors, nearly all in their 80s and 90s, in completing Germany's complex GWPP application.
Latonia Haney Keith, McDermott's Pro Bono and Community Service Counsel, coordinated the program Firm-wide and was instrumental in launching the Chicago clinic. Under the leadership of partner Jacqueline G. Hodes, McDermott's Miami office sponsored several day-long clinics, assisting more than 100 survivors, and continues to coordinate home visits for survivors that were unable to attend the clinics in person. As a result of its efforts in South Florida, McDermott was recognized in April by the Put Something Back Pro Bono Project, a joint project of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit and the Dade County Bar Association.
"McDermott is honored to have been a part of this project, which represents an important historic achievement for survivors," said Keith. "We are truly humbled by our clients' courage to recount their deeply moving stories of survival, and hope to continue to preserve and honor those stories through our partnership with the Justice Network."
Since its creation eighteen months ago, the HSJN has developed Holocaust Reparations Clinics in 31 major cities in the United States and Canada and two cities in Australia. It has successfully enlisted volunteers from more than 100 law firms and corporate legal departments as well as more than 30 social service agencies.
To date, HSJN volunteers have met with and interviewed about 5,000 survivors, filing an estimated 3,000 claims, worth approximately $8 million in potential reparation payments, according to Mitchell A. Kamin, Bet Tzedek's president and chief executive officer. Though Germany has yet to complete processing the majority of these claims, 99 percent of the applications submitted from Southern California have been approved, resulting in more than $1,250,000 in payments to low-income survivors. This groundbreaking project is the first-ever nationally coordinated reparations endeavor on behalf of survivors, and the largest pro bono initiative of its kind in U.S. history, according to Bet Tzedek.
"There is no greater testament to the tireless dedication of our volunteer partners or to the courage of these survivors than for the Justice Network to receive a Pro Bono Publico Award," said Kamin. "This honor belongs entirely to them and, on behalf of Bet Tzedek, we are grateful to everyone involved in the Network and deeply humbled by the recognition bestowed by the American Bar Association."
McDermott Will & Emery is a premier international law firm with a diversified business practice. Numbering more than 1,100 lawyers, we have offices in Boston, Brussels, Chicago, Dusseldorf, Houston, London, Los Angeles, Miami, Milan, Munich, New York, Orange County, Rome, San Diego, Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C. Extending our reach to Asia, we have a strategic alliance with MWE China Law Offices in Shanghai.
