Equal Justice Works Fellowships
Each year, McDermott Will & Emery’s Charitable Foundation sponsors Equal Justice Works Fellows, young lawyers who work for two years on law reform projects with public interest agencies. To augment and further develop McDermott’s Kids First Initiative, each of its fellows has focused on the needs of disadvantaged children. To date, McDermott has sponsored seven fellows and will be sponsoring our eighth Equal Justice Works Fellow beginning in the fall of 2011.
Juvenile Life Without Parole
The Children's Law Center of Massachusetts (CLCM) is a nonprofit legal advocacy center providing direct representation to low-income children in Eastern Massachusetts. McDermott and CLCM's pro bono collaboration began in 2003 with McDermott handling special education and school discipline matters. In 2007, McDermott strengthened this partnership by sponsoring an Equal Justice Works Fellow at CLCM. Rather than simply funding the fellowship, which examines the mandatory life without parole sentence applied to crimes committed by juveniles, McDermott committed its resources to the project's mission.
Since 2007, McDermott lawyers, paralegals, summer associates and staff from four Firm offices devoted more than 2,300 hours to the project, including interviewing more than 30 prisoners serving a mandatory life without parole sentence in Massachusetts for crimes committed when they were between the ages of 14 and 17. McDermott lawyers also conducted extensive legal research, surveyed juvenile life without parole (JLWOP) reform efforts in other states, reviewed voluminous records for individuals serving JLWOP sentences, and designed and evaluated litigation and legislative strategies. In addition, its law librarians tracked down adolescent neuroscience research, and its IT programmers designed a custom database for the quantitative data about JLWOP prisoners.
In 2009, McDermott and CLCM published an in-depth study—entitled "Until They Die A Natural Death: Youth Sentenced to Life Without Parole in Massachusetts"— which focuses on the impact of Massachusetts's practice of trying youth charged with first degree murder in adult court and, if convicted, imposing on them mandatory life sentences without the possibility for parole.
In recognition of its extraordinary pro bono support in the completion of the study, the Massachusetts Bar Assocation honored McDermott with its Access to Justice Award, which is given annually in recognition of exemplary efforts in providing pro bono services to the public. The Citizens for Juvenile Justice also honored McDermott with its 2008 Leadership Award for McDermott's collaboration with The Children's Law Center on this project.
To read the full report, click here.
To view additional details about McDermott’s EJW Fellows, click here.