Pro Bono

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• Affordable Housing

  Arnold & Porter is helping low-income residents of apartment buildings and cooperatives, both large and small, avoid the widespread displacement that is a product of the District of Columbia's rapidly gentrifying housing market. This includes providing advice and representation to low-income renters who seek to exercise their rights under DC law to purchase their buildings when landlords attempt to transfer ownership to third parties, to convert buildings to condominium regimes, to substantially rehabilitate buildings at the expense of current residents, or to demolish buildings. We advocate for our clients to ensure that their buildings comply with applicable housing codes and other legal requirements, to maintain fair rent levels, and to prevent unwarranted evictions of families from their homes. We also work with the residents of low-income cooperatives to enhance their living conditions and the values of their cooperative shares.

  This work involves attorneys from numerous practice areas—real estate, tax, litigation, bankruptcy, corporate, government contracts and environmental law—who bring their respective legal knowledge and skills to bear on the full range of legal challenges that low-income residents face in securing decent, affordable housing. Our representation often involves assisting residents to organize into tenant associations that are registered with the DC government; counseling residents as they consider and determine the types of legal and financial housing structures (e.g., rental, cooperatives, and condominiums, and 100 percent affordable or mixed income) that will achieve their goals; assisting residents in securing essential acquisition and development funding; and negotiating purchase agreements and other documents with developers, financial institutions and other third parties. And as becomes necessary from time to time, our attorneys litigate on behalf of tenants and tenant organizations, appearing in both judicial and administrative forums, and at both trial and appellate levels. During 2014 we represented residents living in a diverse range of DC neighborhoods, including Mt. Pleasant, Columbia Heights, Adams Morgan, Petworth, the U Street Corridor, NOMA, Eckington, Georgia Avenue, both Riverfront and Far Southwest, and East of the River.

• Appellate and Supreme Court

  In mid-2019, the firm, along with the American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union, secured a groundbreaking victory on behalf of immigration advocacy groups that challenged the United States government's attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. 
  
  The victory was the culmination of a journey that ended in a defeat for the federal government in the Supreme Court in June 2019, after which the administration announced it they would print the 2020 censuses without the citizenship question.

  Also in 2019, the firm secured an important and high-profile free speech and immigrant rights victory on behalf of leading immigrant rights activist Ravi Ragbir from the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

  Ragbir, who founded the New Sanctuary Coalition of New York City, has lived in the US for more than 25 years. His wife and daughter are both US citizens. For more than a decade, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) expressly allowed Ragbir to live and work in the US notwithstanding a 2006 final order of removal based on a 2001 conviction. However, that changed after Ragbir emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of the US government's immigration policies and ICE's enforcement actions.

  At a routine check-in with ICE in January 2018, Ragbir was detained, without warning, and flown to Florida in an unusual effort to deport him the next day. Ragbir's longtime immigration lawyers from the NYU Immigrant Rights Clinic secured his release from detention, but ICE ordered him to report for deportation just days later.
  
  Within a week, the Arnold & Porter team prepared a complaint and motion for preliminary injunction asserting that ICE's attempt to deport Ragbir in retaliation for his protected political speech violates the First Amendment. One day before Ragbir's scheduled deportation, the US government consented to a temporary stay pending decision on the preliminary injunction motion. In May 2018, a New York district court denied a preliminary injunction and dismissed Ragbir's First Amendment claims. It concluded that a federal statute barred jurisdiction over the case, and that the First Amendment in any event does not prohibit selective immigration enforcement of the sort alleged by Ragbir.
  
  The Arnold & Porter team appealed, and after granting a stay of removal pending resolution of the appeal, the Second Circuit ruled in Ragbir's favor, reversing the district court's decision. It held that deporting Ragbir based on his political speech would be sufficiently "outrageous" to violate the First Amendment. As for the federal statute stripping jurisdiction, the Second Circuit held that it violates the Constitution's Suspension Clause and therefore the courthouse doors must remain open to Ragbir's claim.

• Capital Murder

  We have represented a number of death row inmates in habeas corpus proceedings. Indeed, our work in this area earned us the ABA Death Penalty Representation Project Excellence in Service Award. The cases raise important constitutional and criminal procedure issues, including ineffective assistance of counsel, legality of confessions, and mental competency. We have represented several death row inmates, including Troy Anthony Davis, whose case became nationally prominent. Mr. Davis was convicted and sentenced to death in 1991 for killing a police officer in Savannah, Georgia. The conviction was based solely on eyewitness testimony, no murder weapon was ever found and no physical evidence ever directly connected Davis to the crime. Davis spent more than 20 years on death row before he was executed in 2011 despite substantial questions about his innocence. In July 2007, less than 24 hours before his scheduled execution, Arnold & Porter attorneys convinced the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to take notice of the troubling facts of the case, resulting in a last-minute stay of execution. Our attorneys secured two additional last minute stays of execution, and in 2009 successfully petitioned the Supreme Court of United States to order an evidentiary hearing to examine Mr. Davis' innocence—the first time the Supreme Court had taken such measures in nearly 50 years. Of the nine original witnesses who implicated Davis, seven had recanted their testimony, citing police coercion and simple mistake. Other witnesses and evidence came to light during the evidentiary hearing which supported Mr. Davis' innocence. This evidence led to a barrage of media coverage and an outcry of support for Mr. Davis from around the world. The federal district court in Savannah, Georgia denied Mr. Davis relief in 2010, and the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles declined to grant Mr. Davis reprieve after what was reported to be a close vote. Despite the protestations of, among many others, former President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI, several federal and state court judges, a former Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles member and Mr. Davis' former prison warden, Mr. Davis was executed in October 2011 a short distance from a massive crowd of protesters, national news media and police.

  Our firm also represents Henry Daniels, who was convicted of the first degree murder of 16-year-old Alexander Porter and sentenced to death. According to the prosecution, Daniels and an accomplice intended to hold Porter for ransom but, when the plan began to unravel, decided instead to kill him. The state presented the opinion of a medical examiner who testified, in spite of scientific evidence indicating otherwise, that the defendants had shot Porter to death. At trial, Daniels testified that they never intended to kill Porter, but that he had suffocated to death accidentally in the trunk of the car where they had confined him. Finding him dead later that day, they took his lifeless body out to the woods in the middle of the night, dumped it by the side of a road, and shot it four times. The lack of bleeding from the wounds, as well as documents from the medical examiner's file that were withheld at trial, indicated that Porter could not have been alive when shot. Witness statements corroborating Daniels' testimony were also withheld at trial. An accidental death would have foreclosed the possibility of a first degree murder conviction, making Daniels ineligible for the death penalty. While Daniels' abusive childhood and tragic teen years also would have been strong foundation for a case in mitigation against a death sentence, Daniels' counsel made merely token efforts to stave off the death penalty. The case went up for direct appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, during which Daniels' appellate counsel failed even to contact him before submitting an appellate brief on his behalf. The Court denied relief. The case went to a second layer of appeal, at which point the appeals court granted relief on three claims, including claims that the government had withheld exculpatory evidence at trial, only to be reversed on its second presentation to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and sent back down to the appeals court. At this level of appeal, Arnold & Porter took up Daniels' case, and Daniels prevailed on one claim: mitigation—relief granted in the form of a new sentencing phase to determine whether Daniels should have received the death penalty. The Commonwealth appealed and the case sits now in front of the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court, where it has been twice before, for rulings on 16 claims of relief.

  The firm also achieved a huge pro bono victory when the California Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's grant of a preliminary injunction prohibiting the state of California from executing any inmates by lethal injection until it issues regulations in compliance with the state Administrative Procedures Act. The court held that the existing regulations failed to comply with the APA in numerous respects. As a result, the state cannot execute anyone by lethal injection until new regulations are promulgated, a process that could take several years. This is a very significant result because California has more than 700 prisoners on death row, more than any other state.

• Community Economic Development/Transactions

  Community development and transactional matters continue to be an integral part of Arnold & Porter's pro bono efforts. Symbolic of this work is our representation of DC Habitat for Humanity. For years, we have represented DC Habitat in a wide variety of legal matters, including the acquisition of sites on which DC Habitat will construct affordable housing; the sale of such housing to participants of DC Habitat's program; legislative, zoning and land-use matters; the negotiation and drafting of leases for DC Habitat and others; and the negotiation and obtaining of loans and grants from a wide variety of public and private sources. We also represented DC Habitat in its efforts to develop a large tract of land for 53 affordable, owner-occupied houses.

  Other examples of our community development and transactional pro bono work include our representation of MANNA, one of the city's largest nonprofit developers of affordable housing, in the acquisition and zoning/land-use planning of various sites in the District of Columbia for the development of affordable single-family housing. We represented the Spanish Education Development Center in connection with its lease of a headquarters facility. We have represented Community Development Corporations, including the North Capitol Neighborhood Development Corporation (NCND), as part of the DC Bar Public Service Activities Corporation's Community Economic Development Pro Bono Project.

• Education

  Our firm has undertaken a variety of activities relating to the development of public charter schools in the District of Columbia, which are designed to spur innovation in public school education and to give parents a choice in the free education of their children. These activities have included assisting the DC Public Charter School Coalition in the implementation of Congressional legislation authorizing charter schools and consulting on other issues of general concern to charter schools in DC, including funding and facilities issues. We have also represented schools in the purchase, lease, and financing of school facilities. In addition, we have represented several charter schools and charter school support groups in matters regarding the operations and management of such schools. Our attorneys also participated in a task force organized by the DC Appleseed Center to evaluate and make recommendations regarding the governance structure of the District's Board of Education. We also have worked with DC Appleseed on a project analyzing whether the District should have a community college and, if so, what form it should take. We are also participating in a joint pro bono venture in which our attorneys and GE team up with the Children's Law Center to provide legal representation for parents seeking special education services for their children. The program was developed to address the enormous need for low-income families to have lawyers assist them in navigating the - 5 - special education process. Lawyers assist parents in advocating at the school level to have their children evaluated for disabilities and obtain appropriate services. Lawyers may also challenge the denial of services through a due process hearing.

• Environmental and Historic Preservation

  Arnold & Porter has represented environmental interests in a number of high profile efforts to protect the National Park System. From 2003 until the present, the firm has represented several environmental organizations in lobbying and litigation efforts intended to bring about NPS compliance with existing laws by protecting national parks against the damage caused by all-terrain vehicles and other off-road vehicles. In early 2007, the NPS proposed to permit 720 snowmobiles per winter day into Yellowstone National Park. The firm worked to oppose that proposal, which would adversely impact Yellowstone's wildlife, air quality, and natural soundscapes.

  As a result of several court victories and advocacy on behalf of the National Parks Conservation Association, there have been significant improvements to the new permanent rule, adopted in 2013. The new regulations have greatly reduced the number of permitted recreational snowmobiles in the park and in the future will allow these machines only as a controlled means of access into the Park in the winter for the purpose of enjoying its natural wonders, meeting strict standards and under the supervision of a guide.

  The firm also represented the National Parks Conservation Association in combating plans to put a museum, conference center, hotel and other developments on a privately-owned 78-acre parcel within Valley Forge National Historical Park. The parcel is where historians say George Washington's commissary was based during the Continental Army's historic 1777-1778 winter encampment. After a two-year battle, the developer, the Center for the American Revolution, announced it was abandoning the field and giving up the fight. This is a tremendous victory of national importance. Under the agreement, the 78-acre parcel will be transferred to the National Park Service and the developer will instead build a museum to the American Revolution at a site several blocks from Independence Hall in Philadelphia. The team fought against tremendous odds. The project initially had the active support of former Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell and the late US Senator Arlen Specter and was funded by a well-connected Philadelphia billionaire. The battle was waged in many venues, including in an administrative hearing, lawsuits in federal and state court, fights within the Department of the Interior, battles in the media, and political efforts at the national, state, county, and local levels.

  We also handled a similar multi-front effort, which has been extensively covered in the press, to restrict development that would harm the battle site of the Battle of the Wilderness, which was the first major battle in the 1864-65 campaign of General Ulysses S. Grant against the Army of Northern Virginia.

• Gender Discrimination

  After a three-day trial in federal court, Judge Gary Feess issued a decision in our favor in a Title IX case. The firm brought the case on behalf of members of the Wilson High School girls' gymnastics team against the Long Beach Unified School District for reducing support for the team by evicting the girls from their longtime dedicated practice facility (the only facility on campus dedicated to a girls' sport), in favor of a fitness center and expanded weight room for the boys' football team. Title IX is a federal law requiring equal accommodation and support of girls' athletics in public high schools and universities. The court found that the school failed to accommodate the team, eliminated their facility, and reduced their practice time without regard to the effect on the team—in spite of a history of demonstrated interest in girls' gymnastics. The court rejected the school's attempt to bus the girls' team to an offsite practice facility, noting that visibility and support on campus was an important part of the school's obligations, and ordered the school to return the team to its dedicated facility.

• HIV/AIDS

  Attorneys from Arnold & Porter staff the Whitman-Walker Clinic, a legal clinic for persons with HIV/AIDS, handling trusts and estates matters, assisting with medical and disability claims, and litigating matters such as employment discrimination, denial of medical treatment, and violation of civil rights. In the first case of AIDS discrimination in employment to be tried before the DC Commission on Human Rights, we obtained an award of more than $400,000 on behalf of a man terminated from his employment because he had AIDS.

• Immigration/Asylum

  Arnold & Porter has an extensive pro bono immigration practice covering a wide range of activities including conducting "know your rights" visits to immigrant detainees in jail, assisting immigrants at "credible fear" interviews, preparing asylum applications and appearing at full hearings before Immigration Judges, preparing appeals from Immigration Judge decisions to the Board of Immigration Appeals, preparing briefs and arguing appeals from BIA decisions to a federal Court of Appeals, preparing habeas corpus petitions for immigrants set for deportation who have been detained in violation of a Supreme Court ruling limiting such detention to six months, filing comments on new procedural regulations, and assisting immigrant victims of domestic violence in preparing and filing "self petitions" under the Violence Against Women Act of 1996 (VAWA) or in obtaining U or T Visas in order to allow victims of crimes or trafficking to remain legally in the United States.

  On the policy end of the spectrum, a team of more than 50 of the firm's lawyers and legal assistants devoted a total of more than 13,000 pro bono hours to researching and preparing a comprehensive 500 page report on "Reforming the Immigration System: Proposals to Promote Independence, Fairness, Efficiency, and Professionalism in the Adjudication of Removal Cases" (February 2010), at the request of the American Bar Association's Commission on Immigration. The report provides a comprehensive review of the current system for determining whether a non-citizen should be allowed to stay in the country or should be deported or removed from the United States. The study seeks to determine how well various aspects of the existing system are working and identifies reforms that could improve the system.

  In one of our direct representation cases, our attorneys handled a case on behalf of a woman from the Democratic Republic of Congo whose father was a soldier in the army. After being sent to the front lines in a war, he was killed by government representatives after someone accused him of being a traitor based upon his regional affiliation. Two of her brothers, also serving in the army, disappeared shortly thereafter. One month later, government soldiers came to her house and took her mother away, threatening to kill her mother and return to kill her and her remaining siblings. When her mother never returned, she fled to Zambia with her younger brother and sister. Eventually, she was able to flee to the United States. She was detained by the USCIS upon arrival and was referred to Arnold & Porter by the Capital Area Immigrants' Rights (CAIR) Coalition. After a four-hour merits hearing before the Immigration Court, she was found to have a credible fear of persecution and was granted withholding of removal but, based upon the immigration judge's discretion, was denied political asylum. We appealed the decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which reversed the ruling and granted political asylum for the client.

• Indigent Criminal Defense

  Continuing our commitment to indigent criminal defense that began with the firm's representation of Clarence Earl Gideon in Gideon v. Wainwright, the firm conducts an extensive annual training to prepare Arnold & Porter attorneys to accept appointments to represent indigent criminal defendants charged with misdemeanors and felonies (up to and including first degree murder) in DC Superior Court. More than 85 of our attorneys are currently certified by the Court. Our attorneys have handled more than 200 of these cases for indigent defendants starting with the arraignment or indictment and continuing through disposition, including trials, other evidentiary hearings, pleas and sentencings. The program is directed by a full-time Trial Training Counsel who leads training sessions and supports lawyers handling these matters.

• International Economic Development

  Ethiopia has been cultivating and perfecting its unique and high quality coffee for decades, with the distribution of these coffee beans attracting some of the highest distribution margins throughout the world of coffee. However, as little as 5-10% of the retail value of the coffee goes back to Ethiopia. In attempts to harness the potential of these brands and redress this injustice, attorneys at Arnold & Porter have assisted the Ethiopian Intellectual Property Office and unions of Ethiopian coffee co-operatives in developing a trademark and licensing strategy to increase payments received by Ethiopian producers for their coffee. Trademarks are being sought across the world and will then be licensed to international importers and distributors requiring the beans to be labeled with the country of origin. The co-operatives will then be in a better position to assert control over these brands to benefit local producers.

• Judicial Nominations

  Arnold & Porter works extensively with NARAL Pro Choice America (NARAL) and People for the American Way in analyzing the President's nominees to the Federal courts. We review and analyze each nominee's professional writings, past judicial opinions (for a sitting judge), and public statements on legal issues. Our research analyzes a nominee's positions in a variety of substantive areas, including First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Based on a nominee's record in these areas, we evaluate his or her likely judicial temperament and prepare material for the clients' use in communicating with their members and in various lobbying activities.

• Landlord/Tenant

  In 1998, the DC Bar's Landlord-Tenant Task Force (on which an Arnold & Porter partner served) recommended the development of a resource center through which attorneys would be present daily in the DC Landlord-Tenant Court to provide information to pro se litigants. The need for such assistance is clear; more than 99 percent of tenants, and nearly 14 percent of landlords, are not represented by counsel. For years, however, this recommendation lay dormant. In late 2003, we responded to the Bar's request for a law firm to help plan, administer, and staff, on a pilot basis, a Landlord-Tenant Resource Center to fulfill this need. Arnold & Porter attorneys participated in the planning and roll out of the Center. Planning activities included providing advice and feedback on Resource Center procedures and the development of a training program for Resource Center staff. The Resource Center began operations on a pilot basis in mid-January 2004 with Arnold & Porter attorneys and legal assistants providing the administration, staffing, and supplies. During the pilot period, the Resource Center was open for business two days per week.

  By the spring of 2004, the initial pilot phase was complete. Additional DC area law firms began joining the Resource Center rotation. By the summer, the Resource Center was open five days a week. Today, the Resource Center is an integral part of the court's daily operations. Attorneys from Arnold & Porter and several other law firms staff the Resource Center. Resource Center attorneys provide pro se landlords and tenants with information and material regarding Landlord-Tenant law and procedure, assist pro se litigants in completing court forms and pleadings, and, in appropriate cases, provide referrals to legal service organizations for possible representation.

• Legal Services to the Indigent

  Arnold & Porter attorneys handle cases in the areas of family law, public benefits, landlord-tenant law, and consumer law, referred by organizations such as the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, Legal Counsel for the Elderly, the Legal Aid Societies of the District of Columbia and New York, and Public Counsel in Los Angeles. In addition, Arnold & Porter has established a "rotation" or "loaned associate" program under which associates spend six months working full-time for the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia.

• LGBT

  Arnold & Porter represented the Human Rights Campaign, an organization that works to advance equality based on sexual orientation and gender expression and identity. In an effort to highlight the financial impact of the prohibition on same-sex marriage, attorneys completed a project called "The Cost of Being Gay," in which they compared the federal income tax treatment of same-sex couples at varying income levels to the federal income tax treatment of similarly situated married couples. Attorneys also analyzed the impact of the prohibition on same-sex marriage on families who depend on survivors' benefits under the Old Age, Survivors' and Disability Insurance provisions of the Social Security Act. Recently, attorneys have worked on a number of projects relating to the Constitutional and practical issues raised by the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment.

  We also represented the Human Rights Campaign on tax and legislative matters, drafting legislative proposals that will equalize income, estate, and gift tax provisions for same-sex couples. In addition, on behalf of a coalition including Equality Maryland, Lambda Legal, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the firm successfully defended a local Montgomery County, Maryland, ordinance that barred discrimination against transgendered individuals. The measure, passed unanimously by the County Council, was blocked when some religious and conservative groups launched a petition effort to suspend the ordinance and put it to a referendum. The petition was challenged on several procedural grounds, and Maryland's Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state, ruled in favor of plaintiffs.

  In addition, in the two most significant Supreme Court decisions in the LGBT area in recent years, the firm filed amicus briefs in support of the challengers of Proposition 8—the referendum in California that overturned a state supreme court decision authorizing same-sex marriage under the California Constitution—in Hollingsworth v. Perry (US Supreme Court) and in the successful challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act case.

• National Security

  Our firm represented Zacarias Moussaoui, who was convicted in 2005 on five conspiracy counts related to the 9/11 attacks, in his appeal from those convictions. The right to counsel has been identified with the firm as a result of its groundbreaking pro bono representation of Clarence Earl Gideon before the US Supreme Court in Gideon v. Wainwright. At the heart of the Moussaoui appeal are the restrictions placed on Moussaoui and his lawyers in the lower court and the potential for the same restrictions to be applied in the future.

  Moussaoui was not allowed to see critical evidence in the case because it was classified by the government, and he was barred from closed-door hearings in which that evidence was analyzed. As a result, Moussaoui's trial lawyers were unable to advise him in important respects, and Moussaoui was unable to assist his lawyers in investigating the facts and preparing the case. When he pled guilty, Moussaoui's lawyers had important exculpatory evidence that they could not share with him. The lawyers urged Moussaoui not to plead guilty—but, because of the court's restrictions, they could not tell him why. The main appellate brief argues that these restrictions were unconstitutional and render Moussaoui's plea invalid, and explains that they could broadly erode the right to counsel.

  In January 2009, the firm urged the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to throw out Moussaoui's guilty plea and grant a new trial. The firm argued that Moussaoui was denied counsel at his plea, that the plea violated the right to due process, and that Moussaoui was confused about the charges to which he was pleading guilty. The Court of Appeals ultimately ruled against Moussaoui.

• Nonprofit Organizations

  We represent numerous nonprofit organizations, including Children's Defense Fund, DC Public Education Fund, National Women's Law Center, Sandy Hook Promise, National Endowment for Democracy, Phillips Collection, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, Human Rights Campaign, Gifts for the Homeless, and Reading Is Fundamental, to name a few. Among other things, we prepare applications for tax-exempt status, draft articles of incorporation and bylaws, advise boards of directors, advise on lobbying and political activities, prepare grant applications, negotiate and draft contracts, and provide general legal counsel.

• Presidential Pardons

  Arnold & Porter obtained the first posthumous presidential pardon in history for Lt. Henry Ossian Flipper, the first African-American to graduate from West Point and to serve as a commissioned officer in the regular US Army. In 1881, in a sequence of events many have described as racially motivated, Lt. Flipper was convicted of conduct unbecoming to an officer and dismissed from the Army. Nevertheless, he went on to use his skills as an engineer and scholar in various government posts, where his work and integrity were widely praised. Despite his significant contributions to our nation, he was unable to clear his name during his lifetime. In 1976, the Army determined that his conviction had been unjust and issued him a posthumous honorable discharge. President Clinton granted the pardon in a nationally televised White House ceremony attended by descendants of Lt. Flipper and by high government officials, including General Colin Powell, who kept a portrait of Lt. Flipper in his office when he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

• Religious Freedom

  The firm served as lead counsel for Al Falah Center, a Muslim congregation in Bridgewater, New Jersey, in a highly-publicized lawsuit for religious discrimination and civil rights violations. When Al Falah proposed to renovate a former banquet hall into a mosque, the Township gave in to a wave of virulent anti-Muslim hysteria and quickly amended the zoning ordinance to prohibit houses of worship at that site, even though such use had been conditionally permitted at that location for more than 40 years. In July 2011, the US District Court denied the Township's motion to dismiss, finding that Al Falah raised a valid facial challenge to the new ordinance. In September 2013, the court issued a preliminary injunction requiring the Planning Board to hear Al Falah's application under the prior ordinance. We negotiated a settlement in which the Township will pay $5 million, purchase an alternate site, expedite consideration of a mosque proposal at the new site and ultimately exchange the two properties.

  In another case involving religious freedom, a team of lawyers from Arnold & Porter's Denver and San Francisco offices represented parents and interfaith leaders challenging a school voucher program enacted by the Douglas County School District, a wealthy suburb of Denver, Colorado. The firm handled the case in conjunction with the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. In 2011, after a three-day evidentiary hearing, we obtained a permanent injunction against the school voucher program that would have diverted millions of dollars in taxpayer money to pay for private, religious education. The case reached the Colorado Supreme Court in 2014, and we prepared two rounds of extensive briefs on the complex constitutional issues in the case, and argued the case in the Colorado Supreme Court. The Court will decide whether the voucher program violates the Colorado Constitution, which includes a prohibition on public funding of religious schools that is also part of the constitutions of most states. The case will have enormous implications for Colorado's public education system, and will be important nationally due to the number of states facing similar issues now or in the future.

• Reproductive Rights

  Arnold & Porter provides legal services to NARAL Pro Choice America (NARAL) and has been involved in litigation and counseling for the organization, both in the core areas of concern relating to reproductive freedom, as well as on issues such as federal and state campaign law fund-raising, judicial nominees, disclosure questions relating to NARAL's political mission, and tax issues arising from NARAL's status as a tax-exempt organization. We are also representing Planned Parenthood Federation of America in connection with providing legal advice and strategy relating to Planned Parenthood's concerns about the growing trend of mergers and consolidations in the hospital industry, which often results in religiously dictated service limitations when sectarian hospitals merge with nonsectarian hospitals.

  The firm has also represented Planned Parenthood affiliates in both Kansas and Tennessee. Planned Parenthood relies on federal Title X funds and other grants to assist low income women, men and families with family planning, including access to contraception, cancer screenings, vaccines, and testing and treatment of sexually transmitted infections. In Tennessee, we assisted the client in securing a permanent injunction, this time to prevent the Tennessee Department of Health from withdrawing federal funds committed to Planned Parenthood to conduct its highly effective syphilis and HIV education, prevention, and testing programs.

• Rotation/Loaned Associate Program

  As mentioned above, Arnold & Porter established a "rotation" or "loaned associate" program that allows associates to spend six months working full-time for a poverty law or public interest law organization. Our current program, which began in September 1998, is with the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia (LAS). LAS, founded more than 60 years ago, is one of the leading legal service providers in the city, providing representation in such areas as landlord-tenant, child custody, government benefits, and domestic violence. We have also established a similar program in our Los Angeles office that allows associates to spend six months as prosecutors in the City Attorney's office, and in our San Francisco office, where we send attorneys to the District Attorney's office for three months.

• Victims' Rights/Military Sexual Assault

  In 2014, Arnold & Porter undertook a major new initiative representing sexual assault victims in the criminal investigation and prosecution of their assaults. Sexual assault survivors are often the victims of twin assaults: one by their attackers and another by a criminal justice system that can sometimes humiliate the victim and put them on trial. Arnold & Porter has represented dozens of sexual assault survivors in military and civilian cases covering every phase of the process—investigation, pretrial proceedings, and trial. Our work includes effectuating victims' right to be heard and to receive information about the process, opposing efforts to obtain victims' private psychotherapy and medical records, and challenging efforts to elicit information about the victims prior sexual history at trial. These efforts have not only made a difference in the lives of crime victims, but are also helping to improve the way the civilian and military justice systems investigate and prosecute these heinous acts.

• Voting Rights

  In March 2012, Pennsylvania adopted a new Photo ID Law that threatened to prevent upwards of 1.3 million qualified voters from having their votes counted in the November 2012 election. These voters lacked one of a few acceptable photo IDs under the new law and could not obtain one without substantial burdens. This included 93-year old Viviette Applewhite who has voted in virtually every election since 1940 and marched with Dr. Martin Luther King. This also included Bea Bookler who is so frail that one of the only times she ever leaves her nursing home is to vote, which she views as her patriotic duty and the highlight of her year. Individual stories are just the tip of the iceberg of the voter suppression and disenfranchisement that Pennsylvania faced in November that especially impacted the elderly, disabled, and poor. A team of Arnold & Porter lawyers jumped into action to team with the ACLU, the Advancement Project and other Pennsylvania counsel. Suing in Pennsylvania state court to avoid bad Supreme Court precedent, the Arnold & Porter team faced a skeptical trial judge who denied a preliminary injunction in August, fully briefed and argued an emergency appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court three weeks later, obtained a unanimous reversal from a court split evenly between political affiliations, retried the preliminary injunction before the trial judge the next week, and finally obtained the order that prevented Pennsylvania from denying the right to vote in November. The case went to trial in the summer of 2013, and we prevailed.

  The firm brought another significant voting rights case against San Mateo County, California on behalf of minority voters in the county. Although the county's population is approximately 50% Asian and Latino, the Board of Supervisors has had virtually no minority representation in its history—only one Latino and no Asians. San Mateo was the only county in California whose Board was still elected on an at-large basis, and the county had previously rejected the recommendation of a blue ribbon commission to allow the voters to decide whether the county should change to a by-district system to increase minority representation. Arnold & Porter challenged the county's at-large system under the California Voting Rights Act, and, in August 2012, shortly before the case was to go to trial, the county agreed to put the question of at-large representation vs. districts on the ballot. The voters opted for districts. The county then made a motion to dismiss the lawsuit as moot, which we forcefully opposed, arguing that the court should be involved in supervising the county's implementation of the new by-district election system. While that motion was pending, the parties participated in a mediation of the remaining disputes. Following lengthy and contentious negotiations, Arnold & Porter succeeded in securing the county's agreement to a fair and transparent process for drawing the new district lines.