Pro Bono

Cohen Milstein is deeply committed to providing pro bono representation to those who otherwise could not obtain legal counsel. Since the firm's tremendous achievements in the Holocaust case ($1.25 billion settlement) and Slave Labor cases ($5 billion settlement) a few years ago, Cohen Milstein has remained committed to doing important public interest and human rights litigation on a pro bono basis. Each year, Cohen Milstein attorneys and staff devote thousands of hours to pro bono legal services. Cohen Milstein is a signatory to the Law Firm Pro Bono Challenge^SM, pledging each year to dedicate at least three percent of its total billable hours to pro bono work.

Cohen Milstein has been repeatedly recognized for its dedication to pro bono causes. Most recently, we received a 2007 Beacon of Justice Award from the National Legal Aid & Defender Association, the 2007 Frederick Douglass award from the Southern Center for Human Rights, a 2006 Fierce Sister Award from the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, and a 2005 Outstanding Achievement Award from the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. We were also recognized in 2005 for our successful participation in Human Rights First’s Asylum Representation Program.

Recently, there were unclaimed funds that remained from the landmark settlement achieved in Diamond Chemical Company, Inc v Akzo Nobel Chemicals BV et al. Cohen Milstein persuaded a federal judge in July 2007 to make a cy pres award of $5.1 million to The George Washington University Law School to endow a Center for Competition Law. This is a novel resolution by which ill-gotten cartel profits will be used to study and recommend improvements to global private anti-cartel enforcement.

In recent years, Cohen Milstein has represented, on a pro bono basis:

families seeking compensation from the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund
Holocaust victims and their heirs seeking to recover stolen funds from Swiss Banks that collaborated with the Nazi Regime
women who were sexually enslaved by the Japanese military during World War II
victims of political, religious, racial, and gender-based persecution seeking asylum in the United States
detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba seeking a fair hearing on their detention without charge
victims of housing discrimination
indigent tenants in landlord/tenant proceedings
persons with disabilities in connection with Social Security Disability claims
employees wrongly denied overtime pay
utility customers whose heat was cut off for delinquent payment in the dead of winter in violation of state laws
grassroots environmental organizations seeking to enforce the Clean Water Act.

September 11th
Cohen Milstein represented survivors and the families of victims of the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon before the Federal Victims Compensation Fund. Cohen Milstein was able to obtain substantial recoveries for those victims and their families, including one of the highest recoveries for a severely burned survivor. The Special Master of the Fund, Kenneth Feinberg, praised the pro bono efforts of the firm, calling Cohen Milstein Washington D.C.'s "pre-eminent plaintiffs' law firm.”

Political Asylum
Cohen Milstein has dedicated itself to assisting individuals from around the world who are seeking political asylum in the United States because they face political persecution in their home countries.

Nepali Activists: Cohen Milstein secured political asylum for a Nepali democracy activist and novelist who faced persecution at the hands of the anti-democratic Nepali monarchy for questioning the legitimacy of the Nepali government in one of his novels. We also secured political asylum for a women's rights and democracy activist who was forced to flee Nepal after increasing persecution at the hands of both the anti-democratic Nepali monarchy and the equally anti-democratic Maoist insurgency that has ravaged Nepal in recent years.
Afghan Activist & Civil Society Leader: Cohen Milstein secured asylum for an extraordinary Afghan woman who tirelessly fought for equality for women, human rights, and the reformation of Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. She was one of the few courageous women who ran for a seat in the Afghan Parliament, after which she faced death threats from warlords whom she publicly condemned in her campaign. As the founder of her own non-profit organization that distributed humanitarian aid to poor Afghans, especially women and children, she was a prominent leader in Afghan civil society. She arrived in the United States in 2005 and has waited for two long years in anxiety and fear that she would be forced to return to Afghanistan to face execution by her warlord persecutors. The trial attorney for the Department of Homeland Security stated that the memorandum of law and supporting exhibits filed on her behalf persuaded him that her application for asylum was meritorious, and thus he would recommend a granting of asylum to the immigration judge. The immigration judge accepted the trial attorney's recommendation and granted the client asylum after a very brief hearing. Because merits hearings are normally very adversarial, the trial attorney's concession was a remarkable and gratifying outcome.
Polish Victims of Domestic Violence: Cohen Milstein helped a teenager who feared being returned to her violent and abusive father. She had fled to the U.S. with her mother, taking refuge with her grandfather who was a United States citizen. Unfortunately, the family’s arrival in the U.S. did not halt the psychological abuse by the father and and the mother collapsed from the pressure and committed suicide last Christmas Eve. Cohen Milstein agreed to represent the grandfather and a family friend in seeking to sever the father’s custody in their favor. The court granted joint custody for the grandfather and family friend and found that the daughter qualified for Special Immigration Juvenile Status (SIJS). In turn, the child is able to petition INS for a permanent green card. The judge commended Cohen Milstein for its “very thorough and professional work.”

Guantanamo Bay
Cohen Milstein is part of a coalition of law firms representing detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay. The firm brought habeas petitions on behalf of four clients who are wrongfully detained without charge or due process of law and also participated in the Supreme Court briefing in the in the Al Odah & Boumidienne cases (the Guantanamo habeas cases before the Court this term) on behalf of 20 former federal judges focusing on the use of evidence obtained by torture.

Amicus Brief for the Guantanamo Bay case at the Supreme Court - August 24, 2007 [PDF]

Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act
Working with the Washington Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, Cohen Milstein was successful in negotiating the largest settlement ever of a lawsuit challenging barriers to accessibility in the design and construction of multi-family housing under the Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. On June 8, 2005 (just six months after the December 20, 2004 case filing), we reached a $20 million settlement with developer Archstone-Smith Trust, one of the nation’s largest residential apartment developers, to retrofit some 12,000 apartment units and make them accessible to people with disabilities.

Tulsa Race Riot
Cohen Milstein has also represented survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot, one of our country's worst incidents of racial violence. While the Tulsa Race Riot case was unsuccessful because of statute of limitations concerns, one of the judges on the Tenth Circuit panel hearing this case noted that no case in his tenure on the court could be more compellingly described as "a question of exceptional importance" and that the dismissal placed the plaintiff in an "untenable position" in light of the government's official concealment of its conduct.

Cohen Milstein offers a two-year fellowship in International Human Rights Litigation.

For more information, or to apply please click here.