Recent Pro Bono Wins

Political Asylum
Cynthia Quarterman successfully secured political asylum for an Afghan woman facing death threats from the man she had been contracted to marry. The client, a teacher with a humanitarian organization educating Afghan women, was seriously abused by her fiancé for refusing to follow the "traditional" female role. The local authorities would not help, and her family was unsuccessful in trying to end the engagement.  After the client came to United States for a training program, the fiancé obtained a decree from the community religious leaders stating they considered the couple to be husband and wife, and any legal actions against the fiancé would be meaningless. That gave the man the authority he needed to kill our client for having dishonored him, which he vowed to do.

Adoption Matters
Scott Harman represented a woman seeking to adopt her foster daughter, who had been removed from her abusive and neglectful biological mother. The girl spent several years warehoused in an institutional program before being placed with our client, under whose care she thrived. The birth mother contested the adoption until the day of trial—when she failed to show up for court. The adoption was granted.

represented the adoptive parents of a boy given by his birth mother to our clients to take care of.  During visits with his birth mother, the child was routinely abused by her live-in boyfriend, who had inflicted fatal injuries on his own daughter. The clients petitioned the court to keep the boy permanently, and the matter dragged on for over a decade.  The birth mother fought to have the boy returned to her, took the matter to trial, and lost. In one of our Appellate Support for Adoptive Parent cases, John MoggJohn Mogg, with Chuck Cole as second chair and Michelle Fetterman assisting on the brief, recently had oral argument before the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.  An order affirming the adoption was issued in less than a week.

IP/Contract Matters
Gary Redente and Savery Gradoville are advising singer/songwriter Nefrit El-Or on several issues relating to her budding music career, including protecting her intellectual property rights and seeing to her interests in contract matters. Nefrit El-Or received nominations for awards for Best Rock Instrumentalist, Best Rock Recording, and Best Debut Recording by the Washington Area Music Association (WAMA), a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote Washington-area music, bring national attention to the region as an important music center, and recognize significant career achievements of local musicians.

Alien Detention
Steptoe attorneys David Bodney, Kathy Gainey, and Alice Loughran filed an amicus curiae brief with the US Supreme Court in a case dealing with the indefinite detention of aliens with criminal convictions who the government would like to deport, but cannot, since no other country will accept them.Steptoe’s brief demonstrated that the government’s practice of indefinite detention for purported national security reasons is not sanctioned under the governing immigration statute; rather the government’s rationale is merely based on policy justifications.  The majority opinion adopted Steptoe’s argument, indicating that the applicable statute does not authorize the government to detain criminal aliens for more than six months after the entry of a deportation order, and the government’s policy arguments should be addressed to Congress.

Tax Relief for the Elderly
As reported on the front page of the Washington Post  for February 16, 2005, members of the DC City Council introduced legislation providing property tax relief for District homeowners.  Included was a bill specifically benefiting elderly residents, which was drafted by Matt Zinn, Jean Baxley, and John Giles in conjunction with the Legal Counsel for the Elderly.  The legislation was introduced, as drafted by the Steptoe attorneys, by Councilmembers Evans and Schwartz.