Law Firm’s $10 Million Pledge To Advance Social Justice With 5 Leading Law Schools

/ Law Firms / / By

Los Angeles, January 28, 2021 – The Social Justice Legal Foundation (www.socialjusticelaw.org) launched today with a $10 million pledge of support from Hueston Hennigan LLP.

Its mission is to combine public interest issue expertise and elite academic resources with private sector experience in order to bring a fresh approach to curating and pursuing national trial work advancing social justice and equity. The Foundation brings together five of the leading U.S. law schools, leading trial lawyers from the private sector, and a lineup of star advisors including judges, leading activists and scholars to vet and pursue groundbreaking cases. The Foundation will also serve as an incubator for the next generation of leading trial lawyers in the public sector by sponsoring five promising law school graduates as Hueston Hennigan Fellows for two-year terms.

The Foundation – funded and created by the partners of Hueston Hennigan LLP – will collaborate with Columbia, Northwestern, Stanford, UCLA and Yale law schools to identify pressing legal issues and to mentor and develop a new generation of trial lawyers in the public sector. Representatives from the law schools will participate on the Board of Advisors and work with the Foundation to select an emerging leader from its graduates to serve a fully funded two-year fellowship with the Foundation. (See full list of Advisory Board Members below.)

Advisory Board Member Erica Smock, Dean for Social Justice Initiatives & Public Service Lawyering at Columbia Law School stated, “We are excited to collaborate on this first-in-the-nation initiative. We look forward to SJLF’s meaningful contributions to the broad network of public interest organizations who have been focused on the fight for social justice and equality.”

The Foundation will emphasize trial work and seek to collaborate with other social justice organizations and bar associations to take some of the most difficult and important cases to trial. The Foundation will begin with an executive director, two full-time staff attorneys, five Hueston Hennigan fellows, and substantial pro bono attorney support from trial lawyers at Hueston Hennigan.

“I look forward to working with our advisors, fellows, staff and pro bono attorneys to take to trial some of the most important cases affecting social justice,” said John Hueston, Chairman of the Foundation’s Board.

Crystal Crawford, Executive Director of the Western Center on Law & Poverty, stated, “We look forward to partnering with the Foundation on impactful work to advance economic dignity, housing, health, and basic needs for low-income Californians.”

To address evolving societal crises, the Foundation will rotate its primary areas of attention every two years from among the following initial areas: economic justice, housing/homeless discrimination, LGBTQ+ rights, immigrant justice, Native American discrimination, voting rights and criminal justice reform. The Foundation’s cases and focus areas will be informed by its executive leadership, academic partners, other social justice organizations and fellows.

The Foundation was born of an idea to form a collaboration between an elite private sector trial firm and leading law schools in order to leverage a unique blend of courtroom talent and academic thought leaders. As Hueston Hennigan attorneys reflected on the challenges that have faced the country in the recent past, the firm decided now was the time to launch this effort to achieve equity and equality. To fulfill that vision and to provide substantial mentorship opportunities to emerging social justice leaders in the law, Hueston Hennigan has made an initial pledge of $10 million to fully support the Foundation and to sponsor five Hueston Hennigan Fellows.

Board of Advisors

Hon. David O. Carter
United States District Court, Central District of California

Diane T. Chin
Associate Dean for Public Service and Public Interest Law
Stanford Law School

Crystal D. Crawford
Executive Director
Western Center on Law & Poverty

Bruce Duthu
Samson Occom Professor of Native American Studies
Dartmouth College

Hon. Alexander C. D. Giza
Los Angeles Superior Court

Laurie L. Levenson
Founding Faculty Director, Project for the Innocent
Professor of Law, David W. Burcham Chair in Ethical Advocacy
Loyola Law School

Doreen Nanibaa McPaul
Attorney General
Navajo Nation Department of Justice

Hon. Carlos Moreno (ret.)
Retired Justice of Supreme Court of California
Former United States Ambassador to Belize
Former Judge of United States District Court, Central District of California

Alan B. Morrison
Co-founder, Public Citizen Litigation Group
Lerner Family Associate
Dean for Public Interest and Public Service
George Washington University Law School

Song Richardson, J.D.
Dean and Chancellor’s Professor of Law
University of California, Irvine School of Law
President-Designate of Colorado College

Brad Sears
Associate Dean of Public Interest Programs
Interim Executive Director, The Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Policy
UCLA School of Law

Erica Smock
Dean for Social Justice Initiatives & Public Service Lawyering
Columbia Law School

Cynthia A. Wilson
Clinical Professor of Law
Director, Center for Externships
Director, Public Interest Center
Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law

Peter Zeughauser
Founder
The Zeughauser Group

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Bob Jones: Our COVID Crisis – Were “Blatant lies” fed to the government?

/ New Zealand Law News, NZ Featured Posts, NZ Top in LawFuel / January 27, 2021 / By
HIpkins & COVID

An international row broke out yesterday in Europe, with the European Union crying unfair and accusing Britain of hogging access to coronavirus vaccines at the expense of EU nations.

Boris countered, saying it’s a contractual matter which they expect to be honoured. Plainly Britain had acted quickly ordering the vaccines while of all countries, amazingly Germany has been the most lax and its government is now, unlike our media with our smothered crisis, being hammered in the German media.

This affair is further evidence of the inability of vaccine manufacturers to meet world demand, understandably given its size.

The odd man out in all of this is New Zealand which alone in the world, failed to place orders, notwithstanding seemingly blatant lies our Health Department officials fed the government four months ago.

This is a huge scandal and at long last our media is slowly picking it up.

Yesterday for example, Stuff published a statement from the Royal College of General Practitioners expressing alarm at this state of affairs which I’ve been warning about.

The GPs Head banana Dr Bryan Betty didn’t pull his punches, saying, “We’re at the bottom of the supply chain” and warned of the consequences.

For starters get the sainted Ashley off our bloody television. As the Department Head his halo is now dangling down about his feet.

Bob Jones

I repeat; don’t blame the Prime Minister nor Health Minister Hipkins for his assurances to the nation back in October that we’re at the head of the queue. He was simply repeating what his officials had told him. The fact is far from being at the head of the queue, like the Congo and war-torn Central African Republic, we weren’t even in it.

What to do?

For starters get the sainted Ashley off our bloody television. As the Department Head his halo is now dangling down about his feet.

Then appoint a Covid Commissioner from outside the Public Service with over-riding authority to try and rescue this situation, although how, God only knows. The appointee should be a proven man or woman of action and not just a corporate figurehead type. In other words someone who actually created a large entity rather than a manager or Board seat-warmer “name”.

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One possibility would be an appeal to China for assistance. China’s ability to mass produce anything at all in spectacularly rapid time being well proven. Currently they’re engaged in a global influence war following the fractitious division arising from the Trump era. Unlike Australia we, sitting on the side-lines, are probably in their good books and they may see it as a diplomatic coup to assist. There’s no harm in trying.

Another option would be to ask the Bangladesh government to handle this issue for us.

I say that as yesterday they proudly announced the arrival of the first batch of 30 million vaccines which they’re now underway injecting into their people. So unbelievably even Bangladesh is putting us to shame.

Britain is leading all of Europe in vaccinating and hopes to cover every adult by the end of June. But it also has the world’s worst fatality rate per capita and this week the death rate hit 100,000, mainly geriatrics and fat buggers, the latter a British specialty.

Note this though. Half of those 100,000 deaths have occurred in the last two months.

When the two German scientists announced the first vaccine three months ago the world breathed a sigh of relief. The dreadful 2020 year of the virus was behind us and to add to the celebratory mood, the abomination in the White House was gone.

The whole of Europe is now in lockdown which will have huge economic consequences. We can avoid this only with a great deal of luck. 2020 it now seems was a warm-up and instead, history will mark 2021 as the year of the great plague.

AFTER THOUGHT

I say above the Health Department officials plainly lied to the Minister months back, telling him we’re at the head of the queue.

But on further reflection, given my past half century’s involvement with politicians and the Public Service I don’t believe that as it’s not the New Zealand way. Should there be an enquiry into this fiasco, here’s a more probable scenario.

It will be recalled that when the first vaccination discovery was announced by the German husband and wife scientists, the excitement was dampened somewhat by the news it needed to be kept in minus 50 degrees temperatures.

Did our officials then actually jump in first with orders as they told the Minister, but cock-up along the way in not establishing suitable refrigeration?

Alternatively, did they (understandably) scrub that order with its freezing difficulty and try and substitute it with one of the manufacturers now knocking vaccines out which don’t have such storage difficulties, only to find with demand far exceeding supply, we were now at the back of the queue.

There will be further such crises in future which is why an enquiry is needed into how this dangerous situation arose.

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