Pro Bono & Civil Rights
Mayer Brown’s Supreme Court and Appellate group has a tremendously active pro bono practice. The Firm has partnered with Yale Law School to form the Yale Supreme Court Clinic, which provides clients with pro bono representation before the Supreme Court of the United States in cases involving civil rights, immigration, and criminal justice issues. Since its inception in 2006, the clinic has represented clients in 15 cases on the merits (most recently including the judicial campaign financing case, Williams-Yulee v. The Florida Bar), and scores more in cases at the certiorari stage.
Our commitment to pro bono and civil rights matters also includes extensive amicus work and representations before the courts of appeals. We represented 40 U.S. Senators and 172 Members of Congress as amici curiae before the Supreme Court in the landmark same-sex marriage case, United States v. Windsor. In Poventud v. City of New York, we briefed and argued the Second Circuit’s first en banc rehearing in two years, securing a victory that preserved the plaintiff’s right to seek monetary compensation from police and prosecutors for constitutional violations. And in Autor v. Pritzker, we successfully persuaded the D.C. Circuit that conditioning certain voluntary government service on the relinquishment of one’s right to lobby violates the First Amendment. In total, our lawyers have argued over 20 pro bono appeals, including four en banc rehearings, in the last few years alone. Few appellate practices can claim such a deep commitment to securing civil rights as Mayer Brown’s can.