Law Firm News

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Law Firm News

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Winston & Strawn, LLP

Winston & Strawn Receives Pro Bono Award from ABA for Work with Children in Child Custody Cases
Winston & Strawn LLP has been honored as the first law firm to receive the Ann Liechty Child Custody Pro Bono award from the American Bar Association (ABA), recognizing the firm's volunteer work on behalf of children in child custody cases. The award is named in memory of Ann Liechty, a dedicated child law advocate and former recipient of the ABA's Pro Bono Publico award.

"We are very pleased by the American Bar Association's recognition of the volunteer work being done in child custody cases," said Kimball Anderson, general counsel of Winston & Strawn and chair of the firm's pro bono committee, and a previous individual winner of the ABA's Pro Bono Publico award.

Anderson noted that the award-winning work by Winston & Strawn originated from a partnership formed in 2002 between the law firm and the Chicago Volunteer Legal Services Foundation (CVLS). "In the 1990s, CVLS was appointed as guardian ad litem in problematic guardianship cases, but by early 2002, the growing number of appointments exceeded the resources of CVLS. The partnership formed later that year with Winston & Strawn benefited both parties, providing the firm with a continuing pro bono opportunity and giving CVLS a larger staff base to handle the growing number of appointments assigned from the minor guardianship courtroom.

"Furthermore, Winston & Strawn's work has two significant aspects — first, it is being done by partners and second, attorneys from practice areas other than litigation are providing representation," noted Anderson. More than 40 Winston & Strawn attorneys donated more than 2,300 hours as guardian ad litem in more than 74 cases between February 2003 and January 2006.

08-18-2006

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Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt, LLP

Leading Litigator Sylvain Lussier Joins Osler
Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP announced today that Sylvain Lussier has joined the firm as a partner in its National Litigation Department.

“Sylvain Lussier is widely recognized as one of the most accomplished litigation lawyers in Quebec and in Canada,” said Ward Sellers, Managing Partner of Osler’s Montreal office. “His expertise and experience will be invaluable to all Osler clients and we are particularly pleased that he will be joining the team of 80 legal professionals we have developed in Montreal in the past five years.”

A graduate of the University of Ottawa, Mr. Lussier was called to the bar in 1978 and has developed a leading reputation in a wide range of law, including commercial litigation and civil liability, but also extending to: Public and Administrative Law, where he recently represented the Attorney General of Canada at the Gomery Commission; Constitutional and Fundamental Rights and Freedoms Law; Native Law, and Environmental and Municipal Law. He has represented clients before various administrative tribunals, the Quebec Superior Court, the Quebec Court of Appeal, the courts of New Brunswick, the Federal Court and the Supreme Court of Canada.

Mr. Lussier also headed a World Bank-sponsored mission to audit and recommend improvements to the legal system in Cameroon.

“Osler’s litigation group is delighted to have Sylvain Lussier as a partner. We know him as one of the best in the country and welcome the additional strength he brings to serving the needs of our clients,” said Larry Lowenstein, Chair of Osler’s National Litigation Department.

Mr. Lussier said: ”Joining Osler is an exciting and natural step for me. As a national firm with a strong litigation practice dealing with business-critical issues for its clients, Osler provides me with new professional challenges and opportunities. I am very pleased to join a team with a stellar reputation and to be part of the future growth of the firm.

08-18-2006

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Kauff, McClain & Mcguire, LLP

Federal Court Dismisses Age and Race Discrimination and Retaliation Lawsuit Filed by Laid Off Union Employee
On August 16, 2006, Judge Joseph Irenas of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey granted KM&M’s motion for summary judgment, dismissing age and race discrimination and retaliation claims brought by an ironworker apprentice who was hired to work on a specific construction project and was eventually laid off for lack of work. Interestingly, the plaintiff in this case previously filed a similar lawsuit against another KM&M client in a different industry; those claims were also dismissed on summary judgment and the plaintiff’s appeal of that decision to the Court of Appeals was unsuccessful as well.

KM&M’s client in the current case, a construction company based in New Jersey, was the subcontractor for steel erection work on a large construction project in Jersey City. Plaintiff, a forty-seven year old African-American man, was one of several union apprentices hired and laid off over the course of the project. As the employer’s work on the project was nearing completion, it laid off several employees, including plaintiff. Notably, plaintiff had survived several prior layoffs and was one of few remaining apprentices on the job at the time he was terminated. Moreover, several of the apprentices who were laid off before him were younger than he and were Caucasian. Nonetheless, plaintiff filed a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and eventually filed suit in Federal District Court. Plaintiff alleged that the employer violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act by giving him unfavorable work assignments and poor evaluations because of his race and his age; and by terminating him because of complaints of discriminatory treatment he lodged with his union.

At the conclusion of discovery, the employer moved for summary judgment. Plaintiff contended that there were numerous factual issues that required a trial. For example, plaintiff argued that the employer failed to comply with its own affirmative action policy, which he claimed constituted evidence of discrimination against him. Plaintiff also argued that a negative performance evaluation he received from the employer was actually written by a union official and not by the employer so that the union could justify his termination from the apprenticeship program.

The court, however, rejected all of these contentions, finding that plaintiff failed to rebut the employer’s legitimate non-discriminatory reason for laying him off. The court further found that plaintiff failed to establish a prima facie case of retaliation because he offered no evidence that the employer knew he complained to the union of discrimination or that there was a causal connection between his complaint of discrimination and his layoff. Accordingly, the court granted summary judgment in favor of the employer, dismissing the action in its entirety.

08-18-2006

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Farrell Fritz, P.C.

Chris Krimitsos Joins Farrell Fritz, P.C. as Associate
Chris D. Krimitsos has joined Farrell Fritz as an associate in the Corporate Department.

Prior to joining Farrell Fritz, Mr. Krimitsos was a Judicial Law Clerk for The Honorable Thomas J. Aquilino, Jr., U.S. Court of International Trade (New York, NY). In this position, he drafted opinions, memoranda, judgments and orders concerning disputes arising in the context of goods imported into the United States. Other legal experience includes work as a Summer Associate/Law Clerk at Stewart & Stewart (Washington, D.C.); a Judicial Internship for The Honorable Nicholas Tsoucalas and Legal Assistant at Coudert Brothers, LLP (New York, NY).

Mr. Krimitsos earned his J.D. in 2003 from Georgetown University Law Center where he was Senior Articles Editor for the Georgetown Immigration Law Journal. He earned his A.B., cum laude, in 1999 from Duke University, concentrating in Political Science and Comparative Area Studies.

Mr. Krimitsos is admitted to practice in New York.

He is fluent in Greek and proficient in German and Spanish.

08-18-2006

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Winthrop & Weinstine, P.A.

Winthrop & Weinstine is proud to be named a "Great Place to Work" by the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal
The Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal named 45 Twin Cities companies as ""Great Places to Work.""

The article about Winthrop & Weinstine is attached in PDF format.

The firm was ranked fifth out of 15 medium sized businesses, and was the highest-ranking mid-size law firm in the annual survey, which uses scores from employee surveys to select the winners. Employees are asked to rate their companies in each of the following areas: work environment, embracing innovations/new ideas, people practices, personal growth and development, people in the organization, and day-to-day operations.

More than 200 companies were nominated this year. To be considered, companies were required to have an office in the Twin Cities 11-county metro area with 10 or more employees, or be Minnesota-based companies with at least 1,000 employees in the state. They also had to have a certain number of employees, depending on company size, to complete the online survey.

08-18-2006

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Fowler, White, Boggs & Banker, Attorneys At Law

Giorgio Vallar Joins Fowler White as a Shareholder
Giorgio Vallar has joined the law firm of Fowler White Boggs Banker as a shareholder.

Mr. Vallar will practice in the firm’s Real Estate Practice Group where he will concentrate his practice in the area of real estate acquisition, sale, land development work, commercial leasing, financing, refinancing, workouts, landlord-tenant litigation, boundary disputes, mobile home park acquisition, sales, associations and litigation, title abstracting and insurance, condominiums, and condo and homeowners' associations, real estate brokerage agreements, liquor licenses and franchise agreements. Mr. Vallar received a bachelor’s degree in microbiology from the University of Florida, a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of South Florida and his law degree from the Shepard Broad Law Center at Nova University. Prior to joining Fowler White Boggs Banker, Mr. Vallar was in private practice in Dunedin, Florida.

08-18-2006

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Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, L.L.P.

Rwandan Pro Bono Clients Win Political Asylum
Cleary Gottlieb won political asylum for pro bono clients R.R. and his wife, A.N., who fled Rwanda in November 2005 after allegedly suffering persecution at the hands of the Paul Kagame regime because of R.R.’s political opinion against Kagame’s treatment of ethnic minorities in the Great Lakes Region of Africa. U.S. Immigration Judge Paul Wickham Schmidt granted R.R. asylum and A.N. derivative asylum on August 18 in Arlington.

Cleary Gottlieb began representing R.R. and A.N. after Human Rights First (the referring organization) won their release from the Department of Homeland Security, which had detained them upon arrival in the U.S. The Cleary Gottlieb team filed a substantial document submission on R.R. and A.N.’s behalf, which included a legal brief, affidavits by R.R., A.N., seven witnesses, a country conditions expert and an expert research librarian, the article the client wrote, minutes and videotapes of meetings attended by R.R., as well as numerous reports and articles specifically documenting the oppression of journalists and the persecution of ethnic minorities by the Kagame regime. At the beginning of the trial, the Court encouraged the Department to concede asylum based on the document submission. When the Department did not concede, the court held a two-day trial, with an intervening two-month hiatus, and granted asylum. A key issue, which the Department raised for the first time during opening arguments, was whether our clients, who were born in the Democratic Republic of Congo but who held only Rwandan citizenship, were dual nationals who had to prove persecution in both Rwanda and the DRC.

08-18-2006

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