MoProBono Fall 2018 Newsletter

20 MoProBono Fall 2018 PRO BONO HONORS, AWARDS, AND RECOGNITION Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation Recognizes MoFo Earlier this year, Morrison & Foerster received the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation Award in recognition of the firm’s collective and sustained contributions to the Foundation’s program, which refers social enterprises to the pro bono programs of firms in Lex Mundi’s network. Attorneys in several offices have served clients who were referred by the Foundation. In San Francisco, Jaclyn Liu, Patrick Huard, Ali Assareh, Ben Fox, and Anisah Giansiracusa are advising social enterprises in Cameroon and Kenya that work to improve living standards for local farmers in those countries, and Jesse Finfrock will be training social enterprises in the Foundation’s network on innovative corporate structures for social entrepreneurs. In New York and San Francisco, Miriam Wugmeister and Allison Dale are advising Benetech, a nonprofit that uses technology for social good, on data privacy issues relating to its Bookshare program, which is the largest digital library for people with print disabilities. In London, Dan Coppel and Robbie Somerville are advising Days for Girls International, which supports girls internationally by increasing access to menstrual care and education. Adam Westhead, Andrew Boyd, Simon Arlington, Rayhaan Vankalwala, and others are advising Aeropowder, a social enterprise that creates novel materials from waste feathers from the poultry industry. Glenn Kubota from Los Angeles and Jillian Pesin-Fulop from San Francisco are providing patent advice to Bempu Health, a startup based in India, for its neonatal hypothermia monitoring bracelet. American Immigration Council Honors MoFo for Tireless Pro Bono Work In June 2018, the American Immigration Council honored a MoFo pro bono team, composed of more than 90 lawyers from offices around the globe, for its exceptional work on the case Doe v. Johnson . The MoFo team is working in tandem with the American Immigration Council (AIC), the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the ACLU of Arizona, and the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), to challenge immigration detention center conditions in the United States. The lawsuit claims that these short-term immigrant detention centers in the “Arizona sector” at the southern United States border violate constitutional requirements for meeting the basic needs of the thousands of immigrants who pass through them each year. As the lawsuit notes, the facilities are widely known as hieleras, or iceboxes, because they are often kept at extremely cold temperatures. According to AIC executive director Beth Werlin, “These talented litigators have worked tirelessly over the past three years to fight for humane conditions in the hieleras. The hieleras are notorious for being freezing, overcrowded, and filthy, and yet the government has detained individuals in these cells for days at a time, depriving them of beds, adequate food and water, and basic sanitation and hygiene items. Our honorees rose to the challenge and demanded that the government put an end to this practice,” she said of the MoFo’s team’s ongoing tireless work on the case.