John Minor Wisdom Awards: 2011 Award Recipients

The Pro Bono and Public Interest Committee is pleased to announce the winners of the 2011 John Minor Wisdom Awards. The winners were carefully chosen from an impressive group of nominees. We were so pleased with the caliber of the nominees that it made the decision a very tough one. The winners are Dan Woods for the Individual Award and Morrison & Foerster, LLP for the Firm Award.

Dan Woods

Woods is a partner in the commercial litigation practice and chair of the firm's Global Policies Committee. He practices complex business litigation throughout the United States. Much of his practice is for foreign clients with U.S. litigation concerns, and Woods has considerable experience in the unique issues that often arise in global litigation.

Woods is an experienced trial lawyer. He tries jury and non-jury trials, including six trials in 2004, two in 2005, two in 2007, and one in 2010. He has considerable experience in appellate proceedings in both state and federal courts. He frequently represents clients in various forms of alternative dispute resolution, including arbitrations and mediations, as well as before various administrative agencies.

Prior to entering private practice, Mr. Woods was a law clerk for the Honorable A. Andrew Hauk, U.S. District Court, Central District of California, 1977–1978.

The committee is recognizing Woods because of the work he did in providing representation in one or more cases that resulted in significant changes in statutory or case law to benefit underrepresented individuals or groups through his successful six-plus year prosecution of the landmark challenge to the U.S. government’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

A team of attorneys at White & Case, led by Dan Woods, won a landmark victory for Log Cabin Republicans in its legal challenge to overturn the government’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, prohibiting homosexuals from openly serving in the military. Following a trial in July 2010, on September 9, 2010, Judge Virginia Phillips ruled in Log Cabin Republicans v. United States ofAmerica that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) violates the First and Fifth Amendments, which guarantee rights to free speech and due process. On October 12, 2010, she issued a permanent worldwide injunction, prohibiting any enforcement or application of DADT. This was the first successful facial challenge to the constitutionality of DADT and is an historic civil rights victory.

Since its founding over 125 years ago in California, the law firm of Morrison & Foerster has been associated with dedication to public service. Founding partner Alexander Morrison was also a founder of the San Francisco Legal Aid Society, and he made pro bono service a core value of his firm from the beginning. Morrison & Foerster’s dedication to public service continues to be reflected every day in a firm culture that promotes and honors pro bono work as much as it does fee-paying work. Since signing on to the Pro Bono Challenge, the firm has perennially exceeded their commitment to devote 5 percent of its billable hours to pro bono legal work. Under a firm-wide policy, Morrison & Foerster strongly urges every attorney to work on at least one pro bono matter each year, and supports the pro bono pledges and recommendations from the American Bar Association and the states in which we practice. The firm has ranked in the AmLaw Top Ten for pro bono activities eight times since 1994, and in Vault’s 2011 pro bono rankings, the firm came in fifth.

Against the backdrop of a firm culture that strongly encourages and supports pro bono service, Morrison & Foerster has committed major resources to providing sustained, direct representation of low-income children in public schools and children with disabilities in their quest for equal educational opportunity. For this year’s consideration, the focus was on two themes: impact litigation to improve public schools, and vindicating the rights of children with special needs to obtain a free and appropriate public education.

The firm’s pro bono work in the area of improving public schools often includes securing injunctions to stop a problem today, but sometimes goes further to set up monitoring, protections, and standards of school performance to benefit public school children. Many of the class actions the firm has filed address educational adequacy—suits filed on behalf of low income students who are taught in districts that fail to provide the constitutionally required level of public education. And in the wake of the recent recession, as many states seek ways to cut budgets and limit spending, the firm’s lawyers are being called on with a new urgency to help ensure that such measures do not disproportionately affect children in public school districts that were already struggling with fewer resources.

Morrison & Foerster is an equally vigorous advocate for the rights of children with disabilities or other special needs to receive a free and appropriate education. In 2010, the firm filed new pro bono cases focused on ensuring that at-risk children who are excluded in some way from public schooling will receive the services and education that they are guaranteed and that are necessary to give them a fair start in life. Under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), special education services are guaranteed to children with disabilities, and many of these cases are aimed at forcing schools and others to comply with the demands of this important legislation.

It was Morrison & Foerster’s commitment to education and the impact their pro bono work has had in this area that made them a clear winner for the John Minor Wisdom Award.

The Section of Litigation will present the 2011 Wisdom Awards during its Section Annual Conference, April 13-15, 2011 at the Fontainbleu Hotel in Miami Beach, FL.