Accolades

• The American Lawyer magazine has ranked Covington’s pro bono practice among the top three firms for 15 of the past 19 years.
• Since 2003, the D.C. Circuit Judicial Conference has recognized those firms where at least 40% of the attorneys perform 50 or more pro bono hours during the previous year.  Covington has achieved this so-called “40 at 50” benchmark each year. This year, 51% of the firm’s DC attorneys reported 50 or more pro bono hours.
• Law360 designated Covington as a 2010 Pro Bono Firm of the Year, commending the firm’s treatment of pro bono work as a “core value,” noting that the firm’s commitment to pro bono work dates back to its founding in 1919.
• National Legal Aid & Defender Association - 2011 NLADA Beacon of Justice Award - honoring “Innovative Public-Private Partnerships that Protect Equal Justice for All through Appellate Litigation” (12/6/2011).
• Sanctuary for Families - 2011 Above & Beyond Pro Bono Achievement Award - for successful representation of a battered woman from West Africa seeking asylum in the United States (11/14/2011).
• Legal Community Against Violence - Pro Bono Award - “in recognition for outstanding pro bono contribution” (7/14/2011).
• National Veterans Legal Services Program - Senator Daniel Inouye Award presented to James McKay for his longstanding pro bono support of veterans (11/9/2011).
• Washington Lawyers’ Committee - Outstanding Achievement Award - for work in the Fields of Equal Employment Opportunity and Fair Housing (6/16/2011).
• Foundation for Criminal Justice - Certificate of Honor and Appreciation for Representation of National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers before the Supreme Court (5/19/2011).
• DC Appleseed - Pro Bono Partner Award - for “Outstanding Work to Revitalize the Anacostia River” (5/10/2011).
• Legal Aid Society of New York - 2010 Pro Bono Publico Award for Outstanding Service - for extraordinary commitment in an Alabama death penalty case (11/24/2010).
• City Bar Justice Center - 2010 Jeremy G. Epstein Awards for Pro Bono Service - for work with low-income entrepreneurs through the Neighborhood Entrepreneur Law Project (10/25/2010).
• Children’s Law Center - Children’s Pro Bono Champion Award (9/21/2010). 
• Human Rights Campaign - National Ally of Justice Award - for work on the DC Marriage Act (9/16/2010).
• The Federal Circuit Bar Association - Broadmoor Bench & Bar Award - for work related to the Association’s Veterans Pro Bono Programs (6/25/2010). 
• Washington Lawyers’ Committee - Outstanding Achievement Award - for work in the Field of Prisoners’ Rights (6/16/2010).
• Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence’s 20th Anniversary Luncheon - Honor Role of its Legal Action Project (6/16/2009).
• DC Mayor Fenty - Community Service Award (4/21/2009).
• Nature Conservancy - 2008 Lifetime Achievement Volunteer Award (10/15/2008).

Recent Highlights

Asylum

• In December 2008, Covington won asylum for a prominent Iranian journalist, Ms. S. In 2005, an Iranian court had sentenced Mr. S to death for his outspoken support of press freedom and women's rights.  The sentence was reduced to three years on appeal.  After serving one year, Mr. S was diagnosed with a serious illness, which prison authorities ignored for months before finally granting Mr. S leave to seek treatment.  While on leave, Mr. S secured a US entrance visa and fled to the United States. With Covington's assistance, Mr. S applied for and obtained asylum based on the persecution he suffered on account of his political beliefs.  After Mr. S's asylum application was granted, Covington successfully obtained humanitarian parole for Mr. S's wife, who had fled to Turkey but was denied a US visa.  Humanitarian parole is a rare form of discretionary relief, which permits a foreign national to travel to and remain in the United States.  The Covington team lobbied various Washington officials to establish that, in this case, there were unusual circumstances that warranted a grant of humanitarian parole. Mr. S was reunited with his wife in the United States in 2009.
• Though Iraq has faded somewhat from the news, between one and two million Iraqis remain refugees.  Often fleeing from death threats by armed groups, many escaped to neighboring countries such as Syria, where they have tried to navigate the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) refugee and resettlement process without access to counsel.  Working with the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project at Yale Law School, several Covington attorneys are assisting three Iraqi refugees to appeal USCIS’s decision to reject their applications though they were deemed meritorious by the UN Refugee Agency.

• The firm represents undocumented children who have escaped, often alone, abusive situations in their home countries.  Through the KIND program (Kids in Need of Defense), our attorneys help the children remain in this country by seeking a form of immigration relief called SIJS (Special Immigrant Juvenile Status).
• We represent siblings J & A MJ, children who arrived in the United States unaccompanied from Guatemala.  Their parents sent them to the United States after receiving death threats from Guatemalan gangs against the children.  After arriving in Texas and staying in a detention facility for several months, J & A were evacuated from the facility due to Hurricane Ike, and sent to New York, to live with their sponsor, a family friend.  The case is now pending before a New York immigration judge.

• Covington provides general corporate and employment advice to RUGMARK Foundation USA, a nonprofit organization working to end child labor in the carpet industry in South Asia.
• In August 2010, the firm contributed to a report published by the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, entitled "The State of the District of Columbia Public Schools 2010: A Five Year Update."
• A favorable settlement that the firm obtained resulted in reforms to a North Carolina school system designed to prevent abusive treatment of special needs students.
• In a separate matter, the firm is advocating on behalf of incarcerated special needs youth in Maryland who are not receiving the rehabilitative special education services mandated by state law.
• In yet another case involving a Georgia school system, the firm is challenging the pattern of forcing troubled youth into “alternative” schools that are jail-like and provide no real education. These efforts are an attempt to curtail the “school-to-prison pipeline” problem facing this country’s low income minority youth.

• The firm has successfully concluded a child custody and adoption case in which we represented the prevailing parties pro bono for more than a decade.  The child at issue, KT, was born in December 1997 with traces of cocaine in his system.  As his biological parents showed little interest in caring for KT, care for the baby was provided by our clients, CM and ETS. They eventually were given temporary custody of KT in connection with a neglect case brought by the District against the biological mother.  We filed a complaint for permanent custody on behalf of CM and ETS in September 1998.  The biological father, who had never provided overnight care for KT, opposed the complaint. In July 1999, after a week-long trial, the trial court granted our complaint for permanent custody.  The biological parents appealed.  It took several years for the appeal to be fully briefed and argued and several more years for the Court of Appeals to issue a decision.  Eventually, in W.D. v. C.S.M., 906 A.2d 317 (D.C. 2006), the Court of Appeals reversed and remanded with instructions to vacate the permanent custody order and reopen the neglect case.  Identifying an issue that had not been raised by either biological parent, the court ruled that the trial court lacked jurisdiction over the custody complaint because it concerned a child who was already the subject of a neglect proceeding.  The Court of Appeals’ decision in W.D. v. C.S.M. was controversial.  In July 2007 the D.C. Council enacted legislation that effectively overruled the decision and made it clear that a trial court does have jurisdiction over a third-party custody complaint in circumstances similar to those of our case.  In May 2007, as soon as the case was remanded to the trial court, our clients filed a petition to adopt KT, who by this time was almost 10 years old and was thriving in their care.  In January 2008, the trial court held a show cause hearing on the adoption petition, and in July 2008 it issued a decree of adoption in favor of our clients.  The biological father again appealed but repeatedly sought extensions of the briefing schedule, so the firm filed a motion to dismiss his appeal.  In response, the biological father has decided to withdraw the appeal, thus ending the litigation.