Impact Litigation
Pepper lawyers engage in pro bono projects that assist both individual clients and larger groups of individuals or, in some cases, that redefine or clarify the law in a way that has a lasting impact on the law as it applies to all.
Examples include:
- United States v. Nazario (2008). A Pepper lawyer (and former Marine) and several sole practitioners successfully defended a former Marine Staff Sergeant in federal court against charges that he committed manslaughter in Fallujah in 2004, during one of the fiercest battles of the Iraq war. It was the first case in which a former member of the U.S. Armed Forces was tried in a civilian criminal court, as opposed to a military court martial, for allegedly committing a crime during combat operations. A civilian jury in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California acquitted Nazario of all charges. The case tested the power and scope of the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 2000, and the acquittal underscores flaws in the law that could lead to legislative changes to the Act. Nazario’s defense team was referred to as the “Marine Dream Team;” their efforts inspired support from active and retired military personnel across the nation.
- Startzell v. City of Philadelphia and Philly Pride Presents (2007). Pepper lawyers successfully represented the organizers of an outdoor gay-rights festival charged with violating the First Amendment rights of members of a protest group who were charged with disorderly conduct after using loudspeakers to disrupt the event and disregarding police orders to move. The protesters argued that the event organizers violated their free speech rights, but a federal judge rejected the protest group’s claim, ruling that the First Amendment did not give the protesters the right to drown out the speech of those organizing and attending the event. In July 2008, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed the federal judge’s rejection of the protest group’s claims that their rights had been violated, and clarified the scope of First Amendment rights of those who hold public events by official permit and those of “outsiders” who seek to communicate opposing views at the same time and at the same venue.
- Coppola v. Larson (2006). A team of Pepper lawyers from our Princeton and Philadelphia offices successfully represented student editors, and indirectly their faculty advisor, on censorship issues relating to The Viking News, a decades-old student newspaper at a New Jersey public college. Pepper won the reinstatement of the faculty advisor, a female tenured professor who had founded the school’s journalism program, by a court finding that the advisor’s removal was in retaliation for the students’ reporting and editorializing. The larger dispute was later settled in a way that helps protect the independence of the newspaper and other student media at the college.
- Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (2005). A team of Pepper lawyers from several offices successfully represented the plaintiffs in the “intelligent design” case, in which a federal judge ruled that teaching intelligent design in public schools violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The PBS television series NOVA tackled the issue in November 2007, when it aired “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial,” a two-hour documentary on the ground-breaking case. The NOVA program won a Peabody award.
In recent years, Pepper lawyers have represented a number of other disadvantaged and low-income groups in high-impact pro bono matters, including low-income Pennsylvanians whose Medicare benefits were cut back, mentally impaired persons in New Jersey state hospitals, detainees at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay and victims of domestic violence seeking asylum in the United States.
In 2006 and 2007, Pepper lawyers handled more than 50 pro bono matters in which our clients were women or groups whose purpose is to advocate on behalf of women and issues of importance to women.
Back to main Pro Bono page.
