White & Case | Social Responsibility Review

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Social Responsibility

http://srreview.whitecase.com/rightsmatter.htm

PRO BONO

LEGAL EDUCATION

VOLUNTEERISM & CONTRIBUTIONS

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Our pro bono work increasingly involves assistance to NGOs and governments seeking to
bring their domestic human rights legislation into alignment with international norms.
Our work on behalf of children, LGBT individuals and Roma illustrates this trend.

Protecting the next generation

Child Rights International Network (CRIN) promotes and protects childrens rights around the world by
drawing the attention of governments to their obligations under the United Nations Convention on the
Rights of the Child (CRC). To do so effectively, CRIN needs to understand the interplay of local legal
regimes with the provisions of the CRC and identify ways to enforce them wherever possible.
In our largest pro bono project to date, 285 White & Case lawyers and legal staff in 32 offices
researched the jurisprudence of 172 countries to build a comprehensive database covering the ways that
children, their families and legal service organizations can challenge violations of childrens rights using
national, regional and international legal systems. Each country profile includes information on whether
the CRC can be enforced directly in that systems courts, explanations of childrens access to courts and
complaints mechanisms, legal aid, representatives, evidence, appeals and more.
The CRIN/White & Case database represents the first time that this kind and volume of information has
been gathered in one place. It will have significant practical application in advancing childrens rights. For
example, the database will provide tools and templates that governments and NGOs can use to bring
more countries into alignment with CRC principles or that individuals can draw on to initiate an action to
enforce childrens rights.
To shine a spotlight on the issue and encourage wider compliance with accepted norms, CRIN will also
create a global ranking of countries by the quality of their provisions for access to justice for children. The
project will also create customizable model legislation and guidance on the best legal practices that would
underlie a perfect state with regard to protecting childrens access to justice.
As the database is being finalized, White & Cases country reports are already yielding dividends. For
example, the East African country reports were used to inform CRINs recent legal advocacy workshop in
the region, where experts addressed persistent violations of childrens rights there, examined options for
challenging violations, identified legal blockages and created an advocacy plan. And in 2014, when the
UN Human Rights Council dedicated its Annual Day on the Rights of the Child to the theme of access to
justice, CRIN used our reports as the basis for its presentations, advocacy and comments on the
resolutions debated during the session.

In our largest pro

bono project to date,
our lawyers and legal
staff researched the
jurisprudence of 172
countries to build a
comprehensive
database on how
children, their families
and legal service
organizations can
challenge violations of
childrens rights using
national, regional and
international legal
systems.

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Social Responsibility

http://srreview.whitecase.com/rightsmatter.htm

PRO BONO

LEGAL EDUCATION

VOLUNTEERISM & CONTRIBUTIONS

GREEN

AWARDS

Building on our victory in the Dont Ask, Dont Tell litigation that overturned the US governments policy
that banned openly gay individuals from serving in the military, White & Case now handles an array of
matters related to protecting the rights of LGBT individuals.
Tackling tax time
The US Supreme Courts grant of federal recognition to same-sex marriages introduced a hefty dose of
confusion into the filing of tax returns for LGBT couples. They could now file their federal taxes jointly, but
still had to navigate the complexity of 50 different state-level tax regimes and faced contradictory
requirements in the majority of states that did not recognize their marriages.
White & Case joined with the National LGBT Bar Association and investment bank BNY Mellon to assist.
Each of the three deployed its unique capabilities to build a websitethe Online LGBT Tax
Resourcethat guided taxpayers and their tax advisors through this quagmire of legislation in an
accessible and easy-to-understand way.
Under severe time pressure to publish the findings so that they could be used during the tax season, a
White & Case team led by tax partner John Lillis in New York built the first and only comprehensive
resource that lists state-by-state reporting regulations for same-sex couples, highlights the discrepancies
between federal and state tax law and walks through the correct course of action in each state through a
series of branching yes/no questions. Links to all relevant tax forms, statutes, administrative guidance
and regulations are provided. Guidance is also given for states where same-sex marriages are now
recognized and previous years tax returns were eligible to be amended.
Because the tax landscape for LGBT couples is rapidly evolving, White & Case and BNY Mellon will
update the Online LGBT Tax Resource regularly to ensure that it remains relevant and useful.
Salvadoran rights reform
In recent years, there has been a marked rise in the number of murders of transgender women and other
sexual minorities in El Salvador. Investigating these murders is considered low priority because of the
marginalized social status of LGBT people, and perpetrators are rarely brought to justice.
Working with the human rights organization Asistencia Legal para la Diversidad Sexual de El Salvador
and the International Senior Lawyers Project, a White & Case team comprising lawyers from Mexico City,
Miami, New York and Silicon Valley prepared a comparative analysis of anti-discrimination and hate crime
legislation throughout Latin America and the United States. The report identified the strategies that were
most effective in each countrys attempts to combat anti-LGBT discrimination and violence.
The team then worked to customize its findings to the realities in El Salvador. White & Case associate
Brandon Freeman traveled to El Salvador to brief government officials and assess support among
political leaders for anti-discrimination legislation. Freeman also presented White & Cases research and
recommendation on the anti-discrimination legislation at a major conference in El Salvador. We are
continuing to work with the Salvadoran government and NGOs to advance legislative reform.

OTHER LGBT RIGHTS PROJECTS

Since 2008, we have won 13 LGBT asylum cases for Immigration Equality and eight cases for Whitman
Walker Health.
In Germany, we advised Transgender Europe on employment law and assisted the PrOut@Work
Foundation with data protection and general corporate issues.
We conducted research to inform efforts to challenge the Republic of Georgias ban on blood donations
by gay men.
Lawyers in four offices drafted anti-discrimination reform proposals for Common Language, a Chinese
LGBT rights group, to present to the National Peoples Congress.

STRENGTHENING ROMA RIGHTS

Roma people face significant individual and institutional discrimination across Europe. Lawyers in six
White & Case offices took on two matters for the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC). The first
addressed a recent case holding that the EU Race Equality Directive does not apply to racial profiling by

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White & Case | Social Responsibility Review

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Social Responsibility

http://srreview.whitecase.com/rightsmatter.htm

PRO BONO

LEGAL EDUCATION

VOLUNTEERISM & CONTRIBUTIONS

GREEN

AWARDS

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