Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Pro Bono Committee Honors Mintz Levin with 2011 Adams Pro Bono Publico Award
10/25/2011
Boston, MA – The Supreme Judicial Court’s Standing Committee on Pro Bono Legal Services has selected Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C. as one of three recipients of the 2011 Adams Pro Bono Publico Award. With special recognition to a team of attorneys from the Litigation Section, including Larry Schoen, Martha Koster, Noah Shaw, Andrew Nathanson, Amanda Carozza and Yalonda Howze, Mintz Levin is being recognized for its pro bono representation of Hurricane Katrina victims in a suit against the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
In 2008, the Mintz Levin team, along with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and Mississippi Center for Justice, filed a lawsuit against HUD on behalf of the Mississippi State Conference NAACP, the Gulf Coast Fair Housing Center and four individual plaintiffs, addressing the misappropriation of housing relief funds. Specifically, the suit was motivated by lower-income households in south Mississippi that were damaged by wind as opposed to flooding during the hurricane, and thus received inadequate federal disaster housing recovery money.
In late 2010, a three-way resolution was reached between the Plaintiffs, HUD and the State of Mississippi. The settlement, which called for the state to direct $132 million in federal disaster funds to support the long-term disaster recovery plan in the wake of the hurricane, was provided primarily through HUD’s Community Development Block Grant program. The resolution of this case marked the culmination of a major initiative embarked upon by Mintz Levin shortly after Hurricane Katrina.
Named in honor of John Adams and John Quincy Adams, the Adams Pro Bono Publico Awards recognize individual lawyers, small and large firms, government attorney offices, corporate law departments, and other institutions in the legal profession in Massachusetts that have enhanced the human dignity of others by improving or delivering volunteer legal services to the poor and disadvantaged. The 2011 Adams Pro Bono Publico Awards will be presented in a ceremony at the John Adams Courthouse on October 26, 2011.
For more information on the Adams Pro Bono Publico Awards, visit: http://www.mass.gov/courts/sjc/pro-bono-awards.html.
