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Vance Center Works for Justice On Global Scale

New York Lawyer
August 12, 2005

By Thomas Adcock
New York Law Journal

When friends and colleagues gathered three years ago at a memorial service for Cyrus R. Vance — a longtime partner at Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett, as well as a special diplomat and cabinet secretary under three U.S. presidents — it seemed logical to all that he should become the namesake of one of the most ambitious and far-reaching agendas ever undertaken by the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.

So on the evening of Oct. 30, 2002, it was little surprise that Evan A. Davis, then-city bar president, used the solemn occasion to announce the hopeful launch of the Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice Initiatives — an opportunity for button-down New York lawyers at white-shoe firms to engage in social justice and help promote legal reform in emerging democracies.

Like the soft-spoken Mr. Vance, who served as city bar president from 1974 to 1976, the center was born with little fanfare.

"We're possibly better known in Buenos Aires and Santiago and Mexico City than we are here in New York," said S. Todd Crider, a Simpson Thacher partner and one of the center's early stalwarts. "That's consistent with Cy's own approach to matters."

Said Mr. Davis, a partner at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, "It seemed to me so obvious that Cy Vance, who stood for access to justice and good government and a lawyer's responsibility to society should be remembered best by our working to carry his message beyond the borders of New York City and New York state."

What began in 2002 with $50,000 in seed money from the Ford Foundation — aided by the enthusiasm of Mr. Vance's widow, Grace, and financial commitment from his firm — is today a city bar program with an annual budget of about $300,000, a staff of three, and a number of initiatives in South Africa and Latin America, including:

• Collaboration with attorneys, bar groups and non-governmental organizations on pro bono projects in Argentina, Brazil and Chile.

• Fellowships at New York law firms and in-house legal departments for South African attorneys disadvantaged under that country's former apartheid regime.

• Assistance by New York attorneys for lawyers abroad seeking substantive legal change in formerly authoritarian countries.

"We started small, with no certainty we would succeed," said Bettina B. Plevan, a partner at Proskauer Rose and current city bar president. "We tried not to overextend, but just to keep going."

Joan Vermeulen, executive director of the Vance Center, said she hopes in time to expand the program to involve attorneys in Asia and other parts of Africa.

Prior to the formal creation of the Vance Center, Ms. Vermeulen was a consultant to the city bar following several years at the helm of New York Lawyers for the Public Interest.

"I came along with the idea of a South African visiting lawyer program," she said, a project that appealed to Barbara Berger Opotowsky, executive director of the city bar, as well as Mr. Davis. "Other projects started developing and since I was here, Evan would call on me to meet lawyers from Chile and Argentina, for example."

Now three years later, Ms. Vermeulen is aided by program associate Elise Colomer Grimaldi, formerly with the United Nations. At month's end, Jennifer Brea, newly graduated from Princeton University, will join the center as project associate. The unpaid efforts of a small army of lawyers from prominent Manhattan firms complete the center's personnel.

Influencing Latin America

Mr. Crider said that New York lawyers in private practice can be particularly influential in Latin American legal cultures.

"Lawyers in private practice there, as well as leaders of bar groups and judges, are more likely to listen with great interest to what private lawyers have to say from New York firms they've heard about and respect," said Mr. Crider. "We have access that [non-government organizations] just can't get. Even lawyers from the larger, more well-funded NGOs are viewed as special interests."

So it was that Scott Horton, a long-time human rights advocate and a partner at Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler specializing in emerging markets transactions and insolvency matters, made a huge splash at a March function of the Vance Center.

Before a gathering of U.S. and Latin American attorneys held at city bar headquarters on West 44th Street, Mr. Horton ripped into Bush administration policies regarding the off-shore detention of prisoners and reports of torture by some in the military.

Reached via e-mail as he traveled this week in Europe, Mr. Horton said, "When I made my speech, the strongest, most immediate reaction came from the bar representatives from Chile and Argentina. Their reaction was essentially the same: We've been there. It is imperative that the organized legal professional dig in its heels and oppose these practices, and put a glaring spotlight on them — and refuse to acquiesce."

Of the March session in New York, he said, "The meetings were terrifically informative and left one encouraged about the legal community and its engagement for social justice."

Pro Bono Declaration

The next such gathering will be in Mexico in October 2006, focusing on what organizers and members of an international drafting committee are calling a Pro Bono Declaration of the Americas.

"Most bar associations in the region don't have aspirational statements regarding pro bono work," said Ms. Colomer. "And some countries, like Colombia, don't even have bar associations. So the Vance Center has a unique opportunity here."

Not that Manhattan firms have shown the light and way in regards to pro bono. According to the city bar's own survey figures, Ms. Plevan noted, only 46 percent of New York lawyers do pro bono work, and only 27 percent perform more than 20 hours a year.

While no tradition of even that much pro bono service exists in much of Latin America — in Brazil, for instance, it remains illegal for private lawyers to represent individuals for free — the poor are better served in most western European nations through direct government support for civil legal services, said Ms. Plevan. She said that American lawyers may not appreciate such differences because they tend to be more "isolationist" than colleagues elsewhere in the world.

"It's important for U.S. lawyers to become much more knowledgeable about the legal profession internationally, and the cultures of other countries," said Ms. Plevan. "There may be other approaches we should know about."

She added, "Fundamentally, we all have something to offer. And we can all benefit from sharing our experiences in world commerce and human rights."