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BigLaw Firm Takes on Asylum Cases for Kids Fleeing Violence

New York Lawyer
April 21, 2008

By Kellie Schmitt
The Recorder

Last year, Jayne Fleming, Reed Smith's West Coast pro bono coordinator, traveled to Honduras as part of her pro bono work. A Honduran woman had experienced horrific violence, first at an orphanage, and later at the hands of gang members, and Reed Smith was working on behalf of her asylum.

Fleming, who leads the firm's human rights team, wanted to get an understanding of the country and its conditions that she couldn't glean from State Department reports or textbooks.

Once there, she looked up at the ramshackle homes on Tegucigalpa's dirt hillsides from her lodging at the Marriott hotel.

"Looking at the hillside, I thought, 'That's where my clients have to go home,'" she said. "I was really moved by the conditions in Honduras, and the level of desperate need that exists there."

This year, Fleming and the firm have launched a program on behalf of Central American children fleeing violence. As a result, Reed Smith has taken on 12 new related cases dealing specifically with children, a change from its previous work dealing mainly with adults.

The timing coincides with an award Fleming received Friday from the American Bar Association's litigation section, honoring her for her public service work in Central America and beyond.

"After I had been there, the cases resonated more with me," she explained. "We decided to take on these cases from Central America because we now have relationships with experts there."

Along with individual cases, Reed Smith wants to address the problem at a policy level, Fleming said. The firm is also working with nonprofit organizations to raise the international profile of such issues, and to collaborate on finding the root causes of, and solutions to, violence against children.

"We can litigate in the courts, but can we get behind the public policy and social issues impacting it?" Fleming said.

This fall, Fleming will make her fourth trip to Central America to meet with child advocates there.

"The first step has to be learning about the issues so we don't go in as a group of Western individuals with preconceived notions," Fleming said. "What I am hearing is that there has to be a response to the lack of protection for children subjected to violence."