An
International
View
To live in Atlanta these days is to live in a truly
international city...
I
n the roughly
twenty-five years
since
Atlanta
hosted
the
Summer Olympics
(remember
Whatizit? Yikes!),
Atlanta has firmly
entrenched itself
on the world stage,
and the Atlanta
legal community reflects that entrenchment.
You can find offices in Atlanta from firms
all over the globe, while Atlanta-based
firms have stretched their practices to
offices across the country and the world.
This month’s edition of The Atlanta Lawyer
takes An International View of our fine city.
Therefore, it seemed to be an appropriate time
to talk a bit about one of our initiatives this year
– exploring ways to mobilize our membership
to use their unique legal talents to address
needs in the local immigrant community.
As those that work in this community will
attest, the need for legal services in this
underserved population is great. For example,
Atlanta’s immigration court has one of the
highest asylum denial rates in the country,
4
February/March 2020
RYAN K. WALSH
Jones Day
[email protected]
sitting at roughly 95% according to one recent
study. Chances of success with such petitions
are thus extremely low, but they are virtually
non-existent without legal representation. In
addition, members of the local immigrant
community face many of the same legal
issues as other local indigent populations,
but these needs are often exacerbated due
to the immigration status of the individuals
involved (which will often differ, even
among members of the same family).
In the months before I began my role as
Atlanta Bar President, Atlanta Bar Executive
Director Terri Bryant and I had a number of
conversations with leaders of public interest
groups working in the local immigrant
community to look for ways that our
members might help address these needs.
In the months that followed, we highlighted
our immigration initiative during the Atlanta
Bar’s annual Celebrating Service luncheon.
We punctuated that event with a speech by
John Fleming, a partner with Eversheds
Sutherland, who has spent a great deal of time
in recent years taking on pro bono cases in
Atlanta for undocumented immigrants. John
has worked closely with public interest groups
like the Georgia Asylum and Immigration
Network (GAIN) and Kids in Need of
Defense (KIND), and his inspirational words
about his clients and his work with GAIN and
KIND were the highlight of that terrific event.
In December, we continued our emphasis
on the local immigrant community by
partnering on a community service
project with three public interest groups
that work with low income families in the
undocumented immigrant community. In
recent years, those three organizations –
GAIN, KIND, and the Tahirih Justice Center
– have held a Holiday event where their clients
can “shop” from a range of donated gifts for
their children. The Atlanta Bar sponsored
a book drive in connection with the event,
whereby Bar members not only donated
books for the Holiday celebration, but also
volunteered to help with the celebration itself.
More recently, the Atlanta Bar hosted a
“Pro Bono Perspectives” event in early
February 2020 at Georgia State University
Law School. This event focused on ways
Atlanta Bar members could get involved
in local efforts to address needs in the local
immigrant community and included a four
member panel discussion that provided a
wide variety of perspectives on the issue.