Perkins Coie’s Legal Assistance Effort on Behalf of Holocaust Survivors Receives American Bar Association’s Highest Pro Bono Award

Seattle, WA - (June 2009) Perkins Coie today announced that the Holocaust Survivors Justice Network (HSJN), a legal assistance effort in which the organization’s staff volunteers locally, is a recipient of the 2009 American Bar Association Pro Bono Publico Award, the profession’s highest recognition for pro bono legal work.  Organized by Los Angeles-based nonprofit law firm Bet Tzedek Legal Services, the HSJN is an international initiative established to assist Holocaust survivors in obtaining reparation payments under a program established by the German government.  

Perkins Coie became a coordinating member of the HSJN when it expanded to Phoenix in July and to Seattle in October 2008.  We also became a participating member of the HSJN in Denver.  Since affiliating, 21 lawyers and paralegals from Perkins Coie have devoted over 400 hours of time free of charge to work with survivors on the claim-filing process.

"Perkins Coie has a long and rich history of doing pro bono legal work," said Bob Giles, firm managing partner. "We are delighted that the HSJN is being honored for the important pro bono work that we and our colleagues in law firms throughout the country are doing. "  

The Denver, Phoenix and Seattle efforts are part of a broader network now numbering clinics in 31 major cities in the United States and Canada and two cities in Australia.  Justice Network volunteers provide free legal services to survivors—nearly all in their 80s and 90s—in completing Germany’s complex reparation application process.   The groundbreaking project is the first-ever nationally coordinated reparations endeavor on behalf of survivors, and the largest pro bono initiative of its kind in U.S. history, according to Bet Tzedek.

The Justice Network was established after the German government created a new program in late 2007 to compensate survivors who performed “voluntary” labor in Nazi-controlled ghettos during the Second World War.  Under the German Ghetto Work Payment Program, survivors are eligible to file claims for a one-time payment of €2,000 (approximately U.S.$2,800).

Since its creation 18 months ago, volunteers from more than 100 law firms and corporate legal departments, as well as 30-plus social-service agency partners, have helped to expand the program into geographic markets across North America and Australia.  Over that same period, approximately 3,600 individual lawyers, paralegals and other legal professionals have donated an estimated 45,000 hours of time in local legal clinics where they interview survivors and complete the highly detailed claim forms.

Pro bono coordinators in each city use a Bet Tzedek-developed curriculum for training local volunteers to complete the technical and nuanced applications.  As a result of these efforts, Justice Network volunteers have met with and interviewed about 5,000 survivors, filing an estimated 3,000 claims, worth approximately $8 million in potential reparation payments, according to Mitchell A. Kamin, Bet Tzedek’s president and chief executive officer.  Though Germany has yet to complete processing the majority of these claims, to date, 99 percent of the applications submitted from Southern California have been approved, resulting in more than $1,250,000 in payments to low-income survivors.   

“There is no greater testament to the tireless dedication of our volunteer partners or to the courage of these survivors than for the Justice Network to receive a Pro Bono Publico Award,” said Kamin.  “This honor belongs entirely to them and, on behalf of Bet Tzedek, we are grateful to everyone involved in the Network and deeply humbled by the recognition bestowed by the American Bar Association. “The Network makes a significant difference in the lives of our clients.  Though the individual reparation payment is modest, it often enables our aging clients to meet basic living needs—rent, food, medications.  I can’t emphasize enough that more than 25 percent of all survivors live below federal poverty guidelines, and many more struggle to get by, so this payment makes a significant difference in their lives,” Kamin stated.

ABOUT BET TZEDEK: Founded in 1974, Bet Tzedek’s mission is to ensure “equal justice for all.”  One of the nation’s premier public interest law firms, Bet Tzedek, “The House of Justice” in Hebrew, provides free legal services in matters involving consumer rights, elder law, housing, public benefits and workers’ rights to low-income, disabled and elderly people of all racial and religious backgrounds.  Bet Tzedek is renowned as one of a handful of agencies in the world to offer free legal help to Holocaust survivors on a wide range of issues, including reparations, pensions, and benefits offered by Germany and other European countries.