Pro Bono

Dain Torpy attorneys Kate Moran Carter and Michael McDermott recently won political asylum for their client in a removal hearing before the United States Immigration Court. The firm’s client, a Ugandan refugee and a member of the oppositional political party, the Forum for Democratic Change, fled to the United States in 2009 after being detained and tortured on two separate occasions because of his membership within the FDC. After presentation of the client’s direct testimony, cross-examination, and re-direct, the Immigration Judge granted the client’s application for asylum on the grounds that she found his testimony to be credible and that he had established his well-founded fear of future persecution by the government of Uganda on account of his membership in the FDC. The United States Department of Homeland Security immediately waived its right to appeal the decision. Ms. Carter and Mr. McDermott will now work to seek derivative asylum for the client’s wife and five children, whom he has not seen in five years and who continue to live in hiding in Uganda.

Since 2005, Kate Moran Carter has worked with the Political Asylum Immigration Representation Project (PAIR) to represent applicants seeking asylum here in the United States on account of past persecution or future persecution that they have or will face in their home countries. Currently Kate is representing two clients. The first was granted asylum on account of the past persecution he faced in his home country of Togo for his work on behalf of a political opposition party, after Kate successfully represented him at the time of his removal hearing. Kate is now working with this client to bring over his wife and children, whom he has not seen in eight years, and to apply for his green card so that he can begin the naturalization process and become an American citizen. Kate’s second client is currently seeking asylum on account of past persecution he faced in his home country of Uganda as a result of his membership and work on behalf of a political opposition party. Kate will represent him in a removal hearing before the Immigration Court.
POLITICAL ASYLUM IMMIGRATION REPRESENTATION PROJECT

Dan Dain provided pro bono legal representation to the Agassiz Baldwin Community Center in Cambridge in successfully defending against two different appeals of permits for the renovation of an existing dilapidated old carriage house into the planned new Maud Morgan Visual Arts Center, to serve children in after-school art programs.

Nancer Ballard worked as an insurance specialist with Joe Savage and others at Goodwin Procter, LLP to settle a civil case brought on behalf of a man who was wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for over nineteen years before being exonerated through the efforts of the New England Innocence Project.

Dan Pasquarello successfully represented a Cameroonian refugee couple seeking political asylum as lead counsel during two-day hearing before Immigration Court. He conducted extensive client interviews, submitted briefing, expert reports, and affidavits, and prepared clients, fact witnesses, and expert witnesses for trial; he continued his representation of the clients with respect to derivative asylum status for the children they were forced to leave behind in Cameroon, and assisted clients in obtaining permanent residency status.