Pro Bono Initiatives
 

• Advocates for Children: Patterson Belknap has worked with Advocates for Children for many years, providing legal assistance to minor children and their parents, and helping families secure appropriate school placement and services.
• Legal Services of the Hudson Valley’s Housing Project: The firm began its partnership with Legal Services of the Hudson Valley (LSHV) in 2015, and over the past five years our attorneys have successfully defended many tenants facing eviction and the threat of homelessness. For years, LSHV has provided free legal representation of tenants in low income housing in eviction proceedings by their landlords.
• Mobilization for Justice : We have partnered with Mobilization for Justice (MFJ) on several impact litigations, including Access-A-Ride appeals. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers with disabilities rely on New York City’s paratransit system, Access-A-Ride, to get to work and doctor’s appointments, shop, and visit friends and family. MFJ assists people with disabilities who have been denied Access-A-Ride or who have had their benefits reduced or terminated to file appeals.
• New Jersey Office of the Public Defender: Since 2019, the firm has partnered with the Office of the Public Defender (OPD) to handle appeals on behalf of indigent criminal defendants in New Jersey. We work closely with the OPD Appellate Section lawyers in identifying issues and drafting briefs for submission to the New Jersey Appellate Division and the New Jersey Supreme Court.
• Volunteers of Legal Services: The firm partners with Volunteers of Legal Services (VOLS) on their Microenterprise Project, which helps existing and aspiring small business owners and microentrepreneurs access high-quality free legal services from a network of pro bono lawyers. More broadly, VOLS uses the power of New York City’s legal community and neighborhood-based groups to provide free, civil legal services when and where they are needed most.

We work closely with the New York County Lawyers Association (NYCLA) on various ongoing initiatives.
 

• Veteran’s Discharge Upgrade Project: We continue our work with NYCLA on the Veterans’ Discharge Upgrade Project to assist veterans who have received other than honorable discharges (often because of undiagnosed or misdiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury). Such discharges can have a serious negative impact on veterans’ lives, including denial of medical and GI Bill benefits. On behalf of these clients, Patterson Belknap attorneys prepare submissions to the Discharge Review Boards of the relevant branch of the military and, if necessary, before the Board of Corrections of Military Records. We have obtained upgrades for four of our clients in the short time this project has been underway.
• Social Security Disability Appeals Program: We have worked with NYCLA on this program since its inception in 2017, providing regular representation of plaintiffs whose applications for Social Security disability benefits or Supplemental Security Income were denied.
• New York State Central Registry of Child Abuse and Maltreatment: We co-sponsor the State Central Registry Project, providing legal representation to individuals seeking to expunge listings on the New York State Central Register of Child Abuse and Maltreatment (SCR). There are hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers on the SCR, many of which were never permitted the opportunity to contest their listing. Once a person's name is on the SCR, he/she may be denied employment in a variety of fields, including child care. Since the project’s inception in 2012, firm attorneys have assisted more than 35 clients with their SCR listings, with successful outcomes in nearly all of them.