Law Firm Of The Year
This year, we honored Sheppard Mullin for their significant pro bono contributions in 2023.
Sheppard Mullin’s pro bono team, led by Steve Cardoza, has helped finalize 115 adoptions since 2021 in partnership with PLC’s De Facto Parent and Dependency Adoption Clinic. PLC is responsible for filing about a third of the total dependency adoptions that take place in Orange County, with Sheppard Mullin’s team handling about a quarter of those. They have a 100% success rate in their cases, achieving a successful legal outcome in these cases and thereby honoring the joy and love that the adoptive parents have brought to these children’s lives.
In addition, another pro bono team at Sheppard Mullin, led by Isaiah Weedn, dedicated over 1200 hours in 2023 alone on an impact litigation case, Santa Ana vs. Mental Health Association. In this matter, PLC and the pro bono team at Sheppard are defending a nonprofit organization that operates a multi-service center in Santa Ana. The center provides unhoused individuals with treatment, case management, and various other holistic services, in furtherance of their overall mission to improve the quality of life of Orange County residents impacted by mental illness. While the litigation is still on-going, Isaiah and his team have demonstrated their deep, unwavering commitment to the case through its ups and downs to date.
Community Partner of the Year
We are also honored to spotlight the exceptional contributions of the UCI Law Criminal Justice Clinic with our Community Partner of the Year award.
There are extremely few pro bono resources for post-conviction relief in Orange County, and the UCI Law School’s Criminal Justice Clinic (CJC), led by Professor Katie Tinto, plays a huge role in filling this access to justice gap. The CJC has a particularly special partnership with PLC’s Immigration Unit in assisting human trafficking survivors. Many of these clients become involved with the criminal justice system either directly through the trafficking scheme of which they are a victim, or as an indirect result of the trauma they experienced due to their trafficking. The work of Professor Tinto and her team of students to reopen, overturn, or reduce the convictions of these trafficking survivors is a key step in the healing journey of these clients, and plays an important role in enabling them to create a new, more stable future.