Drinker Biddle, the Mississippi Center for Justice, and ABA Death Penalty Representation Project under the auspices of the Barbara McDowell High Impact Pro Bono Project brought an action in the Mississippi Chancery Court on behalf of 16 inmates on death row against the state of Mississippi seeking to enforce the inmates’ right to competent counsel and access to the courts during their state post-conviction proceeding in order to remedy the denial of those rights in past proceedings while requesting a stay of execution for all of the inmates.

On October 19, 2011, Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP (DBR), in collaboration with the Equal Justice Initiative of Montgomery, Alabama (EJI), filed a first of its kind civil class action in the United States District for the Middle District of Alabama. The lawsuit seeks to eradicate the long-standing pattern and practice of Alabama state prosecutors’ use of peremptory challenges to exclude otherwise qualified African Americans from serving on juries in serious felony cases (principally capital cases) in Houston and Henry Counties, Alabama, solely because of their race in violation of the U.S. Constitution, federal and anti-discrimination laws, including the federal Civil Rights Act of 1875, and state law.

Working with the law firm of Drinker Biddle & Reath as a project of the firm’s Barbara McDowell High Impact Pro Bono Initiative, Legal Aid sued DHS and DDOE at the Office of Administrative Hearings when the District of Columbia failed to implement the Food Stamps Expansion Act of 2009 on the date on which it became effective. A settlement was reached whereby the District agreed to recalculate Food Stamps benefits for all current and former beneficiaries who were receiving benefits.