Lawyers from Drinker Biddle along with lawyers from the Texas Fair Defense, the University of Texas Civil Rights Clinic, and the Susman Godfrey firm in Houston, Texas brought a class action against the City of Austin in a case styled Gonzales v. Salazar asserting that its practice of incarcerating individuals for failure to pay their debts for fines and fees for petty misdemeanors, such as traffic tickets, without legal representation was unconstitutional in violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitutions which protected their rights to counsel, due process, and equal protection.

A team of Drinker Biddle & Reath lawyers from the Washington and Philadelphia offices in partnership with the DC Prisoners’ Project of the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs are investigating a possible lawsuit and other actions to be taken against state and federal government agencies relating to their treatment of residents of government and privately-run halfway houses.