What were the firm’s biggest or most important (non-client) achievements as a firm in 2020?
We are extremely proud that our people were agile, innovative and tireless in designing and implementing ways to serve our clients’ needs and engage our Weil family while working in a virtual environment. As a result, we performed very well and our cultural values are stronger than ever.
As a firm, what were your biggest challenges and how did you address them?
Our most important priority was protecting the safety and health of each member of our Weil family. We are grateful that everyone has helped to take care of each other during this challenging time.
What was the firm’s biggest pro bono/public service success in Texas of 2020?
Since April 2020, a Dallas-led team, working in close coordination with the ACLU of Texas, has prosecuted major federal court litigation aimed at freeing hundreds of medically vulnerable immigrant detainees from an ICE civil detention facility in Conroe, Texas. This facility has been rendered unconstitutionally hazardous because of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Vasquez Barrera, et al. v. Wolf, et al., No. 4:20-CV-01241, pending before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas). To date, the Weil/ACLU team has obtained release of 15 medically vulnerable detainees through varying forms of individualized relief and prevailed on numerous critical motions, including a Motion to Dismiss, a Motion to Intervene, and a Motion to Compel Discovery. The team has moved to certify a class of all medically vulnerable detainees within the facility to obtain release on a class-wide scale. To that end, days after the team gained access to critical class discovery information revealing a troubling number of medically vulnerable detainees, the ICE facility began voluntarily releasing all detainees that fit the putative class definition. Therefore, although Weil can identify only 15 releases resulting directly from judicial orders (to date), countless other detainees have benefitted and continue to benefit from the ongoing litigation. In fact, the facility’s population is now 30% of what it was at the outset of the litigation. The case now awaits class certification, which, if successful on the merits, will obligate the facility to release medically vulnerable detainees and to avoid detaining such immigrants in the first place.
What was the firm’s most significant move forward in addressing diversity and inclusion in 2020?
In light of the racial reckoning of the summer of 2020, Weil is dedicating special focus at this time to the Black community and to promoting anti-racism and racial justice internally and externally. These efforts build on our longstanding commitment to racial justice such as Diversity Scorecards for Firm leaders, annual diversity training, biennial Black Affinity Group conferences, and associate of color mentoring circles with an additional sense of urgency and purpose. Weil launched a Racial Justice speaker series last summer: Racial Justice in America, featuring a variety of leading voices on the impact of systemic racism on many facets of society and the role that each of us can play to be actively antiracist. We have held nearly 20 programs, with highlights including Professor Ibram X. Kendi on How to be Antiracist and Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw on Intersectionality. An important hallmark of our inclusion efforts has been a focus on intersectionality, which is more important than ever. Our Disability inclusion month programs both featured women of color with disabilities who spoke about the intersections of racism and ableism in society. Our Transgender Awareness Month speaker also addressed the racial violence against the Black transgender community. We believe it’s imperative to recognize and address the diversity within diversity. Our efforts have not focused solely on the US. Our offices around the world have participated in the racial justice programs. Weil’s London office has undertaken its own antiracism efforts, including hosting several program on the Black British experience with prominent speakers.
What is your No. 1 goal as a law firm for 2021?
The safety and health of the members of the Weil family continue to be our top priorities as we navigate a journey toward a new normal, while taking all appropriate precautions.