Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 6250 51 victims and offering confidential support and services to tens of thousands of victims and survivors of sexual and domestic violence and their families each year. Mintz Levin has provided legal counsel to the organization for several decades. This past year, attorneys at the firm, overseen by Peter Biagetti and Sue Finegan, assisted JDI on a variety of legal issues. Kisoro Children’s Foundation In 2015, the firm assisted with the formation of a new Massachusetts nonprofit organization, Kisoro Children’s Foun- dation, Inc., founded to support the education, health, and welfare of children and families in Kisoro, Uganda. Mintz Levin continues to work with the newly formed organization and is working with the foundation to obtain federal tax-exempt status. Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation For 53 years, the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation has honored Marines by educating their children. The nation’s oldest and largest provider of need-based scholarships to military children, the Scholarship Foundation pays particular attention to those students whose parents have been killed or wounded in combat or demonstrated financial need. The Heroes Tribute Scholarship Program for Children of the Wounded provides up to $40,000 of scholarship support for children of wounded Marines and Navy Corpsmen serving with the Marines. Since 1962, the organization has awarded more than 35,000 scholarships valued at nearly $100,000,000. For the 2015–2016 academic year, scholarships were awarded to 2,300 students, totaling more than $7,000,000. Mintz Levin provides the Scholarship Foundation with legal services in a variety of areas, including trademark, copyright, data security, information privacy, insurance, trust and estate, corporate, transaction, and investment-advisor relationship matters. The firm’s legal support for the Scholarship Foundation was led by attorney Kevin Ainsworth (a director and general counsel of the Scholarship Foundation) and included attorneys Nancy Adams, Cynthia Larose, and Peter Miller as well as former Mintz Levin attorney Marty Lorenzo. Medical-Legal Partnership & Dana-Farber Clients referred to Mintz Levin from the Medical Legal Partnership (MLP) collaboration with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) face severe medical challenges and are necessarily focused on their illnesses and treatment. The legal difficulties that often accompany a serious medical diagnosis— such as complications with housing, problems associated with government benefits programs, or arrangements for guardianship and family planning—oftentimes create immense hardshipfortheseindividualsduringoneofthemostvulnerable times in their lives. Mintz Levin attorneys step in to provide support and counsel on discreet but crucial legal matters so that MLP-DFCI clients can focus on their health and recovery. During the year, Mintz Levin worked with a young mother of four named “Isabel” who had terminal cancer. When it was clear that Isabel did not have long to live, attorneys Mathilda McGee-Tubb and Colin Van Dyke worked with Isabel to ensure that the proper paperwork was in place to allow her sister, mother, and the father of her two youngest children to make decisions and legally care for all four of her children. After Isabel passed away, Mathilda and Colin met with Isabel’s sister and the father of her youngest children to confirm the guardianship and care arrangements for all four children. Mintz Levin attorneys also worked with “Russell,” who was struggling with his Social Security benefits in the wake of a lung cancer diagnosis. Due to his illness and the effects of chemotherapy and radiation, Russell had not been able to earn any income for well over a year, but he had nonetheless been unsuccessful in pursuing disability payments from the Social Security Administration (SSA). In the midst of fighting Additional Pro Bono Highlights from 2015 (continued) Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty The Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, also known as the Met Council, is one of New York’s largest human services agencies, providing 100,000 New Yorkers with critical services in their fight against poverty every year. Since 1972, the Met Council has been a defender and advocate for New Yorkers in need and has raised awareness around the growing problem of Jewish poverty. Met Council provides services ranging from domestic violence counseling to kosher food pantries to career training. Mintz Levin has been representing the Met Council for the past 16 years in the development of a government-subsidized, affordable assisted living facility on Staten Island. In 2015 the firm assisted with the Met Council’s project to obtain and redevelop a portion of the Seaview Northern Parcel in Staten Island for senior and medically supportive housing. During this past year, attorneys Jeff Moerdler, Mike Solet, Kevin McGinty, Michael Arnold, and Amy Stillman assisted with contracts and leases for projects including the Washington Heights Jewish Community Council, the Corona Homeless Shelter, and the Legal Services Project, and matters related to the Brooklyn telecom lease, the Lexington Avenue rooftop lease agreement, and the Ascot Partners subpoena. National Network to End Domestic Violence Founded in 1990, longtime pro bono client the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV) is a national nonprofit membership and advocacy organization comprising a network of dozens of state and territorial coalitions against domestic violence that represent over 2,000 local organizations dedicated to ending domestic violence through legal, legislative, and policy initiatives, as well as to providing shelter, counseling, and legal services to victims and survivors of domestic violence and their families. Last year, Mintz Levin attorneys submitted an amicus (“friend of the court”) brief on behalf of NNEDV in Elonis v. United States, an appeal before the US Supreme Court involving the use of Facebook to transmit threatening messages over the to survive his illness, Russell was only receiving about $30 per month in Supplemental Security Income (SSI). In order to pay his bills and provide food for his son, he had to stretch this meager check as much as he could and rely on whatever help his several sisters could provide month to month. After extensive research and document requests from the SSA, attorneys Nishant Dharia, Mike Katz, and Colin Van Dyke had to admit that due to quirks in Russell’s employment history and the rigidity of criteria associated with the Social Security Disability Insurance program, Russell was not eligible for disability payments. Undeterred, the team turned its attention to the SSI program and determined that the payments Russell was receiving were far too low. After submitting a detailed brief to the SSA outlining the arguments for an increase, the attorney team went with Russell to his local SSA office to make his case in person. As a result, the SSA was persuaded that Russell’s SSI payments were in fact deficient, and he was awarded a far greater monthly payment that will allow him to pay bills and buy food, purchase essentials for his home, and better support himself and his son. Russell’s courageous battle with cancer continues but the positive outcome in his SSI case did bring him some measure of relief and assurance as he forges ahead. Mintz Levin attorneys involved with MLP-DFCI during the year included Inna Dahlin, Nishant Dharia, Mike Katz, Kevin Mortimer, Mathilda McGee-Tubb, Rebecca Raphaelson, and Colin Van Dyke, who had a supervisory role. Project analyst Parnia Zahedi also provided support. continued