About the Center

Our Volunteers

King & Spalding

Firm locations: Atlanta, Houston, London, New York, and Washington, D.C.

Pro Bono Team: Alissa Rubin, Mike Weiss, Bobby Woo, and Will Fixel

About King & Spalding

King & Spalding is an international law firm with more than 800 lawyers in five major cities, Atlanta, Houston, London, New York and Washington, D.C. The firm represents more than half of the Fortune 100, and in a Corporate Counsel survey in September 2005 was ranked one of the top ten firms representing Fortune 250 companies overall.

As a founding member firm of the National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children (Center), King & Spalding has a broad-based pro bono program, which includes prisoners’ rights and prison reform, civil rights, immigration and asylum, human rights, domestic violence, homelessness advocacy, indigent criminal defense, death penalty litigation, eviction defense, consumer advocacy, and landlord/tenant and family law. Notably, King & Spalding attorneys successfully represented an immigrant client before the Supreme Court in Leocal v. Ashcroft. The Court ruled that drunk driving, even where an injury occurs, is not a crime of violence for purposes of deportation. The firm received the 2005 pro bono Award from the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, and was selected for Outstanding Achievement Awards from the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights & Urban Affairs in 2003 and 2005 for its efforts on behalf of juveniles and on political asylum cases.

Guatemala - “Alberto’s” Story

As part of the firm’s work on behalf of the Center, Houston associate Alissa Rubin represents “Alberto,” a 16-year-old boy from rural Guatemala who came to the Center facing deportation proceedings in Immigration Court. Alberto’s father is deceased, and his mother abandoned him when she remarried five years ago. Alberto entered the United States alone, while attempting to meet up with a cousin who lives in Houston, but Homeland Security officials picked him up at the California border.
Upon interviewing Alberto, Ms. Rubin identified him as an abandoned child eligible for federal immigration relief as “Special Immigrant Juvenile Status” (SIJS). In order to take advantage of this special form of protection, however, Alberto must first obtain an order from a state court declaring him a dependent of the court. This process typically takes a year or more to complete, but the immigration judge set Alberto’s deportation case for final hearing less than a month after Alberto’s first appearance in Immigration Court. Ms. Rubin pleaded with the government to agree to an administrative closure of the case against Alberto. An administrative closure would allow Alberto to proceed through the Texas family courts and file a petition for permanent residency as a Special Immigrant Juvenile. After much wrangling, the government agreed to this rare step, and on February 3, 2006, the Immigration Court granted Alberto’s Motion for Administrative Closure, thereby lifting the threat of immediate deportation hanging over Alberto.

Immediately after the Immigration Court closed the proceedings against Alberto, Ms. Rubin filed a petition for conservatorship in Texas family court asking the court to make Alberto’s cousin his legal guardian and to declare Salvador an abandoned child dependent on the court. Once the Texas court grants the requested relief, Ms. Rubin will file on Alberto’s behalf a petition for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status and lawful permanent residency with the Department of Homeland Security.

In the meantime, Alberto is attending Texas public high school, where he is learning English as his third language. His first two languages are Quiche, the Indian dialect spoken in rural Guatemala, and Spanish, which he learned after arriving in the United States. Nevertheless, Alberto is illiterate. Embarrassed about this fact, education has been Alberto's first priority since arriving on American soil. It took Ms. Rubin and other service providers two months to get him enrolled in school. Unlike many high school students, Alberto is thoroughly enjoying the experience while he awaits the potential for permanent residency.

Zambia Story of Two Sisters

An Atlanta team, led by King & Spalding partner Bobby Woo and including associates Mike Weiss and Will Fixel, recently agreed to represent two sisters from Zambia, ages 16 and 18. Their father had been politically active in this southern African country, and was reportedly arrested and tortured for his activism. He eventually died last year. After the girls’ mother received death threats from the same opposition groups who killed their father, she brought them to the United States. The attorneys’ first meeting with the girls, along with their social worker and the foster mother, was emotional, as each discussed her fears of returning to a country where they have no remaining family and would be recognized by government forces opposed to their late father's politics. Mr. Woo, Mr. Weiss, and Mr. Fixel continue to work with the sisters and their local support system to determine the best way to ensure they can remain safely in the United States.