Hogan Lovells named Business of the Year by the Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce
Tysons, Northern Virginia, 11 June 2021 – Hogan Lovells is pleased to announce that our Northern Virginia office has been named this year's Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce Good Business Awards Business of the Year for our pro bono efforts focusing on Advancing Racial Justice (ARJ).
Each year, the Chamber awards a business that exemplifies corporate social responsibility and has gone above and beyond for their community with the "Business of the Year" recognition. While 2020 marked the celebration of our Pro Bono practice's 50th anniversary, it also brought a host of new challenges within our country. The pandemic heightened economic and racial challenges in our communities, and given our firm's long history of advocating on behalf of the disadvantaged and oppressed, we announced our commitment to ARJ in June of 2020. We formally pledged to devote at least 65,000 pro bono hours through 2023 to reforming systemic societal barriers that profoundly impact people of color, especially in the areas of voting rights, housing, and criminal justice.
"Our coordinated and comprehensive response builds on more than 50 years of racial justice advocacy at the firm," said Pro Bono partner T. Weymouth. "We are proud to continue the fight for equality, and we know there is much more work to be done. We are using our time and skills to address individual instances of racial discrimination, as well as policies, practices, and social conditions that disproportionately affect people of color."
Carine Stoick, Americas Professional Development & Diversity Partner and Northern Virginia Office Managing Partner said: "Hogan Lovells has a deep heritage in Northern Virginia, having established our office here over 35 years ago. We are proud to use our legal skills to serve our region at large. This Good Business Award is the result of the hard work and dedication of our lawyers and business services staff who are deeply committed to this amazing community where we all live and work."
Below are some recent highlights of the firm s work in the field of advancing racial justice in the United States.
Voting rights
In response to a lawsuit filed by Hogan Lovells and other groups, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that Virginia must extend the Commonwealth's voter registration deadline to 11:59 p.m. on 15 October 2020 in order to remedy the harm caused to Virginia voters, when the Commonwealth's voting systems went down on the final day for voter registration.
Housing
Filing a lawsuit with the Legal Aid Society of Eastern Virginia and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law to stop unlawful evictions and the demolition of the historically-Black public housing community in St. Paul's Quadrant in Norfolk.
Criminal justice
In May 2021, a jury rendered a US$75 million verdict in favor of our clients Henry McCollum and Leon Brown, two men who had been wrongfully convicted, sentenced to death, and spent 31 years in prison for a crime they did not commit.