Orrick Pro Bono Team Partners with LDF on Racial Justice Report in Breonna Taylor Case

November.30.2020

An Orrick pro bono team collaborated with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) on a comprehensive report that reviewed the grand jury proceedings involving the fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor in Kentucky in March. LDF enlisted Orrick to assist in reviewing the recordings and any deficiencies in the Kentucky Attorney General’s presentation of evidence to the grand jury and irregularities in the proceedings after a judge ordered audio files of the probe released.

This report summarizes the findings and recommendations, which include calling for a special prosecutor and new grand jury to re-examine the shooting.

“An exhaustive review of the grand jury proceedings here clearly demonstrates that there is much more work to be done to achieve justice in this matter and restore public confidence in how these troubling police shootings are investigated,” said Orrick partner Lauren Muldoon, who led our pro bono work on the report. “We were proud as lawyers committed to racial and social justice to devote our energies to this report and collaborate with LDF to assemble these vital findings and recommendations.”

In addition to Lauren, our team included Pro Bono Counsel Rene Kathawala and associates Andrew Davidson, Molly McCafferty, Alison Epperson, Ciarra Carr, Jake Routhier and Logan Dwyer.

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Rene Kathawala Pro Bono Counsel

New York

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Rene Kathawala Pro Bono Counsel

New York

Rene works with other pro bono counsel and legal services nonprofits to increase the quantity and quality of pro bono representation that is being provided to indigent clients in each of the cities worldwide where Orrick has a presence. In addition, he supervises and directly works on cases in such diverse areas as immigration law, family and matrimonial law, housing law, public benefits law, employment law counseling, impact litigation and nonprofit advice and counseling. Rene has worked on many substantial matters in the federal and state systems over his career that are reported as precedent. He also works with firm attorneys to strengthen the firm's innovative Impact Finance and Social Enterprise team that he founded and that provides representation in diverse transactional areas to nonprofit, for profit and hybrid organizations dedicated to providing basic services to poor persons around the world in areas including microfinance, water, education, energy, housing and health.

Based on his long-standing commitment to access to justice issues, Rene has been appointed to serve as a member of the New York City Bar Association Right to Counsel Task Force and the New York City Bar Association Family Court Judicial Appointment & Assignment Process Work Group. In recognition of his exemplary work in family law, United States District Judge Bloom appointed Rene as a special master in a federal court family law matter in 2014 in the Eastern District of New York in case number 07-cv-02565-ARR-LB, styled Garmhausen et al v. United States Department of Justice et al.