Ballard Spahr Honored by Human Rights First for Outstanding Pro Bono Service

Human Rights First will present Ballard Spahr with its 2019 Marvin E. Frankel Award, which recognizes the firm's exceptional pro bono service to refugees and asylum seekers.

Since 2001, Ballard Spahr has partnered with Human Rights First to provide legal representation to indigent asylum seekers in the Washington, D.C. area. Firm attorneys have taken on a number of complex asylum matters, including the case of a Nigerian woman fleeing death threats from Boko Haram and, later, the derivative asylum claims of her children. Ballard Spahr lawyers secured asylum for the family, which reunited in the U.S. earlier this year.

Human Rights First is a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting human rights in the United States. It works to protect refugees, defend persecuted minorities, and combat torture.

Ballard Spahr consistently ranks among the top 100 law firms in the Am Law Pro Bono Report. Last year, the firm was awarded the American Bar Association's Pro Bono Publico Award. Earlier this summer, it recognized a team of Ballard Spahr lawyers doing pro bono work for asylum-seekers with a $25,000 donation to the Southern Poverty Law Center's Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative. The program works to meet the legal needs of immigrant asylum-seekers being detained in remote locations across the American South.