A team of attorneys from the Detroit office of Pepper Hamilton LLP were honored on Friday, Nov. 7, with the firm’s 2014 William R. Klaus Pro Bono Award. The group mounted a successful challenge to a Michigan law that allowed for the removal of children from their parents without proof of endangerment or proper court orders.
Led by Partner Matthew J. Lund, Of Counsel Bob Ludolph and firm alumnus Abraham Singer, the team included Andrea E. Hayden and Robert E. Fay, and firm alumni Alice J.P. Rhee and Adam Wolfe.
The case for which the team was honored, Ratté v. Michigan Department of Human Services, involved a University of Michigan professor who took his eight-year-old son Leo to a Detroit Tigers game, and gave him a Mike’s Hard Lemonade, which he did not know contained alcohol. The police took the father and son into custody, and took the boy to the hospital, where he was cleared of having any alcohol in his bloodstream.
“The whole thing was a mistake, but the son was still taken from his father, put into the custody of Child Protective Services (CPS), and then sent to a foster home. The child was removed from both parents; the mother came to pick him up, and CPS refused to give custody to her,” Lund said. The case challenged Michigan’s child removal statute and the administrative policies of the Wayne County Family Court, under which the removal order was issued.
That case led to new legislation passed in Michigan, known as Leo’s Law, which establishes more stringent standards for removing children from their parents.
Pepper Hamilton’s Klaus Awards are designated each year in honor of William R. Klaus, whose distinguished career included many pro bono, philanthropic and community service achievements. In addition to serving as a leader of the firm for many years, Klaus was a founder of Community Legal Services in Philadelphia and served as its chairman for 20 years.
Lund was also honored as Civil Libertarian of the Year by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan for work on the Ratté case and a 2008 voting rights case. He received the award at the ACLU of Michigan’s annual dinner, held in Dearborn on Nov. 7.
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