Pro Bono Innovators 2024 Honoree Reed Smith

In our 2024 edition of Pro Bono Innovators, Bloomberg Law honors Reed Smith for its success securing a nearly $1 million settlement for journalists from the city of Minneapolis over alleged police attacks during the 2020 protests of the murder of George Floyd; Pennsylvania court wins securing the rights of transgender individuals to change their names, and other matters.

Your firm’s key matters include securing a nearly $1M settlement in Goyette v. Minneapolis for journalists allegedly attacked by Minneapolis police during the 2020 George Floyd protests, and Pennsylvania court wins challenging the constitutionality of Pennsylvania’s felony bar rule and the rights of transgender individuals to change their names. How did your firm strategize on how to approach these matters?

Settlement for journalists in Goyette v. Minneapolis: In 2024, I led a Reed Smith pro bono team that partnered with co-counsel, the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, and other Minneapolis-based counsel to win a nearly $1 million settlement from the city of Minneapolis over police attacks on reporters during the George Floyd protests of 2020. Plaintiffs previously settled with the state of Minnesota for a similar sum.

The case dates to June 2020, when we helped journalists sue Minneapolis, Minneapolis Police Department officials, Minnesota State Patrol leaders, and other law enforcement officials seeking damages and injunctive relief arising from the systematic violation of their constitutional rights under the First, Fourth, and 14th Amendments, and for conspiring to violate those rights.

Our complaint detailed how, during protests of the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis city police on May 25, 2020, and again during the Daunte Wright protests in of 2021, law enforcement officers tear-gassed, arrested, pepper-sprayed and shot media members in the face with less-than-lethal munitions (including hard foam bullets), often without warning.

Journalists also were arrested without cause and threatened at gunpoint, even though they were clearly identified as “PRESS.” These reporters, who covered wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, said they’d never before faced such abuse.

Our strategy focused on presenting detailed evidence of how plaintiffs were threatened, subject to unlawful arrests, and assaulted, in direct violation of specific constitutional guarantees for their safety and freedom of the press, as well the MPD’s history of assaulting journalists.

Lead plaintiff Jared Goyette was documenting protesters’ efforts to help a seriously injured young Black man when police fired a projectile at his face and then tear-gassed him. He joined the lawsuit to stop this police mistreatment of journalists, and to get information about the internal decisions that led to it.

After a 3½-year legal battle, the $950,000 settlement was approved by the Minneapolis City Council on Feb. 8 to be divided between Goyette, seven other journalists attacked by police, and the Communications Workers of America. The journalists have now settled their cases with all agencies and officials, except for the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, which is likely headed for trial.

Hilliard name change petition: In August 2023, a Reed Smith team led by Zack Roman and I teamed with co-counsel Gabriel Arkles and Sydney Duncan of the Transgender Legal Defense Education Fund to obtain an important court ruling affirming the rights of transgender individuals to change their names.

In this win, a judge of the Butler County Court of Common Pleas overrode the Pennsylvania felony bar to grant a name change for Jordan Xzavier Hilliard, a transgender man. As written, Pennsylvania’s felony bar prevents individuals with felony convictions from obtaining a name change until two years after the completion of their sentence. However, the Reed Smith team successfully argued that this statute is based on improper presumptions that violate constitutional rights.

This win solidifies Reed Smith’s earlier successes from December 2021, when the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas granted a name change for a transgender petitioner over the felony bar and, one week later, the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas did the same and expressly declared the felony bar to be “unconstitutional.”

For this cutting-edge work, TLDEF named Reed Smith its 2023 Pro Bono Partner of the Year.

What were the most innovative aspects of two of your client matters in your view? And who took the lead on driving innovation with the work?

Settlement for journalists in Goyette v. Minneapolis: With journalists and journalism under assault from myriad quarters today, the role of the judiciary in protecting our free press is more important than ever.

Following the US District Court of Minnesota’s denial of the city’s motion for summary judgment, this settlement highlights the vital role of the courts in protecting the First Amendment rights of journalists, and of every American, from attack by law enforcement and public officials who respond to the exercise of those rights with suppression and even violence.

The court’s decision, turning back the efforts of the defendants to have our clients’ claims dismissed on their motions for summary judgment, is important, not just for its outcome, but also because the court rejected their efforts to use the cloak of qualified immunity to shield from liability their officers’ blatant efforts to prevent the media from reporting on gross police misconduct.

Hilliard name change petition: The Pennsylvania felony bar is a statutory provision that prevents all persons with felony convictions from obtaining a name change until at least two years have passed since the end of the person’s sentence. It also prevents individuals with certain serious felonies from ever obtaining a name change.

The felony bar has presented obstacles for some individuals who desire a name that matches their gender identity and/or presentation. Accordingly, we explored Due Process and Free Speech protections guaranteed by the Pennsylvania Constitution, which is more expansive than the US Constitution, and set out to achieve a win that would eliminate this barrier for our name-change clients.

The win before the Butler County Court of Common Pleas for Jordan Hilliard in August 2023 was the third time the Reed Smith team obtained a court order overriding Pennsylvania’s felony bar and granting a requested name change.

Throughout, the team has argued that the law fails Pennsylvania’s irrebuttable presumption test and infringes on three fundamental rights: the right to independence in making intensely private decisions; the right to avoid disclosure of highly personal matters; and the right to acquire, possess, and protect one’s identity and reputation.

The strategy also included expert declarations outlining the many harms of restricting transgender people with felony convictions—who already face considerable challenges in finding work and employment—from legally changing their names, including putting their lives at risk.

The team first achieved success after filing three name-change petitions on the same day in September 2021, two in Pittsburgh and another in Philadelphia, in which they expressly argued that the Pennsylvania felony bar is unconstitutional.

The Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas agreed and overrode the felony bar to grant a name change. Eight days later, the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas ruled likewise, finding that the felony bar is “unconstitutional.”

In 2022, however, the team learned that the Butler County Court of Common Pleas denied Mr. Hilliard’s name-change request due to the felony bar. We appealed, obtained an order remanding the case for consideration of the felony bar’s constitutionality, and obtained the name change.

Tell us more about the impact of these two matters on the local, national, and/or global level.

Settlement for journalists in Goyette v. Minneapolis: Journalists who are covering police brutality should never be met with more police brutality.

As our co-counsel in this matter, Kevin Riach, of the ACLU-MN said, the work of journalists “is critical to the health of our democracy. This settlement is an important step forward in holding the Minneapolis Police Department accountable for its unconstitutional conduct and ensuring that journalists can feel safe reporting in our city.”

What we saw in Minneapolis during the George Floyd protests repeated all over again during the Daunte Wright protests. Our clients were pepper-sprayed, beaten, pushed to the ground, and their cameras smashed.

Beyond the nearly $1 million payment in damages costs, key provisions of the achieved settlements also include a preliminary injunction against “arresting, threatening to arrest, or using physical force” of journalists; positive changes to MPD policies and procedures; the Independent Expert Review of all complaints regarding media mistreatment by the police; and training for all Minnesota State Troopers on First Amendment considerations and interactions with media.

Plaintiff Jared Goyette, who was attacked while covering the protests as a freelance journalist for the Washington Post, said in a statement that he hoped Goyette v. Minneapolis, “alongside [other cases] and the impending consent decree between the city and the Department of Justice, will lead to a future where Minneapolis law enforcement is less likely to recklessly infringe upon First Amendment rights and assault and intimidate journalists.”

Hilliard name change petition: Since the rulings in December 2021, by all known accounts, courts in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh have not enforced the name-change felony bar, and many transgender individuals who otherwise would have been prevented from doing so have been permitted to change their names.

Ayden Scheim, Ph.D., the epidemiology expert who testified in each of the cases, explained that many transgender individuals can have negative experiences when presenting identification documents that do not align with their gender presentation. The wrong name on their IDs makes that struggle even harder, and this doesn’t help anyone. It can even put lives at risk.

The Hilliard name change case involved the first time a court in Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, issued a decision overriding the felony bar. The ruling continues the momentum towards obtaining a statewide order invalidating the felony bar, for the benefit of many Pennsylvanians.

Why do you think your team ultimately achieved successful results in these two matters?

Settlement for journalists in Goyette v. Minneapolis: Throughout the case, we showed that our clients’ constitutional rights were violated, including, specifically, via retaliation for exercising their rights protected by the First Amendment, unlawful seizure and excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and violations of procedural due process rights protected by the 14th Amendment.

In successfully opposing the city’s summary judgment motion, plaintiffs were able to present to the court evidence of the MPD’s history of systematically assaulting journalists; its abject failure to train officers in respecting journalists’ constitutional rights; other evidence, including officers’ bodycam footage, of the intentional targeting of journalists and celebrating such attacks; and the shocking and repeated attacks on journalists and of preventing them from covering MPD’s conduct.

Moreover, we successfully detailed that several members of the media were threatened or subject to unlawful arrests, and that others sustained severe, permanent injuries while reporting on events of intense public concern.

This war on members of the media was a notably shameful episode in the ongoing assault on the free press that we are witnessing across the country. Overall, we hope that the case will send a message to other law enforcement agencies that the bar and the courts are ready to step in and hold them accountable when they treat the media as the enemy, and not as the guardians of our democracy.

Hilliard name change petition: Our team achieved successful results in these matters because it devoted proper time and energy to identifying the grounds on which an outdated law violates fundamental rights and explained, with precision, why name changes can be vital for transgender individuals.

We drew upon more than 10 years of experience teaming with TLDEF on helping transgender individuals secure court-ordered name changes, including more than 300 name changes in Pennsylvania. However, ultimately, we were successful in these matters because of our brave pro bono clients, who were willing to put themselves out there to achieve wins that would benefit others in similar situations.

As our co-counsel Casey Bohannon, of the Name Change Project said, “It takes deep self-love and fearlessness to stand in front of a judge demanding you be seen as your true identity. The name change process will be one of the most significant events in a trans person’s life, and the stress and anxiety of verifying everything is submitted correctly can be overwhelming.”

As such, we work tirelessly with our pro bono partners to remove some of the barriers and burdens that our clients would otherwise face alone.

Responses were provided by Reed Smith Partner Edward B. Schwartz, Antitrust & Competition, Litigation & Dispute Resolution, for Goyette v. Minnesota.

Responses were provided by Reed Smith Partner M. Patrick Yingling, Appellate, Litigation & Dispute Resolution, for the name change matter.