Pro Bono 2010:
Making Up For Lost Time

After appellate specialist Stephen Kinnaird joined Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker in 2008, one of his first assignments was a pro bono case before the U.S. Supreme Court. At best it was a long shot: The firm agreed to represent Jose Padilla, a Honduran-born legal resident of the United States who had pled guilty to drug smuggling in 2001. Padilla’s previous lawyers had encouraged him to accept the plea deal and incorrectly advised him that if he did so, there wouldn’t be any risk of being deported back to Honduras. (The defendant is unrelated to the Jose Padilla convicted of terrorism-related crimes in 2007.)

The question before the Court was whether attorneys have a duty to advise clients of the collateral—not just the direct—consequences of a conviction. “There were considerable challenges here,” Kinnaird says. “Virtually no jurisdiction had ruled that you could get relief from a guilty plea because of a failure to advise on the collateral consequences of a conviction.” But in March the Court ruled for Padilla, with five justices upholding Padilla’s position and two others joining the majority in part. “It was a great victory for us,” Kinnaird says.