Steven Donziger talking to his supporters on the street outside his apartment who are calling to "Free Steven" on his 500th day in house arrest in Manhattan, New York, on Dec. 18, 2020. Photo: Ryland West/ALM Students From 52 Law Schools Boycott Seward & Kissel's Recruitment Over Alleged Conflict in Donziger Prosecution
"We, the undersigned law students, refuse to consider employment with the firm until it withdraws from its conflicted position as Chevron's private prosecutor," the student letter issued to Seward & Kissel's partnership says. Donziger, facing federal criminal contempt-of-court charges, helped win an $8.6 billion judgment against Chevron in Ecuador. He claims Chevron has been trying to "ruin" him since.
February 26, 2021 at 11:55 AM
10 minute read
Students from 52 law schools, including Stanford, Yale, Harvard and NYU, are boycotting Seward & Kissel's recruiting process because of the firm's role in prosecuting embattled lawyer Steven Donziger for criminal contempt of court.
A letter issued to the Seward firm's partnership and initially signed by 233 students argues, as has Donziger's legal team, that Seward has a conflict of interest that should bar it from serving as the government-appointed special prosecutor in Donziger's high-profile criminal case. Specifically, the students argue that human rights lawyer Donziger helped Indigenous Ecuadorians win an $8.6 billion judgment in Ecuador's high court against Chevron based on oil damage allegedly strewn across an Indigenous swath of the Amazon jungle; Donziger's role in securing the judgment has led indirectly, and wrongly, to him now facing up to six months in prison on U.S. contempt-of-court charges; and the 157-lawyer Seward firm has represented Chevron in multiple unrelated matters, making it a conflicted judge-appointed prosecutor that must step down.
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