Our first runner-up this week is a joint team from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, the Civil Rights Corps and the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office. That group last week won a significant ruling from the California Supreme Court barring courts from detaining arrestees solely based on the fact that they don’t have the money to pay for cash bail. “What we hold is that where a financial condition is nonetheless necessary, the court must consider the arrestee’s ability to pay the stated amount of bail—and may not effectively detain the arrestee ‘solely because’ the arrestee ‘lacked the resources’ to post bail,” wrote Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar for the unanimous court. Wilmer partner Daniel Volchok argued the appeal alongside co-counsel. Other Wilmer lawyers involved included Seth Waxman, co-chair of the firm’s appellate and Supreme Court litigation practice, and counsel Thomas Sprankling. Civil Rights Corps lawyers on the matter included Alec Karakatsanis and Katherine Hubbard.
Also getting some runner-up love this week is a team at Kirkland & Ellis who scored an important win for poultry producer Sanderson Farms at the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday. A Ninth Circuit panel found that nonprofit advocacy organizations lacked organizational standing to sue Sanderson for false advertising based on allegations it used antibiotics on its chickens. “To establish organizational standing, the advocacy groups needed to show that the challenged conduct frustrated their organizational missions and that they diverted resources to combat that conduct,” wrote Judge M. Margaret McKeown, concluding that the organizations did neither thing. Kirkland partner Michael Glick argued the appeal. Associates Paul Weeks and Erin Cady led the briefing effort. Associate T.J. McCarrick, who took a key deposition in the case, rejoined the firm after briefing was complete following a clerkship with Ninth Circuit Judge (and Kirkland alum) Daniel Bress.
