Two Gibbons Attorneys Presented With Pro Bono Award For Excellence In Legal Advocacy

Susanne Peticolas, a Director in the Real Property & Environmental Department at Gibbons P.C., and Jonathan D. Klein, an associate in the Business & Commercial Litigation Department, were honored by Human Rights First with its Pro Bono Star award for excellence in legal advocacy. Ms. Peticolas and Mr. Klein received their awards on Thursday, October 16.

Human Rights First is a nonprofit, nonpartisan international human rights organization based in New York, Houston, and Washington, D.C. The organization presents its Pro Bono Star award annually to lawyers who show extraordinary commitment in their pro bono representation of clients in asylum and other immigration cases. Ms. Peticolas and Mr. Klein are being recognized for their representation of an asylum client from Sierra Leone who was being held in an immigration detention center while suffering from medical issues and related communications problems. Since taking on the client in 2010, Ms. Peticolas and Mr. Klein scheduled her case for a merits hearing on the asylum claim while working through issues relating to mental health and competency, as well as various procedural hurdles. Thanks to their hard work and dedication, she was granted asylum in 2013.