Roberta Ritvo is the pro bono counsel in DLA Piper’s Washington, DC office, assisting with regional pro bono programs in Atlanta, Baltimore, Northern Virginia, Raleigh and Tampa and overseeing operations for the Washington, DC office’s pro bono efforts.

Ms. Ritvo focuses her pro bono practice on immigration, international and election issues. She has successfully represented clients applying for immigration benefits under the Violence Against Women Act and T and U Visas. Ms. Ritvo currently is assisting International Justice Mission in its efforts to develop a land registration system in Rwanda. She also develops new projects for New Perimeter, the firm's nonprofit affiliate through which attorneys work on large-scale international pro bono projects based outside the US. She has also worked on two New Perimeter teams, assisting The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the Southern Africa Litigation Centre.

Ms. Ritvo is a lead in DLA Piper’s participation in Election Protection, the largest voter rights coalition in the United States. Election Protection was formed to ensure that all voters have an equal opportunity to participate in the political process. Her work on behalf of the coalition began in 2004, when she spent two weeks serving as the Legal Command Center Coordinator with the Ohio Voter Protection Coalition.

Although she concentrates on the above issues, Ms. Ritvo has advised and represented clients in a number of other areas: custody, adoption, Social Security disability, homeless issues and disaster relief. She leads DLA Piper’s work representing victims of Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi. She drafted part of the amicus curiae brief DLA Piper filed in the United States Supreme Court in the University of Michigan affirmative action case. At the D.C. jail, for more than two years she taught classes addressing issues of sexual harassment in the workplace, in a program that is part of another large-scale case handled by DLA Piper.

Ms. Ritvo joined the firm as an associate in the international Litigation practice group, where she was instrumental in several large cases, including litigation surrounding a popular prescription drug and arbitration on behalf of the government of an African nation. She also represented a retail pharmacy chain before a Congressional committee and in responding to a federal agency special order.

After graduating from Smith College, Ms. Ritvo ran the nonprofit organization Summerbridge Houston (now Breakthrough Houston); taught sixth grade with Teach for America in Houston and served on TFA Houston’s board; and served on the board of the local chapter of The NAMES Project: AIDS Memorial Quilt. While earning her J.D. and Master of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, Ms. Ritvo completed internships at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, the Texas Civil Rights Project, and the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Ms. Ritvo works with her father as a volunteer at major figure skating competitions.

PŘIJETÍ

• District of Columbia
• Texas

Členství

• American Society of International Law

Praktické zkušenosti

• The Honorable Robert L. Hinkle, Federal District Court, Northern District of Florida