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 seeking T and U Visas or applying for immigration benefits under the Violence Against Women Act. Ms. Ritvo currently is assisting International Justice Mission in writing a field guide on the application of succession law to the new land registration program in Rwanda. She also works with New Perimeter, DLA Piper's nonprofit affiliate through which lawyers work on large-scale international pro bono projects based outside the US. She is currently part of a team helping to strengthen the pro bono culture in Mexico City in partnership with Mexico Appleseed. She previously worked on two other New Perimeter teams, assisting The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the Southern Africa Litigation Centre.

Ms. Ritvo played a leading role in DLA Piper’s participation in Election Protection, the largest nonpartisan 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. DLA Piper's work with EP during the 2008 elections was integral; more than 200 different attorneys and staff members across the US participated in the voter rights efforts.

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 who are trying to secure their FEMA benefits or grants from the Mississippi Development Authority. 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. For more than two years she taught classes at the DC jail addressing issues of sexual harassment in the workplace, as part of the follow up to a large-scale case handled by DLA Piper.

Ms. Ritvo joined DLA Piper 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.

Admissions

• District of Columbia
• Texas

Memberships

• American Society of International Law

Seminars

• Panelist, "Innovations in Justice," University of Maryland School of Law, Baltimore (April 2009)

Clerk Information

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