Cravath’s Incarcerated Women’s Initiative: A Q&A With Partner Dave Stuart

Under Cravath’s Incarcerated Women’s Initiative, the Firm is expanding and focusing its efforts to provide pro bono counsel to incarcerated women who have survived domestic and/or sexual violence, including while imprisoned. Partner David M. Stuart, who is leading the matters to seek resentencing, parole and enforcement of civil rights, answered the following questions about the project.

How did you learn about this work and what motivated you to take on these cases?

I was looking for a pro bono project on serious issues that we don’t hear about in the public discourse.  Our incarcerated population is literally removed from our view.  We don’t hear about these issues in political campaigns or the press, and folks who have been convicted of crimes aren’t the most sympathetic; so, it’s easy to ignore them.  We first took on a case for a cognitively‑impaired woman who had been sexually exploited from the time she was 13 years old.  She was raped and sexually assaulted by prison guards while serving time at the maximum security women’s prison in New York.  We spent about nine months in the prisons investigating that case and developing witnesses.  As we learned more and heard about the lives and stories of these women, we decided that we simply had to devote more of our time and resources to more cases.

What legal services does Cravath offer these women?

The cases we’ve evaluated and taken on involve women who have been raped or sexually assaulted while in prison, women who have served their time and are preparing for a parole hearing and victims of domestic violence who are applying for resentencing under the relatively recent New York statute permitting resentencing where domestic violence was a contributing factor in their crime.  We’ve learned our way around the prison system.  And, because our matters invariably involve some of the most depraved sexual and physical abuse, we’ve developed our knowledge on how these issues impact our clients.  We now have private investigators and mental health professionals working with us as well.  Aside from the legal services, developing a sincere and empathetic relationship is key to our holistic approach to these matters.

How are you working with partner organizations on this initiative?

Partner organizations like the Legal Aid Society, Sanctuary for Families and the Brooklyn Law School Criminal Defense and Advocacy Clinic are critical to our work.  They are the true experts and have generously devoted their professional lives to these issues.  We meet and collaborate with them often on the legal and strategic issues and just the mundane stuff like prison process and how to obtain records.  Sometimes, they are there simply for moral support!

What would your message be to lawyers who want to be involved in helping these women?

Spend a lot of time in the prisons and listen deeply to the stories.  Don’t let our profession wring the humanity out of you.  And recognize that you or a loved one could have ended up where they are had life taken only a slight turn.