In addition to its extensive LGBT rights work, Kramer Levin has long been involved in a wide range of other civil rights and civil liberties litigation, working with such organizations as the ACLU and the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU.
Kramer Levin helped win a federal injunction barring Florida from enforcing a state law that had forced nonpartisan groups to stop registering voters. The suit, League of Women Voters of Florida v. Cobb, was the first to establish First Amendment protection for voter registration activities. The firm has also participated in poll-watching and other activities related to voting rights on behalf of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
Kramer Levin submitted an amicus brief as co-counsel with the ACLU that helped convince a state appellate court in Texas to reverse the convictions of two pregnant women for delivering a controlled substance to their fetuses under a statute barring delivery of drugs to children. The brief argued that the novel prosecutions violated the women’s right to privacy and would improperly discourage pregnant women from seeking medical treatment and prenatal care. Kramer Levin has also assisted the New York Civil Liberties Union with research on reproductive freedom issues.
Among many establishment clause matters over the years, Kramer Levin represented the American Federation of Teachers in litigation challenging the constitutionality of school voucher programs, from the Ohio trial court to the Ohio Supreme Court to the Sixth Circuit to the U.S. Supreme Court. Kramer Levin also has filed numerous amicus briefs on church/state issues on behalf of a range of civil rights/civil liberties organizations, including most recently in the Supreme Court urging affirmance of a decision that prayer before a local town meeting was unconstitutional coercion or endorsement of religion, in the Seventh Circuit supporting affirmance of a district court decision striking down the National Day of Prayer statute as crossing the line between permitted acknowledgment of religion and unconstitutional support for and exhortation of a religious practice, and in the Eleventh Circuit challenging the placement of an evolution disclaimer sticker in high school science textbooks in the public schools of Cobb County, GA.
Kramer Levin has represented several prisoners in civil rights lawsuits challenging their treatment or conditions of confinement. Most recently, Kramer Levin obtained a settlement on behalf of a prisoner at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn based on potentially lethal attacks allegedly incited by the conduct of corrections officers. Kramer Levin also submitted an amicus brief in the New York State Court of Appeals on behalf of the Sentencing Project and 17 other organizations challenging unreasonable surcharges imposed on New York State prisoners’ telephone calls to families, loved ones and counsel, which unreasonably interfered with their efforts to maintain positive community ties.
Kramer Levin has represented St. Basil Academy, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese home for children in need, in litigation spanning several years seeking to enforce the right of children in its care to free and appropriate public education.
Kramer Levin has worked with Legal Services NYC on several matters aimed at increasing access to justice for poor New Yorkers. The firm secured a ruling from the federal Legal Services Corp. that allowed the Brooklyn Family Defense Project to represent low-income, undocumented parents in child protective proceedings in family court. The firm also has worked with the Brennan Center to litigate Velazquez v. Legal Services Corporation and Dobbins v. Legal Services Corporation, two constitutional challenges to federal funding restrictions that bar Legal Services NYC from using private funds to provide certain forms of basic legal services to low-income New Yorkers.