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the cases forward and, frankly, they may be able to push the cases forward better than we can. We’re trying to go out and forge those ties with the contact people in each of these firms.” An example? Well, the Kansas case was the first one Moshe brought up.


case, but we were losing a tremendous amount of ground regarding the youngest child. The mother had a lawyer, but didn’t feel she was being aggressively represent- ed, and we were losing ground on the case.


“T


“The Agudah wasn’t representing the mother directly. There was one big appli- cation, to change the residency of the kid and the custodian arrangement from the father in Kansas City to the mother in New York. What we decided to do, as a legal tactic, was to organize an amicus brief.


“I drafted that brief, which supported the child’s right to choose his religion, to live with his mother and live as an


he Kansas case was a very, very sad case, and a very emotional


Photos courtesy Agudath Israel of America


Biser (left), Listhaus (center) and Rabbi Yitzchok Frankfurter (far right) in the Lower Manhattan offices of Agudath Israel of America, the setting for the interview by Yossi Krausz (second from right). Krausz writes that “as the rain fell, a group of Occupy Wall Street protestors was standing in the Zuccotti Park, umbrellas up and just standing there.”


Orthodox Jew. I got about 10 or 11 of the most influential children’s law profes- sors and children’s advocacy organiza- tions in the U.S. to sign on as amicus brief participants. It was an issue at the forefront of the law,” which interested the participants. “The problem was that in order for us


to file that amicus brief before the court, we had to put in a motion before the court to file it. I wanted to do that in the most squeaky clean way possible, that would- n’t be subject to the objections of the father, who was one of the most litigious people I have ever met in my life. While I could have done the motion myself from New York, since I am not admitted to the bar in Kansas nor is anyone from the Agudah admit- ted in Kansas, we needed to get a Kansas lawyer.


“I felt that the most effective thing would be to get a Kansas lawyer who had handled a case similar to ours. When I was doing the case research, I had identified one or two cases that had facts very similar to ours. I got the name of one lawyer who handled a case that was exactly like ours, except that the parents were Christian.


“I called up 10 JEWISH TRIBUNE • JANUARY 20-26, 2012


this firm and I called up this lawyer. To make a long story short, they gave me the runaround. The final deadline had passed, and ultimately the executive committee of that law firm took the decision not to assist us, even though we were going to pay. I’m pretty sure they took that deci- sion because it was an Orthodox Jewish group that was pursuing an application like this.


“So we were between a rock and a hard place. We didn’t have a lawyer to help us file the amicus brief, and the filing deadline had passed. So I poked around on the Internet for the large firms in Kansas City that had offices in Overland Park, which was where this court proceeding was. I went to the big firms, and went to the names of the attor- neys and went to the attorneys who had Chinese names, that is that their names and bios indicated that they were from China.


“The first firm I found was Shook,


Hardy, and Bacon, and I found a woman who was clearly from Shanghai. I intro- duced myself as the head of the China department at Allen and Overy. People know the name and they know the firm, and she was very honored that someone was calling. I said that I needed help in a pro bono case, and I said this in the mameh loshon, in Chinese. “She understood what the task was. She told me, ‘Look, we have a very active pro bono division here. I sit next to the man- aging partner in the firm, and I’ll go dis- cuss the details with him.’ She called me


back in about five minutes and told me, ‘We’ll take the case. You have to discuss this with this lawyer who has a pro bono program. His name is Eugene Balloun; call him in an hour.’


“I called him in an hour, and he was totally into the case. By the by, I went back and looked into his bio and saw that he is one of the leading litigators in the Midwest. He does commercial litigation. Not only that, he has won awards for his pro bono assisting children in the courts. His main area of work is that he does adoptions for free, and he himself has had over 20 foster children over his lifetime. “He also had previously had a First Amendment case, not exactly like ours, but still involving the First Amendment, and he had argued that case all the way to the Supreme Court.” Eugene Balloun was the ideal lawyer for the case. Not only did he work on the amicus brief, he has continued to work on the case, together with David Woodbury, a top notch Kansas matrimonial lawyer, for the last five years, and he and Moshe Silk have become exceptionally close friends.


In a dramatic case, the Agudah found two Florida attorneys to stop the planned burial of a Jewish woman in a non- Jewish cemetery, with the court order being signed literally as the hearse was on the way to the cemetery.


W


e spoke with Balloun. He is a religious man, a Methodist, and he told us about his feel- ings of affinity with his clients and the larger religious Jewish community. “I felt very strong- ly about that issue,” he said, speaking about the religious freedom issue, “and I developed a real bond with the family. I also felt very strongly that the best place for the children in this case was with their mother.”


Balloun told us a little about his pro bono work in the area of adoption. Though he does not charge for the work, the state of Kansas does pay a small fee for the legal work. He decided to dedicate that money toward children.


“So we set up a scholarship fund, and we are able to give scholarships every year to foster and adopted children who are going on in their education.” By the end of our conversation, it was clear that Balloun was literally the best lawyer one could imagine for the case he was asked to work on by the Agudah. There was nothing less than clear hash- gacha pratis (Divine intervention) guid- ing their efforts.


Agudah helps prepare lawyers through seminars set up like actual trials, with real judges presiding, and lawyers and ‘clients’ on both sides.


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