BCLP attorneys prevail in Hague Convention case for pro bono client

Thanks to the pro bono efforts of a Missouri legal team, a single mom from Mexico was able to hug her kids again, nearly a year after their father transported them to Kansas City without her consent.

Arguing in United States District Court for the District of Kansas, attorneys with Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner of Kansas City prevailed in the case under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

Associate Grace Colato Martinez was the first to step up in response to an email last March from partner Chris Schmidt in BCLP’s St. Louis office asking for volunteers to help a woman in Mexico bring her children home. It became a life-changing experience for the young attorney who entered practice less than two years ago.

“This case taught me so much about the craft of being a lawyer, including writing briefs, filing motions, and advocating for my client,” she said in a group Zoom call with her colleagues.

As the case unfolded, the BCLP team learned their client’s husband had taken the children in 2021, and she had spent nearly a year going through various channels to bring them home.

“She had been to the police, she had been to the state department, she had an attorney in Mexico, and finally she was able to file a petition to start proceedings under the Hague Convention,” said Jennifer L. Berhorst, a partner in the firm who also worked on the case.

The Hague Convention is a multilateral treaty that provides an expedited method to return a child abducted by a parent from the country where they live to a different country. Cases are usually completed in six weeks or less. The Hague Convention is not universally ratified across the globe, but Mexico is one of the participating countries.

“Our work is primarily here in the United States and involves returning a child to a parent in a different country,” said Schmidt. 

Schmidt is BCLP’s Global Practice Group leader. He started working on Hague Convention matters 15 years ago and serves as the liaison with the U.S. State Department, which makes case referrals.

“We handle cases all over the country through our different offices and have a great track record of helping return children to their custodial parents,” Schmidt said. BCLP is a global firm with domestic offices in 19 cities across the United States and international offices in 14 countries.

After the client’s husband took their children out of Mexico, several weeks went by before she had any contact with them. Finally, their father allowed them to communicate, and that’s when she learned her children were in Kansas City.

“He kept them in a controlled environment and would only allow them to speak with their mother on Facetime using speaker phone, and he monitored what they were allowed to say,” Martinez said.

Once the law firm got involved, the case moved quickly.

Martinez filed a court petition to reunite her client with her children, and in less than two weeks, the judge had set an initial hearing.

“Our client had a four-month-old baby and traveled by bus to Kansas City — a 26-hour journey,” Martinez said. “They arrived at 4 in the morning, and she was ready and prepared for the hearing by 10:30 a.m.”

It was not all smooth sailing. There was a weeklong delay to allow the client’s ex-husband to hire a lawyer, and during that time, the firm put her up in a hotel and provided food, transportation, and other necessities.

Due to a scheduling conflict, partner Timothy J. Davis filled in for Berhorst during the second hearing to handle the cross examination of the father and a redirect examination of the firm’s client.

It was his first Hague Convention case, and he didn’t hesitate to join his colleagues on short notice.

“A parent needed help getting her children back, and as a fellow parent in a good position to help, that’s not something I’d ever turn down,” he said.

In the end, the judge granted their client’s petition to get her children back.

“Seeing our client reunited with her children for the first time in 10 months was a moving experience,” Davis said. “I was reminded that many of things we consider to be problems or difficulties in or day-to-day lives really are pretty trivial compared to what others are dealing with.”

The firm bought the family plane tickets for their return flight to Mexico and by the end of May they were back home in Ciudad Juarez.

At that point, Bryan Cave’s role in the case ended.

“For us, proceedings like this are jurisdictional,” Schmidt said. “Our focus is on getting the children back to the country where they reside as quickly as possible.” 

He estimates they spent 125 hours on the case.

“Spending time leading up to the court date educating the judge, getting ready for trial, and doing it all within six weeks on top of your regular case load takes a tremendous amount of work to get this through the system, and momentum is everything,” Schmidt said. “When you take on these cases, it basically means you’re signing up for evening and weekend work and going the extra mile to reach resolution.”

Martinez did most of the work, including helping communicate with the client who did not speak English. As a new mom to an infant, she was able to relate to her client, even though she admits her Spanish is not perfect.

“I’m new to the firm, but the firm did not hesitate about having me jump right in and take on a case like this, and they even encouraged me to do so,” she said. “It’s great to have such a supportive environment.”

Work like that doesn’t come cheap for a firm like BCLP. In addition to providing attorney hours, the firm paid for interpreters to bridge the language gap and translators to translate court documents and proceedings into Spanish. The firm also covered their client’s weeklong hotel stay, plane tickets for the family to fly home to Mexico, and other expenses.

According to Schmidt, the BCLP’s commitment to pro bono work is a hallmark of the firm.

“We have a policy that allows our associates to take on pro bono work and receive credit for it, so we can take on cases that really matter,” he said. “Our partners put our money behind our efforts by encouraging our associates to take on these sorts of cases and they get tremendous experience, in addition to the satisfaction of helping others.”

For Martinez, the case was a master class in the value of preparing the judge so he understands the case and the procedures.

“It was worth putting in the extra hours up front,” she said. “When we walked into the courtroom for the initial hearing, he was well prepared and that helped streamline the hearing.”

Berhorst walked away from the case with a new perspective on the human aspects of practicing law.

“It’s often so easy to get lost in writing briefs, drafting petitions, and researching the law and arguing the facts, but we need to keep in mind there are real people with real lives at risk,” she said. “We need to make sure we protect their interests and give them the support they need along the way.”