Terris, Pravlik & Millian, LLP : Practice Areas

Employment and Civil Rights Practice | Environmental Practice

Our Employment and Civil Rights Practice

Terris, Pravlik & Millian, LLP is a public interest law firm dedicated to providing the highest quality legal services to those who cannot afford to pay what other firms charge for such services.

Established in 1970, our firm has represented groups and individuals in civil rights and employment matters in federal and state courts throughout the country. Over the years, we have been successful in many ways, including:

representing a class of female Foreign Service Officers and female applicants for Foreign Service positions, we successfully challenged the sexually discriminatory practices of the State Department. The firm continues to monitor and enforce several court orders and consent decrees in this case that originated in the early 1970's

representing Medicaid beneficiaries in the District of Columbia, we challenged the District's failure to provide legally required medical services to children and new born babies. The firm continues to monitor and enforce a consent decree requiring provision of proper services

obtaining monetary relief for individuals who had been discriminated against under the Fair Housing Act

obtaining monetary relief for individual who had been denied employment opportunities or accommodations due to disabilities

obtaining monetary relief for individuals who had been discriminated against on the basis of their religion

In the voting rights area, we represented a group of Florida voters in their challenge to the results in the 2000 Presidential Election. We litigated the case from the district court to the Supreme Court in a matter of days and filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief before the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore.

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"The Court has already ruled that Plaintiffs' attorneys have provided 'lawyering of the highest quality and professionalism.' * * * In the 2½ years since this ruling, the Court has had extensive opportunity to further evaluate the skills and strategies of counsel. Its opinion remains the same that Terris, Cunningham, and Millian are extraordinarily conscientious, tenacious, and dedicated lawyers, with a full grasp of the extremely complex technical issues which have been involved in the monitoring of the Settlement Order. They have worked diligently to resolve disputed questions with opposing counsel, and have sought the Court's assistance only when absolutely necessary and without burdening the Court with inconsequential litigation. Moreover, in conducting themselves with civility and professionalism, they have never for a second jeopardized the interests of their class members." Salazar v. District of Columbia, 123 F. Supp. 2d 8, 12 (D.D.C. 2000).

Our Environmental Practice

Terris, Pravlik & Millian, LLP is a public interest law firm dedicated to providing the highest quality legal services to those who cannot afford to pay what other firms charge for such services.

Established in 1970 during the early days of the environmental movement, our firm has become a leader in the litigation of environmental issues on behalf of individual citizens, neighborhood groups, national environmental organizations and governments. Over the years, we have been successful in many ways, including:

requiring federal agencies to comply with the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)

prohibiting public access to hazardous waste contaminated areas in a public park through enforcement of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)

requiring clean up of sites that present an imminent and substantial endangerment to human health and/or the environment under RCRA

stopping development of an oil refinery that would have impacted Roosevelt-Campabello International Park and the whale population in the St. Lawrence River

stopping numerous companies from discharging pollutants into our waterways

directing monies paid for environmental act violations to local environmental projects, such as the millions of dollars that have been given to the Environmental Endowment for New Jersey

requiring facilities without environmental permits to obtain the required permits

reversing the trend of barring citizens access to the federal courts through the concept of standing as a result of our victory before the Supreme Court in Friends of the Earth v. Laidlaw Envtl. Services, Inc. (TOC), 528 U.S. 167 (2000)

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In affirming an award of attorneys’ fees in an environmental case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has recognized that our firm offers high quality services far below market rates:
"It is clear to us that the Terris firm’s billing rates do not approximate a fair market rate. We rely on the findings of the district court as well as our own observation of the superb advocacy skills of plaintiffs’ counsel, Mr. Terris, as evidence that Terris’ billing rate for its clients falls far short of what the Terris firm could command in the marketplace." SPIRG v. AT&T Bell Laboratories, 842 F.2d 1436, 1445 (3d Cir. 1988).

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