BRIEFS
THE AMAZING WORLD OF NADIA HASAN
It’s a drizzly, gray afternoon in April,
and barely any light is filtering into the
conference room at Cozen O’Connor
in downtown Minneapolis. But Nadia
Hasan, talking about her pro bono work,
is shining.
“The people who work at that
organization, and do the hands-on
work, they’re amazing,” she says. The
organization in question is the Battered
Women’s Legal Advocacy Project, which
seeks legal solutions for domestic
violence victims. As co-chair and board
member, Hasan raises funds and visibility
for the nonprofit.
Hasan is also involved in fundraising
and visibility efforts for Be the Match,
an organization that assists in locating
bone marrow transplant matches. “The
technology and the storage of all the
DNA information in their database is
very costly,” she says. “They’re a very
well-deserving organization and they do
amazing work.”
This fall, Hasan will be busy, as both
organizations are hosting their biggest
fundraising events of the year: the Be The
Match Foundation’s Celebrating Our Heroes
Gala is on Friday, September 11 and BWLAP’s
Journey of Hope benefit is slated for October.
She’s especially excited about the Journey of
Hope’s assortment of silent auction items,
which range from coveted seats at sporting
events to a year’s supply of donuts.
But there’s more. Hasan’s biggest pro
bono endeavor is serving as adjunct faculty
for the University of St. Thomas School of
Law’s Bankruptcy Litigation Clinic. Since
2013, she has spent up to 12 hours a week
mentoring five to 10 law students as they
try cases at U.S. bankruptcy court.
“Typically in a year, we have one or two
trials, which is amazing for the students and
an amazing benefit for the client—because
the client certainly couldn’t afford to have
an attorney represent them in the case at all
let alone through trial,” she says.
So how does the full-time business
litigator find the time to put in so many pro
bono hours a year?
WHEN THE BUSINESS LITIGATOR TALKS PRO BONO WORK, ONE WORD KEEPS COMING UP OVER AND OVER BY JESSICA TAM
“I learned you can’t just push pro bono
work to after work hours,” she says. “You
have to do your pro bono work when it
comes up, as it comes up,” or else you
risk minimizing its importance. As a
member of Cozen O’Connor’s national pro
bono committee, she hopes all lawyers
understand the value of contributing.
“I think everybody has the responsibility,”
Hasan says. “Law is a very specialized
discipline and we have a responsibility to
use it to help people who don’t always
Most cases referred to the clinic fall into
one of two categories: student loan discharge
cases and fraud cases. The latter are an
especially good learning experience for
students, since it can be extremely difficult
to prove fraud, says Hasan. She worked on
such a case in 2013 when a debtor sought to
discharge a debt in bankruptcy court.
Hasan and Kerri Kovalesky, a law
student in the clinic who graduated
later that year, represented a man who
had loaned close to $40,000 from his
daughter’s college fund to a relative,
who agreed to use the money to bail
himself out of jail and then repay the
loan. “Unfortunately what happened
was that the [debtor] took the money to
pay his attorney,” says Hasan. “He had
no intention of using it for what it was
required to be used for.”
The debtor sought to discharge the debt
in bankruptcy court, which would have
left Hasan and Kovalesky’s client, and his
daughter, in the lurch. They argued that
the debt should remain valid. The night
before trial, the opposing counsel agreed.
Hasan enjoys the opportunity to work
with students like Kovalesky, passing
forward the lessons she learned from
mentors like Cozen O’Connor senior
counsel Tom Kane. “He’s certainly assisted
in making me the best lawyer that I can be,
so I’m hopeful that I can help people when
I can the way he’s helped me,” she says. “I
think ethically he’s second to none and his
