Michael McMahon

A Massachusetts federal judge has upheld the Boston school system’s new admission policy for exam schools, a victory that will enhance racial, socioeconomic and geographical diversity in the city’s most prestigious public high schools. Cooley partners Michael Sheetz and Adam Gershenson led the Cooley effort, representing Anti-Defamation League on an amicus brief alongside leading nonprofits, business organizations and sports teams the Boston Celtics and the Boston Red Sox. The brief demonstrated that diversity benefits all students and local businesses because it helps create a generation of leaders equipped to compete in a diverse, global marketplace.

Cooley, alongside the National Center for Youth Law, the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, and the UC Davis Immigration Law Clinic, achieved a landmark ruling in which a federal judge held that unaccompanied children in federal immigration custody are entitled to greater constitutional protections than they are currently afforded when they are detained in restrictive placements or denied release to family members. Lawyers Summer Wynn, Michael McMahon, Alix Mayhugh and Jamie Robertson led the Cooley effort.