EOIR News Release Announcing the Pro Bono Coordinator

NEWS RELEASE
April 11, 2000

PRO BONO COORDINATOR JOINS
EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW

FALLS CHURCH, VA - Steven C. Lang joined the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) yesterday as Pro Bono Coordinator. The Pro Bono Program represents an important step forward in the agency's outreach to expand and improve its customer service initiatives. Recognizing the need to have a person dedicated full time to the Pro Bono Program, EOIR conducted a nationwide search. Lang was selected as a result of this search.

Lang will initially assess the areas of need for pro bono representation throughout the country, with particular attention given to juveniles and detained aliens. He will work to establish and maintain contacts with individuals and organizations which might be able to provide pro bono representation before the Immigration Courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals, namely bar associations, law schools, advocacy groups, and law firms. Access to counsel will significantly improve and enhance the immigration hearing process in that aliens will be better able to present their cases to the court while allowing for proceedings to move along more efficiently.

Before accepting this position at EOIR, Lang served as Attorney Coordinator for ProBAR (the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project) in Harlingen, Texas, from June 1997 to February 2000. During this time, he initiated and supervised the ProBAR Legal Rights Project which makes live group rights presentations to all detainees at the Port Isabel Service Processing Center. From May 1994 to June 1997, Lang was in private immigration practice in Houston, Texas.

He received his B.A. in 1990 from the University of Texas at Austin, and his J.D. in 1993 from the University of Houston Law Center. Lang is fluent in Spanish and conversant in French. He is a member of the Texas Bar.

- EOIR -

Cite as AILA Doc. No. 00041203.