Pro Bono Star

"Narges Kakalia is receiving Human Rights First’s (HRF) Pro Bono Star award for excellence in legal advocacy… Among all of the legal talent that we witness through our Refugee Representation group, certain attorneys stand out because of the extraordinary commitment they show to their clients’ cases. These recipients have taken extra care with their clients and have managed to achieve impressive results in their cases, balancing the needs of very traumatized clients with the complexities of their asylum cases,” read the letter from HRF, a non-profit, nonpartisan international human rights organization based in New York, Washington DC and Houston that refuses government funding to maintain its independence. For over 30 years, HRF has had the honor to partner with hundreds of dedicated lawyers who take their cases pro bono. Since it is not enough to expose and protest injustice, they create the political environment for policy solutions necessary to ensure consistent respect for human rights, states the HRF website.

Narges Kakalia: "work for the happiness of others"

A civil business litigator and a partner in the New York office of Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo PC, in response to Parsiana’s email queries, Kakalia explained: "I typically represent institutional clients — banks, businesses, etc — in civil lawsuits. I also have a pro bono practice in which I represent indigent people who have been victims of persecution or torture in their home countries obtain political asylum in the US.” Recently she successfully represented a gay Jamaican man who had been persecuted in his home country and had illegally taken up residence in the US. The US government got him deported to his home country and when he first pled his case for asylum, he was unrepresented and did not win. "After a long and uphill battle my team and I were able to convince the US government to permit my client to return to this country and then we helped him obtain asylum before an immigration judge. This case was particularly challenging because those who are deported are typically not permitted to return to the US for any reason and it was somewhat unusual that we were able to convince the government to allow our client’s return. This was one of the reasons that HRF chose to present its Pro Bono Star award to me,” reveals the advocate who was conferred the crystal trophy this October.
She enjoys the privilege of being named New York Super Lawyers Rising Star in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 as also featuring among New York Best Women Lawyers last year. Super Lawyers, according to its website, is a rating service of outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. While up to five percent of the lawyers in a state are listed as Super Lawyers, no more than 2.5 percent are featured as Rising Stars. To be eligible for inclusion in Rising Stars, a candidate must be either 40 years of age or younger, or in practice for 10 years or less. Women who are named Rising Stars are honored separately in New York as New York Best Women Lawyers, clarifies the advocate.
Kakalia’s experience includes complex commercial business, governance and fiduciary litigation, insurance and risk-management disputes, civil anti-money laundering litigation and international arbitration. She represents clients at the administrative, trial and appellate levels. Among the many disputes in which she played a stellar role, as stated in her bio data, was one where she obtained an award of over $ 100 million on behalf of bondholders in an international arbitration involving complex breach of contract and corporate veil-piercing issues.
As part of her managerial responsibilities she serves as chair of the New York Office Diversity Committee, manager of New York Office Paralegals and is vice chair of the board of directors of New York Asian Women’s Center. Being her firm’s inhouse counsel on confidential financial matters, she advises their clients on best practices in the areas of consumer privacy and related issues.
Kakalia who is vice chair of her firm’s Pro Bono Program states that she spends five to 15% of her time on pro bono work. "I think being a Zoroastrian and a Parsi has influenced me in my choice of career and also in taking on challenging pro bono work for clients who cannot afford a lawyer,” says the counsel, adding, "I was raised to admire the historic accomplishments of many great Parsis, those who built the major institutions of modern India and Pakistan. I was taught that these great Parsis had tremendous work ethic and they never compromised on results. And they were not content with being titans of politics or industry; they also gave both money and time to improve society as a whole.”
Daughter of the late Arnawaz and Maneck Kakalia, Narges who grew up in Karachi, studying first at the Mama School and then at the Karachi Grammar School, reveals that she was considerably inspired by her fui (paternal aunt, Dr Gool Talati) a surgeon in Karachi, and maasi (maternal aunt, Thrity Hormasji), an educationist in Lahore who "worked hard and tirelessly to support and uplift those less fortunate than us.” So after Narges’ BA cum laude from Oberlin College, Ohio and law studies from Fordham University School of Law, New York she followed their footsteps: "Work hard, be successful and help others in need. I think these values aren’t coincidental – they come directly from our religion and our culture — after all our most basic prayers tell us we can only be truly happy when we work for the happiness of others.”
Married to Marc Merriweather, also an attorney who does a lot of pro bono work, the couple have two children, Cyrus (aged nine) and Zane (aged five). They live in New Jersey with their dog Vincent. She is a member of ZAGNY (Zoroastrian Association of Greater New York) and has recently been involved with FEZANA’s (Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America) UN NGO (nongovernmental organization) committee. Deriving satisfaction from being "confronted with a problem or a challenge and then analyzing it, getting to the bottom of what happened and then presenting the story in a compelling way,” Kakalia was initially planning to be a journalist. But she did not want to "remain an impartial observer” like a journalist, preferring to "take sides” so she decided to become a lawyer. Content with her career choice, she declares, "I get to help people in the process, which is deeply satisfying.”