The AmLaw Litigation Daily: O’Melveny Team Takes Pro Bono Client From ‘Life Without Parole’ to Life on the Outside

A team of O’Melveny attorneys spent more than four years and 2,500 hours to help pro bono client Gilbert Mendez secure parole after spending 30 years in prison. “There’s nothing better than being able to help an individual like Gilbert in a case like this,” said O’Melveny partner David Kirman. Mendez was originally sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after being convicted of first-degree murder for an encounter at a liquor store that injured a clerk who later died from injuries. In 2022, the O’Melveny team negotiated a settlement with the District Attorney’s Office that downgraded Mendez’s first-degree murder conviction to second-degree and his life-without-parole sentence to 16-years-to-life, opening the door for a parole hearing. “We spent time sort of walking through with him helping him be able to talk about what he had learned and what he had changed about his life,” said O’Melveny counsel Jamie Quinn. “Some of that was a mock questioning, of course, but some of it was also just talking through it with him so he could think through how he wanted to present himself and what he wanted to focus on for the board.” The team also included counsel Pete D’Agostino and associates Caroline Katz, Jessica Snyder, and Biola Macaulay.

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