Rob Houston is a founding member and Executive Director of The Global Pro Bono Bar Association ("The Global Pro Bono Bar").
As an international arbitration practitioner and the Pro Bono Coordinator for the Singapore office of a global law firm, Rob has coordinated cross-border pro bono representation and advocacy efforts involving multiple collaborating firms, practitioners, scholars, and researchers across four continents. He has spoken on topics related to pro bono work and legal professionalism in venues as diverse as the International Law Association’s 2018 biennial conference in Sydney; the 6th, 7th, and 8th Asia Pro Bono Conferences in Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, and Kathmandu; and the T.M.C. Asser Instituut in the Hague.
Rob was previously a visiting researcher with the U.S. Department of State Fulbright Program and served as a Captain in the 1-175 Infantry Battalion of the Maryland Army National Guard, having earned the U.S. Army's Meritorious Service Medal while deployed to Egypt with the Multinational Force & Observers peacekeeping mission in 2011-2012. Rob holds the Juris Doctor degree from Georgetown Law in Washington, DC and the Master of Economic Law degree (Master II, Global Governance Studies) from l'École de Droit de Sciences Po in Paris. He and his wife live in Singapore with their four children.
John F. Sullivan III, JD
Chairman of the Board of Directors
John F. Sullivan III is a founding member of The Global Pro Bono Bar and Chairman of the Board Directors.
In over 30 years of practice, John has acted on behalf of a wide range of clients from major corporations to individual pro bono clients, including in the pro bono representation of children in immigration proceedings in the federal courts of the United States. Before launching his own law practice in 2019, he established the Global Ethical Supply Chain Task Force and was instrumental in the launch of the firm-wide Anti-Human Trafficking Initiative of the global law firm K&L Gates LLP, accepting the 2018 Marvin Frankel Award on the firm's behalf from Human Rights First for the pro bono representation of asylum seekers in the United States.
In one notable pro bono matter, John prevailed for a boy from China seeking asylum and protection in the United States because of death threats by Snakeheads (i.e., human traffickers) in Zheng v. Pogash, 416 F. Supp. 2d (U.S. Dist. So. Tex. 2006). This case was profiled in "The Asylum Wars," The American Lawyer Magazine (February 2006), and John won the American Immigration Lawyers Association Pro Bono Award in 2006. He also filed suit against the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act on behalf of a family in El Salvador whose son died for lack of medical care in a severely overcrowded private prison contracted by the United States to incarcerate immigrants. John argued that case to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and worked with the Stanford University School of Law Supreme Court Clinic to seek a writ of certiorari before the Supreme Court of the United States. He also previously led a program to provide “Know Your Rights” presentations to immigrant and refugee children in the custody of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
John has worked closely with many organizations whose goals include protecting, assisting or bringing awareness to the plights of the marginalized, persecuted and oppressed, including Human Rights First, International Justice Mission, China Aid, Kids in Need of Defense, Liberty Asia, Mountain Child, the Forge for Families, Boys and Girls Country, Ananias House, Pathways for Little Feet, the National Christian Foundation, and , of course, The Global Pro Bono Bar.
Jeremy Lagelee, LLM
Member of the Board of Directors
Jeremy Lagelee is a French-American attorney at the International Energy Agency in Paris as well as a founding member of The Global Pro Bono Bar and current member of the Board of Directors.
Jeremy previously served as an associate attorney at Picard Kentz & Rowe LLP in Washington DC, focusing on international trade and arbitration. He also served as a part-time law clerk for the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance (Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs and Global Competitiveness) in the office of the Ranking Member Sen. Ron Wyden. Jeremy has been actively engaged in providing pro bono legal services for a variety of organizations both inside and outside The Global Pro Bono Bar, including Catholic Charities (Archdiocese of Washington), International Justice Mission, and the Yemen Peace Project.
Jeremy earned the Master of Laws (LLM) degree in International Law from Georgetown Law in Washington, DC and the Master of Economic Law degree (Master II, Global Governance Studies) from l'École de Droit de Sciences Po in Paris. Jeremy is admitted to the Bar in New York and in Paris (article 100 - non inscrit au tableau).
