Championing What Matters in Minnesota
Alumna Helps Secure Settlement for George Floyd's Family
George Floyd. Almost 24 hours after his name sprawled across her TV screen, it appeared in Bhavani Raveendran’s email inbox.
The AUWCL alumna, then the senior associate leading Romanucci & Blandin LLC’s civil rights team, was familiar with handling major national cases regarding police misconduct, prison abuse, sexual abuse, and wrongful deaths. And the team had worked with renowned trial lawyer Ben Crump on a number of cases before. So when Raveendran ’12 learned her firm would work on Family of George Floyd v. City of Minneapolis, she knew immediately the collaboration would be good.
“There’s a great balance between the firms and how we work, and that’s that we work hard, we work day and night, and we sincerely care about the issues that are at stake,” said Raveendran, now a partner at the Chicago-based personal injury law firm. “When this awful incident happened, from Ben Crump’s perspective and from our perspective, the more, the stronger. Let’s make the best team of civil rights attorneys we can, and fight this the whole way.”
And they did. Raveendran’s team—the two associates, paralegal, and two clerks who worked on the case under the direction of Raveendran and Romanucci & Blandin founding partner Antonio Romanucci—helped garner a $27 million settlement for the Floyd family.
In the world of personal injury firms, that kind of “the more, the stronger” approach can be seen as detrimental to the bottom line, Raveendran admits. But for her and the others, the civil suit was much bigger than a number. It needed to make an impact.
“We were more interested in ensuring this was a landmark case. That people understood this should not have happened. And that if a police officer believes they can go this far—on film and in front of the world, using this level of aggression and disregard for humanity and the person that George Floyd was—we are not going to go silently into the night. We are not going to forget about it. There’s going to be accountability here,” Raveendran said.
“And personally I thought, ‘this cannot be another Emmett Till.’”
A Landmark
They called George ‘Perry,’ Raveendran said of Floyd’s family. “They loved him so much, and they shared so much of who he was with us.”
More than half of Raveendran’s work that year revolved around the case, and during those hundreds of hours, she watched the video of Floyd’s death hundreds of times. Watching the horrific crime unfold on camera left an unending mark, Raveendran said. But that’s likely what made this time different.
“Because of the protracted torture that everyone saw in the video, it was very hard to ignore,” she said. “You think about a shooting case, it happens very quickly. Not everyone will have the same guttural response, because they don't have to experience what the person in the video might be experiencing where they're living each second. But you don't have that choice with the video of George Floyd. You have to live it the way he's living it. And so I think that has really opened people's eyes to the level of cruelty possible.”
Police departments are reeling from the settlement, Raveendran noted, afraid they will be the next to face a major public lawsuit. In this way the settlement has begun to force change, with many departments focusing on better officer training and vetting processes that weed out those looking to take advantage of the power afforded to them in policing. And for a family who has been through what the Floyd’s has, and for a person whose name has become synonymous with social justice, this momentous shift toward accountability needed to happen, she said.
Still, the win is bittersweet.
“When people say congratulations, it feels empty,” Raveendran said. “Because as much as we appreciate that people think this was a landmark settlement, it’s horrific the way it had to come about and how preventable it seems. Especially when you look at cases like Eric Garner and the countless other men and women that have died saying, ‘I can’t breathe.’”
‘Righteous Anger’
The first time Raveendran represented a client was as a student attorney in AUWCL’s International Human Rights Law Clinic alongside clinic partner Zachary Zarnow ’12. Their experiences ranged from representing a woman from the Democratic Republic of the Congo seeking asylum, to working with law schools in the Bahamas during a fact gathering trip to assist communities of Haitian migrants leaving the nation due to natural disasters or political turmoil.
“Working with Bhavani [at the Clinic] was my favorite part of law school,” said Zarnow, principal court management consultant for the Office of the National Center for State Courts. There, he focuses on access to justice issues and working with courts around the country. He is also co-creator and co-host of Tiny Chats, short form annotated videos for court staff and advocates that focus on access to justice topics. “She was brilliant, but what stands out to me from that time is how much joy she brought to our work. I could always count on her for a cheesy joke and a dose of optimism.”
Now, almost a decade later, Zarnow has only grown more proud of his former classmate and friend.
“If I ever needed a lawyer, I would want Bhavani on my side. She works hard and she is smart as hell. More important than all of that, though, is that she has an unfailing sense of right and wrong, and when she sees that someone has been a victim of injustice she burns with a righteous anger that fuels her unceasing and brilliant advocacy on their behalf. I often think about what she would do in a given situation and I try every day to live up to her standards.”
For Raveendran the feeling is mutual, with every project Zarnow touches helping people “on such a basic level.”
“He understands that even the first step to access justice is difficult, so he works incredibly hard to make sure that anyone who needs it can have access to the court. And I just don't know anyone who works as passionately as Zach.”
She also cites members of the AUWCL faculty as affecting her law school journey, including Legal Rhetoric Professor Paul Figley and Professor Jayesh Rathod, who served as faculty advisor to the South Asian Law Students Association, of which Raveendran was co-president.
“Bhavani’s involvement in the George Floyd matter and in other civil rights cases epitomizes the strong commitment to public interest lawyering and racial justice that many AUWCL alums share,” Rathod said. “Her commitment to this work was on display when she was a Clinic student, and she has continued to fight against systemic injustices throughout her career.”
Continuing a Legacy of Legal Advocacy
Raveendran’s grandfather attended rallies and protests in India, pushing for independence. Once gained, he worked as a labor attorney before working to advocate for better education in the country, particularly in his home state of Kerala. Her other grandfather worked as a family law attorney in rural India, and would carry his law books on the back of a cart driven by a bull ox.
“That’s the legacy I came from,” Raveendran explained. “And my parents moved [to the United States], and proved to me that degree or not, you can make such an impact. My dad, mom, and stepmom have dedicated their lives to the community and making it better in whatever way they can. So it was something my sister and I both felt we had to do.”
With idols like Thurgood Marshall, Nelson Mandela, and Ghandi, Raveendran knew she wanted to dedicate her capabilities and talents to the law.
“I saw that having a law degree helps you do the most good as possible, and that’s what I strive to do with my work. But, you know, that’s a very lofty goal,” she said. “So I just try to take it one day at a time, and help each person that comes in front of me.”
“Bhavani’s involvement in the George Floyd matter and in other civil rights cases epitomizes the strong commitment to public interest lawyering and racial justice that many AUWCL alums share,”
Jayesh RathodDirector, Immigrant Justice Clinic