“All they wanted was to say, ‘Will my partner and my family be taken care of if I don’t come home that day?’ ”
COVER STORY
No One Stands Alone
–Kathleen Sweeney
Kathleen Sweeney tackles civil rights and criminal defense— with a team approach
BY MAGGIE BURCH
PHOTO BY DREW ENDICOTT
K
athleen Sweeney says that each career choice she’s made has been in pursuit of doing something meaningful. From being a state and federal prosecutor to training public defenders to founding her own private law firm, Sweeney has chosen to do things that would be important not only to herself as an attorney, but to the clients she has helped. “Choosing things that are meaningful, I think, has made me a better lawyer,” she says. Sweeney began her career as a prosecutor, serving as Assistant United States Attorney in whitecollar prosecution for the Southern District of Indiana, and many of her cases involved sex crimes and child abuse. In 2001, she decided to start her own private civil rights practice because she “wanted to be in touch more with the people who were being accused or deprived.” Sweeney said she has always been one to root for the underdog. The Sweeney Hayes firm, founded in 2014, also includes Kathleen’s partner, Charles Hayes, whom she met while serving as the Director of Training at
the Marion County Public Defender Agency. Sweeney says one thing that makes their firm unique is that she and Hayes take on every case as a team effort. One of them takes the lead on each case, but they’re both very much involved and invested in every client. “One of our firm sayings is ‘No one stands alone,’ ” she says, and that doesn’t just apply to the attorneys. “We really want to make sure we’re in touch with the entire family. It’s not just one person who has been impacted by what led up to the lawsuit and the lawsuit itself…. We keep everyone up to date.” Sweeney Hayes often takes on police misconduct and wrongful prosecution cases, as well as fair wages cases, among other civil rights issues. A case Sweeney is particularly proud of is Mueller v. State, in which she successfully argued that Indiana’s policy for diversion (which required defendants to pay a fee to have charges dismissed) violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Sweeney said her argument was initially laughed at, but eventually, the judge came
around and ruled the policy was unconstitutional. Now, if defendants can’t pay the fee, they can do community service to get charges dismissed. Another case that Sweeney is proud to have been part of is Lee v. Pence, which brought marriage equality to Indiana last year. Sweeney was part of a group of lawyers that represented several first-responder same-sex couples in their fight to achieve the same legal benefits as heterosexual married couples. “They are courageous every day, and all they wanted was to say, ‘Will my partner and my family be taken care of if I don’t come home that day?’ ” Sweeney says. Sweeney says it has been meaningful to her to devote so many years of her legal career to helping people who were lacking rights, but her clients don’t always realize how much effort and how many steps it has taken for her to accomplish their goal. “When a client says thank you, that’s really very rewarding,” Sweeney says. “That is why I do it. We were there as a team and we made it.” www.bestlawyers.com
| 7