Dhillon is a litigator at Cooley Godward. She works 60 to 70 hours per week and often on weekends. She fights cases, some of which involve billions of dollars and her goal since joining Cooley in 1994 has been to make partner. For a brief moment, Dhillon appears to be one of those overly driven, amazingly ambitious lawyers whose sole purpose in life is to climb the corporate ladder. But only for a moment.

A large chunk of those long hours at work is spent doing pro bono work. She works for free for a variety of people — refugees seeking political asylum, victims of domestic abuse, people who have lost their jobs because they wear a turban — individuals who would fall through the cracks in the system without her.

Dhillon is a practicing Sikh and one of the reasons that she is so deeply involved in doing pro bono work is that her religion preaches that helping the needy is fundamental for every human being. Whether it is helping out in soup kitchens while in high school or getting a restraining order against an abusive husband as a lawyer, her role in the community has been consistent.

“Winning the big cases for the big corporations, that’s very satisfying because it tells you that you are a skilled lawyer,” Dhillon says. “Winning the small cases for the human being and changing their life, that’s worth more to me than spending a few days on holiday or watching TV.”

One such case was one in which she helped an Indian Muslim from Kashmir obtain political asylum in the United States. Muhammad was a young man living in a town near Srinagar. His brother was arrested and disappeared, and his parents were killed when his town was bombed. He was picked up by the Indian police, beaten and tortured by having his fingernails pulled out.

He managed to get false documents and escaped, landing in JFK International in October 1994. He immediately sought political asylum, but the INS promptly arrested him and began deportation proceedings. He managed to contact the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, which interviewed him and found his story credible.

Dhillon was then a lawyer at Shearman and Sterling in New York. A colleague forwarded the case to her, and the firm decided to pay all expenses. The INS was so adamant that he be deported that they went to trial, she recalls. She double-checked Muhammad’s story, and so did Amnesty International. Finally, on May 16, 1995, the judge granted him asylum.

“I’ve got the order from the judge framed on the wall,” Dhillon says, pointing to the wall behind her in her office full of certificates that she obtained throughout her stint as a lawyer.

Meanwhile Dhillon had managed to locate Muhammad’s uncle in Florida by hiring a private investigator and when the INS released him, she took him to the airport and put him on a flight to his uncle’s home. A few weeks later, she received a letter from him. He was working at Disney World. “That’s such an American story,” she says.

Dhillon’s corporate litigation cases are equally challenging, and her face lights up as she describes the thrill she experienced when she fought what she calls a “David v. Goliath case” regarding trademark violation. She was defending a small Silicon Valley firm against a large company and the judge ruled in her favor. She says her satisfaction at work comes from pitting herself against talented and equally hardheaded lawyers, as well as being on the cutting edge of technology litigation.

Yet, Dhillon’s life was not always a thrill ride. Her first husband was physically abusive and the marriage finally ended in divorce. Although Dhillon is happily remarried, she feels the need to impart some of the lessons she learned as a victim of domestic abuse. A few months ago, she was elected to the board of directors of Santa Clara’s Support Network For Battered Women. As a member, she has tried to sensitize the Indian community about domestic violence primarily because she remembers the incredible pressure she faced from the community to go back to her first husband and make it work.

“That’s the immediate response of the community: ‘Why break up this family? The boy gets angry sometimes,’” Dhillon says. “But it’s much more than that. It’s a pathological cycle of violence and control that I think is rarely amenable to education.”

Dhillon’s domestic challenges may have ceased with the divorce, but as a female Sikh lawyer in technology litigation, she has to face other, more subtle challenges. She has very few role models, because there are virtually no Indian women doing litigation at any top firm in the United States. Moreover, she has to deal with hints of disparagement and discrimination from her adversaries, through comments like, “Young lady, you don’t know what you are talking about.”

Dhillon’s hectic life has become a little more complicated after Sept.11. She hadn’t foreseen the backlash against the Sikh community and others having dark skin tone. Being a lawyer from a top firm, in addition to being one of the very few Sikh women in her position, she has been swamped by civil rights cases (even as she sits in her office giving an interview, she receives an e-mail seeking help in another case of civil rights abuse against a Sikh). Shocked by the intensity of the attacks, she and others from Sikh Community Council, an organization she co-founded, made some PowerPoint presentations to educate people. Despite being appalled by the level of ignorance, Dhillon has faith in the country and its people.

“That’s the beautiful thing about America,” she says. “You don’t have to give up who you are and where you came from in order to be a good American.”
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