A pair of former Hogan Lovells litigators and pro bono leaders are starting a new civil rights-focused boutique in Washington.

The new firm will allow Katie Ali, who was a Hogan partner, and former senior associate Liz Lockwood to concentrate on the types of cases they’re most passionate about—police misconduct, prisoners’ rights and wrongful conviction cases—while also maintaining a small commercial litigation docket.

“For us, the pull to do this work full-time just got stronger and stronger,” Ali said. This is the time “to step up and heed that call.”

The timing couldn’t be better for the DC firm, according to the duo, given movements such as Black Lives Matter and the steady stream of would-be clients seeking help. They each helped lead Hogan’s pro bono practice in recent years and played roles in civil rights cases.

Lockwood worked as co-lead trial counsel in a $75 million jury verdict on behalf of two intellectually disabled brothers who spent three decades in prison after being wrongfully convicted of raping and murdering an 11-year-old girl.

They handled a case involving Curtis Flowers, a Black man in Mississippi tried six times for the same crime. The US Supreme Court found a local prosecutor had unconstitutionally kept Black prospective jurors off the panels. The case was dismissed.

The new venture, located in Washington’s Capitol Hill...

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