Welcome to the IBF's page featuring Pro Bono opportunities for lawyers and law students. The information below is provided by our current grantees, based on the opportunities they have available. We encourage our Fellows and friends of the Illinois Bar Foundation to become involved and learn more about the organizations we support.

To find additional volunteer opportunities at IBF grantee organizations across the state, visit the Volunteer Opportunities Search at IllinoisProBono.org.

Cabrini Green Legal Aid views itself as a bridge between their clients and individuals who desire to give assistance to the disenfranchised and poor. Attorneys are needed to conduct intake interviews for potential clients with family, housing, and criminal defense cases. Pro bono attorneys also staff the Expungement and Sealing Help Desk located in the Daley Center.

For more information regarding time commitment or upcoming trainings, please contact the Volunteer Coordinator at (312) 738-2452 or through their website: www.cgla.net

ATTORNEY VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES

One component of the dual mission of the Center for Disability and Elder Law (CDEL) is to foster the provision of pro bono legal services to low-income seniors and/or persons with disabilities residing in Cook County. Each year hundreds of attorneys generously donate their time and talent to make it possible for CDEL to assist thousands of its vulnerable and underrepresented clients. Volunteer attorneys receive the training and support necessary to provide quality representation and provide direct legal services to our clients. CDEL offers attorneys a variety of volunteer opportunities, which include:

HOW TO GET INVOLVED:

If you are a licensed Illinois attorney, interested in volunteering with CDEL, you may: complete a Volunteer Form on line on our website: www.cdelaw.org or contact them via email at volunteer@cdelaw.org to get started.

Special Education Clinic-Pro Bono Need:
Although the law mandates that children with disabilities receive an education appropriate to meet their individual needs, our schools are abridging these children’s educational rights by failing to design or implement an appropriate IEP and/or unnecessarily segregating these children from their peers. Parents typically bear the burden of trying to persuade the schools to provide an appropriate education. The process is daunting for all parents, but especially for the parents whom we typically represent: those with a limited education, a disability themselves, and/or limited resources. The recent Legal Aid Safety Net Study confirms the need for legal advocacy in this area. Specifically, the Study found that education ranks first among unmet legal aid needs by category, with over 90 percent of education issues going without legal assistance. Another study also confirms the need for legal representation in this area; it showed that when parents are unrepresented by counsel in administrative due process hearings, the parents prevail at the hearing only 20% of the time, in contrast to a more level playing field when represented by counsel, prevailing a little less than fifty percent of the time. A pro bono partnership would help to address these issues and inequities.

The following are pro bono opportunities in the Special Education Clinic:

Illinois Legal Aid Online facilitates the delivery of pro bono services in Illinois through the use of technology. They have recently launched a Pro Bono Case Pairing and Mentor Matching System, an innovative new resource on www.IllinoisProBono.org that connects legal volunteers with one another as mentors and mentees or as case partners. Below are current volunteer positions available with Illinois Legal Aid Online. For other opportunities, please visit IllinoisProBono.org.

Since its founding in 1977, the Public Interest Law Initiative (PILI) has cultivated a lifelong commitment to public interest law by creating opportunities for law students and lawyers to provide public interest and pro bono work in Illinois.

Working together with over 50 Participating Agencies in Illinois, PILI guides attorneys at every stage in their legal careers in actualizing their professional responsibilities and personal commitments to equal access to justice through a continuum of public interest law and pro bono opportunities. PILI’s programs first capture emerging lawyers when they are law students and new law school graduates, and then extend into legal practice to reach new associates, seasoned lawyers, and senior attorneys working in every sector of the legal community – private, academic, government and nonprofit. PILI has opportunities available for:

The Chicago Lighthouse Arthur and Esther Kane Legal Clinic is the only legal clinic that provides free legal services exclusively to the blind and visually impaired community in the nation. During our five and a half years of operation, we have served more than 1,000 persons in numerous areas of the law, including employment discrimination, personal injury, social security issues, housing and travel discrimination as well as criminal defense. We have been contacted for assistance by people who are blind or visually impaired throughout the United States. Our work has been recognized by John Marshall Law School, Vanderbilt Law School, and Chief Justice John Roberts of the United States Supreme Court.

Thier staff consists of Judge Nicolas T. Pomaro, who is totally blind and a retired Circuit Court of Cook County Judge; Attorney Paul Rink, who is also totally blind and a retired Commissioner of the Illinois Workers' Compensation Commission; and paralegal Juli Gold, who is visually impaired.

The Chicago Lighthouse for People who are Blind or Visually Impaired is always looking to expand their group of attorneys who volunteer pro bono for the Kane Legal Clinic. For information about volunteering, contact Juli Gold, paralegal for the Kane Legal Clinic at julianne.gold@chicagolighthouse.org or direct at 312.666.1331 ext. 3112.