Jill Roberts of the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts will serve as the 2024-2025 Chair of PILI’s Alumni Network Leadership Council
PILI’s Alumni Network consisting of nearly 5,000 former PILI Law Student Interns and Graduate Fellows is led by the Alumni Network Leadership Council, a group of PILI Alumni committed to staying connected to PILI and public interest law, and to giving back to their community.
With PILI’s new fiscal year beginning on September 1st, PILI welcomed new leadership for the Alumni Network Leadership Council. Jill Roberts of the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts assumed the position of Chair and is joined in leadership by Chair-Elect Kimberly Mills of the Office of the Cook County Public Defender and Vice Chair Casey Nelson of McGuireWoods.
When asked about what she is looking forward to in the upcoming year, Jill had this to say, “I am looking forward to working with this great group of PILI Alumni on the Council, as well as welcoming the newest class of PILI Alumni into the fold. I’m hoping to maintain our programming levels and explore how to engage alumni who haven’t been active with PILI lately.”
Jill started her career as a legal aid lawyer and decided to pivot away from litigation and look for public interest related jobs where she felt she could make a larger impact. She now works in the Access to Justice Division of the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts as Deputy Director. This division specifically focuses on reforming the civil court system from the inside through a wide variety of initiatives from language access to statewide forms. Jill oversees the Court Navigator Network with circuit clerk and court staff representatives from across the state as well as distributing Access to Justice Commission grant funds for local jurisdictions to improve access to justice.
Jill graduated from Chicago-Kent College of Law in Chicago and served as a PILI Law Student Intern at Lawyer’s Committee for Better Housing (now called Law Center for Better Housing). Having a 711 license, Jill got to do every part of cases from intake to building visits to representing tenants in court.