Panel Discusses Supervising Interns and Fellows at Legal Service Agency Roundtable

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Agency Roundtable

On April 28th, representatives from PILI’s partner public interest law organizations met for the annual Legal Service Agency Roundtable. This year, the program was about “Creating the Ultimate Internship and Fellowship Experience” and featured a panel presentation moderated by PILI Program Director Beth Jensen.

The panel included a former PILI Intern, Jonathan Adair of Kirkland & Ellis, a former PILI Fellow, Sarah Hess of Legal Council for Health Justice, and Intern and Fellow supervisors, Kate Shank of LAF and Pat Wrona of CARPLS. Below is a summary of the topics they discussed.

Utilizing time and resources to everyone’s benefit

The panelists discussed how important it is to plan for the arrival of Interns and Fellows and have work ready for them to do. They suggested asking other attorneys in the office if they might benefit from the assistance of Interns and Fellows, and have a general sense of the needs of the organization as a whole. This could help supervisors properly prioritize the Interns’ and Fellows’ time and expose Interns and Fellows to more work within the organization. Panelists also discussed training strategies and resources to help the Interns and Fellow be most successful.

Aiding in professional development of Interns and Fellows

Former PILIs explained that Interns and Fellows typically do not  want to be sent home early or be given free time, but that they are looking for as much work experience as possible. They have also expressed a desire for feedback, so panelists discussed how to provide timely and effective feedback in a way that is most beneficial for the Interns and Fellows. Panelists suggested making sure each Intern and Fellow has one specific supervisor who gives them feedback.

Engaging Interns and Fellows in future volunteer or board service

Attendees were encouraged to start fostering long-term relationships with Interns as Fellows, considering that this year’s Interns could be future board members and volunteers. Interns and Fellows might more readily consider future involvement if they feel part of the organization during their summer at the agency. Panelists suggested including Interns and Fellows in agency meetings and bringing them to court to help them feel involved and see the overall impact of the organization.

Post-graduate fellowships

Sarah Hess, a former PILI Intern and Skadden Fellow talked about her experience applying for a post-graduate fellowships. Then, panelists answered questions about the different Fellowships available.

After the panel discussion, PILI Program Associate Brent Page reviewed feedback from previous Interns and Fellows and discussed how their comments could be incorporated into future programs.

View the materials distributed at this program »

Learn more about PILI’s Pro Bono Roundtable Series »

Join PILI for “On the Table,” May 16th

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On the Table is an annual forum hosted by the Chicago Community Trust. Designed to elevate civic conversation, foster new relationships and inspire collaborative action across the region, this event brings people together to share ideas for creating a more unified Chicagoland region. On Tuesday, May 16th, tens of thousands of Chicago-area residents will gather in small groups to share a meal and discuss the challenges and opportunities we face. This is the 4th years of the On the Table forum. Learn more about On the Table on their website »

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PILI Executive Director Michael Bergmann will be moderating one such discussion at Charles River Associates. This conversation will focus on ways to make our communities stronger, safer, more just and more dynamic by harnessing our collective resources to expand the availability of free civil legal services for those in need. PILI Board Member Kris Swanson of Charles River Associates is co-hosting.

When: May 16, 12:00 to 1:30 p.m.
Where: Charles River Associates, One South Wacker Drive, 34th Floor, Chicago

If you are interested in attending this discussion, please contact Michael Bergmann by email or by phone at 312-832-5129.

Eleventh Judicial Circuit Pro Bono Committee Co-Sponsors Successful Legal Advice Fair in Bloomington

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The Eleventh Judicial Circuit Pro Bono Committee co-sponsored a Legal Advice Fair in Bloomington on Saturday, April 22nd. There, volunteer attorneys gave one-time legal advice to people in need about family issues, housing disputes, immigration law, debt concerns and more.

During this half-day event, 21 attorneys and 8 paralegals served 35 clients, including 11 people who were served by the Immigration Project or put on their wait list. The two biggest areas of need were family and immigration law.

This event was also sponsored by Prairie State Legal Services, State Farm, the Immigration Project, Mid Central Community Action, Inc. and the McLean County Bar Association.

This Legal Fair is hosted twice a year, in April and October, in Bloomington. Similar programs are being replicated in other Judicial Circuits to provide assistance to more people in need. Thank you to all those who made this event such a success!

Learn more about the Eleventh Judicial Circuit Pro Bono Committee »

Learn more about the Judicial Circuit Pro Bono Committee Program »

Chapman and Cutler Adopt April Legal Prep Community Law Clinic

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From left to right: PILI Program Associate Brent Page, Sara Ghadiri, PILI Alumna Leslie Cornell, PILI Alumna Caitlin Judge, and PILI Board Member Mark O’Meara.

Thank you to the attorneys from Chapman and Culter LLP who volunteered at the Legal Prep Community Law Clinic last Tuesday, April 18th. PILI appreciates their support and their work for people in need.

The volunteers worked with three clients on a tort defense and adoptions.

This is a monthly clinic hosted by PILI’s Alumni Network Leadership Council at Legal Prep Charter Academies in conjunction with Chicago Volunteer Legal Services. CVLS refers clients from the Garfield Park neighborhood with civil legal matters, and firms with PILI Alumni can adopt an evening of the clinic and volunteer.

If your firm is interested in adopting an evening of the clinic, please contact PIILI Program Associate Brent Page by email or by phone at 312-832-5128.

Learn more about the Legal Prep Community Law Clinic »

Learn more about PILI’s Alumni Network »

PILI Launches Pro Bono Committee in Affiliation with the DuPage County Bar Association

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The Public Interest Law Initiative (PILI), in affiliation with the DuPage County Bar Association, has launched the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit Pro Bono Committee to enhance equal access to justice by encouraging and promoting pro bono work in DuPage County. The Committee will be affiliated with the bar association’s Public Information and Education (PIE) Commission, currently chaired by Melissa Piwowar, who will also act as chair of the Pro Bono Committee.

“Pro bono, public service and public education have been an important part of the work of the DCBA for many years,” said Melissa.  “It was only natural then for this group to join forces with PILI to establish the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit PILI Pro Bono Committee. We are looking forward to all the great work we will be able to do with the support and experience only PILI can provide.”

The Eighteenth Judicial Circuit Pro Bono Committee will be one of seven such committees that have been launched by PILI in Illinois that strive to expand and promote the availability of civil legal aid for people in need by:

  • Raising awareness of the need for free or low-cost legal services;
  • Identifying and reducing barriers to providing free or low-cost legal services;
  • Promoting pro bono legal services and recruiting attorneys to participate in existing pro bono programs; and
  • Recognizing the pro bono contributions of attorneys.

“We are excited to work with the DCBA to expand and enhance pro bono in the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit,” said Michael Bergmann, PILI’s Executive Director. “This was an ideal relationship for PILI as we work toward increasing access to justice and providing a fairer legal system state-wide.”

PILI launched the Judicial Circuit Pro Bono Committees in 2011 in the Third Judicial Circuit (Edwardsville area), and now also has Committees in the Fifth (Danville-Mattoon-Paris area), Sixth (Champaign-Decatur area), Tenth (Peoria area), Eleventh (Bloomington area) and Fourteenth (Rock Island area) Judicial Circuits.

Each Committee consists of members of the judiciary as well as pro bono leaders from local law firms, corporations, bar associations, and public interest law organizations. All of the Committees differ in size and their goals vary depending on the local community needs. The existing Committees have provided attorney volunteer opportunities, training and seminars about pro bono, and recognition of attorney volunteerism.

Learn more at www.pili.org/18thcircuit.

About Public Interest Law Initiative (PILI): PILI is a nonprofit organizations with a mission to cultivate a lifelong commitment to public interest law and pro bono service within the Illinois legal community to expand the availability of legal services for people, families and communities in need. Founded in 1977, PILI envisions a legal community with a deeply rooted culture of service, where law students, lawyers and legal professionals at all stages of their careers engage in public interest law or pro bono work, and remain committed to addressing the unmet legal needs of the poor and underrepresented. To learn more about PILI and the Judicial Circuit Pro Bono Committees, visit our website at www.pili.org, or contact PILI Executive Director Michael Bergmann by email or by phone at 312-832-5129.

About the DuPage County Bar Association (DCBA): The DuPage County Bar Association was founded in 1879. With 2,500 members, it is the third largest bar association in Illinois and remains dedicated to advancing the practice of law and promoting the legal profession through community service and education.  To learn more about DCBA and the work of its Public Interest and Education Commission, visit www.dcba.org or contact DCBA Executive Director Robert Rupp by email or by phone at 630-653-7779.

Thank You for Making Play for PILI a Success

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On Thursday, April 6th, PILI’s Alumni Network Leadership Council hosted Play for PILI, bringing in over $4,000 for the Alumni Named Internship Campaign.

PILI Alumni, Class Representatives, board members and friends of PILI attended the event at Emporium Arcade Bar in Logan Square. The funds raised will help support a PILI Law Student Intern who will work 400 hours during the summer at a legal aid organization in Illinois serving low-income people and families in need.

Special thanks to our sponsors: Smokeball, Veritext and Emily Seymore for their support of PILI Alumni and our mission.

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PILI Hosts Judicial Circuit Pro Bono Committee Chairs Summit

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Dinner Group

On Wednesday, March 15th and Thursday, March 16th, PILI hosted a Summit for all the Judicial Circuit Pro Bono Committee Chairs and our statewide agency partners in Springfield. On Wednesday, attendees met for a networking reception and dinner, and were joined by Chief Justice Lloyd A. Karmeier, Justice Thomas Kilbride and Justice Rita Garman of the Illinois Supreme Court. Chief Justice Karmeier delivered remarks, after which each Committee Chair delivered a brief report on their activities.

Justice Karmeier

The group then worked through the day on Thursday to discuss how they could enhance and expand pro bono statewide. Attendees created three cross-circuit working groups to accomplish their goals.

  • The first working group will focus on how CLE programming could be replicated more efficiently, while maintaining the local outreach that is at the foundation of the Pro Bono Committees. The goal is to develop and record substantive CLE material across the state that could then be pulled together within one resource point, while also ensuring the programming is relevant to local groups by pairing recorded CLEs with a panel of local experts on a topic.

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  • The second working group will work on establishing a system of pro bono mentoring to engage more volunteers in pro bono work at all stages of their career. Throughout the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Access to Justice Listening Tours and PILI’s Pro Bono Forums, pro bono mentoring for lawyers at all stages of their career was consistently identified as a need. Summit attendees discussed mentoring as a good way to involve experienced attorneys who may be able to mentor other volunteers in specific practice areas, and help more attorneys feel comfortable taking on cases outside their practice areas.

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  • The third working group will focus on developing specific and replicable discrete pro bono opportunities and expanding limited scope representation. This group will work on creating a limited scope representation toolkit with sample forms and instructions. While nothing like this exists now in Illinois, similar toolkits exist in other states. The group will also explore developing limited scope representation and discrete pro bono opportunities that could be easily replicated across the state.

 

Finally, the group also discussed creating a conflict of interest pro bono referral panels. In many areas, there is only legal aid program serving the community, leaving people in need with nowhere to turn when there is a conflict of interest for that legal aid program. It was generally agreed that PILI is best situated to undertake this much needed endeavor, and initial steps were discussed to set up a pilot program that would hopefully be expanded in the future beyond the pilot.

Roundtable GroupOverall, it was a successful meeting which generated a lot of enthusiasm and great ideas for expanding and enhancing pro bono across Illinois.

Learn more about our Judicial Circuit Pro Bono Committees »

Learn more about our Pro Bono Initiative »

Pro Bono Survey Sent to Attorneys Across Illinois

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PILI has teamed up with the American Bar Association, the Chicago Bar Foundation and the Illinois Supreme Court Access to Justice Commission to create a survey about pro bono participation in Illinois. The responses from this survey will help PILI and other public interest law organizations create better pro bono opportunities and experiences for attorneys.

[button href=”https://americanbar.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_7PQDhFv5kiEbBiJ”]Complete the Survey[/button]

The last day to complete the survey is March 17, 2017.

“We believe the results from this pro bono survey will be instrumental in expanding and enhancing pro bono activity in Illinois,” said PILI Executive Director Michael G. Bergmann. “We are very excited to better understand some of the barriers attorneys face when doing pro bono and how to improve their volunteer experience through out statewide efforts.”

Please complete this survey at your earliest opportunity so that we have the greatest amount of feedback to best guide our efforts. Results from the survey will be made available by the ABA in Summer 2017.

Fill out the survey now »

Download a flyer about the survey to share »

Find PILI’s Pro Bono Resource »

PILI Alumni Spotlight: Megan Harkins, 2016 Law Student Intern

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PILI is excited to welcome Megan Harkins to our Alumni Network Leadership Council as the 2016 Intern Alumni Representative. PILI appoints one Intern and one Fellow every year from the most recent class to serve on the Council for a two-year term.

Megan is working on a dual Juris Doctorate and Masters of Social Work degree at the Loyola University Chicago School of Law. Last summer, she was the Jerome Gilson Named Intern at the Legal Council for Health Justice working with the Homeless Outreach Project. “Seeing LCHJ’s work make an impact on another person’s life was one of the most rewarding and fond memories of my time at LCHJ and in the PILI program,” Megan said.

Since her Internship, she has continued to volunteer at LCHJ and helped organize the second “Medical Records Marathon Day.” Earlier this spring, she began an externship at Equip for Equality. “I feel that I have been trusted with larger tasks and have been forced out of my comfort zone,” Megan said. “This has taught me how to problem solve and seek guidance when I really need it.”

Before law school, Megan worked at a mental health nonprofit and felt that the nonprofit environment was where she could make the greatest impact. “PILI has allowed me to follow through with my dreams of being involved with the public interest law community and has facilitated my connection with other like-minded individuals who continue to make a difference in the lives of Chicagoans,” she said.

Megan has made her commitment to service a priority from the beginning of her legal career.  “I think the most important thing law students and other legal professionals can do is share the legal knowledge and expertise we have learned with the communities in which we live,” she said. “It is our duty as future legal professionals to develop a commitment to service early and continue to inspire subsequent generations to do the same.”

Read more PILI Alumni spotlights »

PILI Alumni Spotlight: Rebecca Canary-King, 2016 Graduate Fellow

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Rebecca Canary-King

PILI is excited to welcome Rebecca Canary-King to our Alumni Network Leadership Council as the 2016 Fellow Alumni Representative. PILI appoints one Intern and one Fellow every year from the most recent class to serve on the Council for a two-year term.

Becky is a first year associate at Schiff Hardin LLP. She graduated from the University of Chicago Law School last year and then did a PILI Graduate Fellowship at LAF. She said her favorite part was working with clients at the Juvenile Expungement Help Desk. “I was able to be at the end of their foray through the criminal justice system and mostly give them good news,” said Becky. “It was great to go home knowing I had done at least one tangible thing that day that had helped someone.”

As a Fellow, Becky was in the courtroom two to three times a week at clients’ expungement hearings, using her 711 license, and later her own license. “The day after I was sworn in as an attorney,” said Becky, “I was able to stand up in court and say ‘Rebecca Canary-King from LAF, for the petitioner.’ It felt pretty good!”

Becky valued these experiences and the client-interaction skills that she gained as a PILI Fellow. “I was able to develop crucial client communication skills that law school does not teach you,” said Becky. “Learning how to describe a process simply and clearly is a skill I will need for all clients I work with in my career.”

During her first year at the firm, she has already taken on pro bono cases through Chicago Volunteer Legal Services and maintains her relationships at LAF as a volunteer pro bono attorney. She also volunteered with the attorney network at O’Hare International Airport, an effort to aid detained refugees and other individuals.

“It has really struck me, especially this past month, how much power I have as an attorney,” Becky said. “It has been incredible how the attorney presence there has been a comfort to so many. I am holding on to that feeling. As a new lawyer there are so many things I do not know. But this system gives me power, and as I learn, I can use it for good.”

Read more PILI Alumni spotlights »