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At about a year and half into the development of a formalized pro bono and community service program and committee, United Airlines, Inc. provides a model of what it looks like for a corporate program to develop from an idea to an impactful and sustainable enterprise. What started at the direction and with the full support of the Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary Brett Hart, and developed through the vision of Assistant General Counsel and Chair of United’s Legal Department Pro Bono & Community Service Committee, Steve Fus, United’s Pro Bono & Community Service Committee shows the critical signs that it will live beyond any one individual. The committee is comprised of lawyers and non-lawyers, who are charged with promoting the program, and who have seen the growth of the program realized as individuals take on projects, recruit volunteers, and spread the passion and rewards that come through participating in pro bono and community service work. Fus is clear about his goal to have a one hundred percent regular participation from United’s legal department. “Apart from an attorney’s ethical obligation that comes with the license to practice law, the needs and rewards from giving back to the community and helping those in need are so great that everyone should be given the opportunity and resources to make it a priority,” he explains. With that goal present from the beginning, Fus worked strategically to create a spark in the design of the pro bono program that can ignite significant participation rates, making engagement a major focus.
Several key decisions have shaped the program design:
This focus on individual engagement started with a survey to determine areas of interest and continues today with the belief that rather than simply encouraging people to do any particular pro bono activity, the Pro Bono & Community Service Committee can help them find their passion, and promotion and growth will follow.
That growth has resulted in the development of diverse and numerous pro bono and volunteer partnerships and programs to date. Among other activities, United partners with Cabrini Green Legal Aid to staff the Expungement Help Desk at the Daley Center, to represent clients at live call hearings for expungement and sealing petitioners, and to participate in expungement and sealing summits. United will soon be recognized as the Center for Disability and Elder Law’s Corporate Partner of the Year for their participation in CDEL’s Senior Center Initiative. Work with the National Immigrant Justice Center has included participation in Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals clinics and attorneys taking on individual cases. A group of United volunteers staffs the Equip for Equality hotline on a weekly basis and others participate in a court watch program through the Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women’s Network at the Domestic Violence Court. Most recently, volunteers obtained training from Ladder Up to support its Tax Assistance Program. The pro bono and community service program extends outside of Chicago, with Houston attorneys taking on veterans’ cases in partnership with Houston Volunteer Lawyers, and volunteers making and delivering lunches with Kids’ Meals.
The spark of passion becomes most obvious, Fus says, after group activities. “After we get together, for example, after mentoring Legal Prep Charter Academy students or after a legal clinic, you see the enthusiasm and effect it has on the attorneys and staff, the realization of the rewards of using their legal skills to change others’ lives for the better. That personalization is not something you get every day in a corporate practice. When you do it yourself, you already know, but to see others get that realization and share that enthusiasm back at the office is when we know the process is working.” The committee has several new projects and partnerships in the works, and understands itself and other corporations as significant resources for volunteerism that can make an impact.
Although the goal of one hundred percent regular participation has not yet been met in the short time since United’s pro bono and community service program started, Fus feels positive about the fact that current participation rates and growth have come about because each individual is personally motivated to participate. Fus admits, “we could probably realize a vision of immediate measured success if we had a mandatory program, or one that made a difference in performance evaluations, but then the individuals might do it for the wrong reasons and won’t have the passion that drives the same rewards and sustainability. It wouldn’t be a disservice, but it wouldn’t be as valuable as when someone does it because they want to make a difference in their community, and it’s that kind of passion that provides the best service to the clients.” The pro bono and community service program at United Airlines provides a model that centralizes the impact to the individual volunteer in order to galvanize the community impact of the program.
Emily Coffey is the newest Intern Representative on PILI’s Board of Directors, and perhaps also the first to hold that position while simultaneously serving as a PILI Intern. A 3L at Loyola University of Chicago School of Law, Emily did her first PILI Internship in the summer of 2013 at the Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing. She decided to apply to serve as a Representative on PILI’s Board to stay involved with PILI and to continue meeting and working with Chicago’s public interest leaders. Now, in her last semester of law school, Emily is doing another PILI Internship, this one at CARPLS. Emily also worked at CARPLS before she went to law school on their Homeless Prevention Program and at their Domestic Relations Desk. Emily’s second PILI Internship rounds out a very public interest-focused law school career: in addition to these two Internships with PILI, she also served as a legal extern at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, a Coles Fellow at the Illinois Human Rights Commission, and a Student Attorney and a Policy Advocate in Loyola’s Health Justice Project. She is a board member for the Chicago Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, having previously served as the student representative to their Chicago Chapter, and she is a member of the Associate Board of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless.
As a PILI Intern at LCBH last summer, Emily participated in all aspects of tenant advocacy. She represented tenants facing eviction in the private rental market and tenants living in foreclosed buildings, and she also worked at the Tenants in Foreclosure Help Desk and drafted pleadings and other documents for tenants, including motions to dismiss, settlement agreements, and motions to intervene in condemnation cases. Emily says that her favorite part of this Internship was getting the opportunity to work directly with tenants. “Little justice is available for tenants who are often living in some of the worst conditions in Chicago,” she explains. “Working with these tenants to get relocation assistance or negotiating with banks so that they can stay in their apartments and get the necessary repairs done has been one of the most rewarding experiences I have had at LCBH.”
One case in particular stood out for Emily: the client was a large family whose landlord had sold the building. The family wanted to move, but was unable to find a place in their community in their price range on the short timeline they were given. Without resources to advocate for themselves, the family turned to LCBH for help. “I was able to negotiate a settlement with the landlord, giving them sufficient time to move and avoiding an eviction being put on their record,” Emily recounts. Securing this settlement had a profound impact on the family and their quality of life. “I’m very grateful for the opportunity to work with such a great advocacy organization that is working on important issues from all directions,” she said.
Now at CARPLS, Emily works at their Collection Desk, the Municipal Court Advice Desk, and on their hotline. She provides brief services to clients on the hotline in areas of divorce, landlord and tenant issues, and consumer law. Once she graduates this spring, she hopes to continue working in public interest law. For Emily, participating in PILI’s Internship Program was an obvious choice. “A great network of social justice minded attorneys with excellent summer programming, and receiving a summer stipend to boot?” she says. “Of course I would recommend it to anyone!”
Catie Cottle is the newest Fellow Representative on PILI’s Board of Directors. She served as a PILI Fellow last summer at Chicago Kent’s Environmental Law Clinic, sponsored by Kirkland & Ellis. “I chose the location of my PILI Fellowship so that I would have an array of legal experiences totally different than what I would experience at Kirkland,” Catie explained. During her Fellowship, she worked on a variety of tasks, including submitting FOIA requests, drafting public comments for an Illinois Pollution Control Board decision about monitoring groundwater at waste sites, and more.
One particular client story especially stood out to Catie. On her first day as a PILI Fellow, she sat in an initial client interview with a woman who had spent the last 10 years worrying about the damage a chemical facility across the street from her was doing to her family and neighbors. “It took her 10 years to have the courage to seek legal assistance – she was stonewalled in all of her efforts to find out information about this chemical facility,” Catie explains. “Over time, she started thinking that because she didn’t have money and power that she had to just accept this. Luckily, she found the courage one day to reach out to us.” Throughout the summer, Catie drafted numerous FOIA requests to help this woman get information about the chemical facility, and finally they were able to uncover the needed information. “You could see the relief flowing through her,” Catie recounts. “It was great to see what an impact such a seemingly small success – obtaining information – could have on her life.”
Now a new associate in Kirkland’s litigation group, Catie stays involved in pro bono work. Currently, she is representing a tenants’ union in a retaliatory eviction case against a landlord who had doubled the tenants’ rent and tried to evict them after they reported his illegal construction at their apartment building. Catie is also passionate about promoting access to higher education for high-needs students. She is a member of the Young Professionals Board of a nonprofit called Moneythink, which works to promote financial literacy among urban high school students by sending college volunteers into high schools nationwide in order to teach them about financial tools that can help them succeed in college and their future careers. On top of her board service with Moneythink, she is also helping the organization develop its legal infrastructure. Additionally, Catie volunteers as a mentor for LINK Unlimited, an organization that provides high-needs students with scholarships to private schools in Chicago, as well as leadership training and tutoring to help these students get into college.
Catie said she wanted to serve as the 2013 Fellow Representative to PILI’s Board of Directors because she wants to help other law students have the same transformative experience she had as a Fellow. Her time at the Environmental Law Clinic taught her how to effectively communicate complex legal situations to individuals with no legal background. More than this, Catie explains that her Fellowship showed her “the power a lawyer has to help a person feel like they have the power to fight for their rights and not let others push them around.” Catie always knew she wanted to work in a large law firm right out of law school and had not taken advantage of opportunities to do public interest work before this. “My short time as a PILI Fellow made me realize that public interest work is essential to my future career satisfaction,” she says.
In December, the Skadden Foundation announced the 28 recipients of Skadden Fellowships for 2014. Among them is Sarah Hess, who had served as a PILI Intern in the summer of 2013. Sarah, who graduates from the John Marshall Law School this spring, will be working at the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law to promote child and community wellness by implementing a medical-legal partnership for Erie Family Health Center’s Spanish-speaking population. Erie Health Center is a network of 13 health care sites that serve largely low-income clients.
Sarah is the first Skadden Fellow in recent years to come from an unranked law school. Speaking with the National Law Journal, Sarah said that hard work is what makes the difference:
“If I chose to, I could have been discouraged,” Hess said. “But what it did was made me really refine my project and made me go as far down every path of research I was pursuing. I used it as a motivator. I think the moral is a simple one: You should never let people tell you something is impossible. You should use the warning as motivation to do a better job.”
Congratulations to Sarah and all of the 2014 Skadden Fellows! We look forward to hearing about the great work you will accomplish, and we thank you for your service to low-income and underrepresented communities in need.
About the Skadden Fellowship Program: The Skadden Fellowship Program, described as “a legal Peace Corps,” was established in 1988 in recognition of the dire need for greater funding for graduating law students who wish to devote their professional lives to providing legal services to the poor (including the working poor), the elderly, the homeless and the disabled, as well as those deprived of their civil or human rights. Fellowships are awarded for two years, with Skadden providing each Fellow a salary and paying all fringe benefits to which an employee of the sponsoring organization would be entitled. The 2014 class of Fellows brings to 705 the number of academically outstanding law school graduates and judicial clerks the firm has funded to work full-time for legal and advocacy organizations. Learn more at www.skaddenfellowships.org.
Get caught up on all the latest news from PILI, and look ahead with us to the what’s coming up in our Law Student Internship, Graduate Fellowship, Alumni, and Pro Bono Initiative Programs.
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Michael Bergmann with Meaghan Johnson at the Federal Government Pro Bono Fair
At the Federal Government Pro Bono Fair on December 6, PILI was recognized by Laura Klein, Pro Bono Manager at the Department of Justice, with a commendation for PILI’s efforts in advancing the Chicago Federal Government Pro Bono Program:
“Over the last seven years, you have served as our guide through the Chicago legal services community, our mentor for issues related to Illinois law, and a constant resource and enthusiast as we progressed. It has been our distinct privilege and pleasure to work with you. Indeed, the Chicago Federal Government Pro Bono Program would likely not exist today without your guidance, hard work and support.”
PILI Executive Director Michael Bergmann also gave the keynote speech at the Pro Bono Fair, highlighting the 2013 amendments to Illinois Rules that expand pro bono opportunities for attorneys admitted outside of Illinois.
Hot off the presses, PILI’s 2013 Annual Report tells the story of PILI’s 36th year, with stats about our impact and stories from our program participants. Read our report here, or contact us to request your own copy.
Ann Hilton Fisher is the Executive Director of the AIDS Legal Council of Chicago, a community-based nonprofit serving the legal needs of people with HIV in Cook County. She and her staff provide assistance in more than 1,500 cases each year on a wide range of legal issues and provide frequent training for providers, case managers, and consumers. The organization’s individual case work also inspires and informs its advocacy agenda, which includes a full range of health care access issues in addition to issues specific to people with HIV. Ann is a member of the American Bar Association AIDS Coordinating Committee, and planned and hosted the first national conference for HIV advocates. Although Ann clerked in both federal district court in Detroit and then for Chief Judge Thomas Fairchild on the 7th Circuit, she always knew her career would be in public interest law. Prior to joining ALCC, Ann worked at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago first as a neighborhood attorney on Chicago’s west side, then as a senior attorney with their Disability Law Project focusing particularly on the needs of nursing home residents and people with mental illness and developmental disabilities, and finally as the supervisor of LAF’s first HIV/AIDS Law Project.
Frequently recognized for the enormous impact her career has had, not only for people living with HIV/AIDS, but for all low-income and under-represented populations, Ann was the 2001 recipient of the Lawyers Trust Fund of Illinois’ Esther R. Rothstein Award. In 2007 she was honored by the Chicago Bar Association & Chicago Bar Foundation with the Thomas H. Morsch Public Service Award, and earlier this year she received the AIDS Foundation of Chicago’s 2013 Impact Award. Under her leadership, the Council was also honored last summer with the American Bar Association’s first Alexander Folger Award for excellence in HIV legal services and advocacy.
More compelling still are the endorsements of her many nominators, who repeatedly extolled her leadership and vision, as well as the dignity and compassion with which she has always treated each of her clients. As one nominator put it, “Ann is an inspiration. She is an inspiration to her clients, many of whom she has helped obtain life-sustaining medications, secure public benefits that have stabilized their lives, and protect against discriminatory landlords, employers and others. She is an inspiration to her staff members who passionately advocate for their clients by following her lead. She is an inspiration to the legal community, having dedicated her entire career to ensuring that all people have access to justice.” PILI is pleased to present this award to Ann in recognition of her career-long commitment to protecting and advocating for the legal rights of the most vulnerable among us.
Harvey Grossman (2012), Chief Justice Thomas L. Kilbride (2011), Johnathan K. Baum (2010), Thomas F. Geraghty (2009), Hon. Mary Ann G. McMorrow (2008), Edward Grossman (2007), Randolph N. Stone (2006), Howard A. Learner (2005), Wallace C. Winter (2004), Hon. Abner J. Mikva (2003), Eleanor P. Petersen (2002), Leon Despres (2001), Rita Aliese Fry (2000), Aurie A. Pennick (1999), John E. Clay (1998), John S. Elson (1997), Lawrence C. Marshall, Thomas M. Breen, Matthew F. Kennelly, and Nan R. Nolan (1996), Diane C. Geraghty (1995), Douglass W. Cassel, Jr (1994), M. Lee Witte (1993) Sheldon H. Roodman (1992), Alex Elson (1991), Ruth Ann Schmitt (1990), George W. Overton (1989), Edwin A. Rothschild (1988), Alexander Polikoff (1987), Walter T. Fisher (1986), Kenneth F. Montgomery (1985)
Max with his family
at our Annual Awards Luncheon
Max Stein has demonstrated a strong commitment to pro bono service from the very beginning of his legal career. His connection to PILI began early too: before even starting law school, he attended PILI luncheons with his grandfather, Hubert Will, a federal judge in Chicago, and with his mother, Nikki Will Stein, who later became a member of PILI’s Board of Directors. Later, Max had the opportunity to take several pro bono legal matters while working as a paralegal at Mayer Brown. After graduating with honors and as a member of the Order of the Coif from Chicago-Kent College of Law, he took a PILI Fellowship at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, sponsored by Sachnoff & Weaver.
Following his Fellowship and with his firm’s support, Max remained actively involved in pro bono as a new litigation associate, doing pro bono work for a number of different organizations. Max’s PILI Fellowship at the Shriver Center played an important role in that work, as connections he made during his Fellowship opened fruitful pro bono opportunities for his firm that turned into a lasting relationship. One pro bono matter Max was involved in was a pioneering housing case with national implications in which Sachnoff attorneys partnered with the Shriver Center to represent the Jane Addams Senior Caucus and preserve low-income senior housing. Both the Shriver Center and the Jane Addams Senior Caucus honored Max and his colleagues for their dedication and service.
Max stayed at Sachnoff through the merger with Reed Smith in 2007, and at the start of this year he moved to Boodell & Domanskis, LLP as a member in their litigation group. Max concentrates his practice in commercial litigation and has extensive experience representing clients in a wide variety of disputes, with particular experience in shareholder disputes and business divorces, breach of contract matters, bank and loan-related claims, civil RICO claims, and consumer fraud claims. He is involved in several community groups, and has been instrumental in connecting his new firm with the pro bono projects that are near to his heart. Max currently serves as the president of the Board of Directors at the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Jay Readey, Executive Director of the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee, says that Max has been “a steady hand at the helm of CLCCRUL’s board.” Jay added that Max has “a very finely-tuned sense of the role of a public interest organization in the wider community, and with a long practice in the private bar that has been complemented by an active tradition of pro bono service, he also has an equally strong sense of what the private bar can offer to the public interest via pro bono service. This combination of sensibilities is exactly the mix that PILI honors through its programs and awards.”
PILI is proud to honor Max with this award in recognition of his longstanding commitment and dedication to serving those in need.
Hon. Edmond E. Chang (2012), Justin Lee Heather (2011), Jay S. Readey (2010), Elizabeth P. Lewis (2009), Charles Perez Golbert (2008), LaShonda Hunt (2007), Eric J. Gorman (2006), Douglas A. Graham (2005), Tejal Vakharia (2004), Kendy M. Hess (2001), Daniel J. Hurtado (1998), Rosemary Shiels (1997), Daniel W. Sherman (1996), Maria Woltjen (1996), Lorie Chaiten (1995), Karen Reardon (1994)