Although he will not graduate from Valparaiso University School of Law until May, Johnny Frevert is already deeply committed to the public interest. Frevert, the 2010 Intern Representative on PILI’s Board of Directors, was hosted by CARPLS for both a summer Internship and a fall school-year Internship where he advised pro-se litigants at CARPLS Collection, Divorce and Municipal Advice Desks.

Reflecting on his two PILI Internships, Frevert is grateful for the “invaluable amount of real-world and real-time experience dealing face-to-face with clients and their legal issues.” He was particularly affected by one client he was advising at the CARPLS Collection Desk on how to get her bank account unfrozen. “The client’s assets were all exempt from collection under Illinois law, which really put her at ease. Near the end of our consultation, she wanted to know if CARPLS had a website so she could donate money to help us continue assisting people like herself. While I was very touched that someone with little to no assets would be willing to contribute to CARPLS, I simply told her, as I had told many clients before, that that is what we (CARPLS) are here for, and that she should concern herself with getting herself back on her feet.”

Frevert began working as a volunteer with the CARPLS hotline when he was a 1L, and his dedication to the public interest has profoundly influenced his career path. “I decided to move to Chicago and practice law in Illinois for the very reason that there are so many gifted attorneys committed to the goal of making sure that everyone has access to the law and not just those who could afford a retainer agreement,” Frevert remarks. “The externships which I have chosen come from a desire to serve the wider public good, and the career paths I have been investigating do not stray far from public service.”

In addition to his experiences with CARPLS, Frevert has externed in the Special Litigation Division of the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, and he is currently an extern with the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office in the Narcotics Division.

Frevert’s goal is to either find a position in state government or continue working in the legal aid community with an Illinois legal aid organization. “My hope,” says Frevert, “is that some day in the future I can give PILI more than just my time so that they may continue granting this invaluable experience to other worthy candidates.”

Originally published Jan 2011 Read more PILI Alumni Spotlights »

Rachel was a PILI Intern with the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Following her graduation from law school, she worked for four years at Life Span Legal Services, assisting low income domestic violence victims with orders of protection and divorce and custody case. Rachel now practices in federal court as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Illinois. Her work focuses on constitutional law questions, such as the First Amendment, false arrest and excessive force and the Commerce Clause. Rachel explains, “Working as a PILI Intern was an overall very positive experience that encouraged me to continue in public interest. It also exposed me to a different type of public interest work than I had previously experienced, so it showed me the diversity of choices available in the public interest legal world.” She believes that the lunchtime lectures were one particular way that PILI helped expand her horizons regarding the types of legal careers public interest lawyers could have. Rachel also enjoyed the conversations that she had with all of the other Interns and Fellows at her placement. She fondly recalls, “we would talk about a lot of interesting legal, social and political topics and it was great to learn from a diverse group of very intelligent law students.” Rachel has dedicated her entire career to public interest – representing low income domestic violence victims and now representing government employees. Her hope is that her career will always be dedicated to one type of public service or another.

Originally published May 2009 Read more PILI Alumni Spotlights »

Twenty years ago in the summer of 1992, Jean Choi, then a rising 2L at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, began her PILI Internship at the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. It was an experience that impacted her life in more ways than she could have anticipated. PILI has been placing Interns at the Chicago Lawyer’s Committee since our founding 35 years ago. The agency works on a broad range of legal issues related to social justice, and Jean’s work in the summer of 1992 was accordingly diverse and extensive. “It was my first real experience working as a lawyer,” says Jean. “I got to work with actual clients – for me it was very exciting.” Many of the clients with whom Jean worked were victims of employment discrimination. Others clients came through the Lawyers’ Committee’s Fair Housing Project, which Jean worked on with Betsy Schuman-Moore, a 1981 PILI Intern Alum who still supervises PILI Interns at the Lawyers’ Committee today. Jean also worked with Maria Woltjen, a 1987 PILI Fellow Alum, on juvenile justice issues related to transfer hearings. At the time of Jean’s Internship, the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee’s Executive Director was Roslyn Lieb; Roz would later go on to become the Executive Director of PILI until her retirement in 2004.

In addition to her employment, housing, and juvenile justice work, much of Jean’s focus during her Internship was on hate crime policy, particularly with Asian communities in Chicago. “In 1992, hate crime laws were fairly new,” explains Jean. Having grown up in Chicago herself in a Korean family on the northwest side, Jean recounts how things had been different in the 1970s. “My family was a victim of hate crimes, and my community ,” she says. “Our windows were broken, our church was vandalized. We called the police and they said there was nothing they could do.” But the 1980s brought greater awareness of hate crimes and better laws, as well as better resources for victims. Jean’s PILI Internship gave her the chance to support communities in ways her own community had been ignored when she was a child. “I was able to do workshops at Asian community service centers across the city,” says Jean. She worked with Vietnamese and Korean communities on the north side, and on the south side with newly expanding Chinese communities. “We would talk to them about how the laws protected them and about what they could do if someone they knew was the victim of a hate crime.”

Jean’s experience as a PILI Intern left her wanting more. During her third year of law school, she got a placement clerking for the Deputy Commissioner of the Chicago Commission on Human Relations, where she worked again on housing and employment discrimination issues. Following this, Jean worked for the Chicago Board of Education’s Law Department, where she gained experience not only in school reform law, but in immigration issues as well. Since 2003, Jean has been working in business immigration law, and she now manages her own firm helping corporations, universities, hospitals and other employers lawfully employ non-US citizens and permanent residents.

And, Jean’s experience as a PILI taught her that pro bono legal work is a high priority in her life. “The Chicago Lawyers’ Committee opened my eyes that I could be an advocate in so many ways, that I could change the landscape of the law,” says Jean. “You do not have to be passive when you see something is unjust, you can be an advocate for change in a meaningful way.  It just clicked with me.” Professionally, Jean is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the Illinois State Bar Association, the Chicago Bar Association, the Korean American Bar Association, and the Asian American Bar Association. With her school reform experience, Jean co-founded Passages Charter School in Edgewater on the north side. She has also served on the Chicago Advisory Board of “Facing History and Ourselves,” a worldwide organization to combat racism and nurture democracy. Jean got involved with this nonprofit through her continued friendship with Maria Woltjen, then former colleague and fellow PILI alum from the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee. In 2006, Jean received a Distinguished Alumni Award from PILI at our Annual Awards Luncheon.

As it turns out, Maria is not the only former colleague from her time as a PILI with whom Jean still keeps in touch. Jean was one of five PILI Interns and Fellows at the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee in 1992, and one of the other PILI Interns, Peter, a rising 2L at Harvard Law School, also caught Jean’s attention. The two stayed in touch throughout their remaining years at separate law schools and, a few years after graduating, they got married. “Roz came to our wedding!” says Jean, laughing. “During that summer of our PILI Internship, we had such an interesting and good group of people. We all worked together and learned from what the other interns and attorneys were doing.”

Originally published Mar 2012. Read more PILI Alumni Spotlights »

Adela Carlin is the Director of the Community Engagement Unit (CEU) at LAF, an innovative program dedicated to outreach, education, and working with community organizations. Having grown up in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago, Adela understands well the communities she serves and the challenges they face. She saw the impact of poverty on her own neighborhood from a young age and knew even back then that she wanted to dedicate her life to making a difference. The first of her family to graduate from college, Adela enrolled in law school at the University of Illinois in 1997 and served as a PILI Intern in 1999 before graduating and beginning her career at LAF in 2000.

Adela’s PILI Internship was at the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “I had the opportunity to work closely with a diverse group of attorneys, and to witness their unique skills and styles in and out of the courtroom,” she recounts. The team of attorneys she worked with litigated cases that exposed predatory lending schemes, race discrimination and gender hate crimes. In addition to research, writing, and community outreach, Adela also had the opportunity to sit in on a deposition, and on litigation strategy meetings. Later, as she began her career at LAF, Adela would draw on her experience as a PILI to help her manage the demands of being a legal aid attorney. “My Internship gave me a rock solid foundation to become a successful litigator and negotiator.”

While interning at the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee, Adela also got involved with PILI’s summer seminar series for Interns & Fellows, where she got to meet other law students, as well as practicing attorneys working in public interest law. “I did not know how to create my own career path based on my skills, my passion and my goals,” she explains. “The PILI Internship experience gave me an opportunity to see and hear about passionate advocates for social justice about their experiences.” Adela also enjoyed spending time with other PILI Interns, who shared her passion for helping individuals and communities in need. “That experience gave me the strength and courage to continue pursuing a career in public interest,” she says.

Community engagement and relationship-building has been a hallmark of Adela’s career from the beginning. Before becoming the Director of the CEU, her work at LAF focused primarily on survivors of domestic violence, whom she represented in complex family law cases. “Every month, I visited community organizations and offered free presentations about domestic violence and the legal options available to survivors,” Adela says. She also trained social service providers and lawyers about legal options available to survivors, and through a collaboration between LAF and a domestic violence agency, she helped open a legal clinic in Pilsen in 2007. “In all my work, my goal is to empower individuals and strengthen communities,” she says. Her model of engagement became the foundation of the CEU when it launched in 2011 after LAF centralized its offices. Adela now supervises a team of attorneys and outreach coordinators who are charged with mobilizing LAF staff and resources to reach people living in poverty throughout LAF’s service area. “We travel all over Cook County — equipped with laptops, portable printers, smart phones, and Zipcar memberships– meeting with local community-based organizations, doing know-your-rights presentations, and providing education and advice,” she explains. “We have reached thousands of people and trained hundreds of service providers.”

Adela’s leadership has not gone unnoticed. In 2008, she received the Jerold S. Solovy Equal Justice Award, which recognizes an exceptional LAF attorney. Then in 2011, she was named one of the Distinguished Women Leaders of the year by La Raza newspaper. Most recently in 2012, Adela was awarded a distinguished CBF Sun Times Fellowship. “I have dedicated my entire legal career to helping individuals and communities,” Adela says. “I feel great joy and pride in my work, and I look forward to many more years of service to individuals and communities in need.”

Originally published Mar 2013. Read more PILI Alumni Spotlights »