By Kim Thielbar, Director of Pro Bono Services, Prairie State Legal Services and Laurie Bell, Pro Bono Coordinator, Prairie State Legal Services
Pro bono
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by Tracy Simmons, Legal Content Manager, Illinois Legal Aid Online
If volunteering is on your list of New Year’s resolutions, Illinois Legal Aid Online (ILAO) can help. ILAO offers flexible, remote pro bono opportunities. As a Legal Content Volunteer (LCV), you can choose your own project and time commitment. Your work also helps increase access to justice.
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By Michael G. Bergmann, Executive Director of the Public Interest Law Initiative
Save the date for another Pro Bono Week celebration! Coordinated by the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service, Pro Bono Week is intended to inspire even greater pro bono participation by lawyers throughout the nation. This initiative provides an opportunity for legal organizations across the country to collaboratively commemorate the vitally important contributions of America’s lawyers and to recruit and train the many additional volunteers required to meet the growing demand.
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August 14, 2023 |
Practice News
By Abigail Causer, Managing Attorney at the Public Interest Law Initiative (PILI)
Imagine being without legal guidance when you need it most. Now, imagine being the ray of hope that brightens that darkness- from the comfort of your home. Hosted by the ABA and Administered in Illinois by PILI through the incredible support of the Illinois Bar Foundation, the Illinois Access to Justice grant program, and the Illinois Equal Justice Foundation, Illinois Free Legal Answers is a secure website where lower income Illinois residents can ask a lawyer for help with a legal issue. Qualified users post questions about civil legal problems, then volunteer lawyers log onto the site - anytime and anywhere you can access the internet - and select questions to answer. It’s a virtual walk-in legal clinic and a great pro bono opportunity that you can engage with over your lunch or in your off hours in sweatpants.
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August 10, 2023 |
Practice News
by Karen Alice Kloppe
Free legal assistance is available to qualifying older adults in priority civil cases based on available funding allocated to each of the 13 Area Agencies on Aging in the Illinois Aging Network under the Older Americans Act (OAA) of 1965, as amended. (Public Law 89–73 as amended through Public Law 116–131.) The goal is “to assist older individuals in understanding their rights, exercising choices, benefiting from services and opportunities authorized by law, and maintaining the rights of older individuals at risk of guardianship. See 42 USC 3058j(5) and 42 USC 3002(33) (defining the term “legal assistance”).
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April 5, 2023 |
Practice News
By Clarissa Gaff, Executive Director of Land of Lincoln Legal Aid
East St. Louis, IL, has raised some remarkable Illinoisans—nay, some remarkable Americans: Katherine Dunham, Miles Davis, Jackie Joyner Kersee, Jimmy Connors, and Senator Dick Durbin, to name a few. It is a tight-knit community of nearly 20,000, with a rich history. It is also a community that is incredibly challenged, haunted by a race massacre, white flight, and industry abandonment and pollution from its heyday. More than a third of residents live in poverty. A full quarter of its residents live in aging subsidized housing.
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December 21, 2022 |
Practice News
Bryan Thompson interviews Margaret Benson, the Executive Director of Chicago Volunteer Legal Services, about how attorneys can get involved even if they are busy, the advantage of the change to Rule 45 for remote hearings, and more.
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By Michael Bergmann, Executive Director of the Public Interest Law Initiative
Save the date for another Pro Bono Week celebration! Coordinated by the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service, Pro Bono Week is intended to inspire even greater pro bono participation by lawyers throughout the nation. This initiative provides an opportunity for legal organizations across the country to collaboratively commemorate the vitally important contributions of America’s lawyers and to recruit and train the many additional volunteers required to meet the growing demand.
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A pro bono opportunity sponsored by the International and Immigration Law Section Council:
Many of us looked on with horror as Russia invaded Ukraine in February. As international law and immigration lawyers, we received many calls from other lawyers, friends, and family members of Ukrainians asking what could be done to help the Ukrainians driven from their homes. In April, the U.S. government announced the Uniting For Ukraine (U4U) program, which allows U.S. sponsors to submit affidavits of support for Ukrainians, who can then apply for Humanitarian Parole to enter the United States temporarily.
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by Mary F. Petruchius
Mary: Within the last couple of years, Prairie State Legal Services, Inc. has made some dramatic changes to its overall pro bono program and structure. Kim Thielbar, Prairie State’s Director of Pro Bono Services, heads up its new Pro Bono Unit. In this article, we’ll get to know Kim and what this new unit is all about, how it came into existence, and what Prairie State hopes to achieve with this innovative approach to pro bono client services.