Chicago attorney Marian E. Perkins will receive a John C. McAndrews Pro Bono Service Award during the awards luncheon Friday, June 22, at the ISBA Annual Meeting.

Also receiving McAndrews Awards are the Jefferson County Bar Association and the law firms of DLA Piper US, Chicago, and Samuels, Miller, Schroeder, Jackson & Sly, Decatur.

The awards are named in memory of Rock Island attorney John McAndrews, who chaired the ISBA Committee on Delivery of Legal Services and received a Harry A. Blackmun Pro Bono Publico Award from Prairie State Legal Services before he died in 1993 of cancer.

Nominated by Cook County Bar Association President Deborah J. Fortier, Marian Perkins has served the organization as third vice president and chair of the Criminal Law Committee.

Through her efforts as coordinator, the CCBA expungement program has served about 3,200 ex-offenders during the past 12 months, and she has personally counseled more than 100 eligible individuals.

Her work involved completion of significantly detailed expungement petitions and draft orders, petitions to seal convictions, and advice to ex-offenders about the executive clemency process.

Perkins devoted an estimated 125 hours to pro bono representation in these cases over the past year, opening doors to employment and economic opportunities that were unattainable without expungement or sealing convictions.

The Jefferson County Bar is being honored for its support of the Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation and providing 79 total hours of pro bono service to nine of its eligible clients during the past year.

Coordinated by Secretary-Treasurer Shane Carnine, who was directing attorney of the Mt. Vernon office of LLLAF before it closed in December 2005, the bar association has recruited 25 pro bono volunteers.

DLA Piper carries out several pro bono projects in partnership with organized programs. Among them is the Juvenile Justice Project with the Bluhm Legal Clinic at the Northwestern University School of Law.

The law firm also funds a fellowship, through which Carolyn Frazier acts as liaison with the clinic and administers aspects of the project that involve representation of indigent children in the Juvenile Court system.

Since the project began in 2005, the lives of 61 juveniles who were represented in more than 70 matters have been bettered and their educational pathways improved.

During 2006, DLA Piper's Chicago office contributed 4,296 hours to the project and a total of 24,487 hours of pro bono service in the community.

The firm also received a McAndrews Award in 2005, as did its predecessor, Rudnick & Wolfe, in 1997.

The Samuels Miller firm has been an active participant in the Decatur Bar Association Pro Bono Program and in recent years has accepted 22 referrals in Macon County from the Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation.

Members of the firm also have provided pro bono services to Catholic Charities of Decatur, including 36 referrals in the past two years for guardianships for disabled adults.

The Decatur Bar Association received McAndrews Awards in 1999, 2004 and 2005.