By Ramona M. Sullivan
Pro Bono Week is a time each year for the ISBA to encourage volunteer efforts of our members and celebrate the good works that we do. While the primary mission of Pro Bono Week is to expand the delivery of legal services, Illinois lawyers help our communities in many other ways as well.
By Honorable Barbara Crowder, Circuit Judge, Madison County
Everyone has heard the phrase, "get them young and train them." One usually thinks of this in terms of Olympic athletes who have been training since childhood, but the Third Circuit decided to try the concept with high-schoolers.
By Deborah Glaser Chagal
The ISBA’s Delivery of Legal Services committee recently established the Joseph R. Bartylak Memorial Legal Services Award to honor the extraordinary commitment and dedication of legal services attorneys in Illinois. Joe Bartylak, who passed away in August 2010, was a long-time active member of the ISBA.
By Hon. Barbara Crowder
Do you pro bono? If so, show you are “Pro Bono Proud” during National Pro Bono Week by attending a celebratory event. If not, why not? More opportunities abound to find a pro bono project that meets your time and abilities than ever before. And even more ways to pro bono may be coming to a circuit near you.
One year ago this month, Illinois lost a legendary legal services leader. Joseph Bartylak was passionately devoted to the cause of equal justice, and he furthered that cause not just by his brilliant and dedicated leadership of Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation for 27 years, but as a state and national leader of legal services.
This month I hope to remind readers that, in addition to fulfilling ethical obligations, the act of performing pro bono work can be deeply satisfying and meaningful to the attorney who lends a hand.
By Ramona Sullivan
There may be treatment that would fully resolve a medical condition, but the patient will never get the treatment without access to medical care. If the condition is caused or aggravated by a problem in the home, perhaps something harmful in the water or the walls, treatment will not solve the medical condition if the problems in the home are not improved.
By Julie K. Katz
Have you ever thought about how many legal issues arise when there is a natural disaster? No one ever thinks that a catastrophe will occur to him or to loved ones but, unfortunately, disasters strike without warning and no one is immune. For that reason, the ISBA’s Standing Committee on Delivery of Legal Services is preparing a disaster assistance handbook that will help victims of catastrophic occurrences with the legal problems that inevitably result from them.
The first annual National Pro Bono Celebration took place in the fall of 2009. The ABA Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service has scheduled the second annual Pro Bono Week for October 24 through October 30, 2010. The ISBA Standing Committee on Delivery of Legal Services is asking individual lawyers, law schools, and bar associations throughout Illinois to participate in this coordinated, national effort.