Welcome to our virtual two-part PRO BONO SPOTLIGHT EVENT where
Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts and the Chicago Council of Lawyers will be celebrating our volunteers and community partners. The strides toward justice we've made this year would not be possible without them.
ABOUT US
Chicago Appleseed and the Chicago Council of Lawyers form a "Collaboration for Justice" focused on improving lives by improving the courts. Our courts sit at the intersection of systemic problems in our communities and the government’s response to them. We cannot build an equitable and just world without equitable and just courts.
For more than thirty years,
Chicago Appleseed and the Council of Lawyers have fought for the systemic changes needed to ensure fair and anti-racist courts in Cook County, Illinois, and beyond.
Together, we leverage the unique insights and best practices of members, volunteers, and community partners to interrupt cycles of poverty, mass incarceration, and racial injustice perpetrated by all aspects of the legal system. Through mixed-method, community-informed research, the Collaboration for Justice advocates for practical, evidence-based solutions to improve the quality of justice in Cook County.
PROGRAMMING - PART ONE
CONFIRMED PANELISTS
April Preyar
Partner, Shiller Preyar
Jarard & Samuels Law
April Preyar is civil rights attorney in Chicago. She founded an online movement called the JustUs Junkie. The name “JustUs” refers to the notion that true justice has historically been unavailable to Black and brown people, which, in turn, makes people of color alienated and isolated from the court system and frightened and terrorized by law enforcement.
April frequently serves on educational panels and conducts “Know Your Rights'' seminars for elementary school children, teenagers, and adults.
Cathryn Crawford
Director of Holistic Legal Services
Lawndale Christian Legal Center
Cathryn is a graduate and former professor of Northwestern University’s School of Law. With a decades long legal career, she joined LCLC due to its unique community-based holistic legal representation model. Before coming to LCLC, Cathryn worked in Texas representing clients on death row.
Cathryn hopes to reform the justice system by making it holistic instead of punitive and to eliminate the pernicious racism that characterizes it.
Tanya Woods
Executive Director
Westside Justice Center
Tanya Woods hails from the West Side of Chicago near the same neighborhood where she is the Executive Director of the Westside Justice Center, a non-profit, holistic legal aid clinic in East Garfield Park.
She is a certified Mediator and Trainer at the Center for Conflict Resolution and adjunct faculty member at Loyola University School of Law. Prior to becoming a licensed attorney, Tanya worked in the higher education, non-profit, and corporate sectors.
Sharone Mitchell, Jr.
Public Defender for Cook County
Sharone Mitchell, Jr. is a lifelong resident of Chicago, attending Morgan Park High School and growing up in the West Pullman neighborhood. Before becoming Cook County Public Defender in April 2021, he was Director of the Illinois Justice Project, focusing on pretrial issues, sentencing policy, and violence prevention.
Sharone has often appeared in the media; his analysis has appeared in print, TV, and radio.
Sarah Staudt
Senior Policy Analyst & Staff Attorney
Collaboration for Justice
Sarah Staudt has been with Chicago Appleseed and the Chicago Council of Lawyers since 2018. After graduating from the University of Chicago Law School in 2013, Sarah was an attorney with Lawndale Christian Legal Center where she focused on juvenile justice matters.
Sarah was also part of the team that planned, created, and launched the North Lawndale Community Court – which was managed by Chicago Appleseed staff for about a year.
Waiting for Justice: An Examination of the Cook County Criminal Court Backlog in the Age of COVID-19
Chicago Appleseed (January 2021)
Coalition to End Money Bond (September 2020)
Chicago Appleseed & Chicago Council of Lawyers (August 2020)
We Analyzed 536,000 CPD Arrest Records Spanning a Period from 2014 to 2020. Here's What We Found.
Chicago Appleseed (December 2020)
One-Hour Access to Counsel in Police Stations - A Cost-Saving Necessity
Chicago Appleseed (October 2020)
Chicago Appleseed & Chicago Council of Lawyers" (August 2020)
VICTORY: Governor Pritzker Abolishes Money Bail by Signing HB 3652 - the SAFE-T Act - into Law
Chicago Appleseed (February 2021)
Key Accomplishments of the Pretrial Fairness Act
Coalition to End Money Bond (February 2021)
Pretrial Fairness Act and Domestic Violence - Dispelling Myths
Chicago Appleseed & The Network: Advocating Against Domestic Violence (February 2021)
Dollars and Sense in Cook County - Examining the Impact of Bail Reform on Crime and Other Factors
Don Stemen & David Olson for MacArthur Safety & Justice Challenge (November 2020)
RELATED READING FOR THIS PANEL INCLUDES...
PROGRAMMING - PART TWO
KEYNOTE PRESENTATION
By Dr. Traci Burch
Research Professor at the American Bar Foundation and Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University
On May 19, Dr. Burch will deliver a keynote address discussing her research on the role of citizen activism in response to police-involved killings, what that means for accountability, and how the criminalization of Black and Brown people impacts political participation.
Dr. Burch’s research focuses on the U.S. criminal justice system, political behavior, and structural inequality. She is the author of Trading Democracy for Justice: Criminal Convictions and the Decline of Neighborhood Political Participation (2013) and co-author of Creating a New Racial Order (2012). Other recent publications appear in Political Behavior, Law and Society Review, and Criminology and Public Policy.
May 19th, 2021
12PM CT
A special thank you to our GENEROUS SPONSORS for their support...
CHANGE-MAKER
$10,000
INNOVATOR
$5,000
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PRO BONO PARTNER
$2,500
ANONYMOUS
RAYMOND LINN
ALLY
$1,000
RONALD L. FUTTERMAN
SONYA NAAR
FRIEND
$500
MALCOLM RICH
ROGER LEWIS
AVIVA FUTORIAN
MATT DANIELS
"When it comes to Chicago Appleseed and the Collaboration for Justice, I always talk about it as an
INVESTMENT versus a donation. I feel like Chicago Appleseed has done so much work to try to fundamentally
change the infrastructure of this city, and restore some degree of equity and justice in the Chicago courts."
Eamon and Kay Daly
Chicago Residents, and Longtime Financial Supporters of the Collaboration for Justice