Goldberg Kohn Supports Chicago Bar Foundation's "Investing in Justice Campaign"

March 15, 2007

The Chicago Bar Foundation (CBF) has embarked on a new community-wide fundraising effort, the “Investing in Justice Campaign,” to take ownership of, and effectively address, a legal aid crisis recently identified by a widely-publicized CBF study. Goldberg Kohn principal, Matthew Zapf, is on the Steering Committee for the Campaign and will also serve as a Vice-Chair.

All of the Campaign funds in its inaugural year will be used to provide special grants to Chicago’s pro bono and legal aid organizations, to begin the process of increasing yearly salaries for attorneys to levels that will allow their staff members to remain in legal aid.  In future years, funds from the Campaign will be used to further build the capacity of the pro bono and legal aid system. The first annual “Investing in Justice Campaign” will be taking place city-wide during the month of March.

“I have agreed to participate in this Campaign because I strongly believe that we are facing an imminent legal aid crisis, and I am gratified that Goldberg Kohn is fully supporting the Campaign” said Mr. Zapf.  The Campaign is asking individual lawyers, law firms and corporate law departments to provide financial support to legal aid attorneys and services throughout Chicago as part of this comprehensive campaign. Currently, there are only about 250 legal aid attorneys in the Chicago area to serve the more than 750,000 Cook County residents living in poverty.  As a result, more than half of low-income Chicagoans who seek legal assistance that is often critical to their safety and independence are turned away because pro bono and legal aid organizations do not have the capacity to serve them.  Hundreds of thousands more are left to try to solve often complex legal problems on their own. 

Moreover, a new study (available at www.chicagobarfoundation.org), published by the Chicago Bar Foundation and the Illinois Coalition for Equal Justice, takes an in-depth look at legal aid attorney recruitment and retention and reveals that nearly half will leave their jobs in the next three years because they simply cannot afford to stay given their low wages.  Many have significant debt from law school and are finding the burden impossible to bear with the inordinately low salaries that are typical in our legal aid system today.   The study concluded that losing just 10% of our experienced legal aid attorneys over the course of a year means that about 10,000 fewer low-income Chicagoans have access to critical legal services.

The CBF’s Investing in Justice Campaign is a unique opportunity for all Chicago area lawyers to take ownership of this problem and to make an important investment in justice.