Since 1969, the Chicago Lawyers' Committee, through its member law firms and staff lawyers, has provided free legal services to challenge discrimination and other violations of civil rights in both the public and private sectors.
Employment Opportunity Project
The goal of the Employment Opportunity Project is to reduce the ongoing barriers faced by people of color and women as they attempt to find and retain employment in order to support themselves and their families. The Project uses both litigation and advocacy to achieve this goal. Utilizing federal, state and local anti-discrimination laws, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Project seeks to ensure that minorities and women have equal access to jobs and other economic opportunities in the Chicago metropolitan area.
Fair Housing Project
Chicago was once known as the most segregated city in America. In the Chicago Lawyers' Committee's founding year, 1969, Committee staff and member firms represented families living in the path of urban renewal to ensure that the families who were displaced were properly relocated. For more than three decades, Committee lawyers have fought housing discrimination in both the courts and administrative agency proceedings.
Project to Combat Bias Violence
The Chicago Lawyers' Committee's Project to Combat Bias Violence has organized effective community response to bias violence, training both the general public and area professionals, such as prosecutors, on the Illinois Hate Crime Act, prejudice as the root cause of hate crime, and the rights and needs of victims. Public forums and educational presentations have been made in high-risk neighborhoods, utilizing the in-kind participation of police, prosecutors, private attorneys, clergy, community leaders, and health and social service professionals. Over 100 such outreach programs have been conducted, for 3,000 participants, covering virtually all of the 77 ethnically and racially diverse communities in Chicago, the Midwest's largest immigration center. Presentations are orally translated as needed, and hate crime information materials have been printed in 12 languages.
Community Economic Development Law Project
The Community Economic Development Law Project was launched in 1985. The rationale was simple: initiatives undertaken by disadvantaged communities require the same legal expertise, including tax, corporate, real estate and finance counsel, as any other enterprise in order to be successful. However, the cost of these services is beyond the budgets of most of the non-profit organizations serving low-income communities.