Chicago Bar Foundation Sun-Times Fellowships Awarded

$50,000 Fellowships for Five Legal Aid Attorneys Offset Law School Debt and Allow Dedicated Lawyers to Continue Serving Those Most in Need

Last night, five legal aid attorneys received the financial assistance needed to continue serving the most vulnerable members of our community. On Wednesday, October 15, The Chicago Bar Foundation presented the Chicago Bar Foundation Sun-Times Public Interest Law Fellowship to Hilda Bahena, Staff Attorney at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago; Peter A. Bibler, Staff Attorney for the Home Ownership Preservation Project at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago; Rachel Shapiro, Staff Attorney at Equip for Equality; Stacey L. Tutt, Managing Attorney for Prairie State Legal Services, Inc., Bloomington office; and Debra J. Wysong, Senior Attorney and Manager of Intake for Equip for Equality. Each Fellow will receive $50,000 in loan repayment assistance over five years to help them continue their careers in legal aid.

“Each of our Fellows could have had their pick of top-paying law firm jobs upon graduation from law school. Instead, they chose to make the financial sacrifice it takes to ensure that those in need have access to our justice system,” said Bob Glaves, Executive Director of The Chicago Bar Foundation. “Often, though, financial sacrifice turns into financial struggle for legal aid attorneys due to what is often mortgage-sized law school debt. Through The Chicago Bar Foundation Sun-Times Fellowship, we are able to support their work and make it more manageable for them to serve the people in our community who are in most critical need of the protections of our justice system.”

First awarded in 2007, the CBF awards five annual fellowships of up to $50,000 per fellowship to individual legal aid or public interest law attorneys who demonstrate a commitment to public interest work, academic achievement in law school, and outstanding character and integrity. The CBF Sun-Times Fellowship addresses a crisis facing lawyers in our community who are increasingly finding that a career in legal aid and public interest law is simply untenable from an economic standpoint. Lawyers graduating today typically have an average of more than $100,000 in law school debt, while starting salaries in the legal aid and public interest law field average only $42,000. Through a generous $2 million cy pres award from a case involving the Chicago Sun-Times, the CBF was able to create these fellowships to provide significant loan repayment assistance to those who most need it.

Upon receiving her Fellowship, Hilda Bahena, a Staff Attorney at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago, underscored the critical need for this program. “Without this Fellowship, I may have had to leave a job I love.”

Each of the five fellowship recipients provide legal assistance that is critical to the safety and independence of their clients. Two of the Fellows, Rachel Shapiro and Debra Wysong, work with clients with special education needs navigating the school system; Peter Bibler is working primarily on litigation for lower income and senior homeowners facing foreclosure; Hilda Bahena created a monthly legal clinic that provides domestic violence survivors on-site legal advice on family law matters; and Stacey Tutt represents low-income families and seniors in a wide range of issues including financial exploitation, elder abuse, and orders of protection.