In the Summer 1979 edition of the American Bar Foundation Research Journal, Michael J. Powell examined the Chicago Council of Lawyers as it approached its tenth anniversary, tracing the Council’s origins, developments, and emergence as an independent voice within Chicago’s legal community.
Titled ‘Anatomy of a Counter-Bar Association: The Chicago Council of Lawyers, ‘ the article explores how dissatisfaction with the legal profession in the late 1960s helped spur the Council’s formation and its commitment to placing the public interest at the center of the profession. Powell described CCL as an organization committed to meaningful legal reform and noted that, among the alternative lawyers’ organizations that emerged during the era, the Council had developed into a particularly broad and active professional organization.
The article chronicles some of CCL’s earliest advocacy, including its work on judicial reform, its defense of lawyers’ freedom of expression, and its willingness to challenge established bar associations on major controversies of the era. That included CCL’s response to the Chicago Conspiracy Trial and its call for investigation following the police raid that killed Fred Hampton and Mark Clark.
More than four decades later, the article offers a valuable historical look at the principles that shaped the Chicago Council of Lawyers and the organization’s early efforts to serve as an independent, reform-minded voice for the legal profession.
