On August 8, the Future Justice Lawyers of Chicago (FJLOC) held its Capstone Luncheon at the offices of ArentFox Schiff. About 60 persons attended this hybrid event where we offered our congratulations to the 50 undergraduate and high school students who completed the FJLOC program. Our goal is to create a new generation of lawyers or other advocates working to confront issues of injustice in our community and work to improve the legal system.
Our program has three objectives:
- Skills building: writing and focusing on how to identify injustice and use research and advocacy to combat it. Our writing team works with the students in proposed line editing, proper citation, and to help make the writing more compelling and advocacy oriented.
- Mentoring: through Lawyer Advisors, law student mentoring, and mentoring provided by the FJLOC alumni.
- Building a supportive community: a network of lawyers, law, students, and alumni who will support each other in an age of uncertainty.
Attendees heard from the 3 work group teams about their work around criminal justice, health care in prisons and jails, and immigration. The students are working with their Lawyer Advisors, Future Justice Fellow Felix Mitchell, and our writing team which included Professor Meredith Geller from the Pritzker School of Law at Northwestern University, Mark Dupont, the permanent law clerk for Judge Ilana Rovner of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, law students and soon to be lawyers, Omar Mattar and Caitlyn Hyers, and law student Emily Drevdahl.
Each report has the following component parts:
- Identify and describe an injustice.
- Discuss the injustice using literature reviews and interviews that the students
conduct with subject matter experts, the impact of this injustice, and what is
being done about it - Call to action – what can be done to reduce or eliminate the harm from these
injustices, and what students can do to assist.
In addition to the group projects, each of our undergraduate and high school students
are asked to work on individual projects. These projects include court watching and individual
essays on issues they are passionate about—injustices they want to stop. Following the capstone, advisors and staff are giving feedback to the students on their individual project reports and reviewing
them for the purpose of identifying how they might best be utilized, such as blog posts,
ideas for Chicago Appleseed and Chicago Council of Lawyers project committees, or
suggesting volunteer opportunities around the research done by the students—opportunities both locally and through the Appleseed Network.
I retired as Executive Director of Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts and the Chicago Council of Lawyers in March 2024, with the goal of continuing to build a new generation of social justice advocates. One way I am doing this is through the building and guiding of the FJLOC. Along with David Schrodt, we created this program to give pre law undergraduate and high school students a chance to discover how to balance a profession with their passion for doing something about the injustices that surround us—especially in this age of uncertainty. I want to thank our leadership team members, Mark Dupont, Ellen
Craig, and our co-manager Felix Mitchell who has provided unique insights into this program.
It is the goal of the FJLOC to provide the skills and the guidance necessary to make this happen. I am proud of our students and I am proud or our program.
Malcolm Rich, Student Engagement Coordinator and Co-Manager of the Future Justice
Lawyers of Chicago for Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts and the Chicago
Council of Lawyers
