Navigating Chicago Public Interest Law Jobs: Opportunities and Insights

A Deep Dive into Public Interest Law Careers

Public interest lawyers focus on such things as homeowners’ foreclosure defense, legal aid for low income people, immigrants’ rights, disability rights, prisoners’ rights, child and family welfare, mutual benefit housing and employment, and consumer protection. In Chicago, public interest lawyers are more likely to work for the government or non profit groups than for private law firms.
Many public interest law jobs involve civil rights issues, which are covered by both federal and state laws . Such laws prohibit things like employment discrimination, unfair lending, providing inadequate medical care, gender-based housing discrimination, using excessive force, etc. Any legal action aimed at stopping these abuses may fall under civil rights law.
Becoming a public interest lawyer usually involves volunteering for a community service program or working for a relevant law school clinic. Although it may be difficult to break into the field, those who are persistent often work in government agencies or other public interest organizations within a few years of their first job.

Leading Employers in Public Interest Law in Chicago

Non-profit organizations, legal aid associations and even some government entities offer a wide range of positions for public interest lawyers in Chicago. The following is a closer look at some of these prominent employers.
Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law
The Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law promotes social and economic justice through advocacy efforts. In addition to contributing to research and policy, the organization provides legal advice and assistance to low-income individuals, families and communities. It also works on civil justice reform. Positions include staff attorneys, paralegals, consultants and other contract roles.
Cabrini Green Legal Aid
Focused on providing new opportunities for people in prison, formerly incarcerated individuals and those involved in the criminal and juvenile justice systems in Chicago, Cabrini Green Legal Aid provides funding for post-secondary education for those who demonstrate high potential for success. Its clients also receive pro bono legal services and long-term, client-centered representation. Cabrini Green Legal Aid actively hires staff attorneys, administrative assistants, paralegals and interns.
Greenberg Traurig
Preeminent global law firm Greenberg Traurig is active on all five continents and represents corporations, governments and other public interest groups. Attorneys are active in the representation of indigent clients from the greater Chicago area and Cook County. Positions include legislation and public policy practice attorneys, section leads and domestic and international tax attorneys.
Public Interest Law Initiative
An Illinois-based nonprofit organization, the Public Interest Law Initiative’s mission is to work with various stakeholders to support and increase public interest law programs while improving the delivery of legal assistance to lower-income people in need. To this end, the organization provides funding for students and lawyers to work on pro bono cases. It is also connected with a volunteer program that trains attorneys to take on legal matters on behalf of the clients of Chicago legal aid organizations. The organization also provides fellowship and loan repayment assistance programs.

Securing a Public Interest Law Employment in Chicago

The path to a public interest law job in Chicago begins with a JD degree, or the equivalent of a law degree if you are qualified in a foreign country. You will need to pass the law school courses required by your state bar examination, and then successfully pass that examination. The public interest arena is highly competitive, and you must have the obvious qualifications and skills, confidence, and passion to compete effectively. You should consider joining various groups which have an interest in helping you expand your network, including the local chapter of the National Lawyer’s Guild, your local Young Lawyer’s group, and any other legal or non-legal organizations that have an interest in your intended niche.
Typically, the best way to land a public interest law job in Chicago before or right after graduation is to complete a legal internship during law school, particularly with a legal services program in Chicago. Also, you can apply to post-graduate fellowships where a sponsoring organization seeks to advance the public interest through your work, and will make a grant to the sponsoring organization in order to do so. You will be trained on the job. Along the way, you will serve the community, have a law school experience that will pay off handsomely when you begin to apply for legal jobs and when you are interviewed, and also provide you with valuable advocacy experience that virtually all legal employers will require or prefer.

Chicago: The Benefits and Drawbacks of Public Interest Practice

Despite the challenges, however, the work of public interest lawyers in Chicago extends beyond individual cases. These attorneys often contribute to larger-scale law and policy reform efforts and hold government accountable for injustices. They address systemic problems exacerbated by poverty, such as unequal access to healthcare and education, incarceration, homelessness, and food insecurity.
Working for the greater good, public interest lawyers often find themselves at odds with more powerful political or commercial interests. In these brokering-breaking battles, they confront many of the same obstacles their clients do, including limited resources and a daunting system.
Nevertheless, advocates say the impact public interest law has on the lives of Chicago’s most vulnerable populations is undeniably significant. Efforts include protecting the rights of minority groups, reducing wrongful evictions, securing compensation for underpaid workers, and helping children escape abusive homes.
Some advocates even argue that the attacks on public interest lawyers as threatening radicals erases and disvalues the work they are doing for the most vulnerable populations in Chicago.
Not only can public interest work be personally, emotionally, and physically hazardous to lawyers, it can also be financially precarious. Public interest lawyers are often not paid as well as their corporate counterparts, and many must take on additional billable work to make a suitably living salary. While public interest work might be personally rewarding for lawyers, the pay made it difficult for many public interest lawyers to pay off student loans, live in the expensive city of Chicago, and achieve the same level of financial security as other lawyers.
To afford rent and student loan payments, some public interest lawyers have to work a second job, remain living with their parents, or rely on a spouse for financial support. Yet, for many advocacy organizations, lawyers are vital components in their work and continue providing affordable services to the most vulnerable.

Public Interest Law Salaries

Public interest law jobs in Chicago do not come with the highest of paychecks. At a national level, the range typically is between $22,000 and $55,000 per year. A public interest job at a nonprofit legal organization in Chicago will not likely exceed that national range. But keep in mind, that this type of work affords lawyers in the Windy City a host of other advantages — such as generous work hours, benefits and a great chance to help those less fortunate in the local community.
For financial aid, there is Loan Repayment Assistance Program, also known as LRAP, through which a public interest lawyer in Chicago may obtain loan repayment assistance after making qualifying payments for a minimum of three years. The LRAP program takes into consideration the financial needs and liabilities of the attorney , making it easier for those making lower incomes to qualify.
There is also the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, which allows lawyers in public interest law in Chicago to have their Federal Direct Loans forgiven after 120 qualifying payments and ten years of public interest employment. This program is not based on lawyer’s economic needs.
Another option is the Federal Direct Consolidation Loan — which can be an option only if a lawyer’s qualifying loans are not all Direct Loans. Once the Direct Loan Consolidation Loan is obtained, it can be eligible for Income-Based Repayment, or IBR. IBR is a monthly payment plan that caps the monthly payment amount based on the contributions of the borrower and his/her spouse that are calculated as a share of the borrower’s discretionary income.

Career Growth and Advancement for Public Interest Law Professionals

If you’ve come to this page you’ve gotten a pretty good sense that working for the government or for a non-profit legal organization in Chicago can be a good option. But those are not your only options. As with most careers, there are options for advancement and specialization in public interest law in Chicago.
Unlike some other fields of the law, there are several clearly defined areas of specialty in public interest law. Those specialties work so well, in fact, that there are people who will bring in a public interest attorney solely for those areas of specialty, rather than dealing with them in-house. For example, the Chicago Bar Association hosts the Lawyer Fee Arbitration Committee, an organization of volunteer attorneys who hear fee disputes and make recommendations to the lawyers involved. That committee needs a lawyer on call who can help the other lawyers settle fee disputes that have arisen. It’s a great area of specialty for people who love to negotiate, and there’s no reason that it can’t be you.
Beyond that type of specific area, there is also room for advancement at non-profits and government offices that serve as public interest job opportunities. Some of the largest Illinois agencies have units for development and oversight of their substantive areas, and it’s possible to start there early in your career and then move up into the management of the associated area of law.

Professional Experiences from Chicago Public Interest Attorneys

In my twenty years in public interest law, and in my role as a teacher of aspiring public interest advocates, I have found that commitment to the public interest as a career choice is almost always the result of a profound personal experience. Often it is a family experience, but it just as often may be a personal one. I have yet to meet someone who made the choice to become a public interest lawyer who wasn’t profoundly moved by their opportunity to serve as an advocate for the oppressed.
I had the opportunity to talk with Eunice Cho and Jess Carlson, who were both former students of mine in Chicago-Kent’s Program in Public Interest Law and Service. I talked to them about why they became public interest lawyers and why they chose Chicago as the place to begin their careers.
Eunice Cho received her B.A. in Psychology from UCLA in 2005 and her J.D. from Kent in 2008. She is currently practicing with the Illinois Department of Children’s and Family Services.
After her family immigrated to the U.S. from Korea when she was very young, Eunice took jobs as a waitress to help support their family. When a couple she was working for showed up on a local daytime television show to talk about a racial prejudice case they were involved in, she was moved to pursue a career in public interest law.
"I wanted to be able to advocate on behalf of those who do not have a voice in the legal system," she recalled. "My whole life in America was been about trying to prove that we are not ‘those Asians’ that everyone is afraid of. It all stemmed from having to make a racist situation into something that I could take control of. I now want to do that for others."
Jess Carlson graduated from the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 2006 with a double major in History, History of Science & Medicine, with certificates in East Asian Studies and Criminal Justice. She graduated from Chicago-Kent in 2009 and is now practicing with 28th Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
"I actually decided to go into public interest at my first semester of law school," she said. "A lot of personal experience shaped that decision. My parents got divorced and my mother was a single parent who really could not afford to give me anything. I kept telling her thank you for everything so she would not feel so guilty about the divorce. She said ‘you better do something good in this world.’ And I was like ‘what? what? which is the good thing?’ I actually started as a law and economics major because I was looking for something quantifiable."
But then she went to a presentation by Midwest Innocence Project (MIP) and learned about the work being done by public interest lawyers. "I thought that I would go to Nebraska and eventually be a public defender , but right then and there, I made the decision. I said ‘I have to go do public interest law.’"
Eunice thought she would wind up in criminal law but ended up in child welfare law. She said she ended up at the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services "because Chicago-Kent literally opened doors for me." She was awarded one of the seven slots in the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley’s prestigious Immigrant Legal Assistance program after the Foundation’s representatives visited Kent to interview its Public Interest Law and Service students. She is surprised at how outside of the public interest clinical program the field of child welfare law is. "Although I enjoy the work and responsibilities immensely, my docket is unbelievable. I work a lot of hours and it is stressful."
Jess went to JRC and 28th Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office where she is one of Colonel Steven Klausner’s interns. This summer Jess returned to Chicago-Kent to talk to potential applicants about the Program in Public Interest Law and Service. "I got a chance to talk to people about this program in the context of the Chicago-Kent Clinic fair," she said. "They were incrediby interested in the idea of getting through law school and doing the clinical work and taking these experiential classes and getting amazing experiences that would actually help make them better lawyers."
Although she started out in criminal law, Jess eventually decided that consumer rights was where she wanted to go. She is currently acting as outside litigation counsel for a class action lawsuit against the Agri-Empire in New Mexico. She also represents clients in consumer debt cases for the DA’s office. "I asked Colonel Klausner last semester if he had a place for out of state lawyers and he said ‘sure!’ He said he had probably 15 people who have worked for him before that he would love for me to talk to and refer to others. Like Eunice, Jess credits the Chicago-Kent Clinic program for opening doors that would otherwise have remained closed. "My clinic experience and my legal writing experience have both been truly valuable tools. I saw cases start and finish in clinic. I love DIAC because it taught me how to write quickly and how to produce a large volume of cases in a short period of time."