Chicago Lawyers' Committee For Civil Rights Under Law, Inc.

Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Inc. (CLC)

100 North LaSalle Street, Suite 600

Chicago, Illinois 60602-2403
Phone: 312-630-9744
Fax: 312-630-1127



Six years after President John Kennedy recommended that the nation's lawyers band together to form the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the national group created a Chicago affiliate. The Executive Director of the Chicago committee described the circumstances surrounding its founding in the following way: "In 1969 inner-city riots highlighted the prevalence of the frustration over social discrimination. In response to the riots and the growing awareness of the need for pro bono assistance for minority persons, the [Chicago] Lawyers' Committee was founded."

The CLC resembles the five other LCCRUL affiliates in a number of respects. First, it is almost exclusively dependent on its more than 40 member law firms for financial support. Eighty-five percent of its total operating budget comes from contributions from volunteer law firms. Moreover, although it employs three staff attorneys and operates a student intern program, the CLC relies on volunteer counsel to perform as much as 90 percent of its legal services.

Second, the CLC's principal objectives, "to eliminate inequities in law through individual and class-action litigation on behalf of racial and ethnic minorities, women, the poor, and the handicapped" reflect the goals of both the national organizations and its other affiliates. To accomplish these, the CLC created specialized projects concerning community economic development, mass transit access for the disabled, and maternal and child health. It also sponsors cases referred by "various agencies, other public interest groups, the private bar, and former clients." From this pool, it selects cases, which will be primarily handled by volunteer counsel, which have "significant legal and factual merit." Among its recent lawsuits are Ketchum v. City Council of Chicago (1985), involving aldermanic redistricting, and NOW v. City of Chicago (1980), a Title VII and equal pay class action suit.

The Chicago LCCRUL also participates as amicus curiae in cases of interest to its overall objectives. In Delta Airlines v. August (1981), for instance, the group filed a brief in support of the respondent's claim of racially based employment discrimination. In another suit, Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Company (1982), which raised procedural issues in the filing of a complaint of physically handicapped employment discrimination, the Chicago group filed a brief for the Congress of Organizations of the Physically Handicapped.