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The Circuit Court’s Resource Center for People Without Lawyers Turns Three

They Can Help You Right Next to the Starbucks

By Kelly Tautges

CBF Director of Pro Bono & Court Advocacy

continued on page 49

Chicago Bar Foundation

Report

“I am writing this letter today to praise

one of your employees…” begins a letter

thanking CARPLS for excellent legal

advice at the Municipal Court Advice

Desk and highlighting the especially kind

and supportive service received from an

Illinois JusticeCorps member as part of the

process. This court patron’s letter highlights

the unique and important services being

provided in The Circuit Court of Cook

County Resource Center for People with-

out Lawyers in the concourse level of the

Daley Center, which indeed is right next

to the Starbucks there.

The Resource Center, and the critical

help it provides, is now so firmly estab-

lished in the court’s ecosystem that it is

hard to believe it has only been open for

three years. Fully operational as of April

2014, the Center is a partnership between

the CBF, the Circuit Court, and two legal

aid organizations: CARPLS and the Chi-

cago Legal Clinic (CLC). There are three

major legal advice desks in the Center—the

Municipal Court Advice Desk, the Chan-

cery Court Advice Desk and the Domestic

Relations Advice Desk. These three desks

are managed and staffed by lawyers from

CARPLS and CLC.

Illinois JusticeCorps plays a central

role as well. JusticeCorps volunteers have

helped more than 160,000 people, and

attorneys at the advice desks have provided

advice and assistance in more than 37,000

cases since the Center opened.

JusticeCorps Volunteers Get People

Where They Need to Go

One of the many advantages in the

Resource Center for both court patrons and

the advice desks is the presence of Illinois

JusticeCorps, an innovative AmeriCorps

program that is dedicated to making the

courthouse more welcoming and less

intimidating for people without lawyers.

JusticeCorps volunteers, who mainly

are undergraduate students and recent

graduates, act as docents and provide other

procedural and navigational assistance to

people without lawyers. The CBF first

launched Illinois JusticeCorps as a pilot

in 2009 and continues to manage the

program in Cook County. JusticeCorps

later was expanded to other parts of the

state as well, and the other partners in the

program’s statewide operations include

People without lawyers receive help at

the Circuit Court of Cook County Resource

Center. JusticeCorps volunteers (right) check

people inoutside the Center andprovide the

navigational help, and help desk staff serve

clients inside (above).

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APRIL/MAY 2017