MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE WITH A SMALL EFFORT
WE ARE LOOKING FOR VOLUNTEERS!
ACC Chicago is once again conducting our high school pipeline program - Street Law 2025, an engaging initiative designed to help introduce young people from underserved high schools to the legal profession.
This program – developed by ACC in collaboration with the Street Law organization (www.streetlaw.org) - creates partnerships between lawyers and nearby high school law classes serving youth from a variety of backgrounds. The idea behind the program is to encourage high school students to continue their educations and to consider careers in the law.
The ACC Chicago Chapter Street Law Program has both a Chicago and a Northwest Suburbs component, and volunteers can select which component (city or suburbs) is most geographically convenient for them. ACC Chicago has forged relationships with both Chicago Public Schools and the U-46 District; together, we have identified a number of high schools and teachers that are grateful for opportunities to partner with in-house counsel through the spring semester.
Volunteers find it to be a fun and gratifying way to give back to the community and, at the same time, form meaningful relationships with their in-house colleagues. The time commitment involved is fairly flexible, probably averaging 10 hours over the course of two months – a small commitment to perhaps change the life of a deserving student.
In the spring semester, ACC Chicago volunteers visit each of the participating classes, and ACC Chicago brings all of the students to a one-day conference (one for each geographic component) near the end of the spring semester.
The program kicked off with online training sessions during which we learned how to access proven lesson plans for the classroom visits, and began to plan for the student conferences on April 29th at Elgin Community College and May 16th at Blue Cross Blue Shield downtown. If you'd like to see recordings of those sessions please contact the Co-Chairs below.
The program has been extremely successful each year with more than 60 in-house attorney volunteers reaching out to well over 200 promising young students. We receive tremendously positive feedback from the students and teachers. It is very gratifying.
If you are interested in volunteering to participate in this very worthwhile program in 2025, please contact the leaders below ASAP.
Malaika Caldwell, Program Co-Chair
ACCLoopStreetLaw@gmail.com (Downtown program)
Adam Rouse, Board Member & Program Co-Chair
ACCNWSuburbsStreetLaw@gmail.com (NW Suburbs program)
