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Pro Bono Attorney Helps Client Break Free From Abuse
Thanks to the pro bono efforts of Jennifer B. Groszek an attorney with Gunty &  McCarthy , a 29-year-old immigrant from Ghana, who was physically and emotionally abused by her United States citizen husband, has received VAWA status.  Now, she can obtain a work permit and adjust to permanent residency which means she will be able to financially support herself, no longer needing to depend on her abuser.

In May of 2003, Betty (fictitious name) came to the United States on a visitor visa.  She met her husband in Illinois shortly after arriving and fell in love.  She began living with him in 2004 and they married on March 16, 2005.  Shortly after the wedding, Betty found out that her husband had lied about his job and was seeing other women.  They argued repeatedly about this, and even separated for a short while.  Later, Betty’s husband apologized and promised to change and they decided to get back together.  At the same time, Betty found out she was pregnant with the couple’s first child, so they moved in with Betty’s mother-in-law.

Soon after reconciling, Betty’s husband’s girlfriends began calling the house and the couple began to argue again.  Betty’s husband became so angry that one night he began to physically abuse Betty.  The abuse became more frequent and included punching, hitting and kicking.  In December of 2005, Betty’s husband punched her in the face but she was too afraid to call police.  Shortly after, Betty realized that she had lost the baby due to a miscarriage caused by the abuse.  After one particularly brutal incident where Betty’s husband followed her home from work and hit her several times, Betty knew she had to separate from her husband.

Although Betty’s husband filed a petition for Betty to become a permanent resident, it was denied due to insufficient evidence of their marriage.  The case is currently being appealed and now that Betty received her VAWA approval, this case can be resumed.

Betty is currently in school to become a certified nursing assistant and she hopes to eventually become a licensed nurse practitioner and be able to support herself.  She currently lives with one of the many relatives she has in Chicago and hopes to start over.

The efforts of Jennifer B. Groszek not only saved Betty from deportation, but also allowed her to gain self sufficiency and begin a new life free from abuse.

For information on volunteer opportunities through the Pro Bono Panel, click here .

LAF Saves Nettie's Home 

LAF's Home Ownership Preservation Project Featured in Legal Services Corporation (LSC) Newsletter

Chicago Legal Aid Foundation Highlighted in USA Today
The Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago was featured in a recent USA Today article on foreclosure rescue scams, which more and more are affecting the clients of legal services programs.  "This has become the No. 1 problem in terms of calls we're getting and cases we're filing,” said Daniel Lindsey, head of the foundation’s Home Ownership Preservation Project.  A typical foreclosure rescue scam, also known as “equity skimming,” works like this: a homeowner facing foreclosure is solicited by an unscrupulous organization or individual offering to buy the house and rent it back to the owner until they are back on their feet financially, at which point they are promised that ownership will revert back to them.  Instead, the fraudulent “rescuer” borrows as much money as possible against the equity in the house while collecting rent from the original owner, and never paying a dime towards the mortgage.  The house goes into foreclosure anyway, and all the equity in the house is gone, leaving the original owner with nothing.  Lindsey told USA Today that the saddest stories he hears are from retirees who have lost the only home they have ever had thanks to one of these scams.  "That property is their entire life, most of their wealth, they've raised their children there, they are completely emotionally invested in it, and that's exactly the last thing they want to lose," he says.  "The vulnerability they are experiencing gets exploited by these ‘rescuers.’"   To read, “Con artists circle over homeowners on edge,” in the USA Today, click here .

LAF Announces New Executive Director

The Board of Directors of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago (LAF) is pleased to announce that, after a national search, Diana White has been selected as LAF’s new Executive Director effective July 13, 2007.  Roger G. Wilson, President of LAF’s Board who headed the Search Committee said: "Diana White impressed everyone with her legal talents, her dedication to our clients, and her leadership abilities. Both the Board Search Committee and the Staff Advisory Committee were overwhelmingly in support of Diana as the new Executive Director."

Ms. White has been LAF’s Deputy Director of Special Projects since 1997. In that capacity, she supervised the work of more than a dozen specialized units at LAF, including children’s rights, employment, family law and domestic violence prevention, health, HIV/AIDS, immigration, migrant, public benefits, seniors, and Adult SSI.  During her tenure, LAF launched a Public Benefits Hotline which has helped thousands of poor families obtain, or keep, such basic safety-net benefits as Food Stamps, Medicaid, and TANF.  Ms. White helped LAF secure more than $800,000 in funding to expand its domestic violence prevention work to reach immigrant women who because of linguistic or cultural isolation thought family violence just had to be endured.  She helped LAF’s children’s project focus its efforts keeping children in safe families, even if those families weren’t traditional, nuclear families.  Its clients now include grandparents raising grandchildren, siblings raising siblings, and parents who have recovered from alcohol or drug addiction and can now be guardians of children they had once lost.  In one of the biggest challenges of the last decade, Ms. White worked with LAF’s Housing Law attorneys to represent public housing residents whose developments are being demolished and rebuilt as "mixed-income" communities by the Chicago Housing Authority.  Together, they created partnerships between real estate developers and public housing residents, served on the "working groups" that plan the new developments, and negotiated a contract that provides every public housing family with certain basic protections during the relocation process.  The next task is to make sure that public housing families have a real voice in the "mixed-income" communities when they move back.

Prior to joining LAF, Ms. White was a litigation partner at the law firm of Jenner & Block, an associate at Jenner and at several other Chicago firms, and a law clerk for the Honorable Walter J. Cummings, Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.  She received her J.D. with honors from the University of Chicago Law School, where she was an articles editor on the Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif.

Ms. White is a summa cum laude graduate of Smith College, and has a Ph.D. in Latin and Greek from the University of Chicago. She was a member of the Board of Directors of the Chicago Council of Lawyers from 1999-2003 and is currently a member of the Board of Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice where she served as President from 2003-2006.

Ms. White will be succeeding Sheldon R. Roodman who is retiring after 30 years as LAF’s Executive Director. "I am overjoyed and am totally confident that LAF is in excellent hands with Diana as the new Executive Director," he said after the Board announced its decision.

In accepting the post, Ms White said: "The challenge for us in the post-Sheldon era is to continue to provide high-quality legal services to poor people throughout the Chicago metropolitan area, become more involved in the communities we serve, and earn the support of civic-minded people generally."

United Way of Metropolitan Chicago gives Children's Law Project $100,000 grant for each of three years

The Children's Law Project (CLP) ensures that children who are in the Juvenile Justice System are moved into safe, permanent and nurturing homes as quickly as possible and with as little trauma as possible. The legal representation CLP provides to parents, relative caregivers, and children significantly reduces the time children spend in foster care and ensures that they and their families are connected to the services needed for a safe, nurturing and stable home life and the tools needed for a successful childhood.

Visit the United Way of Metropolitan Chicago

LAF Receives CHAC’s Community Partner Award

On April 30, 2007, CHAC (CHA's Section 8 voucher administrator) awarded LAF its Community Partner Award at its annual employee awards event. CHAC administers CHA’s Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program.  Housing Choice Vouchers, which help subsidize the rent of low-income families, allow families to lease apartments from private landlords.   LAF’s Housing Law Project, including Nicki Bazer, Carlos Ramirez, Larry Wood and Rich Wheelock, was there to accept the award on behalf of LAF. Jennifer O'Neil, CHAC's Deputy Director, presented the award. She acknowledged that although on occasion LAF and CHAC must settle its differences in court, in the majority of cases the two agencies work together to mutually resolve problems faced by voucher program participants and to improve CHAC's policies and procedures.