What Donna Peel loves most about Pro Bono Network is its efficiency, connecting people who want to help, with those who need it.
“Most people in our organization would not be doing pro bono without us,” said Peel, founder of the Oak Park-based nonprofit, which connects attorneys looking to give their time with agencies looking for representation for low-income clients. “I think we’ve just seriously scratched the surface with this.”
Pro Bono Network marked five years earlier this year and has recently trained a new batch of attorneys. The organization works with Chicago-area legal aid agencies to provide volunteer lawyers, who handle divorce, immigration, landlord/tenant and other civil litigation.
“The majority of legal work is in short-term representation,” said Sheila Winkelman Pont, director of programming for Pro Bono Network. “It’s not sexy, but it’s the important work. … The beauty of it is, it’s so rewarding.”
Peel and Pont said the organization’s growth in the past five years has been unmistakable. In its first year, the organization saw about 100 hours put in by volunteers. In the second, 100 attorneys were volunteering their time, Pont said. And in the third year, about 1,000 hours were volunteered.
“Clearly, there was a need,” Pont said.
Now, more than 200 attorneys volunteer their time to take on cases for seniors, incarcerated mothers and more, she said. Training through boot camps prepares volunteers for the work they’ll take on.
The nonprofit also has offered senior clinics and projects like Lawyers in the Classroom, Pont said. More than 1,000 low-income clients have been served by Pro Bono Network.
“It’s like a one-stop shop,” Pont said. “We try to be a no-stress way to volunteer. … People keep finding us and coming to us.”
The core volunteer base originated in the Oak Park and River Forest area, but has since grown to include strong volunteer groups in the Skokie and Arlington Heights areas, and the western suburbs, Pont said.
Peel started the nonprofit as a way for those who had left the field to stay home with children to put their law degrees to use. About one-third of the current pool of volunteers are stay-at-home moms. It’s since evolved to include those who have retired from full-time work, as well as full-time attorneys looking for volunteer work.
Cases are handled in groups or pairs, so each attorney has a backup, and work is kept to time during the day, often from home; some work is referred to as “PB in your PJs,” Pont quipped.
“We have backups so if you have an emergency, your client is not going to be left unattended,” Pont said.
After kickoff events held earlier this month, new volunteers went through “boot camps” a few weeks later to train.
As part of the small group that initially met around Peel’s kitchen table, Pont said she was blown away by “how little I could do with my law degree to impact someone’s life so much.”
“I think she was a forward enough thinker to know there were others out there like her,” Pont said of Peel. Both had taken breaks from their legal careers to stay at home with their children.
Pro Bono Network also provides an opportunity for attorneys to practice a different area of law than what they might have spent a career doing, Pont pointed out.
Volunteer Jennifer Gnolfo, an Oak Park resident whose background is in immigration law, has enjoyed the opportunity to try divorce cases. She appreciates that Pro Bono Network aims to fill a gap by connecting people with resources.
“I get a lot out of it, because it’s a chance for me, being a full-time, stay-at-home-mom, to do something that’s very meaningful,” she said.
Laura Hardwicke, a volunteer who lives in River Forest and practiced bankruptcy law previously, said involvement with Pro Bono Network provides a scaffolding for returning to work full-time in the future.
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“The way they set it up, it makes it difficult not to be involved,” she said. “At every step of the way, the training is built in.”
The organization, which operates out of an office on Lake Street, is very founder-run, Peel noted, and at the moment, they’re challenged by that. Pro Bono Network counts local and state bar foundations and the Oak Park Women’s Guild — which outfitted Pro Bono Network’s office in September 2015 — among its biggest supporters; Peel also credited individual donors with financial support.
As annual fund letters are set to be mailed in the coming weeks, Peel said the nonprofit is appealing to the community for monetary assistance to grow its operation.
“Our legal services are free to those in need, but bringing those services is not free. Managers and rent have to be paid,” Peel said in an email. “To ensure our longevity, we are moving from founder/volunteer staff to employed.”
Current staff members have received some compensation, Peel added, but Pro Bono Network hopes to raise $70,000 this year in addition.
For more information, visit www.pro-bono-network.org.
Caitlin Mullen is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.