Join the Illinois Bar Foundation and the Friends of Tom Leahy for a Leahy Memorial Happy Hour on Thursday, September 8 in Chicago to celebrate the life of Tom Leahy. The proceeds from this event will support the Foundation's Legal Fellowships program at Tom's alma mater, Loyola University Chicago School of Law. Tickets are $100 and sponsorship opportunities are available. For tickets and sponsorship information, please call 312-726-6072 or click here. 

The Illinois Bar Foundation (IBF), the charitable arm of the Illinois State Bar Association, has awarded its 2016 Post Graduate Legal Fellowship Program grants to law school clinics at DePaul University College of Law, Loyola University Chicago School of Law and Northern Illinois University College of Law.

Each law school has selected a 2016 graduate for the one-year fellowship, designed to increase access to civil legal aid, help new attorneys develop practical legal skills and build a network, and encourage the participants to use their skills to serve those in need throughout their career through public interest jobs or pro bono work.

The 2016 participants are Patricia Zimmerman, a graduate of Northern Illinois University College of Law; Caitlin M. Duane, DePaul University College of Law; and Victoria E. Dempsey, Loyola University Chicago School of Law. The IBF and law schools share the cost of the Fellowships which have been awarded annually since 2014.

Zimmerman will serve at NIU Law’s Zeke Giorgi Clinic in Rockford; Duane will work at DePaul’s Poverty Law Clinic; and Dempsey will be located at the Community Law Center Clinic at Loyola University Chicago.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan will receive the 2016 Distinguished Award for Excellence from the Illinois Bar Foundation (IBF) at the organization’s 18th annual black-tie Gala on Friday evening, October 14, at the Four Seasons Hotel, 120 E. Delaware Place, Chicago. The event begins with a cocktail reception at 6:30, followed by dinner and dancing. The IBF is the charitable arm of the Illinois State Bar Association.

Attorney General Madigan became the first woman elected to serve as the Illinois Attorney General and one of only a handful of female Attorneys General in the country when she was elected to the position in 2002. In 2014, she was elected to her fourth term and is now the senior-most female Attorney General.

Attorney General Madigan has brought a high level of activism to the Office of Illinois Attorney General. She has demonstrated principled leadership, putting policy before politics and focusing her work as the state’s top legal advocate on protecting the people and communities of Illinois.

Michael J. Warner, a partner in the personal injury law firm of Warner & Zimmerle, in Rock Island, has been appointed to the Board of Directors of the Illinois Bar Foundation (IBF), the charitable arm of the Illinois State Bar Association (ISBA), and will serve a two-year term.

The Foundation raises funds for distribution to Illinois nonprofit organizations whose mission is to provide free legal services to those with limited means. It also provides assistance to lawyers who can no longer support themselves due to incapacity. The Foundation also oversees the Illinois JusticeCorps program, which provides trained part-time student volunteers to serve as guides in courthouses. This year, the Foundation will distribute more than $850,000 in funds.

Warner has been a lawyer in private practice since 1972 after serving for a year in the Rock Island State’s Attorneys Office. He has been a member of the Rock Island Bar Association since 1971. He was a board member of the Mississippi Valley Alzheimer’s Association and is a past president of the Rock Island County Mental Health Board.