Clark Hill Attorneys Partner With Chicago Public Schools on Legal Career Clinic

LaTonya Ellis, Associate Director of Clark Hill's Real Estate and Labor and Employment practices, has partnered with Chicago Public Schools to facilitate a traveling legal career clinic for 25 high school junior and seniors. The program will launch at Chicago Vocational High School on the south side of Chicago starting Saturday January 12th. The 5 week clinic will expose students to multiple substantive topics of law including contracts, property, labor, family and criminal law. Students will also participate in life skills training focusing on dressing for success, interviewing strategies and tactics, setting and achieving goals and resume writing.  In the final week of the program, students will participate in a mock arbitration and be awarded scholarships to apply toward their education.  Clark Hill attorneys Latasha Thomas (Sr. Counsel Governmental Affairs) and Autumn Moore (Associate, Labor & Employment) have volunteered to facilitate substantive topics of law at the clinic.

“The goal of the program is to expose inner city high school juniors and seniors to different aspects and facets of the law.  For some of the students, the law has such a negative connotation and they never would dream of being a lawyer or a judge.  That’s not their reality…but that needs to change,” said Ellis.

The American Bar Association statistics are staggering – African Americans and Hispanics make up roughly 5% of the National Lawyer Population.  Native Americans, Asians and other ethnic minorities account for less than 3 percent.

“As an African American woman in leadership, I am tasked with creating programs and pathways that are designed to attract, recruit, and nurture minority talent in society and within our organization.  Thereby, helping a new and more diverse generation of attorneys view the field of law as a viable profession.”