New JEP Attorneys Begin Program, Pro Bono Residencies

The CBF’s Justice Entrepreneurs Project is excited to welcome the eleventh cohort of innovative and entrepreneurial attorneys into its growing network. Over the next eighteen months, these eight outstanding attorneys will build law practices focused on meeting the needs of the underserved middle market for legal services a client base that generally earns too much income to qualify for free legal aid, but not enough to hire attorneys in traditional, billable-hour-based practices.

Following an intensive first week of training at the JEP, the new participants will work sixteen hours each week for the next six months at a specific CBF partner legal aid organization. These JEP residencies offer participants substantive legal experience, connect them to the legal aid community and the populations it serves, and create lasting mentoring and referral relationships between the JEPers and the fantastic legal aid attorneys.

Allison Adams, Fatimeh Pahlavan, and Michael Reed will work with Cabrini Green Legal Aid, the Community Law Project of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and Lawyers for the Creative Arts, respectively. There, they will pick up skills and connections that will help them build firms that focus on small business law they will help low and middle income clients build businesses of their own. At Chicago Volunteer Legal Services (now the training ground for 27 JEP residents!), Lisa Glenn will work on adult guardianship and probate matters, Tiffany Horstein will focus on minor guardianship and adoptions, and Phillip Rutherford will take on family law cases. Mariusz Zatorski will also work on family law matters, though his residency with the Chicago Legal Clinic will also give him some exposure to immigration law. Rounding out the cohort, Jason Shimotake will work with the Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing to develop a skillset in landlord tenant matters, which will complement the bankruptcy and financial health services offered by his practice. Please help us welcome these new JEPers and wish them well on the road ahead!

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