Community Activities and Pro Bono Matters

Pro Bono Work

Lisa M. Lilly began her volunteer legal work in 1999 when she served a Public Interest Law Initiative (PILI) fellowship with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. She assisted the Coalition in many matters, including alleged employment discrimination against, and police harassment of, homeless individuals.

While an attorney at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP, Ms. Lilly continued working with the Coalition, providing legal representation in class actions to enforce the rights of homeless students, including pregnant and parenting teens, to attend Chicago public schools. Her other pro bono work included handling civil rights matters on behalf of mentally-ill prisoners and representing a disabled child in an administrative law hearing to obtain Social Security disability benefits.

Community Activities

Lisa M. Lilly is a member of the Board of Directors of the Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists (AAIM) and is also a member of its Annual Benefit Committee. In addition, she speaks on AAIM Victim Impact Panels to first-time DUI offenders regarding the effect the loss of her parents to a drunk driver had on her life. AAIM's purpose is to prevent deaths and injuries caused by intoxicated motorists in Illinois and to help victims and their families.

Ms. Lilly is a former officer of Blue Sky Inn, a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering homeless youth in the Chicago area through creative expression and job training. In 2006, she chaired “The Sky’s the Limit,” an art auction fundraiser featuring work by homeless youth cosponsored by Blue Sky Inn and Sonnenschein.

For years, Ms. Lilly presented monthly Constitutional Rights Foundation programs for students at the Pershing School in Chicago, Illinois. She also created and taught a biweekly after-school student-writing program at Pershing and participated in mock trial programs for students at the Roswell B. Mason grade school. Ms. Lilly also is a dedicated supporter of New Leaf Theater, located in Chicago's Lincoln Park.

Because of her personal experience of losing loved ones because of an intoxicated driver, and what she’s learned through AAIM about the financial difficulties people injured in alcohol-related crashes face, Lisa offers legal representation at reduced rates to persons injured by drunk drivers where there is minimal insurance coverage.