- Helped persuade Chief Judge Evans to issue a general order that reduced the amount of money bond and reduced the jail population by 1400.
- Helped enact legislation to provide a waiver of court costs, fines, and fees imposed on criminal division defendants.
- Issued a widely read report on the first year of the Kim Foxx administration in the Office of the States Attorney.
- Saw the Access to Community Treatment Court, which we helped plan and implement, sponsor two more graduations, with a cost savings of over $5 million.
- Trained assistant public defenders from Cook County and from throughout Illinois on how to stop the unfair imposition of
court costs, fines, and fees on their clients. - Provided key data on the impact of court debt to be included in an Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority report.
- Oversaw the implementation of the hearing officer system in Maywood and Markham, which has heard approximately 1500 cases involving unrepresented parents and divorce litigants since 2017.
- Worked with the Court and the AOIC to create a new triage program to a better system of adjudication for unrepresented
parents and divorce litigants at the Daley Center. - Was invited to join the Illinois CSAC Clean Slate Subcommittee to reform the existing program to assist low-income and
formerly-incarcerated parents resolve their child support debt and engage in meaningful co-parenting for their children. - Chicago Appleseed’s consulting work on the independence of administrative law judges was recently recognized by the Governor’s Court Reform Council in the state of Georgia.
- Prepared a comprehensive examination of the central panel of administrative law judges (ALJs) –a centralized agency housing state ALJs who hear cases for administrative agencies. The goal of such a central panel is to enhance the quality, impartiality, and independence of administrative hearings.
- Issued Op Eds on immigration judge independence and the need for a more fair immigration bond hearing system.
- Successfully signed onto an amicus with the Illinois Supreme Court, saying that a government agency cannot rely on the new
version of Illinois’ Freedom of Information Act to deny requests that were eligible when filed. - Implemented the launch of a new VoteforJudges.org website with Chicago Votes to enhance our judicial voter education efforts. Of note: Voteforjudges.org had 35,000 unique visitors for the March primary.
- Engaged a highly motivated leadership for the 2018 Pritzker Northwestern law school chapter.
