Future Justice Lawyers of Chicago

The purpose of the FJLOC program is to create a new generation of lawyers and advocates working to confront issues of injustice in our community and work to improve the legal system.

Chicago Appleseed created this program in partnership with the Chicago Council of Lawyers to give undergraduate and high school students a chance to discover how to balance a profession with their passion for doing something about the injustices that surround us. The FJLOC program’s aim is to provide the skills, guidance, and individual support necessary to make this happen.

The program has three objectives:

1. Professional Skill-Building: Students learn strategies to improve their professional, evidence-based writing skills, with a focus on social justice topics aligned with Chicago Appleseed’s mission to reduce the harms of the legal system. They will identify injustices, use research to explain those injustices, and suggest evidence-based interventions to advocate against them.
2. Mentorship: Each student is paired with a Lawyer Advisor who will assist with their research, writing, and provide general program support. Additionally, FJLOC alumni will engage with current members to help with their professional growth and networking.
3. Community: The purpose of FJLOC is to build a supportive community – through a diverse network of lawyers, legal professionals, local advocates, fellow students, and FJLOC alumni – who will support each other in an age of uncertainty.

Students will work on individual projects focusing on injustices they are personally passionate about. Students will engage in court-watching and be supported in writing individual persuasive essays on these issues.

Research

FJLOC is built around student-led legal advocacy research. So often in education, students have access only to learning about the issues they care about. In FJLOC, we believe students can learn and grow as future lawyers while actively being a part of the change they want to see. Through published group research, members of FJLOC advocate for the injustices they care about and use their research to change the systems around them. The FJLOC Alumni have been involved in issues of social justice through legislative advocacy and public speaking. We aim to give our Future Justice Lawyers a launching pad for their platform, voice, and confidence in the legal field.

• The research requirements for undergraduates include a group research project and advocacy project.
• The requirements for high-school students are an optional research paper, participation in 1-1 mentorship, and programming.

Advocacy Projects

Undergraduate researchers are required to complete one Advocacy Project throughout the program (January-July). Researchers can choose what type of individual projects they wish to complete. We would like to shift our approach from having most students write research papers about an injustice to focusing on court observation and advocacy-oriented research conducted in collaboration with research and advocacy organizations. Individual projects include:

• Court Watching: A FJLOC Court-Watching program with written observation summaries.

• Collaborative Applied Research: Partnership research-advocacy projects with Chicago Appleseed, Chicago Council of Lawyers, other Chicago organizations, and Appleseed Network Centers.

To be considered for the high school or undergraduate FJLOC program, students must:

• • Have an interest in possibly pursuing a career as a lawyer.
  • Have a genuine interest in confronting systemic injustices in our community.
  • Be enrolled at a college, university, or high school in the Chicagoland area.
  • Reside in the Chicagoland area from January 2027 through July of 2027.
  • Be able to attend monthly in-person meetings in the Chicago Loop from January through July 2027, as well as periodic Zoom meetings, and meet regularly with the Lawyer Advisor.
  • Commit to making meaningful contributions to group projects and completing both the group and individual projects, which will be overseen by Chicago Appleseed staff and FJLOC volunteers, before the end of August 2027.

The FJLOC program runs for approximately nine months, from mid-January to mid-September.

• September 18, 2026 → Applications for the 2027 program year open
• October 19, 2026 → Applications for the 2027 program year close
• December 2026 → Application decisions
• January 2027 → 2027 Program Begins
• July 2027 → Research/Advocacy projects due; Capstone event
• September 2027 → Publication of group projects