John C. McAndrews Pro Bono Service Award

The Illinois State Bar Association Committee on Delivery of Legal Services is seeking nominations for the ISBA John C. McAndrews Pro Bono Service Award. The award is named in memory of Rock Island attorney John McAndrews, who chaired the ISBA Committee on Delivery of Legal Services and is awarded to individual lawyers, law firms and corporate law departments, and bar associations.

The contributions of John McAndrews toward pro bono representation dated back to the 1970s, when he established the Legal Aid Services of Rock Island County and served as its executive director in the basement of the courthouse. During his watch as chair of the ISBA Committee on Delivery of Legal Services, McAndrews was the driving force behind establishment of the Illinois Pro Bono Center as integral to implementation of findings of the Illinois Legal Needs Study that about a million unresolved civil matters involving low-income residents were unmet each year. Also a past chair of the ISBA Human Rights Section Council, he also had received an ISBA Board of Governors Award in 1993 for his work on the Pro Bono Center project.

The ISBA has established the John C. McAndrews Award to honor the extraordinary commitment of individuals, bar associations, or law firm/corporate legal departments to providing free legal services to the income eligible in Illinois or expanding the availability of legal services to the income eligible in Illinois.

Criteria for Nominees John C. McAndrews Pro Bono Award

Required Information for Nominations:

(Please see nomination form for a complete list of requirements.)

• Name, firm, address, email address, fax, and telephone number of the Nominee.
• Nominator (if different from the nominee, please include contact information and member number)
• Number of clients served pro bono in Illinois the last year
• Description of cases
• Estimate of number of pro bono hours.
• A résumé or summary about the individual being nominated.
• Letter of Nomination from a colleague in legal community: one (1) required.
• Letters of Support for nomination by anyone who is familiar with the work of the nominee: three (3) required.

If you have any questions, please contact Melissa Burkholder at MBurkholder@isba.org.

Nominations are closed, please check back in the fall to nominate someone next year.