Illinois Bar Foundation names 2015 Recipients of Post Graduate Legal Fellowship Program

The Illinois Bar Foundation (IBF), the charitable arm of the Illinois State Bar Association, has awarded its 2015 Post Graduate Legal Fellowship Program grants to three 2015 law school graduates.

The Fellowships, which provide clinical support for three law school legal clinics, were awarded this summer to Calli Leigh Burnett, of Chicago; Bryan McIntyre, of Urbana, and Marishonta M. Wilkerson, of Milwaukee.

The foundation launched its Post Graduate Legal Fellowship Program in 2014 to fund public interest jobs for recent law graduates, according to Shawn Kasserman, IBF president. The foundation will award $25,000 to each of the three fellowships. The law schools will each contribute a stipend to help fund the positions.

Wilkerson will serve at NIU Law’s Zeke Giorgi Clinic in Rockford; McIntyre will work in the Civil Litigation Clinic at the University of Illinois; and Burnett will support the Community Law Center Clinic at Loyola University Chicago.

“The need for public interest lawyers far outweighs the number of lawyers willing and able to serve the underrepresented people living throughout Illinois,” said Kasserman. “The fellowship program was created to provide on-the-job training for new lawyers while simultaneously helping to fill the gap in legal aid services.”

For more information on the legal aid fellowship program, contact David Anderson, IBF executive director, at (312) 726-6072. Further information about the foundation is available at www.illinoisbarfoundation.org.