For 27 years, the Chicago Legal Clinic has offered help to people who could not otherwise afford a lawyer. Started in South Chicago by Bishop Thomas Paprocki — then Father Paprocki, assigned to St. Michael Parish (South Shore) — and his DePaul University law school classmate Ed Grossman, it has grown to encompass several offices and programs, and last year served 16,669 clients.

Bishop Paprocki serves as the chairman of the board and helps with fundraising, since most of $2.1 million budget comes from outside contributors. Chicago-area Catholics can join him on a pilgrimage to Ireland in October, during which the bishop will run the Dublin Marathon, with pledges going to the legal clinic’s endowment fund. (For more information, see item on Page 4.)

Grossman talked by telephone with Catholic New World assistant editor Michelle Martin about the work of the clinic.

Catholic New World: How did you come to start the Chicago Legal Clinic?

Ed Grossman: To tell the truth, it was more Bishop Paprocki’s vision than my assessment of need. Bishop Paprocki at that time was Father Paprocki, and he was assigned to a parish here in South Chicago.

A lot of the parishioners were workers in the steel industry. I’m hearkening back to the late 1970s, when we were in law school together. Tom [Bishop Paprocki] was present for the absolute demolition of the steel industry in South Chicago and the result was huge unemployment, and a lot of the parishioners having trouble. Tom saw the need for an array of social services to address their needs.

You have to understand, South Chicago prior to that was a very self-sustaining blue-collar community without an extensive social-service network. When the steel industry collapsed, there was a genuine need, much more of a need for those sorts of services. Tom saw that and asked if I would assist him in the founding of a legal clinic.

Here we are, lawyers, or budding lawyers anyway, so when he asked if I would assist him, I said sure, until I get a real job. That hasn’t happened yet. I was 24 years old at the time.

CNW: How many offices are there?

Grossman: We have South Chicago as our main office, where we do provide an array of legal services, but also fundraising and administrative functions take place here. We have a Pilsen office, which is in the priory of St. Pius V Church, and that is a neighborhood that is primarily Hispanic — I don’t know if it’s too strong to say it’s overwhelmingly Hispanic — so it makes sense for us to do our immigration work out of that office. We provide some other services out of that office as well, but it’s primarily immigration.

Then we have an Austin office on the West Side, at 118 N. Central Ave. Circle Urban Ministries owns the building that we’re in there, so it’s a social-service center and our office is just one of the offices. We provide general legal services out of that office as well, but we do have a specific program that operates only out of that office. That’s our ex-offender program, in which we try to remove barriers to work for ex-offenders. That includes getting records expunged or sealed or seeking clemency, things like that.

We also have a downtown office. The downtown office houses our environmental law program — that’s an urban environmental law program. Not that we don’t want to save the whales, but we’re looking at situations in urban settings in which environmental law can be used to assist people. So maybe if there’s a polluter in the neighborhood, and people don’t know how to address that, we help them with that.

It also houses our “Legal Advocates for Seniors and People With Disabilities Program.” Basically, we help people with debts — senior citizens and people with disabilities – we work with their creditors to avoid harassment and sometimes to get their debts forgiven.

Additionally, we run the Chancery Desk, which is at the Daley Center and Expedited Child Support and Paternity Desk.

CNW: What’s the profile of your clients? Are they destitute, or workingclass people who can’t pay legal fees?

Grossman: We do certainly provide services to destitute people. We have a number of pro-bono programs for them. But the hallmark of the legal clinic is that we deal with the working poor. That’s against a backdrop of what private attorneys charge. I think the average in this city is something over $250 an hour.

When you look at that and you look at how long it takes to resolve legal matters, it doesn’t take long to calculate how terribly expensive it is for someone to retain a private attorney for most matters. It could take someone working for a week to pay for that hour. What we do is provide access to the legal system for those who could not otherwise afford it.

CNW: Are there any cases that you particularly remember?

Grossman: I’ve probably handled over the last 20 years more than 8,000 cases. I certainly remember quite a few.

We have helped people who have been in danger of losing their house to foreclosure, and then we figure out that the lender may have done something that resulted in a defense for the person and saved the person’s house. We’ve done that many times for people.

Our pro-bono program helped a person who was very profoundly disabled and needed a particular type of wheelchair — it was some kind of wheelchair that required all kinds of special apparatus. As a result, it was around $30,000, something like that. These people had no money whatsoever, and the insurance company was saying that this little girl didn’t really need this wheelchair.

Our pro-bono program got a private law firm to take on the insurance company, and they did so successfully, and the little girl has the wheelchair. That’s one of the more heart-rending sort of stories that you hear, when an insurance company is preventing somebody from having any kind of quality of life. It’s the sort of thing that makes your emotions boil. I’m happy we were able to help her.

CNW: Are most of the cases handled by staff or outside attorneys?

Grossman: We have 23 attorneys currently, so most of our work is in house, but we do have the pro-bono program and we have the assistance of over 200 attorneys and some of Chicago’s largest law firms to help us when cases arise that are particularly meritorious, which might be up their alley in terms of their expertise.

CNW: What do you know now that you didn’t know when you started?

Grossman: Everything. Everything I know now I didn’t know then. I understand much more the landscape of what’s out there. I understand much more what is required to raise the necessary resources to run an organization that helps people.

I realize now how that organization has to fit into the landscape so that we’re not duplicating services, so that we’re meeting the needs that are the most urgent, so that we’re allocating our resources in the most strategic way possible to address the needs that are out there. I understand how important what it is we’re doing is.

I think, initially, I just had this sense of, “Oh, we’re going to help people.” But when you really understand the legal system and you really understand all the needs out there, you get a profound sense of how important justice is for all the people who would otherwise be shut out of the system.

I grew up fairly privileged in terms of Chicago suburban existence. I think when you actually come to certain neighborhoods, you realize just how crushing the needs are for people for social services, and you get a sense of “Hey, I want to do something to help.”