Laura Stokes-Gray, Interim Executive Director
Laurie A. Wardell, Director, Employment Opportunity Project
The project combines law reform litigation and advocacy to improve employment opportunities for women and people of color. Current activities include pro bono representation of workers in federal court and in EEOC mediations; class litigation in federal court of race discrimination in hiring and of racial harassment cases; and, at the request of the federal district court, support and assistance to appointed counsel in federal court.
Ms. Wardell has specialized in civil rights law since she graduated from law school, first at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and later in private practice. Prior to joining CLCCRUL she was a partner in the firm of Futterman & Howard, Chtd and a clerk for Judge James F. Holderman of the United States of District Court, Northern District of Illinois. In 2007 Ms. Wardell received an Award for Excellence in Public Interest Service from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. In 2008 Ms. Wardell received the Public Interest Law Initiative's Distinguished PILI Alumni Award. In 2010 received the Excellence in Legal Services Award from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Ms. Wardell has spoken and published extensively on civil rights law. She graduated Order of the Coif from the University of Illinois College of Law.
Susan Kaplan, Director, Community Economic Development Law Project
The Project provides free legal assistance to non-profit, community development corporations, and to organizations establishing job training programs and community loan funds and preserving affordable housing. The Project also represents low-income people starting their own businesses in order to escape poverty; and works with the Illinois State Micro-enterprise Initiative to track these businesses, and enhance understanding by other businesses of the benefits of micro-enterprise development as a strategy for creating economic self-sufficiency.
Ms. Kaplan has directed the project since its inception in 1985. Previously, she was an attorney with the Office of the State Appellate Defender. She has received community service awards from the South Chicago Legal Clinic, Interfaith Housing Development Corporation, National Economic Development and Law Center, and was named a distinguished alumnus of the DePaul University Law School.
Betsy Shuman-Moore, Director, Project to Combat Bias Violence and Fair Housing Project
Betsy Shuman-Moore has been director of the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee’s Project to Combat Bias Violence since 1990, shortly after its inception, and the director of the Fair Housing Project since the fall of 2007. She has a bachelor of social work degree from the University of Illinois and a J.D. from the Indiana University School of Law. Before joining the Chicago Lawyers' Committee, Ms. Shuman-Moore served for seven years as staff attorney and legal director for the Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities.
Betsy has authored and co-authored articles on hate crime, housing discrimination, and sexual harassment in housing. She is on the boards of directors of the Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing, the Appleseed Fund for Justice, and the Center for New Community. She is on the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Hate Crime Prosecution Council and its Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Advisory Council. She was selected as a “Super Lawyer” in Illinois in civil rights through a Law & Politics survey process in 2005, received the Thomas and Eleanor Wright Award from the Chicago Commission on Human Relations for her outstanding leadership in the fight against hate crime in 2002, and received the Public Interest Law Initiative Distinguished PILI Alumni Award in 1993.