The Chicago Lawyers' Committee's Project to Combat Bias Violence is the only comprehensive resource center on hate crime prevention and response in the Midwestern United States. The Project advocates for strong criminal prosecutions of perpetrators of bias violence, litigates civil cases for hate crime victims, mobilizes community support for them, educates community residents and professionals about applicable laws, and advocates for improved enforcement of the Illinois Hate Crime Act. A City-Wide Advisory Board, consisting of attorneys who have represented victims and community activists representing diverse neighborhoods and constituents, provides guidance and assistance.

The Project helps to organize community response to bias violence, training both the general public and area professionals, such as prosecutors, on the Illinois Hate Crime Act, the importance of reporting, and the rights and needs of victims. Public forums and educational presentations are made in high-risk neighborhoods, utilizing the in-kind participation of police officers, community-based agency staff, private attorneys, clergy, community leaders, and health and social service professionals. Well over 100 such outreach programs have been conducted, for more than 3,000 participants, in many ethnically and racially diverse communities in the Chicago area, the Midwest's largest immigration destination. Presentations are orally translated as needed, and hate crime information materials have been printed in 14 languages. Project staff and volunteers work with community-based coalitions long term to improve human relations when the need and capacity exist.

The Bias Violence Project provides free legal representation to victims of hate crime, both in criminal prosecutions of offenders and in civil suits. In three separate cases in 2004, a Cook County judge and juries awarded plaintiffs nearly $1.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages for racially motivated attacks that occurred in Chicago in 2000. In 1998, a Lake County jury awarded the Arroyo family $6 million, the highest amount ever under the Illinois Hate Crime Act. The lawsuit charged that David Killian physically attacked two Latino youths after a serious car accident, punching the driver and kicking passenger Ricardo Arroyo, as he lay dying in the street, while shouting ethnic slurs. Project attorneys cooperated in a successful prosecution of Killian in the mixed motive hate crime.

Other examples include a gay client who settled his case in the after the defendant agreed to pay $53,000; and a Cook County judge’s award of $500,000 in compensatory and punitive damages to Clevan Nicholson, against Michael Kwidzinski, who, along with Frank Caruso and Victor Jasas, attacked Nicholson and Lenard Clark in 1997 because they are African American. The Project represented a Puerto Rican family who accused their next door neighbors of engaging in a ten year campaign of harassment and hate crimes against them. Attorneys negotiated a settlement of the federal case, in which the defendants agreed sell their house and move in 1995. These lawsuits were filed under the Illinois Hate Crime Act, which allows those injured in hate crimes based on race, religion, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, and gender to press criminal charges and file civil lawsuits for compensatory and punitive damages.