OUR STAFF

Micaela Alvarez

Program Counsel

Equitable Community Development & Housing

malvarez@clccrul.org

  • Micaela Alvarez joined Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights in September 2021, as Program Counsel for the Equitable Community Development and Housing practice area. Before joining Chicago Lawyers’ Committee, Micaela served as Managing Attorney in the Tenants’ Rights Practice at Centro Legal de la Raza in Oakland, CA, where she focused on high-impact affirmative litigation and managed the program’s clinic practice. In her cases, Micaela represented low-income tenants in lawsuits against their landlords for violations of state and local housing law. She joined Centro Legal in 2017 as an Equal Justice Works fellow.

    Micaela graduated from Harvard Law School in 2017, with recognition for performing over 1000 hours of pro bono service, primarily in the Harvard Legal Services Center’s Housing Clinic and Prison Legal Assistance Project. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame, where she was a member of the women’s soccer team.

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Chris Bridges

Coordinator for Strategic Partnerships and Community Engagement

cbridges@clccrul.org

  • Chris is excited to join Chicago Lawyers’ Committee as Program Counsel with the Education Equity Team where he will continue his work on disparate school discipline and discrimination issues. Chris began his legal career in 2012 with the ACLU of Northern California as the Racial Justice Project Fellow, where he worked on school to prison pipeline issues as a member of the Education Equity team. Chris began his work at the Equal Justice Society in Oakland as the Butler Koshland Fellow and was later hired full time to focus his advocacy on school discipline and education issues as well as inequities within the criminal justice system. To aid in these efforts, Chris used social science, structural analysis, and real-life experiences to help broaden conceptions of present-day discrimination to include implicit bias. Chris Bridges is a graduate of Northeastern University School of Law. He also holds an MS in Criminal Justice from Michigan State University and a BS in Political Science and BA in Criminal Justice, both from North Carolina Central University.

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Aneel Chablani

Vice President and Legal Director

achablani@clccrul.org

  • Aneel L. Chablani joined Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights in July 2017. As Chief Counsel, Aneel works with Project Directors to advance the mission and strategic direction of Chicago Lawyers' Committee through systemic advocacy and impact litigation. Prior to joining Chicago Lawyers' Committee, Aneel served as Director of Advocacy at Advocates for Basic Legal Equality (ABLE) in Toledo, Ohio. At ABLE, an unrestricted poverty law firm serving Northwest Ohio, Aneel worked with an advocacy management team on development of impact litigation and broad based advocacy in practice groups covering Housing and Community Economic Development, Education, Healthcare and Public Benefits and Migrant Farmworker Rights. This included class action litigation, policy and legislative advocacy and community lawyering. Prior to his work at ABLE, Aneel worked with the Capital Appeals Project in New Orleans representing inmates on Louisiana’s death row on direct appeals to the Louisiana Supreme Court and petitions for writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court. Aneel began his legal career with the LAF in Chicago working in the areas of housing and consumer rights. Aneel also currently serves on the Advisory Board for the Shriver Center’s Racial Justice Training Institute and has served as faculty and team coach for the institute programs. He is a graduate of Loyola University Chicago School of Law and the University of Notre Dame.

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Jacob Cantor

Legal Fellow

jcantor@clccrul.org

  • Jacob joined Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights in September 2024 as a Legal Fellow sponsored by Boston University School of Law’s Public Interest Fellowship Program. As a member of the Equitable Community Development and Housing practice area, Jacob seeks to combat the criminalization of housing and support the team’s fair housing advocacy work.

    Jacob graduated from Boston University School of Law in 2024. During law school, Jacob worked with the Boston University Human Rights Clinic, Greater Boston Legal Service’s MADE Eviction Defense Project, Legal Aid Chicago’s Immigrant and Workers Rights Team, and the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Woman and Girls.

    Before Law school, Jacob worked as a fellow with Beyond Legal Aid, supporting the campaign to abolish Chicago’s Gang Database and to disrupt the school to prison pipeline by removing police officers from Chicago Public Schools. Jacob earned his undergraduate degree at Tufts University in 2019 where he studied International Relations and Political Science.

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Emily Coffey

Director

Equitable Community Development and Housing

  • Emily Coffey joined Chicago Lawyers’ Committee in July 2022. As Senior Counsel and Director of Equitable Community Development and Housing, she advances systems change through community driven advocacy and impact litigation. Prior to joining Chicago Lawyers’ Committee, she was a Housing Justice Attorney at the Shriver Center on Poverty Law where she advocated for tenants’ rights, fair housing, and affordable housing preservation through group representation and policy advocacy.

    Emily served as counsel in several high-impact cases and HUD fair housing complaints, including Calumet Lives Matter v. East Chicago Housing Authority, Jane Addams Senior Caucus v. Chicago Housing Authority, and HOPE Fair Housing Center v. City of Peoria. She is a coauthor of Poisonous Homes: The Fight for Environmental Justice in Federally Assisted Housing and several other publications.

    Prior to the Shriver Center, Emily represented tenants facing eviction at Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing and coordinated an emergency rental assistance program at CARPLS. She was awarded the inaugural Sharon L. King Award from Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing and the Outstanding Legal Fellow Award from the National Alliance of HUD Tenants. Emily is an alumni of the Racial Justice Institute and Impact Fund Class Action Training Institute. She graduated with honors from Loyola University Chicago School of Law and Beloit College.

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Amy Cook

Director

Economic Justice

acook@clccrul.org

  • Amy Cook is an attorney on the Economic Justice team working with nonprofit organizations and small businesses. She has broad experience in and a passion for these areas, having run a small business law practice and served as a nonprofit executive director. She has served on the board of directors of a number of organizations and is currently the governance committee chair for Illinois Stewardship Alliance. She has long been active with the Chicago Bar Association serving on the editorial board for over 20 years with two terms as editor in chief, and as the chair of the Food Law committee. Prior to returning to law practice, Cook worked as a consultant to nonprofit organizations, assisting with strategic planning, corporate governance and professional development. Cook is also an adjunct professor of business and communications at Aurora University.

    She received her BA in Communications from UCLA and her JD and a master's degree in journalism and communications from Drake University.

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Angela Dear

Intake and Data Specialist

adear@clccrul.org

  • Angela’s areas of responsibilities are focused on client service and collaborating one-on-one with clients and volunteers. Specifically, Angela conducts intake and screening for all core practice areas including Education Equity, Equitable Community Development and Housing, and Transactional Legal Services, database management, and administration support of the legal team. Prior to the work with Chicago Lawyers’ Committee, Angela was a legal administrative assistant at Business and Professional People for the Public Interest (BPI). Angela has a Bachelor of Arts in Paralegal Studies from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, IL.

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Beatriz Diaz-Pollack

Director

Education Equity

bdiaz-pollack@clccrul.org

  • Beatriz Diaz-Pollack joined Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights in July 2021. She serves as Senior Counsel for the education equity practice area working to address educational disparities in our public school systems and advocating to secure access to a high quality education for all students.

    Beatriz brings experience working on issues related to the educational system from multiple perspectives including, most recently, as an Illinois Special Education Due Process Hearing Officer, as a researcher and consultant examining legal issues impacting the education of Multilingual Learners, and as an educator at both the elementary school and university levels. In addition, Beatriz previously worked for the Illinois State Board of Education as an Assistant General Counsel, focusing primarily on issues relating to special education and school funding. She began her legal career at Legal Assistance Foundation, providing civil legal services to clients experiencing poverty in Chicago.

    Beatriz serves on the Illinois Due Process Screening Committee as the Experienced Hearing Officer appointee of the Illinois Attorney General. Beatriz earned her J.D. from the University of Wisconsin Law School and was her class's Latino/a Law Students Associations’ Student of the Year and the recipient of the Brown vs. Board of Education Award for outstanding commitment to public education and poverty law. She also holds a Master of Science in Education and Social Policy from Northwestern University and a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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Oi Eng-Crandus

Vice President of
Finance and Operations

oeng-crandus@clccrul.org

  • Oi Eng-Crandus joined Chicago Lawyers’ Committee in 2019 as the Chief Finance and Operations Officer. In this role, she oversees the day-to-day and long term aspects of finance, operations, technology and human capital management. Prior to joining Chicago Lawyers' committee, Oi held leadership roles in the corporate sector and most recently served as Vice President of Customer Development for Essendant’s Digital Channels. She also held positions in finance, strategy, and business development at Sears and BP Amoco and began her career in banking. Oi is currently the Secretary of the Board of Directors for RefugeeOne, the largest resettlement agency in Illinois, and was previously on the Board of Temple Judea Mizpah. She earned an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a BS in Finance from the University of Illinois.

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Ami Gandhi

Director

Strategic Initiatives and Midwest Voting Rights Programs

agandhi@clccrul.org

  • Ami Gandhi is the Director of Strategic Initiatives and Midwest Voting Rights Program, formulating and implementing strategies for Chicago Lawyers’ Committee’s growth. She works to reduce barriers to voting and improve civic participation, especially in communities of color and low-income communities in the Midwest. Ami’s experience includes leading statewide voter protection for the 2016 and 2020 elections, partnering with community members in the criminal legal system to expand voter access, advocating for communities of color during Illinois redistricting, and advising local election authorities as they implemented the first Hindi ballots in the country. Her experience includes litigating cases in Illinois and Indiana and partnering with communities to write and pass legislation. She previously worked as the Executive Director of South Asian American Policy & Research Institute (SAAPRI), as the Legal Director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice Chicago, and as a commercial litigation attorney at Freeborn & Peters LLP.

    Ami participates in the Law, Politics, and Civic Engagement Think Tank with incarcerated community members at Stateville Correctional Center. She serves on the Planning Committee for DePaul University’s Institute for Restorative Educational Engagement (IREE), which focuses on currently and formerly incarcerated students. She also serves on the boards of Count US Indiana, Common Cause Indiana, and Indiana Justice Project.

    Ami has received awards from Indiana University, the South Asian Bar Association of North America, Chicago Fair Trade, and NAACP Chicago Far South Suburban Branch.

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J. Cunyon Gordon

Director

Settlement Assistance Program

cgordon@clccrul.org

  • J. Cunyon Gordon is a Senior Counsel and Director of the Settlement Assistance Program. In this role, Cunyon evaluates cases and potential clients, recruits volunteer attorneys, and represents litigants in cases in which she is unable to find a match. Prior to Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, Cunyon was Of Counsel at Eimer Stahl Klevorn & Solberg LLP, during which time she was an early volunteer with SAP. Cunyon was also a civil litigator at Jenner & Block LLP for ten years, where she earned the distinction of being the first black woman to make partner at the then 75-year-old firm. Cunyon has also served as an attorney with the U. S. Navy JAG. Cunyon attended Yale College and earned her J.D. from Yale Law School.

    Cunyon has taught as a Distinguished Visiting Professor for the Boston University School of Law and Visiting Professor for Seattle University School of Law. Cunyon was a board member of Access Living and LAF for over fifteen years and served as the CLE chair for the Chicago Bar Association for two years.

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Legal Fellow

rhabliston@clccrul.org

Rachel Habliston

  • Rachel joined Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights in September 2024 as a Legal Fellow sponsored by the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law Public Interest Fellowship Program. Rachel works across all practice areas assisting with systemic advocacy and impact litigation.

    Rachel graduated from Northwestern Pritzker School of Law in 2024 cum laude with recognition for performing over 500 public service hours, primarily with the Northwestern Prison Education Project. During law school, Rachel worked with the MacArthur Justice Center Civil Rights Litigation Clinic, Ascend Justice, Legal Aid Chicago, Children and Family Justice Center, and the James B. Moran Center for Youth Advocacy. She was also a Rivkin Law and Public Advocacy Fellow and a member of the Bartlit Center for Trial Advocacy Team.

    Rachel earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2019 where she studied International Affairs, Women and Gender Studies, and Political Science.

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Elesha Jackson

Director of Administration

ejackson@clccrul.org

  • Elesha Jackson is the Director of Administration managing the overall daily office operations of Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, including office management, technology, and human resources. Prior to her role as Director of Administration, Elesha worked as the Office Manager for 20 years and is certified as a paralegal in litigation by Roosevelt University.

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Conner Kozisek

Equal Justice Works Fellow

Midwest Voting Rights Program

ckozisek@clccrul.org

  • Conner Kozisek joined Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights in September 2023 as an Equal Justice Works Fellow sponsored by ADM and Troutman Pepper. As a member of the Midwest Voting Rights Program, he seeks to expand voting access by combatting late polling place closures and changes that disenfranchise low-income communities of color in Chicago.

    Conner graduated from New York University School of Law in May 2023. During law school, he worked on voting rights and election administration issues through internships with the national Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Brennan Center for Justice, and Fair Elections Center. He also was a judicial intern for Judge Tanya S. Chutkan on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and he spent his final year at NYU Law as an extern with the New York Legal Assistance Group's Pro Se Legal Assistance Clinic in the Southern District of New York, where he helped self-represented litigants on a wide range of federal litigation.

    Before law school, Conner worked as a staffer at the Nebraska Unicameral Legislature, gaining a unique perspective of policymaking from the country's only nonpartisan, single-house state legislature and engaging with a wide variety of state policy issues. He was born and raised in the Midwest and is a 2018 graduate of the University of Nebraska.

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Zindy Marquez

Director of Communications

zmarquez@clccrul.org

  • Zindy Marquez serves as the Director of Communications working closely with the Executive Director to increase the visibility and awareness of Chicago Lawyers’ Committee. Prior to this role she worked for 5 years in several fundraising and development roles where she gained knowledge in both development-related and program-related communications strategies and built a strong skillset including producing strategic content, designing digital and print materials, and managing social media and websites. Zindy started her professional career as a press intern for Senator Richard J. Durbin’s Chicago office after graduating from Loyola University Chicago with a BA in Advertising and Public Relations. Zindy is passionate about using her skills to help raise awareness and resources for organizations that are dismantling systems of oppression and fighting for racial equity.

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Paroma Mukherjee

Vice President of Advancement

pmukherjee@clccrul.org

  • Paroma Mukherjee is a fundraising professional with over 20 years of work experience and has generated much needed resources for nonprofits in the US and abroad, to enable social transformation. Her entire career has been dedicated to working in the nonprofit sector, working within different issue areas. She has successfully led comprehensive fundraising and donor management strategies for organizations. She has extensive experience working with Chicagoland’s most notable companies, private and family foundations, as well as city-state-federal granters for funding. Most recently, she was the Director of Development at CARPLS Legal Aid. She accidentally came into the field of philanthropy after her return to work from a short break in her career as a policy analyst. Paroma’s career trajectory has seen a steady growth in the diverse functions of fundraising and leadership roles. Her greatest strength lies in making donors and supporters feel valued and building their trust and commitment to invest in the mission of the organization.

    Paroma has a Master’s in International Relations, and a second Master’s in Public Policy from Purdue University. She is currently a board member and Board Secretary of the Mutual Ground Inc. in Aurora, IL, a domestic violence, sexual assault, and substance use prevention organization

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Braeden Nelson

Fair Housing Program Associate

bnelson@clccrul.org

  • Braeden Nelson joined Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights in August 2023 as a Fair Housing Program Associate for the Equitable Community Development and Housing practice area. His work includes research and data support to fair housing advocacy and testing coordination. Prior to this role he was an intern at the Center for Neighborhood Technology and a research assistant for the Freshwater Lab at UIC. In these roles he worked on environmental and planning related topics as varied as climate resilient affordable housing, green stormwater infrastructure maintenance, water recycling, and more. These roles deepened his familiarity with and commitment to environmental justice issues and helped to develop the research skills necessary for his role at CLC. More broadly, he is passionate about fighting for racial and economic justice throughout the Chicago region.

    Braeden graduated with his Master of Urban Planning and Policy from the University of Illinois Chicago in May 2023 and a Bachelor of Arts in Public Affairs and Geography/Environmental Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles, in June 2021.

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Eliza Quander

Program Counsel

Education Equity

equander@clccrul.org

  • Eliza Quander joined Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights in October 2024. She serves as Program Counsel for the Education Equity practice area working to defend students in expulsion proceedings and challenge discriminatory policies and practices in schools.

    Before joining Chicago Lawyers’ Committee, Eliza was a Skadden Fellow with Legal Aid Chicago’s Children and Families Practice Group, where she focused on helping students return and stay in appropriate schools. In this role, she represented students in education matters, including special education, school discipline, school enrollment, truancy, and bullying.

    Eliza is a 2022 graduate of Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, where she served as the Senior Articles Editor for the Northwestern University Law Review and was the inaugural recipient of the African American History and Culture Endowed Scholarship. Before law school, Eliza worked as a paralegal with Legal Aid Chicago’s Children and Families Practice Group, advocating for the educational rights of youth in foster care. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Yale University.

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David Shapiro

Executive Director

dshapiro@clccrul.org

  • David Shapiro joined Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights in January 2023 as Executive Director where he leads a team committed to securing racial equity and economic opportunity for all. A leading civil rights lawyer, David brings with him nearly 20 years of legal experience to CLC and continues to lead an area of work at CLC that focuses on protecting the civil rights of people impacted by the criminal legal system. In 2024, David received the Abner Mikva Award from the American Constitution Society Chicago Lawyer Chapter for “extraordinary contributions to progressive legal causes.”

    A respected appellate lawyer, David has argued civil rights cases in courts across the nation, including the U.S. Supreme Court, the Illinois Supreme Court, the Seventh Circuit, and many other appeals courts sitting both as panels and en banc. He has won major victories on such issues as police brutality, deaths in custody, wrongful convictions, malicious prosecution, prisoners’ religious exercise, criminal sentencing, prison and jail conditions, and freedom of speech.  

    David has devoted his career to fighting for racial justice and civil rights, first at the ACLU National Prison Project and then at the MacArthur Justice Center. David spent the first decade of his career focused on trial court litigation. He obtained a consent decree that restructured a jail’s censorship policies, helped to try a case that abolished the segregation of prisoners with HIV throughout the State of Alabama, obtained an injunction that struck down a state censorship law as unconstitutional, and litigated many federal cases on behalf of innocent people who were wrongfully convicted. 

    In 2016, David founded and became director of MacArthur Justice Center’s Supreme Court and Appellate Program, growing the team from just him to a team of sixteen staff members, and working to ensure that people subjected to police brutality, indecent prison conditions, wrongful convictions, and other law enforcement abuse have the best representation possible in appellate and Supreme Court cases. In 2022, the MacArthur Justice Center was honored by Bloomberg Law as a Pro Bono Innovator for the work of the Program. 

    A prolific writer and former Northwestern Law Clinical Professor, David has published law review articles on civil rights, incarceration, and policing in the Harvard Law Review, the Notre Dame Law Review, and the George Washington Law Review, among many others, in addition to co-authoring a textbook on prisoners’ rights and training federal court staff on civil rights litigation through the Federal Judicial Center. Given his expertise, David is often invited as a commentator and keynote speaker on civil rights, criminal justice, and the judicial system. 

    David graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in 2001, was a Fulbright Scholar from 2001-02, graduated from Yale Law School in 2005, and clerked for Judge Edward R. Becker on the Third Circuit.

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Nathan Smith

Development Associate

nsmith@clccrul.org

  • Nate Smith joined Chicago Lawyers’ Committee in June 2024 as Development Associate working under the Vice President of Advancement to help expand the reach and capacity of Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights.

    Prior to this role, he worked in database management and journalism, including two years writing for ChicagoBears.com, the official team website. Nate earned a BFA from Southern Utah University and an MSJ from Northwestern University. Nate is a strong believer in doing one’s part to make a more just world.

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MacKenzie Speer

Program Counsel

Equitable Community Development & Housing

mspeer@clccrul.org

  • MacKenzie Speer joined Chicago Lawyers’ Committee in September 2022 as Fair Housing Program Counsel for the Equitable Community Development and Housing practice area. She was previously an Equal Justice Works Fellow with Legal Aid Chicago’s Housing Practice Group, where she focused on the intersections of interpersonal and community violence, eviction court, and fair housing issues. In this role, she represented subsidized housing tenants facing discriminatory evictions and partnered with community-based organizations to investigate policies and practices with a disparate impact on marginalized tenants, particularly Black women.

    Before attending law school, she worked as a program associate at the Shriver Center on Poverty Law, advocating for fewer barriers to accessing public benefits and an equitable state budget in Illinois. She is a 2020 graduate of Northeastern University School of Law, where she was a Public Interest Law Scholar, and a 2014 graduate of Macalester College.

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