CBA Record September-October 2026

Perhaps you could spare a couple of hours each month to help a nonprofit legal organization with screening intakes. Organi zations serving low-income clients are frequently flooded with requests for assistance. Helping sort, organize, screen, or evalu ate those potential matters can allow staff attorneys and advo cates to spend more time on the cases themselves. None of these examples requires surrendering your evenings and weekends. None requires becoming someone’s lawyer for the foreseeable future. They simply require us to use our imagination and to stop measuring pro bono service in terms of how big the time commitment is. An added bonus in using this micro-service approach: Find ing small blocks of time to do pro bono work each week or each month leads to healthy habit-building. It’s a skill all legal profes sionals could truly benefit from. So, block an hour on your calendar every Tuesday to make some fundraising calls. Agree to review one contract each week

for a small business owner. Volunteer for one client intake shift a month. Or ask a local organization for help identifying other short-term pro bono opportunities for lawyers—one that immediately comes to mind is The Chicago Bar Foundation’s Pro Bono Opportunity Portal. These contributions may seem modest, but when repeated over time, they can add up to dozens of hours of service. Remember, there is no wrong way to volunteer. Sometimes, helping means taking a huge case. Sometimes, it means spend ing an hour doing something small but meaningful for an orga nization you love.

The point isn’t how much time you have. The point is what you choose to do with it.

Nikki Marcotte is a senior litigation associate at Laurie & Bren nan, LLP, where they focus on complex commercial and construction

litigation. A Special Notice to all Lawyers Who Reside in or Practice in Cook County

The Moses, Bertha & Albert H. Wolf Fund

T he Chicago Bar Association manages the Moses, Bertha and Albert H. Wolf Fund to aid attorneys who reside in or practice law in Cook County and are ill, incapacitated or superannuated. Through the Fund, the CBA provides financial assistance in the form of grants and loans. Eligible recipients also include lawyers in Cook County who receive assistance from the Lawyers Assistance Program and are in need of medical assistance. For more information, contact Beth McMeen, CBA Executive Director, at 312-554-2004 or bmcmeen@chicagobar.org.

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