 Ann Hilton Fisher
Email: ann@aidslegal.com
Ann joined AIDS Legal Council of Chicago as the Executive Director in 1997, after serving three-years as supervisor of the HIV/AIDS Law Project of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago. A graduate of the University of Michigan and Wayne State University Law School, Ann completed a clerkship with the Hon. Judge Fairchild of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit before joining the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago, when she worked as a neighborhood attorney and as a senior attorney with the Disability Law Project before assuming the HIV position. In addition to client representation and counseling, outreach and training to community groups, and impact litigation and advocacy, Ann is responsible for the overall administration of ALCC's annual budget and staff. Ann has concentrated in representing people with disabilities for the last 20 years. She is a member of the American Bar Association AIDS Coordinating Committee and in 2001 received the Lawyers Trust Fund's Ester R. Rothstein Award for her leadership, integrity and commitment to ensuring access to justice. Most recently she was honored by the Chicago Bar Association and Chicago Bar Foundation with the 2007 Thomas H. Morsch Public Service Award, which honors exemplary lawyers who choose public service work as a career.
 Colleen Boraca
Email: colleen@aidslegal.com
Colleen began her AIDS Legal Council experience as a law school intern in 2001 and returned as a staff attorney in June 2009. After leaving in 2001, she was a teaching fellow at the Loyola Elder Law Clinic. She then served as a Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney for seven years in both the Child Support Enforcement Division and the Seniors and Persons with Disabilities Unit. She has lectured throughout Illinois to numerous hospital staffs, advocacy groups, mental health service providers and police officers on the Illinois Mental Health Code. Colleen was the 2006-2007 Chair of the Chicago Bar Association Mental Health and Disability Law Committee. At ALCC, in addition to a regular caseload of discrimination and government benefits issues, she heads the Council’s Linella Lim Gavin Family Support Project. The Family Support Project, in coordination with the Family and Children’s AIDS Network, works with attorneys and social workers to help families affected by HIV/AIDS access quality health care, achieve financial stability, and make thoughtful future plans for their children. Colleen received her H.B.A., cum laude, from Marquette University and J.D., cum laude, with a certificate in health law from Loyola University Chicago.
 Ruth Edwards
Email:ruth@aidslegal.com
Ruth came to the Council in mid-2006 with 11 years experience in legal services, including with the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago, the legal clinic at the DePaul University College of Law, and Life-Span Center for Legal Services and Advocacy. In her prior positions, she developed substantial expertise in the representation of immigrants and victims of domestic violence and is the Council’s resident authority on immigration law. Ruth, who is fluent in Spanish, received her B.A. from the University of Michigan and her law degree from Northeastern University in Boston.
 Justin Hayford
Email: justin@aidslegal.com
Since 1991, Justin has been the case manager at the AIDS Legal Council, where he volunteered for a year before joining the staff. In addition to handling hundreds of client matters every year, ranging from simple wills to complicated discrimination matters, he has written a series of nine booklets outlining Illinois AIDS Law for the Council. He has also trained groups of other professionals in HIV law, testified before legislative bodies, and taken on various state and local bureaucracies. A graduate of Northwestern University, Justin has written numerous articles focusing on various political and legal aspects of the AIDS crisis for The Chicago Reader, The Progressive, The Public Interest Law Reporter, and Positively Aware. Justin is also an award-winning cabaret performer, who has released several CDs of “forgotten gems” from the 30’s and 40’s on the national LML Music label. He regularly writes theater reviews for The Chicago Reader.
 Dale Green
Email: dale@aidslegal.com
Dale joined the staff as our Community Outreach Advocate and paralegal in October, 2001. He came to us from the Minority Outreach Intervention Project in Chicago where he coordinated activities in prevention case management, medical care, and HIV/AIDS counseling and testing predominantly with African-American gay men. Dale has spent most of his career in community service, including as a child welfare worker, where he gained extensive courtroom experience. Like many on the ALCC staff, he has the personal experience of friends and family being affected by the illness. He feels that “working at the AIDS Legal Council enables me to further assist the community one person at a time in curbing the continuation of discrimination, under-representation and misunderstanding.” Dale received his Bachelor of Liberal Arts and Sciences in Criminal Justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a Master of Arts in Community Counseling from Northeastern Illinois University.
 Kate Miller
Email: mkate@aidslegal.com
After receiving her M.A. in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago, Kate became part of the Council’s legal team in 2002, inspired by its strong ethical commitment to care for individuals with HIV. Before she moved to Chicago for graduate school, Kate served in Ghana as a secondary school teacher and worked in Seattle as an on-the-street case manager aiding chronically homeless adults with substance abuse and mental health issues. During graduate school, she worked on a study identifying barriers that prevent HIV positive women from seeking appropriate health care and subsequently presented the research at the 2002 International AIDS Conference in Barcelona. The research was published in 2005 in the journal Social Science and Medicine. Always an activist, Kate put together a coalition that saved a low income building in Seattle and currently serves on the Community Advisory Board for Project Wish, a University of Illinois research group focusing on vaccines for S.T.D.s; and the Global Community Advisory Board for the HIV Vaccine Trials Network. At the Council, Kate is an aggressive and successful advocate for all of our clients, but especially for people with mental impairments. Since coming to the Council, Kate has earned certificates from the Cervantes Institute establishing her fluency in Spanish and was recently accredited by the United States Immigration and Citizenship Services to represent clients in adjustment interviews.
 Steven Barrera
Email: steve@aidslegal.com
Steve joined ALCC as its administrative assistant in October, 2005. When a paralegal position opened up less than a year later, he applied and was quickly promoted. He is part of the Council’s Spanish-speaking legal staff and frequently assists clients at the CORE Center’s bi-lingual clinic, trains service providers, and performs outreach to audiences in the Latino community. In 2007 he joined the Chicago Area HIV Services Planning Council, which has the primary task of planning for HIV services and funding in the Chicago Metropolitan Area. For more than a year he has made regular appearances on Chicago’s CAN-TV, explaining HIV/AIDS legal issues and answering viewers’ calls. Steve earned his B.A. degree in English Literature with a minor in Anthropology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
 Lindsee Redmond
Email: lindsee@aidslegal.com
Lindsee M. Redmond joined ALCC in September 2008 as a paralegal. She is a 2007 graduate of Pomona College in Claremont, CA, where she majored in Psychology with a minor in Women’s Studies. During her time at Pomona, Lindsee was a mentor and advocate for minority and LGBT students at Pomona and throughout the Claremont colleges. She returned to campus after she graduated, and worked for a year as the coordinator of the all-campus Queer Resource Center and as a campus life coordinator, supervising 33 resident advisors and special-interest housing programs. Lindsee grew up on the south side of Chicago and sought the opportunity to work for the Council, recognizing its work with underserved communities on a wide range of issues. She was particularly impressed that the Council handles so much day-to-day legal work for clients, instead of limiting our representation to precedent-setting cases. She plans to continue in the legal sector, with the goal of attending law school. |
Kevin Beaney
Mary Hankey
Maria Duque