Community Development & Support
Providing More Than Just Representation
Through a special pro bono program supported by the Chicago Bar Foundation, McDermott joined forces with the Nonprofit Legal Assessment Program of The Law Project to complete comprehensive reviews of established nonprofit organizations' operational areas, including regulatory compliance, fiscal oversight, intellectual property, and personnel and corporate governance policies.
Beginning in 2008 McDermott used its experience in areas ranging from employee benefits to corporate governance to intellectual property to complete comprehensive legal assessments for the AIDS Legal Council of Chicago (ALCC), which protects the legal rights of men, women and children living with HIV/AIDS, and the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago, which is one of the city's largest and oldest legal aid organizations. McDermott also recently completed an assessment for the Chicago Community Loan Fund, which provides low-cost, flexible financing to nonprofit, community-based organizations as a means of revitalizing low- and moderate-income neighborhoods and communities throughout metropolitan Chicago.
In the Chicago Bar Foundation's quarterly newsletter, which highlighted McDermott's work on behalf of the ALCC, Ann Fisher, executive director of the ALCC, thanked the team for its work, noting "these lawyers encouraged us to raise our sights on board expectations and fundraising so that we can be the best and biggest organization possible. For us and our board to hear this from lawyers who have thoroughly evaluated our organization is incredibly valuable."