Overview
McDermott Will & Emery’s Chicago office is this year’s recipient of the “Law Firm/Corporate Partnership of the Year Award” from the non-profit Lawyers Lend-a-Hand to Youth. This award is presented each year to recognize a law firm or other corporate partner’s contributions to mentoring, and McDermott’s Chicago office was chosen based on the impressive number of attorneys and hours it has dedicated to mentoring students at Brown Elementary School through “Working in the Schools” (WITS), a non-profit organization that promotes literacy and the love of reading in Chicago Public Schools by providing one-on-one volunteer mentoring opportunities.
McDermott’s Chicago office has partnered with “Working in the Schools” for the past thirteen years in an effort to increase the reading proficiency and learning capacity of low-income and minority students in the Chicago Public Schools. Approximately 220 McDermott attorneys and staff members have dedicated over 8,000 hours to the volunteer mentoring effort.
McDermott’s Elizabeth Lewis and Jennifer Mikulina accepted the award on behalf of the firm at the “My Hero Awards” ceremony, which was held in Chicago on September 17, 2015. Both Jennifer and Elizabeth have been WITS volunteers for a number of years, and Jennifer is a member of the WITS Board of Directors.
