Sidley's Contributions to the Broader Community

Lawyers in all Sidley offices actively engage in a wide variety of community programs, giving back to the broader community on many levels. Some Sidley lawyers volunteer to help in activities in which they use their legal skills, while other lawyers devote time to the arts, children’s education and other community endeavors. These activities range from reading to elementary children, to helping law school moot court teams, to training students in important mediation skills, to providing meals to homeless women, and to giving holiday gifts to incarcerated youth.

Since 2001, the New York office has participated in the Justice Resource Center’s (JRC) High School Mentoring Program. JRC is considered the country's model urban initiative for civic and law-related education. Sidley has been paired with the High School for Leadership and Public Service, a public New York City high school that is racially and ethnically diverse. Throughout the school year Sidley lawyers mentor and coach participating students who complete in state-wide moot court and mock trial competitions.

Each year, lawyers from our Chicago office participate in the Circuit Court of Cook County’s Citywide Mock Trial Competition, sponsored by the Chicago Coalition for Law Related Education. Our lawyers serve as volunteer coaches and evaluators for the high school students who participate in the competition. Additionally, through the Constitutional Rights Foundation of Chicago Lawyers in the Classroom program, lawyers from our Chicago office partner with other lawyers and with corporate counsel from Exelon to teach the U.S. Constitution and our legal system to Chicago public school students in the second through eighth grades to help them understand their rights, using imaginary scenarios.

The D.C office similarly assists in the Thurgood Marshall Moot Court program for high school students in Washington, as well as coaching Howard University Law School’s Moot Court team. We also have worked with Thomson Elementary School for 10 years on the Peer Mediation program, designed by the American Lawyers for Children Association. Lawyers, legal assistants and staff from Sidley meet weekly with a group of 17 students to train them to become mediators within their class and at home. Over the course of the year, the students hone these skills through role-playing and other exercises so that the following year, the school can call upon them to help students in conflict.

For the last two years during the holidays, Sidley lawyers, working with pro bono client Mentoring ToDAY, have contributed holiday gifts to the eighty young men incarcerated in the Oak Hill detention center. The D.C. Department of Youth and Rehabilitation Services honored Sidley's D.C. office in 2008 for allowing "the young men to wake up to gifts that represented the thoughtfulness of others."


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