Hotline Number 312-738-9200
July 6, 2021
Read Our 2020 Annual Report!
In this past year, our clients were hit with life-altering circumstances. We knew that we could not waste a second growing our resources to help as many people as possible.

Established in 1993, CARPLS found early on that removing barriers to civil legal aid is vital in making improvements at a systemic level. CARPLS’ strength lies in serving as a central network hub for our partners and as a “coach” for people representing themselves.

Since 2020, we’ve created or helped build five new projects, four of them statewide. We have also strengthened existing partnerships, such as our new program with Taller de José.

Whether in a watershed moment or calmer times, our legal aid community comes together to meet people where they are at, so they can move their lives forward.

We are proud of our staff’s diligent work—CARPLS will soon have served over 1 million people since our founding. And we will continue working to change our community for the better, one legal problem at a time.
Using Love Language to Combat Hate
Why the Revolution will not be English-only

By Kimberly Leung, Managing Attorney at the Chinese American Service League and CARPLS Professionals Board member

You can be really good at something but not love it. My English is exceptional. When I became Editor-in-Chief of my college newspaper, my mom said, “That’s impressive.” She was underscoring the fact that I am the daughter of immigrants and grew up in a limited English-speaking household. I remember this because my mom giving a compliment is like Mercury’s solar transit – I get one every ten years.

Within the first chapter of Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s debut book, The Undocumented Americans, she hits you with this: “I think every immigrant in this country knows that you can eat English and digest it so well that you shit it out, and to some people, you will still not speak English.” Villavicencio described an incident where she was on a bus in Queens when a passerby looked in her direction and said, “I wish these people would just learn English.” At the time, Villavicencio was not speaking, in any language. She was holding a book, in English, and was at home for the summer after her freshman year at Harvard, where she would later win a writing award named after an Eighteenth century American transcendentalist.
An Illustrative Look at New Leaf Illinois
New Leaf Illinois can help Illinoisans with cannabis
arrests or convictions set their record straight.
Click above for the English version!
Click above for the Spanish version!
Support CARPLS at Our Fall Benefit
For sponsorship opportunities and other questions, email Tanya Pietrkowski, CARPLS Director of Development, at [email protected].
"Helped Me Have a Peace of Mind"
Christiana called CARPLS recently because of a debt issue. She said, "Speaking to CARPLS helped me have a peace of mind with my debt especially as a single unemployed mother of two. It helped me so much to understand my rights with my debt word by word in terms I understood. They were patient to my needs and understanding no matter how busy they were. Very grateful for their expertise in all fields and outstanding respect and dignity when speaking to their clients. Thank you."
Avoiding A Summer Eviction Surge
Read AP Reporter Kathleen Foody's story on how Illinois hopes to avoid a summer eviction surge. CARPLS Supervising Attorney Karla Chrobak said clients seeking CARPLS' help already struggled to find affordable housing before the pandemic, making the prospect of being evicted now “terrifying.”

CARPLS | 17 N. State Street | Suite 1850 | Chicago | Illinois | 60602 | carpls.org