Equal Justice Works Fellow - Lea Weems worked with the Home Ownership Preservation Project at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago (LAF). LAF provides free legal aid in a wide range of civil legal services to low-income residents of Cook County. Lea's project focused on representing indigent homeowners who are victims of "foreclosure rescue fraud," a new predatory industry fueled by rising home values and increases in subprime lending and foreclosures.

A native Louisianan, Lea worked for three years after college at a nonprofit organization on Chicago's west side where she helped to develop job training programs for low-income residents. In addition to handling a wide range of housing cases during a summer internship at LAF, Lea worked on housing and foreclosure rescue fraud cases through law school clinical placements at the Legal Services Center in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. While in law school, Lea served as Managing Editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review and a teaching assistant to Professor Lani Guinier. Following law school, she clerked for Chief Justice Margaret Marshall at the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.

Bluhm Legal Clinic Fellow – As part of the Chicago office's signature Juvenile Justice Project, the firm sponsored a DLA Piper Fellow at Northwestern University. Carolyn Frazier worked at the Bluhm Legal Clinic and the firm, mentoring attorneys who were representing youths.  The firm has funded this fellowship since 2004. 

"As a lawyer committed to protecting and defending children's rights, I feel very fortunate to be working with the firm on its Signature Project. Every time I discuss the Project with other attorneys, I am reminded how unusual it is for a private law firm to devote such a large amount of resources to helping children," Carolyn said. "It has been especially exciting to watch the collaboration between the firm and Northwestern University grow and develop. This partnership has improved the quality of representation that both the firm and the clinic are able to provide to children, and should serve as a national model for the delivery of pro bono services."

Access to Education Fellow - Tara Foster was the Senior Attorney of the Education Rights Project of Queens Legal Services and the Director of a number of the Project's special initiatives including the Citywide Title I Initiative and the Zero Tolerance Initiative. Tara has written a parent manual on the No Child Left Behind Act and has testified before the New York City Council on education rights issues. She has done extensive work for victims of domestic violence who, in fleeing their abusers, have had to relocate their children to new schools and obtain special school programs, supports, and services. Prior to joining the Education Rights Project, Tara practiced in the areas of housing, benefits, and housing/disability discrimination. She has litigated in federal and state courts and before numerous administrative bodies. She provided trainings and workshops for parents, students, service providers, lay advocates, and community-based organizations and provides group and individual advice and representation. In addition, she has taught numerous Continuing Legal Education classes for attorneys in many areas including family law, housing law, and education law. Tara was a recipient of the 2006 Legal Services Award from the New York City Bar Association.