Alli Hugi, '18, Named January's Pro Bono Volunteer of the Month

Editor's note: The Pro Bono Board, a student group committed to expanding pro bono knowledge and opportunities to students, names a Pro Bono Volunteer of the Month. The January honoree is Alli Hugi, '18. Stephanie Spiro,'16, a member of the board, wrote this story on her work. For more information on pro bono work, visit the Pro Bono Service Initiative website or contact Shehnaz Mansuri in the Office of Career Services.

The Pro Bono Board has named Alli Hugi, ’18, January’s Volunteer of the Month. Since starting Law School, Alli has regularly volunteered at Instituto del Progreso Latino’s (IDPL) citizenship workshops, assisting permanent residents in applying for American citizenship. She has also been instrumental in organizing Law School students’ attendance at the workshops. This involves reminding people to attend the workshops personally and through e-mails, encouraging people to go despite finals, and making sure people have transportation. To further her community engagement, Alli volunteers at Kenwood Academy, helping high school students with college applications.

Alli was introduced to IDPL during her first-year orientation, when she attended the organization’s citizenship workshop training. In addition to “get[ting] to know students and people who are running the organization, and interact[ing] with the clients who have interesting stories and are really interesting people,” volunteering at the workshops has allowed Alli to gain a new skill set outside her classes.

Alli says that pro bono opportunities at the Law School allow students to “hit the ground running” and start volunteering as soon as classes begin. Just by virtue of being a law student, “even without having legal experience, we could feel like we could do some things that people who aren’t law students couldn’t do because they don’t have that title.” As a law student connected to pro bono opportunities in Chicago, she could start making a difference in people’s lives right away.

Before coming to the Law School, Allie worked for two years as a paralegal at Relman, Dane & Colfax, an impact litigation law firm in Washington, D.C., that focuses on fair housing and lending work. She attended Yale University as an undergraduate, where she majored in Global Affairs and Political Science. Based on field research she conducted in India, Alli wrote her senior thesis on the relative efficacy of various anti-corruption efforts. While at Yale, she also wrote for The Record, a campus humor magazine, and raced for the cycling team.

Alli feels lucky to have like-minded friends at the Law School: “There is a good community of people doing pro bono work. It adds pressure to people who feel like they should be doing it, which I feel is a good sort of pressure.”