Andrew MacKie-Mason 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 Andrew MacKie-Mason, ‘17. Becca Smith, a member of the board, wrote this story on his 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.

Andrew MacKie-Mason, '17, is committed to public defense. With one quarter of law school complete, he has already contributed about 30 hours toward the Pro Bono Pledge.

In November, he met with individual clients at the Woodlawn Clinic, a monthly walk-in legal services clinic run by the Legal Assistance Foundation and DLA Piper. He has also attended one of LAF’s juvenile expungement clinics at alternative schools in the Chicago Public Schools system, in addition to assisting the Shriver Center with community outreach for Certificates of Good Conduct.

Andrew participates in pro bono work to stay connected to the communities he seeks to serve as a public defender. He first experienced public defense work during a high school internship.  He subsequently interned with public defender offices in college and before beginning law school. 

He believes pro bono work is energizing, gives him a chance to apply his classroom learning, and serves as a reminder of why he came to law school. Andrews wants to be a public defender so he can be the last person standing by his client when everyone else has given up on them. 

As an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, Andrew majored in math and philosophy.  Even though he spends a lot of time reading for class, he still enjoys reading for leisure.  He is hoping to get through some of the books on the PILS Social Justice Reading List so he can participate in the upcoming discussions, and The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness is first up on his bookshelf.

The Pro Bono Board is excited to present Andrew MacKie-Mason as January’s Pro Bono Volunteer of the Month.