Barbara Hillman, AB '63, JD '66: 1942-2018
Barbara Hillman, labor attorney who represented wide range of workers, dies
From farmhands to ballet dancers, labor attorney Barbara Hillman fought for the rights of workers with keen legal skills and an overarching concern for issues of social justice.
Eliseo Medina, now with the Service Employees International Union, met Hillman in 1968 when he was sent to Chicago to work on the grape boycott for the United Farm Workers union.
“She became our pro bono attorney,” he said in a phone message. “She helped us get out of jail whenever we had nonviolent sit-ins at the chain stores to get them to stop selling grapes. She was a real champion for the farm workers, but then I know that she was a real champion for every worker. That was her life as a labor attorney.”
Hired out of the University of Chicago Law School in the mid-1960s by the Chicago labor law firm of Cornfield and Feldman, Hillman spent her career working on behalf of public employees, teachers, steelworkers, coal miners, university professors and retail workers among others, according to her friend Melody Heaps. Later, as chief counsel for the American Guild of Musical Artists, she represented dancers of the Joffrey Ballet and chorus members of the Lyric Opera.
Read more at Chicago Tribune