Liz Leifel Gains Significant Pro Bono Win for Homeless Family

Associate Liz Leifel, together with attorneys from the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, recently secured an important pro bono victory on behalf of a homeless woman and her two daughters.  The Crete-Monee school district filed suit in Will County circuit court after the Will County Regional Office of Education and the State Board of Education both rejected the district's effort to bar the girls from attending school on the basis of residency.  Although the Illinois School Code requires families to show proof of residency to send their children to a district's public schools, the code is tempered by state and federal homeless education laws that require districts to provide services to homeless children.  Together with government defendants, we filed and argued motions to dismiss the action, which were uniformly granted by Will County Judge Bobbi Petrungaro on January 8, 2007.  The dismissal of this action is a tremendous victory not only for our client and her family, but for homeless families in Illinois.