Hope and Impact: Public Interest Center Director Receives Chicago Bar Award

The Chicago Bar Foundation has awarded its 2025 Leonard Jay Schrager Award of Excellence to Chicago-Kent College of Law Public Interest Center Director Michelle Vodenik, who also works as senior director of career development and professionalism.

“It is important that we have hope and that we don’t let the daily grind or upsetting stories that we hear in the news keep us from taking one small step,” says Vodenik. “All of our collective actions together make a big impact.”

The Chicago Bar Foundation is the charitable arm of the Chicago Bar Association, which is dedicated to increasing access to justice. The Schrager Award recognizes exemplary attorneys in academia who have made significant and lasting contributions to improving access to justice for people in need. 

“During her twenty years of dedicated service to Chicago-Kent, Michelle has provided countless students with opportunities to pursue their dreams of making a difference in the world,” says Chicago-Kent Dean Jason Czarnezki. “Michelle’s presence at the law school gives Chicago-Kent the moral compass and heart it needs to be a responsible member of the legal community, and we are honored to have her as a part of our team. This recognition from the Chicago legal community is well-earned and long overdue.” 

“This is a really good opportunity to share with the Chicago legal community all of the good public interest work and pro bono work that’s taking place at the law school and has been for a lot of years,” says Vodenik, who took charge of the school’s public interest initiatives—and also leading efforts to reposition them under the Public Interest Center—in 2022.

The Public Interest Center helps students who are interested in public interest law for their careers, and all students—regardless of their career interests—by supporting engagement in pro bono work. Through the Pro Bono and Community Service Initiative, Chicago-Kent students who complete upward of 50 volunteer hours during their time in law school are honored at the school’s annual Public Interest Awards. Under Vodenik’s guidance, the number of students volunteering the number of hours to receive that recognition has ballooned, with 284 students reporting the threshold of hours to the Public Interest Center in the 2024–25 academic year.

Vodenik has also launched Public Service Day, a now annual initiative that has incoming law students volunteer with legal aid and non-profit organizations across the city as part of their orientation. The day includes the opportunity to take a Pro Bono Pledge, which is a dedication to work 50 pro bono hours during their time in law school. A record 75 percent of the 2024–25 incoming class signed the pledge.

“There is an incredible amount of need for legal services for low-income people and working people who are lower income,” says Vodenik. “We need a lot more attorneys and law students engaging in providing pro bono legal services. Whatever we can do as a law school and that the Public Interest Center can do to facilitate that and expand upon that, we’re really motivated to do it, because there is so much need.”

The center also promotes the opportunity to volunteer with Chicago-Kent’s various public interest programs. Among the public interest initiatives that Chicago-Kent runs includes the Self-Help Resource Center at the Richard J. Daley Center in Chicago, where student volunteers help pro se litigants navigate the justice system. The school’s Patent Hub provides pro bono legal services to under-resourced inventors, while the Constitutional Democracy Project brings high-quality, hands-on legal training into classrooms across the state of Illinois.

“We have the foundation. A high percentage of law students come to law school with a desire to make a positive impact in the world or to do justice. That is in survey after survey,” says Vodenik, before adding: “It is very inspiring to see the law students engaging in pro bono work. It makes me feel amazing because we, Chicago-Kent, are a part of making an impact in the larger community, and, by extension, the world.”

Photo: Carolyn Shapiro, Michelle Vodenik, and Jason Czarnezki pose with the award [provided]