Pro Bono and Charity

The Fish Law Firm financially supports many charities, including: Children's Memorial Hospital, Doctors Without Borders and American Friends of Magen David Adom. We also believe that pro bono, or free legal work for the public good, is an important part of being a lawyer. Below are examples of pro bono work that The Fish Law Firm has performed for non-profits and Illinois residents:

• After Chabad of Naperville, a local Jewish organization, was denied the right to place a Menorah on the Naperville, Illinois Riverwalk by the Naperville Park District, The Fish Law Firm agreed to take up the cause in December of 2009 as its legal counsel. We were successful in getting the Park District to reverse its decision which led to articles in the Chicago Tribune, the Naperville Sun and the Daily Hearld. The Daily Herald's article explained the controversy, in part, as follows:

  The Naperville Park District will add a menorah to its holiday display that currently features Santa Claus. Commissioners, feeling they could face a lawsuit, took up the matter behind closed doors Thursday.

  The park district had rejected an earlier request by the Chabad Jewish Center of Naperville to display the candelabrum. However, the majority of the board on Thursday agreed to accept the menorah donation and make it part of the display at the Riverwalk.

  Goldstein had sent a letter to the park district last month asking for permission to add the menorah to the park district's Santa House display along the Riverwalk. The park district turned him down, saying its ordinances prohibit any private entity or person from erecting any kind of symbol or message at the Riverwalk.

  In an interview with the Daily Herald Wednesday, Chabad attorney David Fish said it would be illegal discrimination to display Christian symbols but reject the Jewish ones.

  Park district attorney Derke Price disagreed, saying that only applies when a government entity is letting private groups display their symbols. In this case, the display is being created by a public body - the park district.

  Park district commissioners discussed the issue in closed session Thursday calling it a matter of "imminent litigation."

  "His (Fish's) conversations with me were of a nature I was told by him that I needed to express to my client the risk and exposure they had under the Supreme Court cases," Price said after the meeting. "That's sufficient to go to imminent litigation."

  The majority of the board agreed to accept the menorah and make it part of the holiday display.

• David Fish is a trained volunteer for the Illinois Lawyers' Assistance Program (LAP) which is an organization devoted to helping lawyers who suffer from addiction and other mental health problems.

• In 2008, The Fish Law Firm represented--on a pro bono basis--an Illinois family whose learning disabled son faced expulsion from a public school for making a mistake. The kid, who was not a trouble maker, accidently brought a small knife on the school bus. The knife was used by the kid to cut tape from his ankle during hockey practice and the student accidently left the knife in his pocket when he boarded the bus for school. The student did not threaten anyone with the knife--but he still faced a minimum of a one year expulsion under Illinois law and so called zero-tolerance policies. By helping the family establish that bringing the knife to school was a manifestation of the student’s disabilities, it was our position that federal law prohibited his expulsion. The school agreed not to expel the student and he was allowed to return to school.
• In 2008, David Fish was appointed by Judge Hibbler in the Northern District of Illinois (Chicago) to help represent a woman from Cook County in an employment discrimination lawsuit against the United States Postal Service. The lawsuit alleged that the woman was discriminated against because of her race and because she filed complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).