CDEL Volunteer of the Year Award

The CDEL Volunteer of the Year Award honors a volunteer, organization or law firm who shows a strong commitment to CDEL’s mission by providing an extraordinary level of direct pro bono legal or supportive services to its clients and achieves results that benefit the client and/or the community of low-income seniors and people with disabilities throughout Cook County.

CDEL 2025 Volunteer of the Year Award:

Valerie Chu

Valerie Chu was first connected with CDEL through the Chinese American Service League (CASL). Valerie served as a Mandarin and Cantonese interpreter for CDEL’s Power of Attorney Workshops with CASL in 2019. As a law student at University of Illinois Chicago School of Law, Valerie later interned with CDEL during 2023. Valerie quickly gravitated towards CDEL’s guardianship work, and she began staffing CDEL’s Guardianship Help Desk that had recently reopened for in-person appointments at the Daley Center. When Valerie’s time as an intern came to end, she continued to volunteer with CDEL’s Guardianship Help Desk, and to provide direct representation to CDEL clients.  Valerie has continued to assist CDEL with outreach, offering to give outreach presentations in Mandarin with community partners including Pui Tak Center and Coalition for a Better Chinese American Community (CBCAC) reaching over 100 people. For these presentations Valerie translated documents, helped organize the events, trained interpreters, called all the clients with reminders, recruited attorneys and attended the workshop. Valerie has truly gone above and beyond and has devoted over 300 hours of volunteer services to CDEL.  

Previous CDEL Volunteer of the Year Award Winners:

  • 2024: Ankoor Bagchi and Bob Goldman

  • 2023: Shane Kelly, Addison Braendel, Crofton Kelly, and Stephen S. Phalen

  • 2022: Toya Horn Howard

  • 2021: Karen Boyd; Catherine Taylor-Cappel; Kenneth Shiner; and Libby Wood

  • 2020: Jennifer Burgess, Seyfarth Shaw LLP

  • 2019: Victoria Rock, Veritext Legal Solutions

  • 2018: Mary Ann Manley, Center for Disability & Elder Law

  • 2017: Linda Oschenfeld

  • 2016: Pro Bono Network and Rachel Spector

  • 2015: Locke Lord LLP

  • 2014: Judith P. Davis, McDermott Will & Emery LLP

  • 2013: Jane Hesse

  • 2012: Wells Hutchinson and David Bensen, Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP

  • 2011: Suma Shah, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP

  • 2009: Terri Ahrens, John D’Attorno, and Evan M. Meyers, Drinker, Biddle & Reath LLP; Dave McLauchlan, Locke Lord LLP; and Matta Setty, Kirkland & Ellis LLP

  • 2008: Tomas M. Thompson, DLA Piper

  • 2006: William I. Kohn, Schiff Hardin LLP and Adrianne N. Varhula

  • 2005: Laura L. Hois, McDonald’s Corporation and Richard L. Clayter

  • 2003: Robert A. Clifford, Clifford Law Offices

  • 2000: Jamie L. Zukosky and Robert A. Clifford, Clifford Law Offices