The research team is led by Julie Biehl, Clinical Law Professor and Director of the Children and Family Justice Center (CFJC) at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, Stephanie Kollmann, Policy Director, Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, and Sino Esthappan, a Ph.D. candidate in the Sociology Department and Center for Legal Studies at Northwestern University.
The IL PD Stats website was designed and is maintained by Hunter Motko, Software Engineer. Marisa LaBella, Legal Assistant at Northwestern Law, is a policy analyst and project manager for the team.
The following current and former Northwestern Law and undergraduate students contributed to this research and data collection:
- Jonathan Jean-Baptiste NULS ‘25
- Katie Behzad NULS ‘22
- Sarha Buzi NULS ‘26
- Jihao Ding NULS ‘23
- Erin Hughes NULS ‘23
- Alexis Jones Johnson NULS ‘22
- Alyssa Hiller NULS ‘25
- Ashley Justice NULS ‘24
- Halley Lane NULS ‘25
- Douglas Lee NU ‘25
- Diego Manrique NULS ‘25
- Ariana Moore NULS ‘22
- Lillian Parker NULS ‘26
- Ksenia Polyarskaya NULS ‘26
- Jennifer Shanahan NULS ‘22
- Emma Silberstein NULS ‘22
- Cai Wheeler NULS ‘23
- Daniel Wolf NU ‘25
This research was informed by chief public defenders, assistant public defenders, and contract defense attorneys, who graciously shared their experiences representing their clients in Illinois’ current public defense system.
Finally, the research team acknowledges and thanks the Illinois Supreme Court under the leadership of Kathy Saltmarsh and Cara LeFevour Smith for their efforts to improve public defense through their task force and recommendations.