PRESS RELEASE: Malcolm Rich, Founding Executive Director of Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts, To Retire After 27 Years

Access to Justice

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact – Stephanie Agnew (sagnew@chicagoappleseed.org) 

CHICAGO, IL—Effective March 1, 2024, Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts and the Chicago Council of Lawyers will welcome new leadership as the organizations’ Executive Director, Malcolm Rich (he/him), transitions to retirement. Stephanie Agnew (she/her), current Director of Communications, and Naomi Johnson (she/they), Director of Research & Program Management, will succeed Malcolm Rich as Co-Executive Directors of the Collaboration for Justice of Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts and the Chicago Council of Lawyers.

Malcolm Rich graduated from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, where he was the recipient of a Northwestern University Center for Urban Affairs Research Fellowship, in 1979. He practiced with the law firm Whitted & Kraning, where he specialized in special education and mental health law, and became the Executive Director of the Chicago Council of Lawyers in 1987. Malcolm is the founding Executive Director of Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts, facilitating its connection to the National Appleseed Network (of which he chairs the Executive Directors’ Council) in 1997. Malcolm will join as an ex-officio member of the Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts Board of Directors and will also serve as the Collaboration for Justice’s Internship, Fellowship, and Pro Bono Coordinator in a part-time capacity.

“As Executive Director, Malcolm created one of Chicago’s first community-led policy and advocacy organizations working to improve the legal system for the benefit of underrepresented people. Under his leadership, the work of the Collaboration for Justice really does “interrupt cycles of poverty, mass incarceration, and racial injustice perpetrated by all aspects of the legal system.” says Chair of the Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts Board of Directors, Donncha Carroll (Partner, Co-Founder, and Head of Data Science at Lotis Blue Consulting).

Stephanie Agnew is a Licensed Social Worker (LSW), having completed her Bachelors in Social Work at Loyola University Chicago and her Masters in Social Service Administration from the University of Chicago. Stephanie has experience working directly with communities impacted by the legal system as well as higher-level policy and advocacy experience; before joining the Collaboration, she was a Legal Advocate in the Cook County Domestic Violence Courthouse and as a Civil Rights Fellow at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Naomi Johnson graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a Bachelors in Anthropology and French and received their Masters from the University of Chicago’s Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice with a focus on research methodology at both institutions. Naomi has spent much of their professional career working on the South Side of Chicago, directly with communities that have been disproportionately impacted by policing and mass incarceration. Before joining Chicago Appleseed, they worked as the principal researcher and project manager for a community-based participatory research project for the Chicago Urban League. 

“It has been an honor to serve as the Executive Director of the Chicago Council of Lawyers for 39 years and of Chicago Appleseed for 27 years. The best thing I have done throughout my career is assemble an amazing group of staff, interns, and fellows who I am confident will continue to push our mission forward. It has been a great run and I look forward to turning over the leadership of both organizations to Stephanie and Naomi starting in March,” says Malcolm Rich.

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