Staff

John came out of retirement to be Legal Action Chicago’s first Executive Director. He had retired in 2020 as the president of the Shriver Center on Poverty Law. In a long career as a poverty-fighting lawyer, he was a leader in the design and implementation of positive aspects of Illinois’ new welfare law in 1997, and he spearheaded the statewide efforts in Illinois to create both the FamilyCare program, which provides health care insurance for up to up to 400,000 working poor parents of minor children, and All Kids, the first state plan to extend health coverage to every child.

He has consulted and co-counseled with advocates in many states; helped draft numerous pieces of legislation; given hundreds of presentations; published extensively; and served as lead or co-lead counsel in numerous federal and state cases, including Memisovski v. Maram, which established substantial reforms in children’s health care in Illinois. He led litigation that compelled ongoing payments for health care during the Illinois budget impasse in 2015-17. He was chair of the Responsible Budget Coalition for many years, including for the effort to win a constitutional amendment to establish a progressive income tax.

John’s role with Legal Action Chicago is a return to roots for him. Before joining the Shriver Center in 1996, he worked for two decades at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago (then the name of Legal Aid Chicago), where he supervised public benefits advocacy. Among his honors, he has received the Chicago Bar Association and Chicago Bar Foundation’s 2026 John Paul Stevens Award, the Sargent Shriver Equal Justice Award from the Shriver Center on Poverty Law, the Kutak-Dodds Prize from the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, John Minor Wisdom Public Service and Professionalism Award from the American Bar Association’s Litigation Section, Child Health Advocate Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics, and Excellence in Pro Bono and Public Interest Service Award from the United States District Court and Federal Bar Association. A 1975 graduate of Valparaiso University School of Law and former board member of the Chicago Transit Authority, John currently serves on the boards of the National Health Law Program ,the Micheal Reese Health Trust, and RRF Foundation for Aging.

John can be reached at jbouman@legalactionchicago.org

Before becoming Legal Action Chicago’s supervising attorney in 2021, Lawrence worked for thirty-one years at Legal Aid Chicago, where he was a staff attorney, senior attorney, neighborhood office supervisor, and the first director of the Housing Practice Group.

For more than twenty years he was also a Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago Law School, where he taught a seminar on housing and poverty law. In a speech to the Chicago chapter of The Federalist Society, Justice Antonin Scalia dismissed this seminar as a “waste of time.”

Lawrence was lead counsel on our first federal class action, Oliver v. Chicago Housing Authority, which successfully challenged CHA’s failure to adequately notify its lowest-income residents about their right to request a hardship exemption to the minimum rent requirement.

In 2026, Lawrence received from the Chicago Bar Foundation the Thomas J. Morsch Award, the premier public recognition for long-time legal aid and public interest law attorneys in Chicago.

Lawrence is also a published author. After winning The New Yorker’s Cartoon Caption Contest a record-setting eight times (and becoming a finalist fifteen times), he wrote Your Caption Has Been Selected; More Than Anyone Could Possibly Want To Know About The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest (St Martin’s Press, 2024). Bob Mankoff, The New Yorker’s former cartoon editor, wrote the forward.

Lawrence can be reached at lwood@legalactionchicago.org

Dan Schneider is a nationally-recognized attorney, policy advocate, and campaign strategist. He has successfully led high-impact litigation and policy initiatives to improve the lives of people living in poverty.

Dan served as class counsel in Oliver v. Chicago Housing Authority, a landmark federal class action challenging the Authority's overcharging its residents for rent. He was also instrumental in securing the establishment of major discount rate programs for every major gas, electric, and water utility in Illinois between 2023-2025, and has led efforts to pass state laws to protect consumers, domestic violence survivors, and children facing eviction. He also serves as class counsel in Kidd v. Pappas, a lawsuit against Cook County over its failure to properly compensate dispossessed homeowners under the Fifth and Eighth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Beyond the courtroom, Dan has played key roles in a number of campaigns, leveraging his legal and policy acumen to drive successful electoral and legislative outcomes. He collaborates closely with community groups, civil legal service providers, and government stakeholders to identify and address pressing issues that harm people and communities. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School summa cum laude in 2017, and received his B.A. magna cum laude from Emerson College in 2012.

Dan can be reached at dschneider@legalactionchicago.org

Lindsay graduated from New York University School of Law in 2013, and spent her first six years of practice as an attorney at the Roger Baldwin Foundation of the ACLU. She then joined the Children and Family Practice Group at Legal Aid Chicago before moving to Legal Action Chicago in October of 2024.

Lindsay can be reached at lsmiller@legalactionchicago.org

Periwinkle is a current MPH student studying Health Policy and Administration at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and a 2025 graduate from the University of Michigan, where they majored in Women's and Gender Studies. During their time at the University of Michigan, Peri conducted research on higher education LGBTQ+ health services and higher education DEI policies and worked as a peer educator and First-Year Prevention Programming Coordinator at the Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center. Throughout their studies and work, Peri has been dedicated to improving the health and wellness of marginalized communities through health policy, in particular for LGBTQ+ communities.

Periwinkle's guiding motto in life is "do no harm," which extends from the interpersonal to the community. In their free time, Peri loves to read, make art, cook, be active, and frolic in nature. They value human connection and play, and love laughing with those around them.

Sam is Of Counsel with Legal Action Chicago, where she helps lead the organization’s policy work. In this role, Sam has led the agency’s work on Karina’s Law, a groundbreaking piece of legislation that provides a survivor-driven path to remove firearms from an abuser’s possession, as well as legislation that provides key protections for children placed in alternative schools, protects minors named in eviction actions, and increases penalties when farmworkers are sprayed with pesticides, among others. She is also principal at the Danu Center for Strategic Advocacy.

Until 2018, Sam was the Director of Policy at Heartland Alliance, a 130-year-old social service agency dedicated to advancing human rights. Prior to Heartland, Sam worked to protect the rights of people experiencing poverty and injustice through civil rights litigation and legislative advocacy at the Shriver Center on Poverty Law. She began her career at Legal Aid Chicago providing civil legal services to low-income families.

Sam received her law degree from the University of Michigan Law School in 2002 and earned her BA summa cum laude from the University of Minnesota in 1999. She clerked for Judge Terri Stoneburner at the Minnesota Court of Appeals immediately following law school. In her spare time, Sam enjoys falling down internet holes (about gardening), her bicycles, and cultivating her nieces’ interest in science fiction and fantasy.

Leah Levinger is a staff attorney at Legal Action Chicago and a dedicated policy advocate in the housing justice movement. She serves as one of Legal Action Chicago’s class counsel in Henry Horner Mothers Guild v. Chicago Housing Authority, where she represents Horner-Westhaven residents in the implementation of a landmark federal civil rights consent decree. Leah also serves as a liaison to support the housing advocacy work of several Chicago community organizations, and consults with stakeholders inside and outside government on improvements to local housing policy. Before joining Legal Action Chicago’s staff, Leah worked as a staff attorney at the Shriver Center on Poverty Law and at the Connecticut Fair Housing Center, where she litigated on behalf of persons experiencing housing discrimination.

Before law school, Leah spent 15 years as a tenant organizer and nonprofit executive director in Chicago. She co-founded several community organizations and coalitions including Southside Together, Neighbors for Affordable Housing, and the Chicago Housing Initiative, a coalition that won new citywide affordability protections and improvements to federal housing law. Her work in these capacities led to the rehabilitation and development of thousands of affordable housing units.
Leah graduated from Yale Law School, where she served as a lead editor of the Yale Law and Policy Review. As a law student, she did clinical work pertaining to community and economic development and externed with the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office in their rights-affirming litigation division. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Chicago with a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities.

Leah can be reached at llevinger@legalactionchicago.org