• Cristo Rey Jesuit High School serves low-income and minority youth on the Southwest Side of Chicago. Katten is part of the school’s innovative workstudy program, which places students in office-based jobs with income earned disbursed directly to the school to defray tuition costs.
• In 2003, Katten forged a partnership with Philo Carpenter Elementary School, an inner-city Chicago Public School that provides a standard curriculum and bilingual and special education programs for children in Head Start through eighth grade. Katten attorneys and staff work directly with the students and teachers of Philo Carpenter on programs designed to improve students’ literacy, increase their use of technology, and encourage and award academic achievement.
• Katten’s Women’s Leadership Forum is committed to volunteering and sponsoring various service projects at Simpson Academy for Young Women, the only Chicago Public School exclusively for pregnant and parenting students (grades 6–12). The firm’s attorneys engage students in a variety of projects designed to help them develop critical life skills, particularly in the areas of parenting and careers.
• For over 10 years, associates from Katten’s New York office have served as coaches and mentors for the Townsend Harris High School Moot Court/Mock Trial Team. Students at Townsend come from diverse backgrounds and are known for their high level of academic achievement. Katten associates teach team members how to read legal opinions, structure legal arguments and conduct direct and cross examinations.
• Katten’s Los Angeles office has partnered with the Constitutional Rights Foundation’s Youth Internship Program, which places low-income urban high school students from the Los Angeles area as paid interns at law firms, businesses and government agencies.

Through the pro bono work of our attorneys, Katten steadfastly supports numerous organizations dedicated to advancing the rights and welfare of women and persons of color, including:

• Cabrini Green Legal Aid Clinic
• Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Inc.
• Domestic Violence Legal Clinic
• Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund
• Rainbow PUSH Coalition
• Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs

The firm’s commitment to diversity is also demonstrated by its sponsorship of numerous community organizations and programs such as:

• American Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession
• American Heart Association’s Go Red For Women
• Black Women Lawyers’ Association of Greater Chicago, Inc.
• Business and Professional Women of Illinois
• Chicago Bar Association’s Alliance for Women
• Coalition of Women’s Initiatives in Law Firms
• Corporate Counsel Women of Color
• GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation)
• Goodman Theatre Diversity Nights
• Joffrey Ballet Affinity Nights
• Lambda Legal
• Mexican American Bar Foundation
• Minority Corporate Counsel Association
• National Association of Women Lawyers
• New York Women's Bar Association
• POWER: Opening Doors for Women^®
• The Conference Board
• The White House Project
• Urban Arts Partnership
• Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles
• Women’s Leadership Coalition