Prairie State Legal Services Hires Katie Liss as Deputy Director of Litigation
She has a passion for social justice, and legal aid work is, at its core, about empowering and standing up for people. And she said there is nothing that she can get behind more than that.
Prairie State Legal Services is pleased to announce it has hired Katie Liss as Deputy Director of Litigation. In her role, she will work out of our West Suburban office and assist the Director of Litigation to provide leadership and oversight of program-wide legal services. She also will provide litigation support for appeals and complex cases, and assist with training.
Katie is no stranger to Prairie State. She began her career as a Seniors’ Project Staff Attorney at Prairie State’s Waukegan office from 2008-2011 and remembers the dedication that Prairie State had not only to its clients, but to training and mentoring new attorneys. “Prairie State showed patience and grace as I was learning and taught me the skills I needed to become an excellent litigator,” Katie said. “I am excited to be a part of that again.”
Katie also worked for Ascend Justice as a family law attorney and then for several years as a senior attorney in Legal Aid Chicago’s Consumer Practice Group, where her practice included bankruptcy, foreclosure defense, student loan issues, and consumer fraud. Katie has litigated successful appeals in both state and federal court.
From March 2020-June 2021, Katie worked as Director of the Anti-Predatory Lending Database (APLD), Consumer Complaints and Investigations for the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation-Division of Banking. Katie implemented changes that brought more accountability to the APLD and she also aided in the creation of a new state law which incentivizes safer mortgage lending practices by state-regulated financial institutions to low- and moderate-income communities.
“Prairie State has so many talented and seasoned attorneys and as Deputy Director of Litigation I get to work alongside them to provide additional support on some of their most challenging and complex cases,” Katie concluded. “In the next year, I plan to learn as much as I can from Director of Litigation Sarah Megan, to get to know the Prairie State attorneys, and support both in any way that I can. I also hope to apply my consumer and bankruptcy law experience.”
Katie is a past chair, vice-chair and presenter for the Chicago Bar Association’s Consumer Law Committee. She is a graduate of UW-Madison and the Loyola University Chicago School of Law. She recently relocated from Chicago to Geneva, where she and her family are excited to be in closer proximity not only to Prairie State, but also to nature.