[Illinois] [Cook County] how do I navigate finding a pro-bono lawyer to help me with finding additional info about my childhood sexual assault case.
For full context feel free to read these two posts
TL;DR over the past six months I've been on a healing journey to work through my PTSD by find it closure from my brother and I being molested by a family friend's grandfather. "grandpa Charlie" pled guilty so my brother and I didn't have to testify- and now, 28 years later, I am on a deep investigative journey to find out about this boogeyman. The only thing I knew what that he went to prison.
I recieved a massive envelope of documents from the states attorney office (I live in Illinois, cook county to be exact) in response to my FOIA. whoever got the paperwork literally shoved it in this envelope and every piece was out of order and some even ripped. I spent six hours last night organizing them into piles to try to piece everything together. The original court transcripts and the transcript of his appeals weren't even numbered. It's been a nightmare compiling all of it. It's been very overwhelming not only reading through this stuff, but also decoding the legal jargon and trying to put the paperwork in order.
The two main questions I still need answers for are simple: was his appeals for early release granted, and did he/when did he die? I recieved over 50 pages of his appeals court transcripts/documents but zero information about what the outcome was. His grounds on why he tried to get an appeal is one of the most traumatic things I've ever read- his lawyer fought that he didn't understand what "penetration" meant and because he didn't rape me with his penis, he was unfairly charged and plead "under duress".
I have a friend I met via Reddit who's helped me every step of the way but were unsure where to go from here- and I think I need a lawyer to just give me advice. I contacted the Illinois legal aid organization and left a message but I know how unlikely it is I will get a phone call back.
My question is, do lawyers do pro-bono stuff for simply asking advice and/or helping me resubmit the FOIA paperwork? Is there a different network/organization that has a directory for these lawyers? Is this simply something I could google lawyers and inquire about? If so, what type of lawyer should be contacting? Please help.
For anyone curious, this was how I received the documents. I appreciate whoever at the clerks office found all the paperwork for me, but it sure was dissapoint ing to recieve it all like this. I literally had to tape pages together :/