Anne Geraghty Helms

Anne Geraghty Helms is Director and Counsel for US Pro Bono Programs and is responsible for helping to develop, lead and manage the firm’s pro bono program in the United States.

Anne concentrates her own practice on juvenile and criminal justice issues and, since joining DLA Piper in 2006, has helped to develop, and has herself worked on, a number of initiatives in this area. Through the Chicago office’s signature Juvenile Justice Project, she successfully defended a 15-year-old girl who had been charged with attempted murder, helped to secure the release and acquittal of a young man who was tried as an adult and received a lengthy prison sentence when he was only 15, and worked with trial teams from DLA Piper that obtained not guilty verdicts on behalf of two high school seniors charged with serious crimes. She contributed to From Juvenile Court to the Classroom: The Need for Effective Child Advocacy, a report released by the firm which examines the issues children face when they are transferred from detention back into the school system, and was the principal author of a report released by the Illinois Coalition for the Fair Sentencing of Youth in 2008, Categorically Less Culpable: Children Sentenced to Life Without Possibility of Parole in Illinois. She also has worked with community groups around criminal records issues and particularly, the expungement of juvenile records.

Although principally focused on juvenile and criminal justice issues, Anne also has worked on a range of initiatives that touch on pro bono and access to justice issues. She helped to found and manages the firm’s free legal clinic in the Woodlawn neighborhood of Chicago, co-drafted the 2012 Report of the Legal Services Corporation’s Pro Bono Task Force, and has presented at several law schools in Mexico City on pro bono and juvenile justice as part of the firm’s New Perimeter project focused on helping to strengthen pro bono culture in Mexico.

Anne was a member of the 2012 Class of Leadership Greater Chicago and sits on the Georgetown Law Chicago Alumni Council and the Chicago Committee of Human Rights Watch.