Colby Kingsbury Receives Faegre Baker Daniels' 2011 Pro Bono Award

Faegre Baker Daniels LLP has presented the 2011 Charles L. Whistler Award to Colby Anne Kingsbury, a partner in the firm's Chicago office, in recognition of her career-long commitment to pro bono service.

Presented annually since 2006, The Charles L. Whistler Award honors a lawyer or consultant at Faegre Baker Daniels who has excelled in pro bono service or made outstanding contributions to the firm's pro bono program. The award is named for a former partner of the firm who was deeply involved in consolidating Indianapolis local government, promoting urban beautification, modernizing downtown Indianapolis and promoting creative use of historical buildings. 

Kingsbury was selected for this honor because she shares the qualities of energy, vision and dedication to the community exhibited by Whistler during his lifetime. Throughout her career, she has served incarcerated individuals, immigrants and youth, both by providing direct pro bono representation to clients and by leading the organization and expansion of pro bono service delivery within the firm and the Chicago community.

A litigator, Kingsbury has represented various inmates of the Cook County Jail in multiple Section 1983 civil rights actions seeking relief from excessive force by institutional staff and inadequate protection from other inmates. Since 2000, she has co-counseled with the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois in a federal action to represent a class of detained youth at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center. The litigation has resulted in improved confinement conditions for all children at the facility. The ACLU awarded Colby the prestigious Annetta Dieckman Award in 2009 in recognition of her outstanding volunteer work on this case.

Kingsbury has also represented immigrants seeking asylum in the United States based on natural disasters and claims for withholding of removal and relief under the Convention Against Torture. She serves on the Litigation Steering Committee for the National Immigrant Justice Center, addressing complex immigration litigation matters.

In the community, Kingsbury is president of the board of directors for the James B. Moran Center for Youth Advocacy in Evanston, Ill., a multi-disciplinary center that provides legal and social services to low-income youth and their families. She was instrumental in opening a legal advice clinic at the Moran Center, a resource previously unavailable in the surrounding community.

The award was presented to Kingsbury at a firmwide meeting in Chicago on Feb. 9, 2012. In his remarks, Faegre Baker Daniels Chief Operating Partner Tom Froehle described Kingsbury as a "unique and precious resource" to the Chicago and Faegre Baker Daniels pro bono communities.