Jill M. Metz has spent her 34-year career litigating, advocating and educating the public about LGBT legal issues. Ms. Metz is a Loyola University of Chicago School of Law graduate from 1978.
Ms. Metz serves as the President of the Board of Directors for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Illinois. She is a renowned and experienced lawyer, who is repeatedly engaged to speak about estate planning, civil unions, second parent adoption, and domestic relations law.
Her most recent speaking engagements include addressing the impact of the Illinois Civil Union Act on financial matters, including estate planning, and on custody matters, including adoption, with Morningstar.com and the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in its series “Money Matter”. Since the passage of the Illinois Civil Union Act, she has spoken on the changing estate, adoption and domestic relations laws at The Governor's Office of the General Counsel, Wildman Harrold Allen & Dixon LLP, Mesirow Financial, Schiller DuCanto & Fleck Family Law Center at DePaul University College of Law, and Loyola University School of Law’s public interest retreat.
Ms. Metz’s involvement in the gay and lesbian community reaches far beyond providing specialized legal services. She was inducted into the Lesbian and Gay Hall of Fame in 2006 for her outstanding work in the law and in support of and for the LGBT community. She is the past legislative liaison for Lesbian and Gay Rights Committee of the Chicago Bar Association, former Chair of the Lesbian and Gay Rights Project of the ACLU, former President of the Andersonville Chamber of Commerce, and former Treasurer of Stonewall Democrats. Ms. Metz worked tirelessly for the passage of the Illinois Civil Union Act that became effective law on June 1, 2010, and continues to work for marriage equality.
