Courtney R. Kelledes

I will fight for you to regain your rights and maintain your dignity after arrest. My work with you starts by listening to your goals and taking the time to explain your legal options. Together we will determine what legal remedies are available for your situation and can best position you so that the past does not close doors to your future.

I am an attorney for people that have been arrested in Illinois, some recently and some many years ago. I represent people that have old cases causing them issues, people with new pending charges, and those that are currently in prison. I’ve focused my entire legal career on working with people impacted by the criminal legal system, and have been representing clients with criminal records since 2011. Before co-founding my current social justice law firm, Rights and Restoration Law Group, I worked for community-based organizations and nonprofits.

Because I truly believe that someone’s prior record is not representative of who they are today, I represent clients regardless of the types of arrests and convictions on their background. This includes people who have faced the smallest misdemeanor charges or the most serious of violent felony offenses. There are five guiding principles to how I think about my work as an attorney advocate: #1. We have all made mistakes in our lives; #2. Change is possible; #3. The ongoing punishments - like loss of job opportunities, housing denials, and loss of constitutional rights - faced by people with arrests and convictions are fundamentally unfair; #4. There are people that end up in trouble merely because of the neighborhood in which they live or how they look; and #5. Every person and every case is unique even when things might look similar, which means every client deserves an individualized review and approach to their case.