LGBTQIA+ Committee (1/23/26)

Topics: The Importance of Powers of Attorney in the LGBTQIA+ Community 

(IL Diversity/Inclusion PR MCLE credit for live webcast only. No IL MCLE credit for archived committee meetings.)

Speaker:
Michael Stone, Executive Director, Center for Disability and Elder Law (CDEL) 

Michael Stone is the Executive Director of the Center for Disability & Elder Law (CDEL).  As Executive Director, Michael leads a team of attorneys and other legal professionals in delivering critical legal services and develops legal and organizational strategies for the non-profit law firm.  Prior to becoming Executive Director, Michael was the organization’s Legal Director, ensuring the high quality of CDEL’s legal services and supervising the work of staff attorneys, interns and volunteer attorneys.  

Michael began his legal career at the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis as an associate attorney in the firm’s corporate department. He later served as General Counsel for the Cook County Assessor’s Office and Chief Deputy Assessor of the Cook County Assessor.  He has also served as Chief of Staff to the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority.  Prior to joining CDEL, Michael was an attorney in private practice.

In 2024, Michael was appointed by Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker to the Multi-Sector Plan for Aging Community Advisory Council, a state-wide commission tasked with creating a 10-year blueprint to support healthy aging in Illinois communities and set clear, measurable objectives for evaluating public and private sector progress toward this goal. Michael is also a member of the Illinois Legal Aid Racial Justice Alliance, a state-wide commission funded by the Illinois Lawyers Trust Fund that is tasked with developing an apparatus for the Illinois legal aid community to further internal racial justice and diversity efforts, while also developing tools to apply a racial justice lens to organizational external systemic advocacy.  Previously, Michael served as a Keystone Leader for the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Preservation Compact, a MacArthur Foundation and Urban Land Institute led task force on preserving affordable housing.  He was also a member of Mayor Richard M. Daley’s Task Force on Property Tax Reform.  He was previously appointed as a member of the inaugural Illinois Racial Equity Collective Cohort, a Forefront initiative designed to build a sustainable statewide cross-sector partnership to reimagine how regional partners can engage with one another to collectively advance racial equity.

Michael has been elected Clerk of the Board of Directors of the Harvard Gender and Sexuality Caucus, a non-profit organization of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Harvard University and Radcliffe College alumni/ae, faculty, staff and students. He is a 2025 OneJustice Executive Fellow.  Michael is also a member of the Auxiliary Board of Directors of the Center on Halsted, the midwest’s most comprehensive community center dedicated to advancing community and securing the health and well-being of the LGBT+ community, and is the Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the Lighthouse Foundation of Chicagoland, a Black and LGBT+ led social justice organization.  He is also a member of the OUTAging Committee, an organization that focuses on the issues and gaps in services, policy, resources and other opportunities for LGBT+ older adults and monitors the progress of the Illinois Commission on LGBT+ aging.  He has served as a judge for the University of Chicago Law School Public Service and James C. Hormel Service Awards since 2024. 
Michael attended Harvard University as an undergraduate and earned a degree as a double major in Government and Economics with cum laude distinction.  He earned his Juris Doctorate from The University of Chicago Law School.

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