Mary E Anderson

Mary E. Anderson is currently the Executive Director of Stand for Children Illinois. Stand for Children is a not-for-profit lobbying organization, as well as a political action committee focused on education reform. Prior to this, she served as the Senior Advisor to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. Prior to joining General Madigan's administration, Mary was a Senior Associate at the law firm Goldberg Kohn and served in the firm's Litigation Group. She has also served as Deputy Inspector General for the Office of Executive Inspector General of the Agencies of the Illinois Governor, where she oversaw investigations of fraud, corruption and abuse in state government, as well as drafted legislation on ethics reform issues. After clerking for Judge David H. Coar of the Northern District of Illinois, she was a Skadden Fellow for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, where she represented homeless children on education issues. She then served as a staff attorney at Business and Professional People for the Public Interest where she worked on housing and civil rights issues. In 2003, she joined Governor Blagojevich's administration as his Senior Counsel. Mary has a law degree from New York University School of Law, where she was a Root-Tilden-Snow Scholar and a staff editor on The Review of Law and Social Change; a Masters in Public Affairs from Princeton University Woodrow Wilson School; and a Bachelors Degree with Honors from Swarthmore College, where she was a Harry S. Truman Scholar. She is currently President and a Member of the Board of the Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice, a research and advocacy organization focused on issues of social justice, and she has recently finished a fellowship in the Leadership Greater Chicago program. She is also a past president and board member of the Lesbian and Gay Bar Association of Chicago.