About

West Town Law Office

 

For 42 years, West Town Law Office has been a community-based law office in the heart of the Puerto Rican community. Attorney Melinda Power has worked in the law office for 42 years. The office specializes in criminal defense, and civil rights. West Town Law Office is proud to represent our clients, many of whom have been falsely arrested, falsely accused and physically abused by the police. We also are committed to representing people who have been arrested protesting the many injustices that are rampant in this society.

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We work closely with the Puerto Rican community and aim to listen to the needs of the community in which we are located. Additionally, this office has a proud history of representing people arrested due to their political convictions. Melinda Power represented Alejandrina Torres, convicted of seditious conspiracy for her commitment to fight for Independence for Puerto Rico.

Ms. Power has also represented protesters who opposed U. S. intervention in Central America in the 1980s. She, along with a team of attorneys, successfully won two mass criminal trials using the necessity defense. That defense enabled those arrested to present evidence that convinced juries that the defendants' actions in trespassing on U.S. military bases were necessary to prevent the greater harm of U.S. war in Central America.

In the 1990s, Attorney Melinda Power successfully represented protesters arrested protesting the first Gulf War in 1991; women who opposed pornography; and supporters of locked-out Staley workers in Decatur, Illinois. More recently, Attorney Power, with a team of lawyers from the National Lawyers Guild, fought and won a nine year legal battle on behalf of the 850 people wrongly detained and arrested by the Chicago police on March 20, 2003.

Ms. Power represented one of the anti-NATO protesters arrested in May 2012 protesting the U.S. government’s massive economic support for war and its minimal support for education, jobs and housing. She arranged for her client, Mr. Senakiewicz, to go to "boot camp", which he successfully completed.

More recently, Attorney Melinda Power successfully represented protesters arrested as part of the Black Lives Matter protests. And, she was part of a legal team representing protesters arrested at Standing Rock, North Dakota, while they peacefully voiced their opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline. She won every case she had.

Most recently, she is representing people who have been arrested for supporting Palestine and opposing ICE.

Attorney Power now represents people in the Central District of Illinois charged with criminal offenses, opening up a new geographical area of her practice.

 

Member of:

  • National Lawyers Guild

  • National Police Accountability Project

  • Volunteered with First Defense Legal Aid

  • Illinois Coalition Against Torture founding member

  • Water Protectors Legal Collective, founded to support the Standing Rock protest in North Dakota

  • CJA attorney, Criminal Justice attorney in the Federal Court in the Central District of Illinois

Teaching Experience:

  • Taught Civil Rights Law, DePaul Law School, Chicago.