Contributor

John Bouman

President, Shriver Center

John Bouman was named president of the Shriver Center effective January 1, 2007. He also remains the Shriver Center's director of advocacy, his position since 1996. He joined the Shriver Center in May 1996 after twenty-one years at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago, where he supervised public benefits issues and policy advocacy from 1985. Prior to that, he provided multi-issue direct representation in several Chicago neighborhoods for nine years and held a position as a specialist in the foundation's Elderly Law Project. He has won numerous awards for his career and accomplishments in antipoverty legal and advocacy work. He is recognized for being one of the most effective and thoughtful public-benefit advocates in the country. He was a leader in the design and implementation of positive aspects of Illinois's new welfare law in 1997. Recently he led the successful statewide effort to create the FamilyCare program to provide health care insurance to up to 300,000 working poor parents of minor children, and he was a leader in the successful advocacy to create All Kids, the first state program of universal coverage for children. Bouman is lead counsel in Memisovski v. Maram, a successful case establishing substantial reforms in children's health care in Illinois. He is a founding and current member of the steering committee of the National Transitional Jobs Network. He is a frequent lecturer and trainer on a variety of social policy, advocacy, and lawyering subjects. He is a 1975 graduate of Valparaiso University School of Law and member of the Chicago Council of Lawyers and the Chicago Bar Association.