Erin Duncan

Board Member

Erin Duncan is a staff attorney with Prairie State Legal Services' Justice, Equity & Opportunity Program, which employs a community lawyering model to address inequities in targeted low-income neighborhoods including racial inequality, threats to adequate housing, and barriers to residents' efforts to be self-sufficient. The program is funded by the State of Illinois' R3 ("Restore, Reinvest, Renew") grant for Illinois communities that have been harmed by violence, excessive incarceration, and economic disinvestment. Erin came to legal aid in Bloomington from private practice in Corvallis, Oregon, where she practiced family law and specialized in resolving high-conflict cases including issues of domestic violence and child abuse through a trauma-informed lens.

Erin earned a B.A. in English at Seattle University and her Juris Doctor with a Certificate in Public Interest Law and civil rights specialization at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon. She completed a circuit court judicial clerkship after law school, and worked as a paralegal assistant in plaintiffs'-side complex litigation practice prior to law school. Her community involvement includes serving on the allocations committee for a hospital foundation board, chairing a Young Women in Public Affairs high school scholarship committee, and chairing the Legal Redress Committee for the Linn and Benton County, Oregon chapter of the NAACP. Erin is currently co-chair of the McLean County Housing Assistance Coalition, convened by United Way in response to the covid-19 pandemic.

Erin has a passion for helping people but takes breaks to spend time with her family, including her elementary-school-aged daughter and husband Phil, a professor at Eureka College. She enjoys reading, cooking, music, and spending time in nature.