Beth Johnson serves as Project Consultant for New Leaf Illinois. As a Senior Consultant through thredpartners, she provides support to legal aid and nonprofit organizations across the country in assessing, strengthening, and implementing their programs and initiatives. Beth is a Managing Partner of Rights and Restoration Law Group, a woman-owned, Chicago-based social justice law firm focused on eliminating legal and systemic barriers imposed by past arrest and conviction records.
Beth dedicated the first fifteen years of her twenty-year legal career to Cabrini Green Legal Aid (CGLA), leading the newly established Criminal Records Program, before serving as Director of Legal Programs and Senior Policy Advisor.
Over her career, she has represented thousands of clients across Illinois and trained, mentored, and supervised hundreds of attorneys and law students. In addition to direct legal representation and support, she has collaborated with individual advocates and coalition partners to help pass more than a dozen laws that reduce collateral consequences, mitigate the harm caused by incarceration, and expand record relief options. She finds the greatest fulfillment in providing technical and consultative support to advocates and organizations committed to advancing even stronger policies and practices.
Beth is a published author through the Illinois Institute of Continuing Legal (IICLE): Expungement and Sealing: A Lawyer’s Guide (2016, 2021, 2024). She serves on the Access to Justice Commission: Forms Committee – Adult Expungement Subcommittee and is the Board Chair for the Illinois Prison Project Action Fund.