Attorney Janice Dantes, Practicing Lawyer

Janice Dantes was born in what was formerly known as Clark Air Force Base in Angeles City in the Philippines. When she was three years old, her father was honorably discharged from the U.S. Air Force and relocated the family to his hometown of Chicago.

Janice attended elementary school at St. Robert Bellarmine. She then attended high school at Mother Guerin High School where she graduated at the top of her class. She attended the University of Chicago where she was active in Samahan, the Filipino Student Association. She balanced two jobs and her studies to graduate with honors in 2005 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Public Policy.

Following her graduation, she was a research analyst for the National Opinion Research Center and the City Colleges of Chicago. While working at City Colleges of Chicago, she attended DePaul University College of Law in the evenings. She obtained her J.D. from Depaul in 2012. She passed the Illinois Bar in 2013, the same year she welcomed her first son Kai.

The legal market was still struggling to recover after the recession. Janice worked at CVS Caremark as an analyst until she was accepted as part of the Chicago Bar Foundation’s Justice Entrepreneur Project. Through this program, Janice opened her own practice focused on serving Chicago’s Filipino community with their family law issues.

She has been practicing law for 6 years now with an office in downtown Chicago at 35 East Wacker. Recently, she was recognized as a 2019 Illinois Rising Star in SuperLawyers and she is a2017 Via Times Hall of Famer. She is also a columnist with Via Times. She is currently the Vice President of The Filipino American Lawyers Association of Chicago and recently opened a pro bono legal clinic in partnership with the Chicago Volunteer Legal Services (CVLS) focused on serving Filipinos. The next clinic will be held at Seafood City from 2 pm to 4 pm on June 22, 2019.

Janice focuses her practice on family law because there is a tremendous need in the Filipino community for services with divorce, child support, and child custody issues. Coming from a strongly Catholic tradition and a country where divorce is still illegal, there are few resources for Filipinos seeking support and advice with marital issues. Further, these issues tend to negatively effect women who may feel trapped in abusive marriages or women who became pregnant out of wedlock.

Janice lives in downtown Chicago with her husband Ian Sharping, who is also a lawyer, and their three sons Kai, Leo, and Mason.