FDLA was established in 1995 with the core purpose of maintaining a 24-hour hotline, 1-800-LAW-REP-4, through which all Chicago residents could be connected immediately with an attorney who would provide general legal advice and actual police station representation for free. FDLA became an independent corporation in 2002 and a 501(c)(3) organization in 2003. FDLA's main focus is still the custody hotline, upon which Chicagoans have grown to depend. Today, FDLA also provides educational outreach, participates in community organizing, and engages in systemic reform activities.

FDLA’s mission is unique nationally and in the Chicago community. FDLA provides a free, reliable, and experienced lawyer to individuals who are arrested in the city of Chicago. Staff and volunteer attorneys are on call 24-hours a day to assist and advise individuals who have been taken into police custody. FDLA is the only source of free legal representation available to indigent Chicagoans during a criminal investigation. A public defender is not appointed until the initial court appearance.

To protect the rights of individuals in police custody, FDLA maintains three programs: 1) FDLA’s Custody Hotline; 2) Community Outreach and Education; and 3) Advocacy. Callers to FDLA’s custody hotline receive free legal representation for individuals in Chicago police custody, 24-hours a day, 365 days a year. The hotline is manned by volunteer attorneys and FDLA staff. During station visits, FDLA attorneys ensure that clients’ constitutional rights to remain silent and to counsel are protected. In 2010, the United States Supreme Court held in Berghuis v. Thompkins, relatively counter intuitively, that a person in custody must assert their right to remain silent by breaking that silence and telling the police that they do not want to speak. The documents created by FDLA attorneys during station visits ensure that this requirement is met. The attorney also gathers information about the alleged offense, potential witnesses, and/or possible constitutional violations, and, if appropriate, may pass that information along to the investigating police officers, State’s Attorney, or (if the client is charged) his or her defense attorney. If charged, the attorney provides the client with bond information and an overview of the criminal justice process. The attorney also provides a critical communication link to the client’s family, who otherwise might not have any information about what is happening to their loved one. If a hotline call is received from a person not in police custody, FDLA’s attorneys still provide general legal advice and information and may refer the caller to an appropriate civil legal aid organization or other community resource as needed. To prevent police misconduct before an individual in custody has access to legal representation, FLDA conducts community outreach and educational sessions. These public education sessions teach individuals about their constitutional rights and empower individuals to exercise those rights. FDLA’s Streetlaw sessions, taught throughout the city to community organizations and schools, inform individuals about their rights, how to exercise them, and how to act during encounters with the police and when in police custody. Finally, FDLA works with a number of organizations to advocate for reform of the criminal justice system. FDLA is an executive committee member of the Coalition for Chicago Police Accountability (CCPA). The CCPA includes a number of organizations including the Chicago Justice Project and the American Civil Liberties Union. The CCPA addresses broad systemic problems such as police brutality, the prevalence of false confessions, videotaping, and the composition of the Chicago Police Board. The CCPA regularly meets with the Independent Police Review Authority, the Chicago Police Superintendent and Internal Affairs Director, and Chicago Aldermen to voice the community’s concerns on these and other issues.