ISBA Bar News, November 15, 2002

Thursday, Dec. 5, 12 noon Intellectual Property Section open brown-bag luncheon and program on recent U.S. Supreme Court patent law decisions; Chicago Regional Office.

Thursday, Dec. 12-Saturday, Dec. 14 Midyear Meeting in conjunction with Illinois Judges Association convention; Sheraton Chicago Hotel (see pages 12 and 13 for details).

Friday, Dec. 13, 8 a.m. Fellows of the Illinois Bar Foundation buffet breakfast and presentation of Distinguished Service to Law and Society Award to R. Michael Henderson; Sheraton Chicago Hotel.

Saturday, Dec. 14, 9 a.m. ISBA Assembly meeting; Sheraton Hotel and Towers, Chicago.

Tuesday, Dec. 17, 9 a.m.-4:15 p.m. Young Lawyers Division Bridge the Gap seminar for new attorneys; Crowne Plaza Hotel, Springfield.

Saturday, Jan. 11, 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Small but Dynamic Law Firm Conference; Holiday Inn, Collinsville.

Friday, Jan. 31, 9 a.m. Board of Governors meeting; Park Hyatt Hotel, Chicago.

March 14-15 High School Mock Trials; Springfield.

Friday, April 4, 9 a.m. Board of Governors meeting; Par-a-Dice Hotel, East Peoria.

Friday-Saturday, April 11-12 Young Lawyers Division/Appellate Lawyers Association annual law school moot court competition; Daley Center, Chicago.

May 14 Mental Health Law Day program; James R. Thompson Center, Chicago.

Friday, May 16, 9 a.m. Board of Governors meeting; Chicago Regional Office.

June 8-10 U.S. Supreme Court admission ceremony and related events; Marriott Hotel, Washington, D.C.

June 19-22 127th Annual Meeting; The Abbey on Lake Geneva, Fontana, Wis.

Jackson County Bar adds $5,000 to legal aid fund

The Jackson County Bar Association has jump-started a fund-raising initiative for the Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation with a $5,000 contribution to the Campaign for Equal Justice.

Launched by area attorneys and prominent citizens, the campaign will support efforts by Land of Lincoln's Murphysboro office to provide civil legal services to some 45,000 low-income residents in 13 southern Illinois counties where the incidence of poverty is above the state average.

Rural legal aid programs have been affected by cuts in federal funding. Due to population shifts and a lower per-capita funding rate, Land of Lincoln expects a drop of more than $750,000 during the next fiscal year.

The federal funding formula does not take into account the size of a rural service area, or the fact that poverty occurs disproportionately among residents of rural areas.

The gift presented last month by Jackson County Bar President Sandra Fogel recognizes the exceptional work of the Murphysboro office, where more than 850 cases were closed in 2001 by only four staff attorneys.

Murphysboro attorney Diane M. Goffinet chairs the Campaign for Equal Justice, and former senator Paul Simon is honorary chair. Committee members include Shari R. Rhode, vice chair of the ISBA Federal Civil Practice Section Council and member of the Labor and Employment Law Section Council, and Alice M. Noble-Allgire of the Committee on Women and the Law.

Others are Michael Fiello, Jeffrey Goffinet, Sandi Gordon, W. Charles Grace, Richard Green, Todd Lambert, Paul Matalonis, Kathy Mattern, Brian McElheny, C. David Nelson, Gerald Reed and Woody Thorne.

Mark your calendar

Monday, Nov. 18, from 5:30 to 7 p.m., the Coordinated Advice and Referral Program for Legal Services (CARPLS) will hold its 10th anniversary reception and award presentations at Sidley, Austin, Brown & Wood, Chicago. Cook County Circuit Clerk Dorothy Brown will speak. Call Bill Massolia at (312) 421-4014.

Thursday, Nov. 21, at 5:30 p.m., the Center on Wrongful Convictions of the Northwestern University School of Law will open its annual benefit reception, dinner and award presentations in the Westin River North Hotel, Chicago. Call Jennifer Linzer at (312) 503-5666.

Intervention training slated

An intervention training session will be conducted by the Lawyers' Assistance Program from 12 noon to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 20, at Provena St. Mary's Hospital in Kankakee. Lunch will be provided. Call (312) 726-6607.

The session will be conducted by professional clinicians to teach volunteers how they can help lawyers, judges and law students who have alcohol, drug and mental health problems.

LAP also will conduct a peer assistance training program from 12 noon to 5 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 12, at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel during the ISBA Midyear Meeting.

Pair of judges named to bench in Cook County

Two Chicago attorneys Leslie R. Curcio and LeRoy K. Martin Jr. have been appointed to serve as judges of the Cook County Circuit Court through Dec. 6, 2004.

Curcio, whose appointment begins Dec. 2, will fill the vacancy of Judge Frank M. Siracusa when he retires Dec. 1 after more than 38 years in the Probate Division (see photo at right).

A 1989 graduate of the Loyola University School of Law, attending night classes while working as an assistant vice president at the Harris Trust and Savings Bank, Curcio has been a plaintiff personal injury trial lawyer for 10 years with her uncle, Joseph R. Curcio.

She has served on the Supreme Court Committee on Character and Fitness in the 1st District since 1995.

Martin, whose appointment began last month, is a 1984 graduate of the North Carolina Central University School of Law who has served on the Chicago Zoning Board of Appeals since 1990.

He has been a solo practitioner in criminal law, domestic relations and real estate law for the past seven years.

Drazewski reappointed

Judge Scott D. Drazewski of Bloomington, who was appointed to an 11th Circuit vacancy last December but lost his bid for a permanent seat in the Republican primary election in March, will remain on the bench as an associate judge.

A former member of the ISBA Board of Governors, Drazewski was an associate judge from 1997 until his appointment to the circuit court. He will begin his second stint on Dec. 2 after the election of McLean County State's Attorney Charles Menard to the 11th Circuit Court.

Retirements announced

Judge John R. "Jack" DeLaMar of the 6th Circuit will retire Dec. 1 and resuming practice with the Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) program in Champaign County. He plans to seek appointment as a guardian ad litem to handle the type of children's legal matters he heard during his 15 years on the bench.

DeLaMar became an associate judge in 1979 and was appointed to a new circuit court seat in 1995. He was elected to the 6th Circuit in 1996 and would have been a retention candidate this year.

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Associate Judge Dennis A. DePorter of the 14th Circuit in Rock Island will retire Dec. 31.

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The 19th Circuit judiciary and staff honored Addie Davis, executive secretary for nine chief judges during the past 18 years, at a retirement reception Oct. 17 in the Lake County Courthouse, Waukegan.

Gottfried marks 30th anniversary

Theodore A. Gottfried, who has been state appellate defender since the office was established on Oct. 1, 1972, presided at a 30th anniversary reunion and dinner Oct. 10 at the Chicago Athletic Association.

After dinner, he presented awards named in memory of James B. Haddad, a former member of the board of commissioner, and Richard E. Cunningham, who was a death penalty litigator with the appellate defender's office.

The Haddad Award was given to Verlin Meinz, an assistant defender in the 3rd District office. The Cunningham Award went to Anna Ahronheim, an assistant deputy in the Capital Litigation Division.

In addition to the five original district offices of the state appellate defender, the agency includes three special divisions. One is the Supreme Court Unit, which is assigned to death penalty appeals.

The Capital Litigation Division recruits and maintains a panel of private attorneys to represent death row inmates in post-conviction proceedings. The Death Penalty Trial Assistance Division provides trial counsel in capital cases, plus expert witnesses, investigators and mitigation specialists.

Q: Please discuss the use of the word recuse, which Webster's New World Dictionary defines as "disqualify or withdraw from a position of judging, as because of prejudice or personal interest." Does recuse apply only to judges or can it be applied to prosecutors, jurors, or defense counsel? Can it be used with respect to administrative hearings or congressional inquiries?

A:This question is interesting because, according to most legal authorities and dictionaries, the verb recuse does not exist. However, two lay dictionaries, Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1996) and The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (AHD), (2000) do list recuse. Of all the sources checked, Webster's comes closest to answering the reader's question. Webster's says that the verb recuse in its legal sense, means "to refuse or reject, as a judge; or to challenge that the judge shall not try the cause. (Webster's adds that this second sense is obsolete.)

The AHD definition leaves room for individuals other than judges to use recusal as reason for non-participation in a decision. The AHD states that recuse means "to disqualify or seek to disqualify from participation in a decision on grounds such as prejudice or personal involvement," a broader meaning than Webster's provides.

The Oxford English Dictionary calls the verb recuse "rare," and lists as its second meaning "to reject, renounce (a person, his authority, etc.); to object to a judge as prejudiced." This definition conveys the sense of something being "done" to a judge, not something a judge does on his own, a meaning that the AHD includes in its definition.

These lay dictionaries recognize the existence of the verb recuse. But Black's Law Dictionary (Sixth edition, 1990) lists only the noun recusal, as "the process by which a judge is disqualified on objection of either party (or disqualifies himself or herself) from hearing a lawsuit because of self interest, bias, or prejudice." Black's also lists the noun recusation as "...[an] exception or plea to the jurisdiction, to the effect that the particular judge is disqualified from hearing the cause by reason of interest or prejudice ...."

West's Legal Thesaurus/Dictionary (1986) omits recuse, but it also lists recusation ("the disqualification of a judge because of prejudice or interest.") Both dictionaries seem to imply that the disqualification is something "done" to a judge by others.

Although legal dictionaries ignore the verb recuse, usage indicates that both recuse and the nouns recusal and recusation apply only to judges.

My thanks to Mr. George W. Nordham, of Winter Springs, Florida, who originally asked this interesting question, and to the Illinois lawyer who recently asked it again.

Q: Chicago attorney Michael L. Sullivan asked whether it is proper to shorten the sentence, "The yard needs to be cut again," to "The yard needs cut again," and he added, "Does the answer depend upon whether the sentence is spoken or written?"

A:No, to both questions. The shorter form is non-standard, thus incorrect both in speech and in writing. You can, however, re-phrase the sentence, "The yard needs cutting again," using a gerund form instead of the three-word infinitive phrase. Perhaps the question arises because the constructions, "I would like the yard cut this weekend," and "I need to have my hair done today" seem analogous although they are not.

FROM THE MAILBAG:

As I expected, a number of readers submitted opinions about salutations, which were discussed in the September "Language Tips" column. Chicago attorney David Lester adhered to the majority opinion of readers of a previous column on this subject, writing he prefers "Ladies and Gentlemen" (or skipping the salutation entirely). Attorney Jim Arnold wrote that for several years he's been using "Dear Sir/Madam," which, at least to his mind, conveys the proper respect. He admitted that it sounds like a bulk mail form letter, but has seen no suggestion he likes better.

Attorney David Ransin, of Springfield, Missouri, wrote that he quit using "dear" many years ago when he realized that there was really never much very "dear" in any of his letters. Mr. Ransin uses "counsel" if either sex ("or an unsavory addressee) is involved; other wise, "Gentlemen," or just first names "just as I would if they were sitting in the room with me." Wheaton attorney David Alspaugh wrote that he uses "Dear Staff" when possible. Or, if the writer used an initial instead of a first name, he responds in the same way ("Dear T. Smith").

From DeKalb, Attorney Norden S. Gilbert wrote that until being called to task some years ago by a female correspondent, he had used the term "Gentlemen." Now he uses "Gentlemen and Ladies. " He added that Gentle Persons seems awkward because the adjective concludes something not always correct about the recipient's personality, whereas the adjective "gentlemen" has lost its former connotation.

Chicago attorney Lou Pierce likes the term "Dear." While he does not dislike the simple "Ladies and Gentlemen," the addition of "Dear" helps distinguish the greeting in a letter from the beginning of a speech. When the addressee is a person of unknown sex, he simply writes "Dear Sir or Madam."