JUNE 4 (Wednesday) DECATUR - Decatur Bar Association golf outing and annual meeting; Scovill Golf Course; 1 p.m. shotgun start, 5 p.m. reception and 6:30 p.m. dinner; Jim Jankowicz, (217) 428-6629.
JUNE 6 (Friday) OAK BROOK Illinois Trial Lawyers Association 48th annual golf outing, followed by installation dinner dance; Oak Brook Hills Resort; (800) 252-8501.
JUNE 12 (Thursday) NAPERVILLE Chicago Volunteer Legal Services Foundation second annual Golf Fore Justice pro bono benefit outing, with 8:30 a.m. shotgun start and buffet lunch; Tamarack Golf Club; Phil Mohr, (312) 332-3528.
JUNE 13 (Friday) WILMINGTON Will County Bar Association golf outing; Cinder Ridge Golf Links; 12 noon lunch, 1 p.m. shotgun start; (815) 726-0383.
Director of Legislative Affairs
As the General Assembly nears its scheduled adjournment date of May 31st 3002, the following is a sample of what may be sent to the Governor.
Child support increase. House Bill 2863 (McCarthy, D-Orland Park; Crotty, D Oak Forest) raises the minimum amount support percentage of the obligor's net income from 25% to 28% for two children. Passed both chambers.
Uniform mediation act. House Bill 2146 (Brosnahan, D-Oak Lawn; Cullerton, D-Chicago) creates the Uniform Mediation Act. This is an initiative of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. Passed both chambers.
Uniform interstate family support act. Senate Bill 922 (Cullerton, D-Chicago; Scully, D-Chicago Heights) creates the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act. In the Senate for concurrence.
Increase in small county filing fees. House Bill 269 (Mautino, D-Spring Valley; Walsh, D-Joliet) increases filing fees in the rest of the counties after last year's increase for larger counties. Passed both chambers.
Petrillo amendment.Senate Bill 1414 (Obama, D-Chicago; Hamos, D-Evanston) amends the Hospital Licensing Act to provide that after a complaint for healing art malpractice is served upon the hospital or upon its agents or employees, members of the hospital's medical staff who are not actual or alleged agents, employees, or apparent agents of the hospital may not communicate with legal counsel for the hospital or with risk management of the hospital concerning the claim alleged in the complaint against the hospital. There is an exception if the patient consents or discovery is authorized by the Code of Civil Procedure or Supreme Court rules.
Effective January 1, 2004 and applies to any actions filed on or after this date. On third reading in the House.
Internet access to local records. House Bill 300 (Mathias, R-Arlington Heights; Walsh, D-Joliet) allows a county to provide internet access to public records maintained in electronic form at no charge to the public and, if the county provides this access, allows the county to enter into a contractual arrangement for the dissemination of the data in bulk or compiled form and to impose a fee for the dissemination of electronic data in bulk or compiled form. Passed both chambers.
Disabled adults. Senate Bill 41 (Silverstein, D-Chicago; Mathias, R-Arlington Heights) amends the Probate Act of 1975 concerning the appointment of guardians for disabled adults. It authorizes a court to adjudge a person to be a disabled person and appoint a guardian of his or her person or estate only if it has been demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence that the person is a disabled person as defined in the Act and is unable to make responsible decisions concerning his or her personal or financial affairs. Passed both chambers.
Uniform child custody jurisdiction and enforcement act. House Bill 1157 (Hamos, D-Evanston; Silverstein, D-Chicago) the Uniform Child-Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act. It sets forth standards for child-custody jurisdiction determinations and creates a process for the enforcement of interstate child-custody and visitation determinations. It repeals the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act. Effective January 1, 2004. Passed both chambers.
Editor
With 20-20 foresight
We're told that the Chinese ideogram for our word, "crisis," combines two of their words for "danger" and "opportunity" (wei-ji). Webster concurs, defining crisis as both a time of trouble and a turning point.
Life in the early 1980s provided ample measures of both. The economy was surfacing slowly from a severe recession, and the prime rate was dropping from 20-plus levels that had been unreachable for most consumers and fatal to many producers.
But while the crisis subsided, unemployment did not. And the percent of people living in poverty climbed from 13 to 14 to 15.2 between 1980 and 1984. Concurrently, a widening chasm separated people with the means of obtaining legal help from the desperate indigent who couldn't.
This time of trouble reached a turning point in 1983, when the Lawyers Trust Fund of Illinois, by Supreme Court rule, became the 11th state to adopt interest on lawyers trust accounts (IOLTA) as a means of funding legal services. That 20th anniversary will be celebrated on June 13 (see story on page 2).
The need had been no secret to Illinois lawyers, who felt a proliferation of requests for pro bono representation. Many responded willingly, but the conundrum was trying to sort out those who truly deserved free legal help from others who just didn't want to pay for it.
Since 1981, the Illinois State Bar Association had looked for a solution. A Special Committee on Delivery of Legal Services to the Poor, chaired by Joe Bartylak, had just become a standing committee. A similar study was under way at the Chicago Bar Association.
The likely solution seemed to repose in IOLTA, a concept that had started in Florida in 1978. Coincidentally, Chief Justice Howard Ryan of the Illinois Supreme Court heard glowing reports about that from his Florida counterpart during a national conference.
Under the leadership of the two bar presidents, Michel Coccia of the ISBA and Kevin Forde of the CBA, a joint committee incorporated a voluntary IOLTA program in 1981. The next year, an Illinois delegation flew to Tampa for a nuts-and-bolts meeting with Florida Bar officials.
When the LTF was formally accredited in 1983, Howard Ryan became the founding president. John Feirich of the ISBA and David Hilliard of the CBA were vice presidents. Ruth Ann Schmitt was hired as executive director in August after eight years with the Chicago Volunteer Legal Services Foundation.
In 1984, a petition was filed with the Supreme Court to make IOLTA mandatory in Illinois. The matter was debated vigorously by the ISBA Assembly in November 1985. After two hours, a negative motion to oppose mandatory participation was defeated, 77 to 65. A voice vote in favor of the plan quickly followed.
The Supreme Court approved the petition in 1986, and Illinois became the very first state to make the transition from voluntary to mandatory. The new rule took effect Aug. 1, 1987, and is now Rule 1.15 in Article VIII.
It hasn't been easy, meeting this goal of strengthening legal aid provider agencies across the state to do an adequate job of screening the ineligible from the eligible and recruiting pro bono volunteers. The first grants in 1984 totaled only $100,000.
But in 1989, the year that the joint Illinois Legal Needs Study documented the magnitude of unmet civil legal problems of the indigent, the grant total of $1,324,219 almost equaled the previous five-year total.
From 1992 to 2003, the average grant year has provided more than $3 million to 30-some agencies. The total spiked in 1993, when $3 million in grants was supplemented by $1,494,341 for computerization of the provider network and special projects that included the startup of CARPLS.
When the 2004 LTF grant announcements are made June 13, the grand total of legal aid funding through IOLTA since day one 20 years ago will be more than $50 million.
Imagine the crisis that would exist if concerned lawyers hadn't been there and done that in 1983. Then be proud as a lawyer that you were part of the turnaround.
And that's not all, folks
Another turning point in 1983 was founding of the Fellows of the Illinois Bar Foundation, a benevolent coterie whose generosity has magnified the ability of our charitable arm to add a measure of largess to pro bono initiatives around the state.
Our Bar Foundation has distributed almost $200,000 in the past six months, and a large part of the corpus that produced those dollars is attributable to almost $1 million that the Fellows have contributed in 20 years.
You can help them celebrate this anniversary by attending the reception June 20 at the 127th ISBA Annual Meeting and, even better, by becoming one of these good Fellows yourself.
Wheaton attorney John B. Kincaid, a past president of the Illinois Bar Foundation and the DuPage County Bar Association, was honored recently by the DuPage Legal Assistance Foundation for outstanding pro bono service during the past year.
Kincaid devoted more than 250 hours in defense of a nurse's aide in a medical malpractice case involving the death of an infant. She was found not guilty of willful and wanton negligence.
Among attorneys who received similar recognition is ISBA Assembly member Laura M. Urbik-Kern of Elmhurst, vice chair of the Family Law Section Council, who provided 60 hours of representation in a bitter custody dispute for an out-of-state client.
Others honored for distinguished pro bono service include Kimberly Backman, 50 hours; Catherine Byrne, 83 hours; Mark Farrow, 84 hours; Patricia Fox, 50 hours; William Knee, 100 hours; Marie Leach, 55 hours; Edward C. Pacilli, 100 hours; Elizabeth Pope, 75 hours, and Robert Thomas Jr., 100 hours.
Their awards were presented during the annual Law Day luncheon of the DuPage County Bar Association.
Robert Jennetten honored
Peoria attorney Robert H. Jennetten has received a special Equal Justice Award from Prairie State Legal Services in recognition of his leadership and long-standing commitment to the delivery of legal assistance to the poor.
A partner in Quinn, Johnston, Henderson & Pretorius, Jennetten is a past president of the Prairie State board. He has served on the steering committee for its Campaign for Legal Services since it was initiated in 1996.
His encouragement of pro bono legal representation by colleagues led to recognition of the firm with an ISBA John C. McAndrews Pro Bono Service Award in 1996 and similar honors from the Peoria County Bar Association.
During the Peoria Law Day luncheon May 1, the bar association's Pro Bono Plan presented the Pro Bono Attorney of the Year Award to Rodney R. Nordstrom, and the Law Firm of the Year Award to Kavanagh, Scully, Sudow, White & Frederick.
Robert Jennetten is incoming president of the Peoria County Bar. His son and law partner, Peter R. Jennetten, will be honored this month by the ISBA as the downstate Young Lawyer of the Year. See story on page 3.
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Prairie State Legal Services honored retired 21st Circuit associate judge Roger Benson of Kankakee as the county's Volunteer Attorney of the Year during a Law Day ceremony.
Benson left the bench in 1992 after 24 years to resume private practice. He has devoted considerable time to representation of indigents in a divorce clinic that expedites simple marriage dissolution cases.
Other Kankakee County attorneys honored are Dennis Baron, Larry Serene, Edward Glazar, Becky Souligne, Ronald Gerts, Brian Hiatt, Tom Cunnington, Jamie Boyd, Debbie Woodruff, Marshall Dusenbury, Tina Olton, Dawn Landwehr, Gregory Deck, Michael Dietchweiler, James Burns, Ken Leshen, Dana Meyer and Adrienne Albrecht, who is vice chair of the ISBA Committee on Legal Technology.
Iroquois County attorneys James Kinzer, Kay Johnson and Richard Sygulla also were honored.
Law firm helps build Habitat family homes
About 30 attorneys from the Chicago office of Baker & McKenzie volunteered to help construct a family home in the Pilsen-Little Village neighborhood May 10 through Habitat for Humanity.
This is one of several sites across the country where some 175 Baker & McKenzie volunteers participated in similar projects. Other locations are in Miami, New York City, Dallas, Houston, San Diego, San Francisco/Palo Alto, Toronto and Washington, D.C.
"Partnering with Habitat for Humanity gives us the opportunity to volunteer in our neighborhoods and help those in need of adequate housing realize a decent place to live," said Angela Vigil of Chicago, the firm's North American director of public interest law.
Baker & McKenzie also joined the Pro Bono Institute Pro Bono Challenge, committing each of its U.S. attorneys to an annual goal of 60 hours of legal service.
IICLE provides library
The Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education (IICLE) has agreed to provide free online access to its SmartBooks research library for about 400 legal aid attorneys in 50 agencies throughout the state.
The contents of more than 80 practice handbooks and forms products are being made available through the Illinois Technology Center for Law and the Public Interest, a grantee of the Illinois Bar Foundation.
CVLS schedules seminar
Chicago attorney Richard Hanus will conduct an immigration law primer for pro bono attorneys of the Chicago Volunteer Legal Services Foundation at 12:15 p.m. Tuesday, June 24.
A member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and chair of its CVLS clinic, Hanus will explain current immigration issues and changes that have occurred since the Homeland Security Agency was created.