Other sponsors are The Defense Trial Counsel of Indiana, the Minnesota Defense Lawyers Association and The Civil Trial Counsel of Wisconsin.
Faculty members include J. Dennis Marek of Kankakee, a member of the ISBA Civil Practice and Procedure Section Council. Keith E. Fruehling of Urbana, a member of the ISBA Board of Governors, is co-chair of the academy committee.
John Marshall Law
The Fair Housing Legal Support Center of The John Marshall Law School will conduct its 13th annual Fair Housing Litigation Skills Training Program from Thursday, Feb. 3, through Saturday, Feb. 5. Call Elaine Morey at (312) 427-2737, ext. 492.
Holiday gatherings include SSBA installation dinner
Flossmoor attorney Thomas C. Edwards will be installed as president of the South Suburban Bar Association during its annual holiday dinner dance on Friday, Dec. 17 at Flossmoor Country Club. He succeeds Melanie Frazek.
Award presentations also will be made at the black-tie optional event, which begins with a 6 p.m. reception. Call Edwards at (708) 957-1500 for reservations.
A few other late December holiday events remain on the local bar association calendar. Among them are the following.
DECEMBER 15 (Wednesday, 5 p.m.) SPRINGFIELD - Government Bar Association holiday social and collection of useful items for the Helping Hands Homeless Shelter; D.H. Brown's; Erica, (217) 785-2284.
DECEMBER 17 (Friday, 7:30 p.m.) CHICAGO - Advocates Society meeting and Christmas party; Copernicus Center; Steven Kosicki, (847) 686-3111.
DECEMBER 22 (Wednesday) KANKAKEE - Kankakee County Bar Association Christmas party; Kankakee Country Club; Roger Elliott, (815) 472-2634.
DECEMBER 29 (Wednesday, 5:30 p.m.) CHICAGO - Association of Corporate Counsel, Chicago chapter holiday gala reception and dinner at Trattoria 10, followed by 7:30 p.m. performance of "Spamalot" at Shubert Theater; Lisa Carreras, (815) 464-8336.
IP Day program reviews trends
The Chicago Intellectual Property Alliance conducted an "IP Day in Chicago" program in October at Loyola University. Welcoming remarks were provided by Dolores K. Hanna of Bell, Boyd & Lloyd, a past president of the Intellectual Property Law Association of Chicago (IPLAC) and the Women's Bar Association of Illinois.
Chaired by Susan Neal of Neal & McDevitt, the program included reviews of trends in trademark, copyright and patent regulation, and perspectives from legal education, corporate and judicial speakers.
Founded by 12 law firms, four corporations, three law schools and the IPLAC, the alliance promotes the development and management of intellectual property in the Midwest, and provides educational programs and regional expertise in practice issues.
For more information, contact Hanna at dhanna@bellboyd.com or access the Web site, www.chicagoIPalliance.com.
Appellate Lawyers
Former appellate justice Anthony Scariano, who died April 17, will be remembered during the Appellate Lawyers Association's annual 1st District reception Wednesday, Jan. 19, at the Hotel Allegro.
Retired justice Gino L. DiVito, a pasty president of the association, will conduct the program and recognize members of the judiciary in attendance. Call (312) 554-2090 for reservations.
DuPage County Bar
The DuPage County Bar Association will present its 30th annual Judges' Nite show, "Recipe for Disaster," on Friday, Feb. 25, at the Wilton Manor in Wheaton. The event will include a 6:30 reception, 7:30 p.m. dinner and 8:30 p.m. performance.
ISBA Assembly member Kevin Millon is producer of the musical satire, and Brent Christensen is director. Call (630) 653-7779 for ticket information.
DuPage Women Lawyers
Retiring 18th Circuit Court Clerk Joel Kagann was honored Dec. 6 during the annual DuPage Association of Women Lawyers holiday party in Oak Brook. The DAWL Foundation awarded Judge Helen C. Kinney Scholarships to two women law students.
ECI Women Attorneys
Members of the East Central Illinois Women Attorneys Association will meet Tuesday, Dec. 21, at Biaggi's Ristorante, Champaign, for luncheon and discussion of Books for Reading and Giving. Call Carolyn Casady-Trimble, (217) 344-0711.
The ECIWAA annual meeting and elections will take place in January at Kennedy's Restaurant at Stone Creek, Urbana.
Jewish Judges
Chicago attorney Cary G. Schiff will speak on "Uriah P. Levy, An American Jewish Hero," during the Tuesday, Jan. 18, luncheon meeting of the Jewish Judges Association in the ISBA Chicago Regional Office. Call Judge Sheldon Gardner at (312) 603-4866.
Justinian Society
Instead of its traditional joint chapter dinner meeting in January, the Justinian Society will be host for an Ethnic Bar Coalition celebration on Thursday, Jan. 27. Call President John Sciaccotta at (312) 836-4181 for details.
Korean American Bar
David B. Kahng of Seyfarth Shaw, Chicago, was installed last month as president of the Korean American Bar Association. Founding member Young B. Kim, an administrative law judge for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, was honored during the ceremony.
Other new KABA officers are Vice President James R. Cho, Secretary Yukyong Choi and Treasurer Charles C. Kim.
Northwest Suburban Bar
The Northwest Suburban Bar Association is signing up volunteers to help conduct its annual Mock Trial Competition on Saturday, Feb. 26, at the 3rd Municipal District Courthouse in Rolling Meadows.
The competition is underwritten by an affiliated bar grant from the Illinois State Bar Association. Call (847) 259-7908 to volunteer or obtain more information.
Phi Alpha Delta
Chicago attorney Royal F. Berg was re-elected justice of the Chicago alumni chapter of Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity during its December board meeting. Chief Justice Mary Ann G. McMorrow continues as honorary justice.
Other officers are Vice Justice Kevin M. Hull, Clerk Todd A. Zoellick, Treasurer James A. Erwin, Historian Pierre W. Priestley, Marshal Peter Flynn and Executive Board Chair Benjamin P. Hyink.
U.I. College of Law
The University of Illinois College of Law Recent Alumni Advisory Board will conduct its annual Alumni-Student Career Conference on Saturday, Jan. 29, in Champaign. Call Stacey Tutt, (217) 333-2961, for details.
Will County Bar
Chief Judge Stephen White of the 12th Circuit will deliver his annual State of the Courthouse Address to the Will County Bar Association during a luncheon meeting Wednesday, Jan. 19, at Al's Steak House in Joliet. Call (815) 726-0383.
Q: Is it proper to say or not when using the word whether? For example, should or not be added to, "We have not decided whether or not to attend the convention"? The phrase or not seems redundant since whether includes either affirmative or negative possibility. Worse yet is to say or not twice. Thanks for considering this issue.
A:Milwaukee lawyer Patrick W. Brennan sent this thoughtful question, which has been answered in my other state bar columns, but not in the Illinois Bar News.
The phrase or not is sometimes redundant when added to whether, but is sometimes needed. For example, in 28 U.S.C. Section 2201, the phrase or not indicates that relief is available by request from "any interested parties seeking such declaration whether or not further relief is or could be sought." (Emphasis added.) The language or not changes the meaning of whether so that it means "no matter whether." ("No matter whether further relief is or could be sought, the requested relief is available.")
However, given a statement like, "The judge asked the defense attorney whether she was ready to try the case," the answer requires a choice of only two alternatives, "Yes"(ready) or "no" (not ready).
The reason the question is raised, however, is that the phrase or not is so pervasive that it is almost always added to whether and sometimes added twice. Just recently I heard a high government official use a sentence that included "whether or not the situation worsens in Iraq ... or not." The extra or not occurs more often in speech than in writing, probably because the speaker forgets he has already used it once.
Some law students seem to think of whether-or-not as a single word, not separable into parts. This misunderstanding results (even in law-student writing) in constructions like the following: "The defendant's attorney could not decide whetherornot to permit his client to testify or not." (Emphasis added.)
Although grammarians consider the extra or not incorrect because it is redundant, the same grammarians accept other redundancies. For example, Webster's Third lists as unacceptable the phrase or not in the sentence, "He asked the Court whether or not he should return later for questioning." Yet they do not criticize word later in the same sentence, although that too is redundant, the word return including the meaning of later. Many other redundancies are acceptable; for example, the word up in, "The pastor offered up a blessing,"
Q:Please explain the phrase Dicto Simpliciter. It seems to be Latin, but what does it mean?
A: The logical fallacy dicto simpliciter involves the application of a general rule to situations that are actually exceptions to the rule. When someone argues that smoking is not harmful because "my uncle Charley smoked three packs of cigarets a day and he lived to be 90," the person is using dicto simpliciter. The argument, "There is no such word as e-mail because it is not in my dictionary," is also a dicto simpliciter argument. (Perhaps "my" dictionary is a 1945 edition.)
You probably recognize the opposite fallacy, hasty generalization. It involves jumping to a conclusion without adequate sampling. "Professor Smith often forgets to call role; all law professors tend to be absent-minded." (That conclusion may be correct, but it cannot be reached without broader sampling.) There are many logical fallacies, and I have included a number of them in my Effective Legal Writing, Foundation Press (Fifth edition) pages 254f.
Max Shulman wrote a very funny short story, called "Love is a Fallacy," that deals with the sad denouement of a love affair between a clever law student and a beautiful-but-dumb coed whom he is determined to transform into an intellectual giant suitable for his love, by teaching her the discipline of logic. Along the way, the law student defines and illustrates the logical fallacies that entrap lawyers' and others.
FROM THE MAILBAG:
From Chicago, Attorney Ben Cohen responded to my comment about talking to versus talking with (in the October "Language Tips"). I wrote that talking with better expresses the give-and-take of ordinary conversation, while talking to may imply that the speaker is addressing a group. Attorney Cohen wrote that "I'm talking to you," when said to a teenager, "doesn't convey the impression that the speaker is addressing a group!" Attorney Cohen is right. (I'll wager that there is a teenager in his household.)
AN APOLOGY:
Also, in the October "Language Tips," I wrote that only one reader, Attorney Theodore H. Nebel, had noticed an error in the September column. Not true! Chicago attorney Robert J. Tonos had also e-mailed me about it. My thanks to both correspondents for catching the error.
Gertrude Block is Lecturer Emerita at the University of Florida College of Law. Her book, "Effective Legal Writing" (Foundation Press), is now available in a 5th edition (1999), with an accompanying instructor's manual. Ms. Block is also co-author of the "Judicial Opinion Writing Manual" (published by the American Bar Association, 1991). Send questions to the ISBA Bar News Language Tips, Illinois State Bar Association, Illinois Bar Center, Springfield, IL 62701, or e-mail her at block@law.ufl.edu.
The name of the Law Offices of Mark A. Kochan in Marion has been changed to Kochan & Kochan with the addition of Angela E. Kochan, formerly with Barrett, Twomey, Broom, Hughes, Hoke & Frazier, Carbondale.
The Kochans were admitted to the Illinois bar together in 1999. Mark Kochan is president of the Williamson County Bar Association.
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Davis Friedman is the new name of the firm formerly known as Davis, Friedman, Zavett, Kane, MacRae, Marcus & Rubens. Its new location is the 36th floor at 135 S. LaSalle St., Chicago 60603. The telephone number has not changed.
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Christopher T. Theisen and James M. Roche have formed for firm of Theisen & Roche in suite 2G, 300 S. County Farm Road, Wheaton 60187. The telephone number is (630) 871-9003, the facsimile number is (630) 653-2525, and the e-mail address is info@trlawyer.com.
The firm also has a Chicago office in suite 1100, 150 N. Wacker Drive, telephone (312) 782-8190.
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Allen Kanter has relocated his law office to suite 2000, 227 W. Monroe St., Chicago 60606.
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Greensfelder, Hemker & Gale, with offices in Swansea and St. Louis, has become a member of Meritas, a Minnesota-based international alliance of business law firms.