rization to continue any automatic withdrawal or charge if the contract automatically renews for a term equal to or longer than 12 months. It applies to any entity that sells or offers to sell any products or services to consumers for personal use and consumption. Violation is an unlawful practice under the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act. It exempts banks and other financial institutions from its regulation.
Grandparents' visitation. House Bill 4318 (Lindner, R-Aurora) tries to create visitation for grandparents after the court cases by the supreme courts of the United States and Illinois. It authorizes a grandparent, great-grandparent, or sibling to file a petition for visitation rights if there is an unreasonable denial of visitation and at least one of the following conditions exists. (1) One parent is deceased, sentenced to jail for more than a year, or incompetent. (2) The marriage of the mother and father has been dissolved or they have been legally separated from each other during the three-month period before the filing of the petition and at least one parent does not object to the visitation. This visitation may not diminish the visitation of the other parent who is not related to the petitioner.
(3) A court has terminated a parent-child relationship and the person seeking visitation is related to the parent whose parental rights have been terminated unless the termination has been done through adoption. This visitation may not be used to allow the parent who lost parental rights to unlawfully visit with the child. (4) The child is illegitimate, the parents are not living together, and the petitioner is a maternal grandparent, great-grandparent, or sibling of the illegitimate child. House Bill 4318 imposes a rebuttable presumption that a fit parent's actions and decisions regarding this visitation are not harmful to the child. It also imposes the burden on the petitioner to prove that the parent's actions and decisions about visitation are in fact harmful to the child. It also adds criteria for the court to consider when making this determination among other changes.
DNA sample. House Bill 4825 (Mendoza, D-Chicago) requires that every person arrested for a felony must give a DNA sample at the time of booking. Current law requires a person convicted of a felony to give a DNA sample.
"Here's a revolutionary idea: How about making the insurance industry go to Springfield and justify rate increases above a certain level say, 7 percent? There is very little regulation of the insurance industry in Illinois. For example, the Department of Insurance has not rejected a rate increase in 30 years! In the absence of any real regulation on insurance companies, why should we believe them when they blame patients and the legal system for rate increases?"
ISBA President Terrence Lavin, in a letter to the editor of the Chicago Sun-Times, responding to articles about efforts in the legislature to further limit medical liability
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"You inherited a fortune. You hired a lawyer. Now, it's his fortune."
Script for a TV ad from the Colorado Better Business Bureau's "Check with us first" campaign. The ad was pulled after Denver and Colorado bar associations complained.
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"They had no information about either one. They did say perhaps you should check with the bar association after we pressed and pressed."
Chuck Turner, executive director of the Denver and Colorado bar associations, after anonymously calling the Colo. Better Busines Bureau and asking about two well-known lawyers.
Editor
Of mass instruction
"A little education is good," said Garrison Keillor, the wayfaring raconteur of public radio's Prairie Home Companion. "More is better, and too much is just enough."
And so it goes with mandatory continuing legal education in Illinois, one of the laggard nine or ten states in which lawyers are not required to refresh their professional recollections with any regularity.
MCLE has been a priority of the Illinois State Bar and Chicago Bar for more than two decades. A year ago, the two major associations at long last agreed on a viable concept they could jointly support at a Supreme Court Rules Committee hearing.
Perhaps it was the speech by Justice Bob Thomas at the ISBA-CBA Supreme Court dinner in December 2002 that implied judicial imprimatur, if not an imperative. MCLE "is an essential element of our profession," Thomas said.
Our President Terry Lavin has heard concurrence time and again during his cycle of participation around the state in regional forums of the Special Supreme Court Committee on Professionalism.
There is almost unanimous support for MCLE among bar leaders, Lavin told the Board of Governors last month. Nothing harms the integrity of the profession more than "ill-prepared lawyers who are shaky on the rules and practice on the fringes," he observed.
MCLE was mentioned at least twice, without provocation, during the DuPage County Bar's mega-seminar in January. One speaker opined that if MCLE is on the court's agenda this year, it couldn't take effect until 2005.
Chief Judge Bob Kilander of the 18th Circuit said he expects MCLE to be "coming soon." His State of the Courthouse address also covered e-filing, barring cell-phone cameras, and swabbing saliva instead of drawing blood for DNA samples.
With the ISBA and CBA on the same tutorial page, and strong support from the organized bar in general, the court and its rules committee seem to be quietly mulling the nuts and bolts of developing a workable MCLE process. There are the usual administrative hangups.
Who would monitor compliance? Most likely the ARDC, or a subsidiary bureau, where some of the mechanism is built in. Who would pay the start-up cost, estimated at around $300,000 in the initial year before revenues accumulate? The bar associations and related foundations, perhaps, or a franchise fee from every CLE provider that yearns to participate.
There doesn't seem to be a downside to CLE. It's just something a professionally healthy lawyer should take, like a handful of vitamins every morning. Some requirements can be fulfilled by writing or teaching, rather than merely occupying a seat at a seminar.
But as soon as MCLE comes up for discussion, one can almost hear the pinwheels whirring in the brains of the naysayers. There is no empirical evidence that CLE improves the quality of lawyering, they say, but they suffer no burden of proof that it doesn't.
Maybe periodic bar re-examinations would demonstrate that one can hardly endure a legal education seminar without absorbing at least one palliative idea to ennoble the astute practitioner.
Garrison Keillor may be right. Too much education is just enough for a lawyer. Comprehending that evermore complex book of rules requires a bigger bag of tools.
Upholding freedom of the prescient
Dad gum it, Crain's Chicago biznews has done it again. It's unleashed one of its scribes on a paper chase after the entire Illinois judiciary.
Vote them all off the bench, he growls, if the Supreme Court orders the state comptroller to pay their two-year-belated, legislator-consecrated, cost-of-living increases. Yes, send them back to more remunerative law practices, and then what? Fill their vacancies with larval rookie jurists?
The case of COLA hinges on a point of logic, not emotion: Does the state's refusal to pay judicial raises, which the General Assembly mandated, violate Section 14 of Article VI of the Illinois Constitution?
Whether they get the compensation they deserve, the justices are paid to interpret the law as written. Pundits who have problems with that should harass the legislature, not the judiciary.
Keeping up with the Dow Joneses
Call it a journalist's lament, but banishment of Eastman Kodak and International Paper from the Dow Jones average is a sign of the times that try the souls of tradition. To think, alas, that these venerable suppliers of graphic arts tools were replaced by an insurance cartel and a drug maker.
Long gone from the DJI calculus are Sears Roebuck, Westinghouse, Woolworth, Goodyear and other icons of our commercial and industrial revolutions. Now AT&T has joined them on the slag pile of fading blue chips. How now, Dow? What next?
7th Circuit Bar meets at Judicial Conference
The annual Seventh Circuit Judicial Conference will be conducted from Sunday to Tuesday, May 9-11, at the Hotel Inter-Continental, Chicago. The conference will coincide with the annual meeting of the 7th Circuit Bar Association, said President Michael A. Pope of McDermott, Will & Emery, Chicago.
Presentations on Monday will focus on the phenomenon of "vanishing civil trials." Lawyers, judges, educators, business executives and consumer advocates will discuss the current state of the civil justice system.
A fireside chat with U.S. Supreme Court Justices John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer will highlight the Monday dinner program. Journalist-attorney Bill Kurtis will be the moderator.
On Tuesday, a forum of state attorneys general will explore the developing power of state officials to regulate by litigation. Breakout sessions will cover criminal and bankruptcy law topics.
Pro bono work lauded
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District and the Federal Bar Association will present awards for Excellence in Pro Bono and Public Interest Service during a reception Monday, May 3, in the Dirksen Federal Courthouse.
Admissions slated May 6
A total of 689 new lawyers will be admitted to the Illinois bar on Thursday, May 6, during ceremonies conducted by the Supreme Court in the five judicial districts.
Number of admittees expected at each district location are: 1st District (425), Arie Crown Theater, Chicago;; 2nd District (82), Hemmens Auditorium, Elgin; 3rd District (19), Appellate Courthouse, Ottawa; 4th District (17), Supreme Court, Springfield; 5th District (146), Gateway Center, Collinsville.
Appellate orals at NIU
The Illinois Appellate Court, 2nd District, will convene at 10 a.m. Tuesday, April 20, at the Northern Illinois University College of Law. Oral arguments in the Francis X. Riley Moot Courtroom will be followed by a reception in the Thurgood Marshall Gallery.
Hartigan to be keynoter
Appellate Justice Neil F. Hartigan of Chicago will be guest speaker Wednesday, April 21, for an executive breakfast sponsored by the Lewis University Graduate School of Management.
Justice Hartigan, who chairs the World Trade Center Chicago, will speak on "International Trade and Globalization and the Effect on Jobs in Illinois." The breakfast will begin at 8 a.m. in the Hyatt Lodge on McDonald's Campus, Oak Brook.
U.S. attorney confirmed
Ronald Tenpas was confirmed March 8 by the U.S. Senate for appointment as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Illinois. He has been interim district attorney since Nov. 16, and previously was deputy criminal chief for the District of Maryland.
IIC case status on line
Access to Illinois Industrial Commission open case status information is now available 24 hours a day, seven days a week on the Internet, according to Chairman Dennis R. Ruth. A link to the case status section may be accessed at www.state.il.us/agency/iic/caseinfo.htm.
Bar Foundation awards $93,470 to 25 providers
The Illinois Bar Foundation board approved grants totaling $93,470 to 25 agencies during its meeting March 27 in Chicago. The largest grant was $10,000 to the Illinois Technology Center for Law and the Public Interest, based at Chicago-Kent College of Law.
The Evanston Community Defender Office will receive $7,500. Peer Court in Danville and Prairie State Legal Services in Rockford will get $6,000 each. Other recipients are:
Griffin Center of Catholic Urban Program in East St. Louis, $5,250; Cabrini Green Legal Aid Clinic of Chicago, $5,000; Chicago Volunteer Legal Services Foundation, $5,000; Illinois Coalition for Equal Justice, $5,000; Midwest Workers Association of Chicago, $5,000.
Cunningham Children's Home Foundation of Urbana, $4,720; Chicago Legal Clinic, $4,000; CASA Cook County, $3,000; Asian Human Services of Chicago, $3,000; CASA Will County, $3,000; Girl Scouts River Bluff Council of Glen Carbon, $3,000; Pro Bono Advocates of Chicago, $3,000; Safe Passage of Rock Island, $3,000.
Centro Romero of Chicago, $2,500; CASA Kane County, $2,000; Okaw Valley Council Boy Scouts of Belleville, $2,000; Equip for Equality of Chicago, $1,500; Citizen Advocacy Center of Elmhurst, $1,000; Health and Disability Advocates of Chicago, $1,000; Metropolitan Family Services Legal Aid Bureau of Chicago, $1,000; YMCA Evanston/North Shore, $1,000.
For information about obtaining future grants, call executive director Susan M. Lewers, (312) 726-6072.
Hello, mothers!
Members of the Winnebago County Bar Association will deliver Mother's Day corsages and cookies Sunday, May 9, to women housed in protective Rockford-area agencies.
The Community Service Committee has selected WAVE, Women's Christian Care Center, Trinity House and Shelter Care Ministry as the facilities where the WCBA will brighten the day for sheltered women.
Meg Benson named CVLS exec director
Margaret C. "Meg" Benson, a career staff officer of the Chicago Volunteer Legal Services Foundation, has been appointed its executive director.
A 1979 graduate of the Loyola University School of Law, Benson practiced briefly with two Chicago firms before joining CVLS in 1982