3 January 2005 Bar News

The ISBA Education Law Section Council will present the Law Ed Series seminar, "Hot Topics in Education Law," on Friday, Feb. 25, at the ISBA Chicago Regional Office.

Program coordinator is section council member Mary Kay Klimesh of Seyfarth Shaw, Chicago. The schedule follows.

9 a.m. - Welcome and Introductions.

9:15 a.m. - Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Reauthorization and Update in Special Education Law. Discussion includes the latest efforts to reauthorize the act, and recent trends and cases on IDEA implementation.

Speakers include section newsletter editor Philip C. Milsk of New Lenox and section council member Lara A. Cleary of Whitted & Cleary, Northbrook. Julie Heuberger of Franczek Sullivan, Chicago, will discuss the Illinois Supreme Court ruling on state funding for full cost of Juvenile Court residential placement of an offender.

10:15 a.m. - Ethical Issues Confronting Lawyers Practicing Education Law, with Robert P. Lyons of the Illinois Education Association, Chicago, and Philip Milsk. They will highlight specific issues and offer suggestions for addressing difficult and challenging matters.

Teleconferencing will be available at $35 for only two panel discussions, family law at 11 a.m. and juvenile law at 12:15 p.m., as follows.

11 a.m. - Family Law for School Lawyers and School Personnel, a panel moderated by school principal Mike Resler. Panelists are Andrea M. Schleifer of Chicago, a member of the ISBA Board of Governors; section council member Deborah Pergament of Children's Law Group, Chicago; J. Thomas McKinney, principal of Audubon Elementary School, Rock Island, and Mary Elizabeth Burns of the Loyola University School of Law ChildLaw Center.

Discussion includes aspects of family law that have impacts on school decisions, such as rights of custodial and non-custodial parents, rights of children, interpreting a parenting agreement, testimony of school personnel in custody disputes, and the role of a guardian ad litem or attorney for a child.

12:15 p.m. - Luncheon will be provided during the panel, Juvenile Law for School Lawyers and School Personnel, moderated by Plainfield High School principal Lane Abrell. Speakers are Suzanne E. Caplan, assistant Cook County public guardian in the Juvenile Division, Mary Elizabeth Burns and Deborah Pergament.

Discussion includes child protection and delinquency proceedings, education of detained students, safety issues related to adjudicated juvenile sex offenders or DCFS wards considered to be sexually reactive, other abuse and neglect issues.

1:45 p.m. - Addressing Student Discipline and Conduct in Higher Education, a panel discussion that includes development of codes of conduct, investigating complaints of misconduct, the student discipline hearing process, and possible preventive measures.

Speakers are section council vice chair Margaret A. Noe of the University of Illinois, Springfield; section council member Vickie A. Gillio of Northern Illinois University, DeKalb; associate newsletter editor Everett E. Nicholas Jr. of Robbins, Schwartz, Nicholas, Lifton & Taylor, Decatur, and Larry D. Bolles, director of the NIU judicial office, DeKalb.

3 p.m. - Academic Freedom in the Higher Education Setting, with section council member Hector L. Lareau of Pappas & Schnell, Rock Island. Discussion includes the origin and nature of academic freedom and the relationships with the First Amendment and harassment.

3:30 p.m. - Student Accessibility to Programs, and Legal Issues Under the Americans with Disabilities Education Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, with Eileen M. Babbitt of Babbitt & Melton, Chicago.

Discussion includes legal issues underlying rights of access by disabled students, determining whether reasonable accommodations can be made without fundamentally altering programs offered, and whether an accommodation is reasonable or an undue burden.

4 p.m. - Closing remarks and program evaluation.

Ag law update topics include taxes, trusts

James R. Grebe, chair of the ISBA Agricultural Law Section Council, is program coordinator and moderator for an Agricultural Law Update seminar that will be presented Friday, Jan. 28, at The Chateau in Bloomington.

Grebe, a partner in the Peoria firm of Hasselberg, Williams, Grebe & Snodgrass, will open the Law Ed Series program at 8:55 a.m. with welcoming remarks. The schedule of topics and speakers follows.

9 a.m. - Income Tax Update, with certified public accountant Richard C. Walden of Carlinville.

9:45 a.m. - Trends in Land Values and Leasing, with Porter J. Martin of Martin, Goodrich & Waddell, DeKalb.

10:30 a.m. - The Written Lease in Agriculture, with section council secretary Donald L. Uchtmann of Urbana, an agricultural law professor at the University of Illinois.

11:05 a.m. - Audits and the U.S. Estate Tax Return, with Deborah A. King of Springfield, state attorney in the Internal Revenue Service Estate and Gift Tax Division.

11:35 a.m. - Bankruptcy Update, with Richard G. Larsen of Myler, Ruddy & McTavish, Aurora.

12:05 p.m. - Luncheon period.

1:15 p.m. - Timely Issues Concerning Trusts, Estates and HIPAA, with section council member Paul A. Meints of Bloomington, who also serves on the Trusts and Estates Section Council.

2 p.m. - General Update on Estate Planning, with Michael G. Barton of Bellatti, Barton, Hamill & Cochran, Springfield.

2:40 p.m. - Key Considerations in Managing Farm Owner-Operator Risks and Liability, with section council member A. Bryan Endres of Urbana, an attorney and assistant professor in the University of Illinois Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics.

3:10 p.m. - U.S.D.A. Programs and Current Issues, with Lisa A. Scott of the Illinois State Farm Service Agency, Springfield.

ABA House delegates to debate range of practice issues

By Cheryl I. Niro

The preliminary agenda for the 2005 Midyear Meeting of the American Bar Association House of Delegates has been distributed to its members. The agenda contains descriptions of the reports with recommendations that were submitted by the Nov. 17 filing deadline.

I am providing a brief summary that highlights the more substantive reports for your information. If you would like to see the full report and recommendation, I will be happy to assist you.

Please let me or another member of the Illinois delegation know of your thoughts and opinions on these or any other issue. The meeting will take place next month in Salt Lake City.

Report 8a: Pennsylvania Bar and Bar of the District of Columbia - Supports repealing the statutory provision preventing veterans from paying attorneys to represent them in connection with their claims for federal benefits.

Report 102: Section of Intellectual Property - Supports enactment of legislation providing that the right to a patent shall belong to the inventor who first files an application for patent containing an adequate disclosure of the invention.

Report 104: Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities and Health Law Section - Opposes governmental actions and policies that interfere with patients' abilities to receive from healthcare providers (a) all of the relevant and medically accurate information necessary for full informed healthcare decision-making, and (b) information with respect to access to medically appropriate care.

Reports 107 A, B and C: National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws - To approve Uniform Acts on Wage Withholding and Unemployment Insurance, Real Property Electronic Recording, Residential Mortgage Satisfaction.

Report 108: Senior Lawyers Division - Urges appropriate bodies of all state and territorial jurisdictions to adopt and promulgate rules and regulations permitting the sale of law practices, such as or similar to Rule 1.17 of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct.

Report 109 A, B and C: Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section - Urges the federal government to immediately undertake a study to identify the appropriate role of the federal government in the solution of the present asbestos litigation crisis, without altering the responsibility of others.

Recommends amendment to the Medicare Secondary Payer Act (42 USC Section 1395y(b), et seq) to return an appropriate level of certainty, predictability and efficiency to the Medicare set-aside process that has significantly burdened settlement in workers' compensation systems.

Supports judicial rulemaking process in the Rules Enabling Act for principles of federalism and the current version of Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and opposes legislative change to Rule 11, including changes proposed in the "Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act" (H.R. 4571).

Report 110: Section of Science and Technology Law and American Immigration Lawyers Association - Supports new visa policies and steps to ensure that the visa issuance process is more efficient.

Report 111: Commission on Homelessness and Poverty, Committee on Legal Aid, Commission on Mental and Physical Disability Law - Supports establishment of a federal affordable housing trust fund.

Report 112: Commission on Immigration, Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants, Legal Aid Defender Association - Supports repeal of annual numerical caps in granting lawful permanent residence in the U.S. for those already granted asylum status.

Report 113: American Jury Project - Adopts "ABA Principles Relating to Juries and Jury Trials" (Feb. 2005); urges local bar associations to promote implementation.

Report 114: Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice - Urges congressional approval of "Federal Administrative Adjudication in the 21st Century" (Feb. 2005), expanding fair hearing provisions of the act.

Report 115 A, B and C: Criminal Justice Section - Urges jurisdictions to adopt statutes to compensate individuals who have been convicted and incarcerated for crimes they did not commit, and identifies the factors that should be considered in drafting such statutes.

Urges governments to reduce the risk of convicting the innocent, while increasing the likelihood of convicting the guilty by adopting the principle that no prosecution should occur based solely upon uncorroborated jailhouse informant testimony.

Urges governments to establish standards of practice for defense counsel in criminal cases to reduce the risk of convicting the innocent.

Humanities panel to discuss global impact of Brown

A panel discussion titled "Brown and the Civil Rights Movement on the International State" will be presented by the Illinois Humanities Council at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 20, in the Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton, Chicago. For reservations or information, call (312) 422-5580.

The free program will explore the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education in the global context and consider the impact of the decision on foreign policy at a time when segregation was damaging to the image of the United States.

The panel will be headed by Prof. Mary Dudziak of the University of Southern California Law School, author of "Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy" and editor of "September 11 in History: A Watershed Moment?"

Other panelists are history professors Gerald Horne of the University of North Carolina, author of "Black and Red: W. E. B. DuBois and the Afro-American Response to the Cold War," and Penny Von Eschen of the University of Michigan, who wrote "Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz, Race and Empire During the Cold War."

The program is part of the Humanities Council's ongoing series, "Brown v. Board 50 Years Later: Conversations on Integration, Race and the Courts."

Admission highlights D.C. trip

A U.S. Supreme Court admission ceremony next June for 50 Illinois lawyers provides an early summer opportunity to visit the cultural, educational and governmental institutions in the nation's capital.

The ISBA-sponsored group admission ceremony will be conducted at 8 a.m. Monday, June 6. It will be followed by a continental breakfast that guests may attend and Supreme Court justices often visit. A tour of the Holocaust Museum is planned on Monday afternoon.

The ISBA Committee on Bar Services and Activities will be host of a reception at 6 p.m. Sunday, June 5, in the Willard Inter-Continental Hotel, where a block of rooms has been reserved.

Reservations must be made through the ISBA. The rate is $219 per day, single or double, from June 4 through June 7, so free time will be available for sightseeing. On request, the ISBA will try to arrange for extensions at comparable rates.

Since participants must arrange their own transportation to and from Washington, they will have the flexibility to turn the admission event into a mini-vacation.

The Supreme Court admission fee is $100. To obtain an application form or additional information, call the office of Janet M. Sosin, ISBA director of bar services, at (312) 726-8775.

Taxing times for military addressed in IRS booklet

The ISBA Committee on Military Affairs has received this timely information from Army Major Joseph Baar Topinka, an Illinoisan who is chief of the Administrative and Civil Law Division of the Staff Judge Advocate at Fort Drum, N.Y.

* * *

In October, the Chicago Sun-Times had an article in its "Ask the Fool" column responding to a question about special tax breaks for military personnel. The column addressed a publication of the Internal Revenue Service called Publication 3, Armed Forces' Tax Guide.

While the column correctly summarized the high points of the publication, it did not cover some additional issues pertaining to military personnel and income taxes.

It may be useful to address these topics for civilian lawyers whose military reservist and National Guard clients or friends may face activation or who are activated and serving at home or overseas.

First, while IRS Publication 3 may appear to be new information, it has been published for years and is updated annually. It was one of the key references I used when I was a military tax assistance officer at Fort Wainwright, Alaska.

The book is packed with incredible information. It defines combat zones and lists the parts of income that are excludable due to service in combat zones. They include active duty pay earned in any month a service member serves in a combat zone, and imminent danger/hostile fire pay among others.

The booklet lists current combat zones, including the Afghanistan, Kosovo and Persian Gulf areas, and the qualified hazardous duty areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Macedonia.