1 February 2005 Bar News

They are Kimball R. Anderson of Chicago, Joseph R. Bartylak of Alton, Lionel I. Brazen of Skokie, Diane C. Geraghty of Chicago, Thomas S. Johnson of Rockford, Eugene I. Pavalon of Chicago and Carol Hansen Posegate of Springfield.

The Academy was established in 1999 by the Illinois State Bar Association to celebrate excellence in the practice of law and to recognize lawyers who maintain the highest standards of professional and public service. Sixty Laureates were inducted during the first five years.

The Academy Board of Regents met Jan. 27 to review the letters of nomination and supporting materials that were submitted for 23 candidates. Summaries follow of members of the 2005 class.

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Kimball Anderson, a senior partner in Winston & Strawn, graduated first in his class of 1977 at the University of Illinois College of Law and joined the law firm that year.

Under Anderson's leadership during the past 20 years, the firm's pro bono program has been honored as a model for the profession. His efforts have been recognized by the American Bar Association, the Federal Bar Association and U.S. District Court, and he was Chicago Lawyer's Person of the Year in 1996.

Anderson is president-elect of the Chicago Bar Foundation, first vice president of the Public Interest Law Initiative and chair of the DePaul University College of Law Center for Justice in Capital Cases.

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Joseph Bartylak joined the staff of the Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation when it was founded in 1972 and was its executive director for 27 years while its area expanded into 65 Southern Illinois counties. He retired in 2003 and now is downstate associate director of the Lawyers' Assistance Program.

A member of the ISBA Assembly and a past chair of the Committee on Delivery of Legal Services, Bartylak is a trustee of the Illinois Coalition for Equal Justice and a past president of LAP.

He has received the Charles Dorsey Award from the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, the Lovejoy Human Rights Award, a Distinguished Service Award from the Lawyers Trust Fund of Illinois, and LAP's Carl H. Rolewick Award.

Lionel Brazen, during his 55 years in practice in Cook County, has been well known as a watchdog for his legal challenges to discriminatory surcharges on filing fees and an attempt to require attorneys to sign affidavits of ethical compliance.

Brazen has received the ABA Sole Practitioner of the Year Award and the ISBA General Practice Tradition of Excellence Award. A former member of the ISBA Board of Governors, he is a past chair of the General Practice and Elder Law Section Councils.

He is a past president of the North Suburban Bar Association, a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, and former counsel to the Midwest chapter of Sierra Club and the Midwest division of Friends of the Earth.

Diane Geraghty, a faculty member of the Loyola University School of Law since 1977, is acting dean and founding director of its unique Civitas ChildLaw Center. A nationally known authority on juvenile justice, she was the principal drafter of the Illinois Supreme Court Juvenile Law Benchbook.

A former member of the ISBA Child Law Section Council, Geraghty has chaired the Citizen's Committee on the Cook County Juvenile Court and the Illinois State Court Improvement Project. She is a past president of the Illinois ACLU.

She and her husband, Thomas Geraghty, who was inducted as an Academy Laureate in 1999, have received the Livingston Hall Award from the American Bar Association and the Leonard Jay Schrager Award from the Chicago Bar Foundation.

Thomas Johnson, a senior partner in Williams & McCarthy, was the founding chancellor of the Academy of Illinois Lawyers in 1999. He has stepped forward to spearhead countless task forces and special initiatives of the Illinois bar, and is a recipient of the ISBA Award of Merit.

Among the ISBA entities Johnson has chaired are the Committee on Lawyer Referral Service, Committee on Delivery of Legal Services, Task Force on Education Bigotry, Special Committee on Lawyer Advertising, Task Force on Governance, and most recently, the Committee on Tone and Conduct of Appellate and Supreme Court Elections.

A past president of the Winnebago County Bar Association, Johnson has served on the ISBA Board of Governors and Assembly, and the ABA House of Delegates. He is past chair of the board of trustees of Rockford College, which conferred on him an honorary doctorate of humane letters.

Eugene Pavalon, senior partner in Pavalon, Gifford, Laatsch & Marino, is a past president of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, the Roscoe Pound Foundation and Trial Lawyers for Public Justice.

Pavalon has served on the ISBA Civil Practice Section Council and the Committee on Intraprofessional Cooperation. He is a past chair of the CBA Civil Practice Committee and the Committee on Aviation Law of the ABA Section of Litigation.

He is a member of the Illinois Supreme Court Committee on Civil Discovery Procedures and the editorial board of Shepard's Tort Reporter, and a former member of the board of overseers of the RAND Corp. Institute for Civil Justice. He teaches trial advocacy at the Northwestern University School of Law.

Carol Hansen Posegate, a partner in Posegate & Denes, participates in a variety of community initiatives in addition to legal activities that include service on the Illinois Supreme Court Committee on Professionalism.

Posegate is an elected trustee of Lincoln Land Community College, chair of the Memorial Medical System Child Care Board and member of the Medical Center board, and a past president of the Visiting Nurse Association of Sangamon County.

A former member of the U.S. Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Posegate is a member of the Lincoln-Douglas Inn of Court. She has chaired the Sangamon County United Way board and its fund-raising campaign.

For information about nominating an ISBA member for consideration as a 2006 Laureate of the Academy of Illinois Lawyers. visit the Web site, www.isba.org, and click on ISBA Laureates under ISBA and You.

Downstate workshop slated

An ISBA Lawyer's Workshop of practice techniques will be conducted from 8:45 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, April 15, at the Holiday Inn, Collinsville. Sponsored by the Committee on Minority and Women Participation, it will be preceded at 8:15 a.m. with registration and continental breakfast.

The conference fees for registration before April 8 are $25 for attorneys in private practice and $15 for recent admittees, Law students and legal services agency attorneys may attend at no charge. Contact Trish Ashton at (800) 252-8908 or tashton@isba.org to register.

Chicago attorney Jorge L. Montes, chair of the ISBA committee, will open the program at 8:45 a.m. with welcoming remarks and introductions. The schedule of topics and speaker follows.

9 a.m. - Family Law, with Edwardsville attorney Jennifer A. Shaw as moderator. She serves on the sponsoring committee and the Committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. Speakers are:

Associate Judge Janet R. Heflin of the 3rd Circuit, Edwardsville, on Attorney Fees and Preserving Your Right to Collect.

Michael D. Shag of Heyl, Royster, Voelker & Allen, Edwardsville, on Proceedings Under the Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act.

Associate Judge Ellar Duff of the 3rd Circuit, Edwardsville, on Emergency Protection Orders and Crisis Assistance.

10 a.m. - Civil Discovery, with Associate Prof. Alice M. Noble-Allgire of the Southern Illinois University School of Law as moderator. She serves on the sponsoring committee and the Committee on Women and the Law. Speakers are:

Dennis J. Orsey of Granite City, a member of the ISBA Board of Governors, on Discovery Violations and Contempt Actions; How to Deal with Delays in Discovery Compliance.

Richard K. Hunsaker of Heyl, Royster, Voelker & Allen, Edwardsville, and Veronica Armouti of Sandberg, Phoenix & von Gontard, St. Louis, on A Basic Approach to Understanding Medical Discovery and HIPAA Regulations in Personal Injury and Health Care.

11:15 a.m. - Ethics and Law, with Jorge Montes as moderator. The discussion includes Attorney-Client Relations, Avoiding the Pitfalls of Practice, Managing Attorney Trust Fund Accounts, and Incivility Can Cost You Your License.

The speaker is Peter L. Rotskoff of Springfield, senior counsel of the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission and liaison to the ISBA Committee on Legal Education, Admission and Competence. He also chairs the Special Committee on Implementing the Mentoring Program and serves on the Committee on Corrections and Sentencing and the Special Committee on GATS.

12 noon - The Basics of Practice in U.S. District Court for the Southern District, including local rules, with Michael F. Daniels of Heyl, Royster, Voelker & Allen, Edwardsville, as moderator. He serves on the sponsoring committee and the Health Care Section Council.

Speakers are Magistrate Judge Donald G. Wilkerson of the Southern District, East St. Louis, on federal civil practice, and John D. Stobbs II of East Alton on Federal Criminal Practice.

Family law CDs are convenient, unique updates

A major challenge for family law practitioners is keeping up with case law and legislation. Updates in these subjects are an extremely popular part of the ISBA Law Ed Series Family Law seminars, presented twice yearly.

Now for the first time, ISBA members can listen conveniently to these two updates in the privacy of their homes or automobiles. The updates consist of two CDs, recorded Dec. 10.

One features a case law update by Enrico J. Mirabelli, a member of the ISBA Board of Governors, that covers the latest court decisions in 13 areas of family law, from attorney fees to visitation.

The second covers Adrienne W. Albrecht's legislative update, which includes everything you need to know about family law-related legislation enacted in the most recent legislative session.

This is comprehensive information you won't find compiled and analyzed anywhere else. Enrico and Adrienne have done the job for you. In addition to the two CDs, their detailed print materials from the actual Law Ed program are included.

Regular price for both the CDs and print materials are $39.99, and that includes tax and shipping. But, if you order your 2004 Family Law Update by March 15, the price is discounted to $34.00 - a 15 percent savings.

You can order on the ISBA Web site at www.isba.org (ISBA Bookstore) or contact Janice Ishmael at jishmael@isba.orgor (800) 252-8908.

Turn to page 6 for information about a special Family Law Section seminar on evidentiary issues that will take place April 8 and 9 in New Orleans, La.

Human Rights: 'Soul of the state bar'

Section changes name, expands focus on ideals

With little fanfare, the ISBA Individual Rights and Responsibilities Section was renamed the Human Rights Section as Peoria attorney Phillip Lenzini took office as its chair last year.

Members of the section council debated the proposal during the 2004 Annual Meeting and "concluded that such a name change would more appropriately reflect our role and focus and better depict it (to) the entire association," Lenzini wrote in the December newsletter.

Exploring further "the mantle of Human Rights," section council member Mark E. Wojcik, an associate professor at The John Marshall Law School, wrote an article for the newsletter, which formerly was titled Constitutional Law and Liberty.

"I have sometimes thought of this section as providing the soul of the bar association," Wojcik explained. "Although other sections also deal with issues of human rights, the legal issues fall squarely within our section's jurisdiction."

He defined the broad field of human rights as "one that encompasses such things as employment discrimination, fair housing, civil rights litigation, constitutional issues, and a host of other specialties."

Members of the section are dedicated to individual and human rights because they believe in them, Wojcik continued, "and they believe it is important for the bar association to have an active section in this area."

Membership has always been relatively small because few lawyers have full-time practices in this field, but "lawyers join because they want to be members," he pointed out.

Human Rights Section members are the "most dedicated - intellectually, personally and professionally - to the protection and advancement of individual rights" and to the ideals of constitutional law and liberty.

Wojcik noted that law students have been a core constituency and source of subsequent membership, given their significant awareness of and interest in the area of human rights law.

Any ISBA member may join the Human Rights Section for a nominal fee. The procedure is listed on the Web site, www.isba.org, under Sections and Committees.

"Membership is a vote of support in the bar association's decision to create and support a section dedicated to human rights," Wojcik said.

In addition to Phillip Lenzini, the chair, other officers are vice chair Sheila M. Murphy, a retired judge and former member of the ISBA Board of Governors, and secretary Kathryn E. Eisenhart.

Newsletter co-editor Patrick J. Hughes Jr. has been honored for his many years of exceptional service and also was inducted last year as a Laureate of the Academy of Illinois Lawyers. Moria Bernstein is the other co-editor.

Abuse, neglect, dependency issues to be covered April 1

"Back to Basics: Abuse, Neglect and Dependency" is the title of an ISBA Law Ed Series seminar that will be presented Friday, April 1, in the Chicago Regional Office by the Child Law Section, with co-sponsorship by the Women's Bar Association of Illinois.

Section council chair Ellen P. Pauling of Sycamore, assistant DeKalb County state's attorney, and past chair Marbara L. Delanois of David & Delanois, Danville, are program coordinators and moderators.

Pauling will open the program at 9 a.m. with welcoming remarks. The schedule of topics and speakers follows.

9:05 a.m. - DCFS Investigations, with Debra Dyer-Walker, chief deputy general counsel of the Cook County Juvenile Court Unit of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.