She will answer the questions: What gets it started? What is the process? What are the potential results? What are the current trends?
9:45 a.m. - Administrative Hearings: Issues and Procedures, with section council member Kathryn A. Bischoff of Rockford. She will discuss expunging indicated reports, ACR appeals, and appealing administrative decisions.
10:40 a.m. - Court-Appointed Special Advocates, with John R. DeLaMar of Champaign County CASA, Urbana.
11:20 a.m. - Children Advocacy Centers, with Sue Plote, director of the DeKalb Family Service Agency.
11:40 a.m. - Case Law Update, with section council members Michael W. Raridon of Martenson, Blair & Raridon, Rockford, and Kathryn Bischoff.
12 noon - Luncheon period.
1 p.m. - Adjudicatory Phase of an Abuse, Neglect, Dependency Case, with assistant Cook County state's attorney Terry L. Lotsoff of Chicago.
1:35 p.m. - Disposition Phase of an Abuse, Neglect, Dependency Case, with Ellen Pauling.
2:10 p.m. - Permanency Hearings: Outside Cook County, with 11th Circuit Judge Stephen R. Pacey of Paxton, a section council member; In Cook County, with hearing officer Joan L. Rehm of the circuit court's Child Protection Division, Chicago.
The Lawyers' Assistance Program will hold an open house in its new Chicago offices from 3 to 6 p.m. Monday, Feb. 28. The location is suite 1820 at 20 S. Clark St.
LAP officers and board members will be present to discuss services and activities of the program. Call executive director Janet Piper Voss at (312) 726-6607 for details.
The structure of the ISBA Law Office Management and Economics (Standing Committe on) Council has been changed to that of a Standing Committee on Law Office Management and Economics, which gives it the option of adding members without the restriction based on section membership.
The Committee on Scope and Correlation made the recommendation to the Board of Governors, which approved the change on Jan. 28. The board requested the new committee to propose a new scope statement and authorized it to publish a newsletter on a subscription basis.
The section council had asked for new status after meeting with the Committee on Legal Technology to review their respective roles of service to the association.
In other action, the Board of Governors expressed support in concept of a statewide judicial internship program in cooperation with the Illinois Judges Association. The board committed up to $8,750 toward implementation of a pilot summer program.
The board also reappointed five members of the Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation board whose terms expired Dec. 31. New two-year terms will be served by the following:
Region II, 4th Circuit Judge Kathleen P. Moran of Trenton; Region VII, David M. Frisse of Paris; At Large, Julie Keehner Katz of Belleville, Benjamin K. Edwards of East St. Louis, and Donald J. Hanrahan of Springfield.
New challenges in health care aired April 15
The ISBA Law Ed Series seminar, "Not-for-Profit Health Care Organizations: Responding to New Challenges," will be presented from 9 a.m. to 12 noon Friday, April 15, in the Chicago Regional Office.
Sponsors are the ISBA Health Care Section, the Center for Health Law and Policy of the Southern Illinois University School of Law, and the Department of Medical Humanities of the SIU School of Medicine.
Section council chair William F. Sherwood of Carbondale, vice president and general counsel of Southern Illinois Healthcare, will open the program at 9 a.m. and serve as moderator.
Robert A. Clifford of the Clifford Law Offices, Chicago, will speak at 9:10 a.m. on Challenges to Health Care Tax Exemption.
At 10:10 a.m., Thomas M. Fahey of Ungaretti & Harris will discuss Risk Management and Compliance Strategies.
The seminar will conclude with the 11:10 a.m. presentation, IRS Review of Executive Compensation and Benefits for Officers and Insiders of Tax-exempt Organizations, by Elizabeth M. Mills of McDermott, Will & Emery, Chicago.
Honored for pro bono work, but opposed to reporting it
By John F. Bramfeld
The ISBA has solicited opinions from the membership regarding mandatory disclosure of attorney pro bono activities. I am very much opposed, but before I go into my various reasons I want to establish that I have no animus toward attorney pro bono work.
I have provided pro bono services through Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation in Champaign County for many years. I was the first recipient of the James E. Capel Jr. award for outstanding pro bono attorney of the year and have received numerous certificates of appreciation for my participation.
This does not mean that I believe attorneys owe a certain amount or even any pro bono services as an ethical or moral matter. I have the much broader expectation that attorneys, like everyone else, will conduct charitable activities at some level, which may or may not include pro bono publico legal service.
I know attorneys who give much more than I to charities. I know attorneys that travel to impoverished areas with their families every year and assist in home repair and improvement. I know attorneys who provide services for all kinds of community events for which they are not compensated.
From my own viewpoint, it is more convenient for me to do certain types of pro bono work than to travel to rural Arkansas and work on houses. This is not necessarily to my credit.
The attempt by the Illinois Supreme Court committee to impose mandatory disclosure of what ought to be considered charity is misguided at best. I do not know where this proposal comes from, but if it originates with elected ISBA officers, they wisely excluded it from their platform for election.
If it originated with legal service foundations, it would cause me to think twice about my support after such a cynical attempt to bureaucratize my charitable efforts on their behalf.
It was suggested to me that other states which have enacted this mandatory reporting measure have seen an increase in pro bono help. If that statistic were true (which I tend to doubt), it is an insufficient reason to interpose the Supreme Court between the bar and the object of the bar's charitable impulse.
Even if we assume, probably unwisely, that this is not a step toward mandatory pro bono service, it reflects a high level of condescension and distrust by bar leaders toward its foot soldiers.
I wish I could say after 27 years at the bar that I am mature enough to accept a mandatory reporting requirement and to continue my current level of help. I think, however, that any such requirement would result in a certain amount of resentment both toward the Supreme Court and toward the previous object of my charity, Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation.
I find it unlikely that, faced with the yearly renewal form from the ARDC, I would even consider including any information about my pro bono activities. It is also possible I would have no more such activity to report.
If attorneys want to get credit in the Holy Church of Government (Judicial Synod), we customarily give money to charity, report it to the acolytes at the IRS (Executive Synod) and take a plenary deduction.
It is hard to believe that the Illinois Supreme Court and the bar leaders in the State of Illinois can honestly say to themselves that pro bono legal service is a more pressing concern than those of United Way, Catholic Charities, Muscular Dystrophy Association, Habitat for Humanity and the many other worthy causes also supported by lawyers.
I like to think that in the unlikely event I were to achieve some position of authority, it would not occur to me to use the force of law to: a) make sure people are giving enough to charity, and b) steer them to my pet charity.
* * *
In addition to the ISBA, Urbana attorney John Bramfeld sent this letter to Supreme Court Justice Rita Garman, Dean Peter Alexander of the Southern Illinois University School of Law and Lois Wood of the Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation.
Marker sought for Judge Treat, Lincoln's chess partner
By Stephen Anderson
Abraham Lincoln argued cases and represented clients more than a thousand times in Illinois courts where Judge Samuel Hubbel Treat presided.
Close in life - they were frequent chessboard competitors - they are also close in death. Each is buried in Springfield's Oak Ridge Cemetery. Lincoln's remains repose in an impressive tomb where thousands of visitors pay tribute to the martyred president each year.
Judge Treat lies in obscurity under an unmarked patch of sod. An initiative to rectify this oversight is under way, led by Daniel W. Stowell, editor of The Papers of Abraham Lincoln.
Judge Richard Mills of U.S. District Court has contacted the Illinois State Bar Association for support of a campaign to provide "a fitting monument to one of the greatest jurists on Mr. Lincoln's Prairie."
A distant relative of Robert Treat Paine, who signed the Declaration of Independence, Samuel Treat settled in Springfield in 1834 at age 23 after being admitted to the New York bar. He subsequently became the first judge to serve in each of three court systems in Illinois: circuit, supreme and federal.
In 1839, after the Illinois General Assembly created new judicial circuits, Gov. Thomas Carlin asked Stephen T. Logan to become judge of the nine-county 8th Circuit. Lincoln then was a junior partner in Logan's Springfield firm. When Logan declined, the governor appointed Treat.
In 1841, the General Assembly increased the Supreme Court from four to nine justices, including Treat, and gave each the responsibility of presiding over courts where the office of judge had been abolished.
The 1848 Constitution reduced the Supreme Court from nine appointed justices to three elective positions, and Treat was elected. He became chief justice a year later. In March 1855, he was appointed by President Franklin Pierce to the new U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, situated in Springfield.
Between 1839 and 1855, Judge Treat heard Lincoln argue 870 circuit court cases and about 162 Supreme Court matters. As a federal judge, he heard at least 136 more of Lincoln's cases.
Ironically, a cousin also named Samuel Treat, a St. Louis attorney and judge of the Court of Common Pleas, was appointed in 1857 by President Pierce as judge of U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.
For 30 years, the two Samuel Treats were coincidental colleagues of the federal bench, their jurisdictions separated by the Mississippi River.
Samuel Hubbel Treat presided over the Southern Illinois district court for more than three decades, working until a few weeks before his death on March 27, 1887. His Missouri cousin had resigned in February 1887.
Archives of the Sangamon County Court reveal that permission was granted to the administrator of Judge Treat's estate on Dec. 11, 1888, to expend not more than $200 on procuring a tombstone and placing it at the to Springfield gravesite.
"Needless to say, it was quite a shock for me to learn that one of the most distinguished jurists in Illinois history lies buried near Mr. Lincoln ... but has no headstone," Judge Mills wrote in his letter to the bar association.
"Judge Treat was noted for having collected one of the finest libraries in Illinois at that time, and helped complete and annotate the Statutes of Illinois," he continued.
Treat was the second lawyer to sign the roll of federal court attorneys on Dec. 3, 1839, Mills added. The first was "A. Lincoln," and the sixth was Stephen A. Douglas.
Justice Thomas to keynote Peoria's 97th Lincoln fete
Illinois Supreme Court Justice Robert R. Thomas (right) of Wheaton will be keynote speaker this month for the 97th Lincoln Memorial Banquet of the Peoria County Bar Association.
The event will begin at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 24, at the Peoria Civic Center. For more information or to make reservations, call (309) 674-6049.
Thomas was elected to the Supreme Court in 2000 after six years on the Illinois Appellate Court, 2nd District, and six years as a judge of the 18th Circuit Court.
A 1981 graduate of the Loyola University School of Law, he studied law while playing professional football for the Chicago Bears and setting scoring records as a place kicker.
After seven years in private practice in DuPage and Kane Counties, Thomas was elected to the circuit court in 1988. He presided over civil jury trials and served as acting chief judge from 1989 until 1994, when he was elected to the Appellate Court.
An Academic All-American in 1974, while at the University of Notre Dame, Thomas is a member of the Academic All-American Hall of Fame and was a recipient of an NCAA Silver Anniversary Award in 1999.
He was named Lawyer of the Year in 2001 by the DuPage County Bar Association, and he received the Justinian Society Award of merit a year later.
Data sought on Charles Bailey, Freeport native
A South Dakota journalist needs help tracking down information about Charles O. Bailey, formerly of Freeport, who was a founder of one of the Coyote State's oldest law firms.
Bob Mercer, who covers the statehouse in Pierre, S.D., for several newspapers, has embarked on an independent project of researching the history of Bailey's firm.
Charles Bailey was the son of Illinois Supreme Court justice Joseph M. Bailey, who served from June 1888 until his death in November 1895 in Freeport. He was chief justice from June 1892 to June 1893.
Joseph Bailey also served in the Illinois House of Representatives from 1866 to 1870, and was a 13th Circuit judge from 1877 until his election to the Supreme Court. He was a trustee of the University of Chicago.
"The trail is relatively cold so far regarding C. O. Bailey," Mercer said. He would be grateful for any details about young Bailey and his relocation to South Dakota, as well as the location of any papers of his jurist father. He may be contacted by e-mail at Bobmercer1@aol.com.
Business of being an attorney includes choosing entity
In response to frequent requests for such information, the ISBA Business Advice and Financial Planning Section will include a discussion on choices of entity in its upcoming seminar, "The Business of Being an Attorney."
The Law Ed Series seminar will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Friday, March 4, in the ISBA Chicago Regional Office. The presentation on entities will conclude the program, which is co-sponsored by the Women's Bar Association of Illinois.
Stuart H. Wolf of Arlington Heights, the section council vice chair, is seminar coordinator and moderator. He will open the program with a welcome and introductions of the topics and speakers that follow.
8:40 a.m. - Recent Developments in Business Law: Case Update with section council past chair and ISBA Assembly member Herbert J. Klein of the Law Offices of Walter J. Zukowski & Associates, Peru; Statutory Update with John J. Horeled of Crystal Lake, member of the ISBA Committee on Bar Services and Activities.
9:20 a.m. - The Economics of a Business Law Practice, with speaker to be announced. Discussion issues include forms of billing - hourly, value, flat