Haaff has lectured at ISBA Law Ed Series and IICLE seminars, and has been the author or co-author of several articles in the Illinois Bar Journal and Family Law Section newsletter. He has spoken at seven law school job search skills seminars.
A 1997 graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law, where he was an ISBA student representative, Haaff serves on its Recent Alumni Advisory Board and has been a mentor to many students. He has chaired the law school's Alumni-Student Career Conference and recruited new members for the ISBA.
Haaff is a Fellow of the Illinois Bar Foundation. He serves on the McHenry County Bar Association Family Law Section and is past secretary-treasurer of the Young and New Lawyers Division.
Raj Shah, a senior associate in the DLA Piper litigation practice group, has devoted hundreds of hours to pro bono matters. He received the firm's 2004 Senior Associate Pro Bono Award and is prepared to try a criminal matter this month for an indigent federal defendant.
Shah is a member of DLA Piper's Signature Project Committee, creator of the Juvenile Justice Project that will receive an ISBA John C. McAndrews Pro Bono Service Award, also to be presented at the June luncheon.
A 1997 graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, Shah is a member of the law firm's Associate Compensation Committee and the board of advisors for the Marbury Institute.
The newly seated ISBA Board of Governors will conduct its first meeting of the bar year at 9 a.m. Friday, July 22, at the Park Hyatt Hotel, Chicago. The 31st annual board alumni dinner will take place that evening in the hotel.
Subsequent meetings of the new Board of Governors are scheduled Friday and Saturday, Sept. 23-24 at House on the Rock Resort, Spring Green, Wis., and Friday, Nov. 4, in St. Louis.
The ISBA Midyear Meeting will take place Thursday through Saturday, Dec. 8 to 10, at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel.
Board meetings in 2006 are scheduled Friday, Jan. 27, in the Westin River North Hotel, Chicago; Friday, March 10, at a location to be announced, and Friday, May 19, at Starved Rock Lodge, Utica.
Board approves revised scopes, drops committee on fee disputes
The ISBA Board of Governors on May 13 adopted new scope statements for the Committee on Law Office Management and Economics and the Committee on Insurance Program and Services.
The scope of the Committee on Law Office Management and Economics, which had been the Law Office Management and Economics (Standing Committe on) , is: "To enhance and develop the professional capabilities of Illinois lawyers in the realization that the practice of law requires the implementation of sound business practices. Its focus will center on economic and professional management development.
"The committee will provide members practical education and suggestions for making law office business practices more effective, competent, ethical and responsive to the needs of clients and the public. This mission will be accomplished in publications, seminars and ISBA programs that offer a practical application for law office management and improved profitability.
"Finally, the committee will coordinate with other sections and committees to accomplish its mission within specific applications, including substantive law practice support, technology that promotes sound business practices, and the Committee on Continuing Legal Education for contribution to a broad range of educational opportunities."
The scope of the Committee on Insurance Program and Services is now: "To recommend, monitor and promote insurance programs and services for association members. To improve and expand existing insurance plans and programs endorsed by the association.
"To be available to assist and advise the president and other ISBA officers on insurance issues. To review and monitor federal and state legislation impacting association insurance programs. To supervise a continuing program of insurance plans and services."
Committee discontinued
The Board of Governors has adopted the recommendation of the Committee on Scope and Correlation that the Committee on Voluntary Fee Arbitration be discontinued because of under-utilization of the arbitration service.
A year ago, as a provision of continuation, the committee had been asked to recommend improvements to promote better use of the service by lawyers and clients. It was reported subsequently that 84 percent of new fee disputes during the year failed to move forward because one or both parties declined to participate.
Ethics opinion withdrawn
At the request of the Committee on Professional Conduct, the Board of Governors agreed that ISBA Advisory Opinion No. 90-07 be formally withdrawn. Technology has advanced to the point where the concerns addressed in the opinion are no longer valid.
The opinion dealt with concerns that a lawyer conversing with a client over mobile communications might reveal a confidence or jeopardize attorney-client privilege, if the conversation were to be intercepted.
Governors are thanked
The Board of Governors has placed in ISBA records a resolution in praise of four retiring members for their extraordinary commitments of time, energy and expertise.
They are Terrence J. Lavin (1994-2005), Stephen M. Komie (1999-2005), Enrico J. Mirabelli (1999-2005), and Mauro Glorioso (2004-05).
New ethics opinions on employee, divorce issues
Advisory ethics opinions related to contact with parties during employment contract negotiations and preparation of marriage dissolution documents were adopted April 8 by the ISBA Board of Governors.
The complete opinions, with citations of applicable rules and cases, may be accessed on the ISBA web site, www.isba.org. Digests follow of the two most recent opinions.
Opinion No. 04-02: During employment contract negotiations, general counsel may not directly contact a party known to be represented by another lawyers without the prior consent of that lawyer.
The general counsel is communicating regarding "the subject of the representation with a party the lawyer knows to be represented by another lawyer in that matter" without the prior consent of the lawyer representing the other party, thus violating the no-contact rule.
Rules 4.2 and 1.2(i) of the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct are cited, as well as ABA Model Rule 4.2 and previous ISBA advisory opinions 96-09 and 92.03.
Opinion No. 04-03: A lawyer who mediated a divorce settlement between unrepresented husband and wife may not prepare a proposed judgment of dissolution of marriage, a marriage separation agreement and joint parenting agreement for husband and wife, and allow husband and wife to file said documents as pro se litigants.
Rules 1.2 and 1.7 of the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct are cited, along with Illinois Supreme Court Rules 137 and previous ISBA advisory opinions 85-06 and 98-06.
Friends' DUI cases led to Ramsell's unique legal niche
By Kelly Scotti
Armed with $200 and two friends who needed legal representation, Donald Ramsell set the wheels in motion for an inspiring legal career.
The journey has taken the Wheaton attorney all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and has earned him a reputation as a top DUI defense attorney. Also tops with his colleagues, he has served as president of the DuPage County Bar Association.
Ramsell, chair of the ISBA Traffic Laws and Courts Section Council and managing partner of Ramsell, Armamentos & Klis, says he always knew he would become a trial attorney.
"Believe it or not, what influenced my decision to enter the profession was watching Perry Mason artfully argue his cases when I was just seven years old," he said. "My mom would let me stay up past my bedtime each week to watch the program, and I never thought of any other profession."
The Waterloo, Iowa, native carried that goal throughout his education. While studying criminal justice at Loyola University, he would ask himself how each course he selected would help him become a better lawyer.
Ramsell earned his B.S. in criminal justice in 1981 and entered the DePaul University College of Law that fall. He received his juris doctorate in 1984 and began working for American National Bank in the probate division.
He soon realized that he was not really living his dream of being a trial attorney. After six months with the bank, he joined the Chicago firm of Jeffrey Schultz & Associates as a workers' compensation associate.
It was in 1986 that Ramsell's legal career took an unexpected direction. A couple of his college friends had been charged with driving under the influence, and they asked for his representation.
"I didn't know much about DUI defense work," Ramsell admitted, "so I researched the law, represented my friends, and happily celebrated their not-guilty verdicts."
This marked the turning point in Ramsell's practice. Not only did he find DUI law professionally challenging, but he discovered that 40,000 DUI cases were heard annually in Illinois and few attorneys marketed legal services in that area.
Ramsell realized he needed a clever vanity phone number to attract clients to his fledgling practice, and the concept of "Dial DUI" was born. The only hitch was that the combination of numbers was already assigned to a woman who lived on the west side of Chicago.
Fortunately, the number was disconnected by April 1986, and Ramsell gladly paid $75 for the transfer rights. He purchased $200 worth of radio spots on a Chicago station. Within a week, he had acquired 23 clients.
By the end of the second week of marketing "Dial DUI," the law office of Ramsell & Associates made its debut in Schaumburg with three associates and a secretary.
Ramsell has handled more than 12,000 DUI cases since then in a legal career that he considers has been a wonderful ride and quite an experience.
He concedes, however, that initially he was not well received by the legal community. The perceived image of a "breathalyzer chaser" with a vanity phone number forced Ramsell to work harder to prove to his colleagues that a good lawyer stood behind the marketing strategy.
His passion for DUI defense inspired him to become an expert in the field by reviewing articles, patents and engineering behind breathalyzers. He even registered in California for a course in field sobriety testing for police officers, and is the only certified instructor in Illinois who is also an attorney.
Ramsell learned that the statewide breath-testing program was based on questionable procedures in certifying breathalyzers. Rather than use reference samples produced by scientists in laboratories, a state police officer was making the samples in his basement.
As a result, thousands of tests were disputed, and immediate changes were forced in the program.
In 1988, Ramsell discovered that the statewide breath-testing program was falsifying testing documents, again causing thousands of tests to become suspect.
He maintained that the actual results of the tests were modified to make the results appear correct, when in actuality the numbers were a scientific impossibility.
Ten years later, Ramsell successfully questioned the accuracy of the state's breathalyzer program by proving that the Intoxilyzer 5000 testing software had been rigged to produce false negative air-blank results. This finding caused all breath tests using that model to become inadmissible in Illinois.
Then in 1999, after a two-year investigation, Ramsell found that the Illinois Department of Public Health had failed to perform critical testing on breath-testing equipment, causing test results to be suppressed across the state.
Later that year, the department was forced to turn over control of the entire program to the state police, and laws were subsequently changed.
The pinnacle of Ramsell's legal career came in November 2003 with the ruling in Illinois v. Lidster, a DUI case he had taken in 1997.
Ramsell argued that the roadblock used by Lombard police to solve an unrelated crime was an illegal invasion in violation of his client's Fourth Amendment rights. The public interest in setting up a checkpoint did not outweigh the intrusion on his client's rights as an innocent motorist.
The Illinois Supreme Court agreed, concluding, "The right of an individual to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures is an indispensable freedom, not a mere luxury."
The attorney general appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, so Ramsell broke new ground as the only Illinois defense attorney to handle a DUI case before the high court in its 214 years.
"Arguing before the the U.S. Supreme Court is like the Super Bowl for lawyers," Ramsell said. "We prepared for six months by dissecting the meaning behind the Fourth Amendment, and studying the court's rulebook on proper etiquette, before presenting our case."
Although Ramsell lost the appeal, he says going before the highest court in the land is an experience of a lifetime.
"Of course, the perfect ending would have been a ruling in my client's favor," he added. "Regardless of the outcome, I walked away having had the opportunity few of my colleagues will likely enjoy."
Alice Kolnick pays ISBA back for 58 years of worth
By Stephen Anderson
When Alice Kolnick graduated in 1945 from the DePaul University College of Law, one of only two women in the class, she did two things.
She rented a small office on Chicago's Northwest Side and hung out her shingle: "A. Kolnick, Attorney at Law." And she joined the Illinois State Bar Association.
Clients were scarce during the war years, especially for a woman lawyer, but if Kolnick had an advantage, it may have been that so many of her male colleagues were in military service.
No doubt, the cachet of ISBA affiliation was an asset, so she maintained her membership more as an investment than an expense. In 1995, the ISBA honored her as a Senior Counsellor for 50 unbroken years of service to the profession.
In 2005, Alice Kolnick returned the tribute, posthumously due to her death in 2003 at age 84, by providing a $10,000 bequest to the state bar association. The Board of Governors acknowledged the gift during its May 13 meeting in Springfield.
"Alice felt greatly assisted by the bar association," said her friend, attorney Elizabeth M. Rochford. "The ISBA Senior Counsellor ceremony 10 years ago at Lake Geneva meant a lot to her."
After earning two master's degrees, Kolnick studied law at night while employed as a public school teacher and a legal assistant at Chicago Title and Trust Co. She abandoned both pursuits as soon as she was admitted to the bar.
"Alice was a trailblazer who loved the law and saw beyond the boundaries for women lawyers," Rochford recalled. "When discouraged by others, her answer always was 'Who says I can't?'"
Although Kolnick's first client was a victim of a streetcar accident, her 58-year solo practice consisted mostly of real estate transactions, wills and probate matters, and income tax preparation.
Her energy and enthusiasm for the law never waned, even after bouts with spinal meningitis and Guillain-Barre syndrome midway in her career confined her to leg braces and a wheelchair.
Kolnick impelled herself to walk with a cane and drive a car - two achievements that her doctors told her she would never enjoy.
She was assisted in later years by Rochford, with whom she had shared office space in Lincolnwood since 1991. "I was the legs, and she was the brains," Rochford said.