Brown said her office "is committed to using technology to improve services" that are offered to members of the bar and the public.Also a certified public accountant, she is vice chair of the Illinois CPA Society.
Recorder cuts costs
Cook County Recorder of Deeds Eugene Moore recently announced an Internet retrieval process that "slashed the cost of obtaining a copy of a recorded document by 95 percent" from $10 to 50 cents.
Document copy purchases must be made by credit card. A processing fee of $2.50 applies to each transaction, for one document or several.
Online access to the office's database of recorded Cook County property documents dating back to 1985 is now available to the public 24 hours a day. Searchers may use the name of a grantor or grantee, the permanent index number, a legal description, or a trust number.
Moore has recommended that Cook County property owners examine recordings annually to ensure that no unusual entries have been made through error or otherwise.
They arrive with the summer season, as surely as mosquitoes and backyard cookouts - the governor signs bills into law, and new public acts come into being. Needless to say, lawyers need to keep themselves and their clients apprised of the new laws that affect their lives and businesses.
The ISBA Web site makes that task a little easier. Go to the ISBA Illinois Legislative Info page at <http://www.isba.org/Legislative> (or on the maroon left-hand navigation bar under Other Practice Resources) and follow the link at "Legislative Summaries." There you'll find summaries and updates of new Illinois and federal laws, most of which first appeared in ISBA newsletters, all of which are organized by practice area.
Visit today and you'll find information about new legislation in the areas of real estate, criminal, education, and government law. And the archive will grow as the year goes on and more newsletter articles and other resources become available.
Of course, if you're interested in a particular area of law, you can learn about developments legislative and otherwise by joining a section for only $20 per year and getting the quarterly newsletter. To sign up online, go to <http://www.isba.org/Sections>.
Director of Legislative Affairs
The following bills have been enacted into law.
Income withholding. Public Act 94-43 amends the Income Withholding for Support Act to require that only the obligor's social security number appear on the notice of withholding. Effective Jan. 1, 2006.
Small estate affidavit. Public Act 94-57 clarifies that last year's increase for small estates affidavits from $50,000 to $100,000 applies to documents executed after the Aug. 6, 2004 regardless of when the decedent died. Effective June 17, 2005.
Rental payments. Public Act 94-2 requires that lessors of residential real property accept rent payments at its business office during regularly scheduled office hours in certain situations. It applies to the housing that contains 100 or more residential units in a single building or a complex of buildings that maintains a business office on the premise of the building or complex. It also prohibits lessor from imposing any penalty, fee, or charge for making timely rent payments in this manner, but the lessor may refuse to accept cash payments if rent is paid in this manner. Effective May 31, 2005.
Human Rights Act. Public Act 94-78 amends the Illinois Human Rights Act governing real estate transactions. It makes it a civil rights violation to coerce, intimidate, threaten, or interfere with any person in the exercise or enjoyment of any right protected under Article 3 of this Act. Effective Jan. 1, 2006.
Child support and currency exchanges. Public Act 94-87 authorizes obligors to pay child support at a currency exchange if they supply the currency exchange with sufficient information to enable it to transmit the support payment to the SDU. Effective June 30, 2005.
Real estate filing fees. Public Act 94-118 authorizes a $10 filing fee on all real estate documents with $9 going to the affordable housing fund and $1 to the county's general revenue fund. The money will subsidize landlords to charge affordable rent for low-income tenants. Effective July 1, 2005.
Interest on maintenance. Public Act 94-89 ensures that the obligor of maintenance must pay simple interest at the rate of 9% to the obligee on arrearages for unpaid maintenance. This would apply to any maintenance obligation, including unallocated maintenance and support obligation. Effective Jan. 1, 2006.
Interest on child support. Public Act 94- 90 amends all child support statutes to provide a complicated formula to calculate on a monthly basis simple interest on child support arrearages to comply with federal law. Effective Jan. 1, 2006.
Open Meetings Act. Public Act 94-28 amends the Open Meetings Act. Requires public bodies that have a website that is maintained by full-time staff to post the following on their websites: (1) agenda of regular meetings; (2) notice of all meetings; and (3) minutes of a regular meeting within seven days of the approval of the minutes. The minutes must remain posted for at least 60 days after the initial posting. The requirement for the posting of minutes begins July 1, 2006. Effective Jan. 1, 2006.
Hearsay. Public Act 94-53 amends the §115-10.2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure on the admissibility of prior statements if the witness refuses to testify despite a court order to do so. It requires that the statements be made under oath and subject to cross-examination by the adverse party in a prior trial, hearing, or other proceeding. Effective June 17, 2005.
Notice of tax payments. Public Act 94-50 amends the Mortgage Escrow Account Act to require mortgage lenders to give borrowers written notice within 45 days if the lender pays the borrower's property taxes from an escrow account. Effective Jan. 1, 2006.
Sections and committees are the backbone of the Illinois State Bar Association. The work of the members who serve on the 37 section councils and more than 40 standing, special and ad hoc committees makes the ISBA one of the most productive bar associations in the country.
In brief fashion, here is a sampling of projects in the pipeline:
* A lawyer-staffed help desk to assist unrepresented tenants and landlords in eviction cases is being developed by the Bench and Bar Section Council.
* Bench and Bar also is encouraging local bar associations and their presiding judges to adopt an intermediary program in which non-disciplinary complaints lawyers have against judges can be referred to a lawyer intermediary to attempt to resolve. Intermediary also could receive judges' complaints about lawyer behavior.
* The General Practice, Solo and Small Firm Section Council has championed the Oct. 7 to 9 Solo and Small Firm Conference at Pheasant Run .
* An ongoing advertising campaign to remind consumers of the value in hiring lawyers, and to improve public confidence in the legal profession, is being developed and tested by the Committee on Strategic Marketing for Illinois Lawyers. Results of focus group testing conducted in Schaumburg, Peoria and Fairview Heights were presented to the Assembly last month with the next step to be consideration of how to fund a permanent campaign.
"When the judiciary is under attack, the bar disengaged, the public indifferent and critics scornful, then this idea of judicial independence may be under a real threat. It would be a tragedy if the American people ignored or neglected the idea of judicial independence just when the rest of the world is on the threshold of gaining it themselves."
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, urging lawyers to speak up and explain the judicial process when judges come under attack
* * *
"In sex discrimination and sexual harassment cases, women judges are no more sympathetic to female plaintiffs than men judges. But Democratic appointees are more sympathetic to female plaintiffs than Republican appointees."
University of Chicago law professor Cass R. Sunstein, who studies judges' voting patterns, reacting to the retirement of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor
* * *
"(Court) facilities and operations are fully funded by county governments, and there's nothing equal about any of it. One of the more wealthy counties can take its court budget and divide it by the population and find that each person is paying about $2.20 annually to support the court system. But in a poor, impoverished southern Illinois county, each person pays $8.80. It's all over the place."
Judge James Wexstten, president of the Illinois Judges Association, on the disparity of funding for Illinois courts
By Stephen Anderson
Editor
"Let the drums roll out! Strike up the band!" The Eagles have landed a niche in jurisprudence - a notch in the dike that separates state from church.
Perplexed by scriptural trespasses on the body politic, justices of the U.S. Supreme Court followed their moral compasses along divergent azimuths in long-awaited opinions on display of the Ten Commandments.
Exodus 20:2-17 seems appropriate, they ruled, when out of context on public capitol grounds (the Texas case), but is unseemly if graven obtrusively on a courthouse wall (the Kentucky case).
At issue in the capitol case is a red granite monolith given in 1961 by the Fraternal Order of Eagles for placement in Austin. Today, it sits equidistant from the Lone Star statehouse and, ironically, the Texas Supreme Court building.
The monument is not alone. In its vicinity are sculpted tributes to Texas Children, the Pioneer Woman, the Cowboy, Confederate Soldiers, Heroes of the Alamo, the Texas Rangers (not the baseball team) and veterans of several wars.
Aha, said the court. Sure the Ten Commandments are religious in nature, but have "undeniable historical meaning" (Justice Rehnquist). The monument highlights its role "in shaping civic morality as part of (the Eagles') efforts to combat juvenile delinquency" (Justice Breyer).
Justice Stevens dissented, but noted that the FOE is "a well respected benevolent organization whose good works have earned the praise of several presidents." By now, the Eagles also have earned either credit or criticism, depending on one's point of view.
Who are they? "Proud, Caring People Helping People," the Eagles say, who "understand that the needs of the many will always outweigh the needs of the few." The order was founded in 1898 in a Seattle shipyard by six theater owners. Its first name was "The Order of Good Things."
Thousands of chapters, called aeries, exist across the country. Of the 69 in Illinois, the oldest are Alton (#254 on the national roll) and Peoria (#265), where the state convention was held last month. The newest (#4475) is in Newton.
The Ten Commandments project was started in 1951 by E. J. Ruegemer, a Minnesota juvenile and probate court judge who felt that the basic moral conduct it describes could help divert wayward boys from trouble. His first effort was distribution of 7,000 small framed copies.
The project got a boost in 1955, when Cecil B. DeMille praised the FOE Youth Guidance Program and suggested that bronze plaques of the commandments be placed in public locations. Coincidentally, he was filming "The Ten Commandments."
Ruegemer reminded DeMille that God created the code in stone tablets, and construction began. A prototype had been presented in 1954 to the City of Chicago during the Eagles national convention. The first state capitol placement was in Denver in 1955, and another in Jefferson City, Mo., in 1958.
Eagles historian Sue A. Hoffman has documented the location of 145 Ten Commandments monoliths in 34 states - far fewer than recent media estimates of hundreds, or thousands. Some have been removed, either by a court order or the anticipation of one.
In Texas, however, the lawsuit filed by an unemployed, homeless lawyer was litigated all the way to the Supreme Court. There, the arduous dispute was settled on June 27.
The grand trustees of the FOE called it a great day in U.S. history for "everyone who believes that the Ten Commandments are tried-and-true blueprints for good citizenship and a decent society." Judge Ruegemer was not around to appreciate the outcome. He died Jan. 12 at age 102.
Mackoff pens guide for children in divorces
A helpful guidebook for parties and children involved in contentious marriage dissolutions in the Cook County Circuit Court Domestic Relations Division has been provided by the Union League Civic and Arts Foundation.
The publication, "Transition: Helping Children Through Divorce," is based on lessons that are presented in the court's four-hour "Focus on Children" course for divorcing parents.