8:30 a.m. - "Super Saturday" field trip for children to Rainforest Café and the Children's Museum at Navy Pier.
9 a.m. - ISBA Assembly meeting.
9 a.m. - IJA business meeting and installation.
9 a.m. - General Practice, Solo and Small Firm Section seminar.
9 a.m. - Labor and Employment Law Section seminar.
9 a.m. - Mastering Legal Writing seminar.
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Go to www.isba.org complete details. Unless otherwise indicated, all events will be at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel. Stop at ISBA registration desk for information and admission to ticketed activities.
Joel Daly to become Honorary Fellow
By Stephen Anderson
The Fellows of the Illinois Bar Foundation this month will add to the long list of awards and accolades Chicago attorney Joel T. Daly has received from legal organizations since even before he graduated from law school.
Daly, who joined WLS-TV in Chicago in 1967 and has been an afternoon anchor for "Eyewitness News" for 15 years, will receive an Honorary Fellows Award during a reception at 4:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 10, in the Sheraton Chicago Hotel.
The first law-related honor that Daly received was a Liberty Bell Award, which recognizes efforts of non-lawyers, from the Chicago Bar Association in 1973. Years later, he received Herman Kogan Media Awards from the CBA in 1989 and 1995.
Daly has received an Atticus Finch Award for pro bono work from the Chicago Volunteer Legal Services Foundation, a Human Relations Award from the American Jewish Congress and several television Emmy Awards for his humanistic approach to news reporting.
A magna cum laude graduate of Yale University in 1956, he embarked on a broadcasting career that took him to the Panama Canal Zone and Cleveland, Ohio, before he landed his television opportunity in Chicago.
Thirty years after his undergraduate days, Daly took up the study of law at Chicago-Kent College of Law. His broadcast journalism skills contributed to a national moot court championship for the law school team.
Coached by Cook County Judge Warren D. Wolfson, the Chicago-Kent team triumphed over the Stetson University Law School during the finals in Dallas, Texas. Daly graduated with honors in 1988.
The limelight in his blood has inspired Daly to critically acclaimed performances of legal icons such as Atticus Finch, the fictional hero of "To Kill a Mockingbird," and Clarence Darrow, Chicago's legendary "defense attorney for the damned."
Daly has been a member of the ISBA Committee on Media Law, "the oldest living member" of the CBA Young Lawyers Section and a veteran of the annual Christmas Spirits show cast.
His work as a television news anchor has limited his legal career somewhat during a part-time stint at Corboy & Demetrio and his current of-counsel status with Joseph, Lichtenstein & Levinson.
"Overall, I'm pretty much the same in the courtroom as I am on the air," Daly said in a 1998 interview for the CBA Record. "The four C's apply to broadcasters and trial lawyers alike. Both must be capable, confident, communicative and have a certain amount of charisma."
He recalled losing an entire jury panel when the judge asked whether the television journalist's presence as plaintiff's attorney would influence any of the jurors. One said, "I think that everything Mr. Daly says is the absolute truth."
By Stephen Anderson
ISBA President Cheryl I. Niro has invited state bar association presidents from across the nation to a Chicago convocation on multidisciplinary practice (MDP) issues.
An outgrowth of discussions last August before and during the American Bar Association House of Delegates meeting in Atlanta, the event will take place Thursday and Friday, Dec. 2-3, in the ISBA Chicago Regional Office.
The ISBA also has scheduled an Open Forum on Multidisciplinary Practice for presentation at 2:30 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 9, during the Midyear Meeting at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel.
"MDP may be the most important issue to confront the legal profession this generation," Niro said in her letter of invitation to state bar leaders. "Lawyers around the world are looking to the American legal profession to take the lead on this issue."
The ISBA joined with other state bar delegates to form a House Coalition for an Independent Legal Profession that was able to shelve an ABA commission's attempt to amend model rules to accommodate shared practices and fee splitting (ISBA Bar News, September 1, page 1).
Instead, the House of delegates adopted a Florida resolution that no change be made to model rules that would permit a lawyer to offer legal services through a multidisciplinary practice without additional study.
The resolution requires the ABA to demonstrate "that such changes will further the public interest without sacrificing or compromising lawyer independence and the legal profession's tradition of loyalty to clients."
Niro noted that the focus is now on the states, where model ethical provisions are adopted and enforced, while the ABA considers subsequent steps.
"Will proponents of change seek rule changes in particular states?" Niro asked. "What will be the impact if certain jurisdictions permit MDPs and others do not?"
She asked for determination of ethical issues that could arise, and rule changes that might be considered, in the event of "side-by-side arrangements under which law firms and professional services firms offer services in cooperation with each other."
Niro hopes the convocation will "provide an environment in which state bars may heighten their understanding of the MDP issue and related developments" as they occur, and to establish ways the associations can work together.
The ISBA Midyear Meeting forum on Dec. 9 will be convened by the Task Force on Multidisciplinary Practice. Informed speakers will discuss the impact and merits of the proposed change in the way lawyers practice law.
Task force co-chairs are ISBA past president Richard L. Thies of Urbana, the Illinois state delegate to the ABA House, and Chicago attorney Terrence J. Lavin, a member of the ISBA Board of Governors.
During the ISBA Conference of Bar Presidents on Nov. 11 in Oak Brook, Lavin warned of encroachment by the "Big Five" accounting firms into the practice of law.
He quoted the boast of an executive of one accounting firm that it "will have a billion-dollar law practice within one year," and said that another accounting company is the largest law firm in Spain.
Lavin predicted that if the Big Five don't win at the bar association level, they will go to Washington, D.C., where "money is the mother's milk of politics."
Niro asked local bar leaders to put the issues on their association agendas for discussion. "We need to find out what lawyers in Illinois think about MDP," she said, and develop an informed consensus on its potential impact on law practices.
"There is no clamor on the streets, no groundswell of enthusiasm in the practicing bar" for MDPs, Lavin said.
Hands-on environmental Internet seminar offered
The ISBA Environmental Law Section will conduct a special hands-on seminar Thursday, Dec. 9, at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency offices on the 12th floor at 77 W. Jackson, Chicago.
About 25 participants can be accommodated by the EPA's computer facility in each of four 90-minute programs: 9 a.m., 10:45 a.m., 1:30 p.m. and 3:15 p.m. Each attendee will have access to a computer.
Titled "Green Surfing the Internet: A Practical Guide for Environmental Practitioners," the ISBA-USEPA presentation is designed to familiarize attorneys with the information and resources currently available on the Internet.
Bruce Carlson, associate counsel for the USEPA and acknowledged authority in his field, will conduct the seminars. He has made similar presentations at environmental law forums and has published Internet-related materials in the Illinois Bar Journal.
Seminar registrations are being taken by Darlene Weatherspoon of the USEPA at (312) 886-1308. The cost of the program is $20.
For more information, call ISBA Environmental Law Section Council chair Bertram C. Frey at (312) 886-1308, or council member Charles J. Northrup at (217) 544-1144.
The traditional introduction of ISBA past presidents will open the semi-annual meeting of the ISBA Assembly at 9 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 11, in the Sheraton Chicago Hotel.
The election of two ISBA at-large, under-age-35 representatives to the American Bar Association House of Delegates is scheduled on the preliminary agenda, along with confirmation of presidential appointments of trustees of the Lawyers' Political Action Committee.
President Cheryl I. Niro will present awards and provide an update on multidisciplinary practice issues. President-elect Herbert H. Franks will report on recommendations for expansion of the Illinois Bar Center.
The Assembly will review ISBA advisory ethics opinions on professional conduct that have been adopted by the Board of Governors since the previous meeting.
Reports from the Lawyers Trust Fund of Illinois, Illinois Bar Foundation, Lawyers' Assistance Program and ISBA Mutual Insurance Co. will be available, and representatives will be present to answer questions.
Future meeting dates of the ISBA Board of Governors are Friday, Jan. 21, in the ISBA Chicago Regional Office; Friday, March 10, in the Fairmont Hotel, Chicago, and Wednesday, May 17, at the Illinois Bar Center in Springfield, followed by a legislative reception.
Out of respect to the memory of their colleague, Judge J. Lawrence Keshner, members of the ISBA Board of Governors adopted the following resolution during a meeting Nov. 12 in Oak Brook. Judge Keshner died Nov. 6 (see story on page 1).
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WHEREAS, J. Lawrence Keshner lived 61 years and rose to the heights of his profession, earning the tremendous esteem of his colleagues and everyone he met in a professional capacity; and
WHEREAS, he served ten years as a judge following a career in the practice of law and a prior career in law enforcement; and
WHEREAS, he became active in the Illinois State Bar Association in 1969 and over the next 30 years, served on numerous committees and section councils, and was first elected to the Assembly in 1978 and was elected to the Board of Governors in 1994; and
WHEREAS, despite his many professional accomplishments and the title of judge, Larry Keshner had people's respect not because of what he was, but who he was; and
WHEREAS, if you were Larry's friend, you knew you had a friend; he would always greet you with a smile, a handshake or a hug, and a story; and
WHEREAS, his judicial demeanor and approach could be summed up as fair, firm, funny and fast, a style that won approval from all who encountered him; and
WHEREAS, he was first and always a family man, and he was a hero to his children, and he was a champion of people in everything he did; and
WHEREAS, J. Lawrence Keshner served the people of this state and his colleagues in the legal profession throughout his career, and he did so with utmost integrity, garnering the respect of everyone he met;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Board of Governors of the Illinois State Bar Association expresses its profound sadness at his passing, but also its supreme joy and having had his friendship;
AND FURTHER, that the Board of Governors extends its heartfelt best wishes to Mary Keshner and their six children.
Access to justice can't be taken for granted: Durbin
Sen. Richard Durbin, the recipient of the 1999 ISBA Access to Justice Award, was unable to attend the Nov. 18 luncheon in Chicago due to consideration of the federal budget. His response that follows was read by President Cheryl I. Niro.
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I am sorry that I cannot be with you to accept this award. I continue to be held captive in the U.S. Senate and am seriously considering filing a habeas petition.
I am honored to be in the company of past recipients such as Justice John Nickels of the Illinois Supreme Court and Chief Judge Donald P. O'Connell of the Cook County Circuit Court.
As fundamental as "access to justice" is to our system of government, it cannot be taken for granted. As members of the state bar, we must all be diligent in our efforts to protect this right.
The recent Chicago Tribune series regarding the death penalty in Illinois, and the landmark efforts of Northwestern University law professor Lawrence Marshall and journalism professor David Protess, remind us of the injustice many indigent criminal defendants still face in our courts.
This raises challenges for legislators, judges and the Illinois bar. The Illinois General Assembly and the Illinois Supreme Court have collectively created four committees to study the administration of our criminal justice system generally and the death penalty in particular.
I support several reforms that I think will begin to address the problems described in the Tribune series.
First, I support imposing minimum competency standards for prosecutors and defense attorneys in capital cases. At least a dozen states have such standards for defense attorneys in death penalty cases, and I think the standards should apply to prosecutors as well.
Second, we should require police interrogations to be videotaped. At least three of the 12 cases resulting in wrongful convictions in Illinois involved questionable confessions. Videotaping interrogations can help to avoid this problem and protect both the police and the accused.
Third, we should provide resources to allow criminal defendants access