Now that the Illinois Supreme Court in Estate of Coffman determined that the fiduciary relationship between the principal and their agent begins at the time the power of attorney is signed, attorneys should be cautious when advising clients in naming agents under property powers of attorney, explains Robert S. Held in his April Illinois Bar Journal article, “Instant Karma.”
Illinois Bar Journal
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April 9, 2024 | Practice News

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April 1, 2024 | Practice News

Log onto ISBA Central and search for “banks” and “POA.” Results will be populated with many discussions of attorneys who are problem-solving a bank’s rejection of a client’s power of attorney. As noted in the Illinois Bar Journal’s April cover story, “Behind the Curtain,” one prevailing theme of these discussions is that solving this problem is harder than it should be. In response to these and other conversations, the ISBA’s Trusts and Estates Section sponsored a CLE program last November to tackle the sometimes-fraught relationship between clients who want to protect and manage the assets of loved ones and banks standing in the way.
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March 25, 2024 | Practice News

It’s been a few years since in-person, out-of-town meetings and events have returned to their pre-COVID-19 form. Still, many of us may be a little rusty when planning for out-of-town trips, whether for a meeting, conference, or other work-related event. Frequent on-the-go travelers Jeffrey S. Krause and Jeffrey R. Schoenberger from Affinity Consulting Group recently reexamined their work-travel routines and created a list of tips they’ve accumulated from experience as they resumed their work-away-from-home lives. Just adopting one or two of their tips on your next work-related business outing may lead to smoother sailing.
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March 18, 2024 | Practice News

Secondary or vicarious trauma can and does exist in our profession and can result from hearing clients talk about what they experienced and seeing their physical reaction to the experiences, writes Karen Munoz in her March Illinois Bar Journal article, “Vicarious Trauma in the Legal Profession.”
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March 11, 2024 | Practice News

As Sebastian Wright Garcia explains in his article, “A Refined Way To Protect Noncitizen Workers,” in the March Illinois Bar Journal, the Biden administration in 2023 formalized a program to prioritize noncitizen labor protections and to prosecute employers who violate labor and employment laws. To encourage the help of undocumented noncitizens in these cases, Wright Garcia notes, the administration began to implement a new guidance called Deferred Action for Labor Enforcement to promote the fair execution of labor laws.
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March 7, 2024 | ISBA News

The 2024 first place winner of the Lincoln Award Legal Writing Contest is Morgan Handwerker, an associate at Schiller DuCanto & Fleck LLP, Chicago, who wrote “Practicing in a New World.” Morgan's article appeared in the February issue of the Illinois Bar Journal.
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March 4, 2024 | Practice News

The assumption that gender expressions are fixed and fall into one of two categories correlating with one’s biological sex has given way to a gender-fluid world in which cohorts of people of all ages are transitioning between male and female identities or identifying as nonbinary or genderqueer (neither female nor male). As recounted in the March issue of the Illinois Bar Journal article, “Being a Pronoun Pro,” this has led to discussions and debates about pronouns in all types of settings—schools, health care institutions, and corporate boardrooms to name a few.
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February 26, 2024 | Practice News

The Illinois Bar Journal’s February issue reports on the Corporate Transparency Act’s new FinCEN filing requirements, which took effect January 1. “The comprehensive legislation requires many companies doing business in the U.S. to report information about the individuals who own or control the business entity,” writes attorney Amelia Buragas in her LawPulse article, “Beneficial Information.”
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February 21, 2024 | Practice News

“Generative artificial intelligence stands as proof of the transformative power of technology, promising to reshape the landscape of law and advocacy,” writes Morgan B. Handwerker in her March Illinois Bar Journal article, “Practicing in a New World.”
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February 12, 2024 | Practice News

In his article February Illinois Bar Journal article, “Crafting an Effective Generative AI-Policy,” Carlos Cisneros notes that among the risk factors of using generative online artificial intelligence tools are whether content entered into a generative-AI tool’s prompt becomes the property of the AI company and whether confidential and biometric information is protected after being entered into an AI system. With this in mind, Cisneros recommends that lawyers should verify whether use of AI is covered by their malpractice insurance policy.