Practice News

Several ISBA members attended an Illinois Senate Judiciary hearing on March 3 to support the Transfer on Death Instrument bill (SB-3150).

Those photographed above include ISBA members Charles Brown and Nathan Hinch, as well as Sen. Jason Barickman, who sponsored the bill.  

As rewarding as it sometimes is, working with traumatized clients also can be difficult: A client’s trauma can undermine the client’s own goals for representation. And sharing the burden of a client’s trauma can wear on the attorney. But by understanding the nature of trauma, how it’s expressed, and how to respond to it, lawyers can anticipate and prepare for its unpredictable effects. The Illinois Bar Journal’s March 2020 cover article, “The Traumatized Client,” examines what may be taking place in the minds of traumatized clients and introduces several strategies attorneys can use to help the client work through the trauma and focus on the case.

Defaulted defendants frequently seek relief from default orders and judgments in the form of motions to vacate brought under 735 ILCS 5/2-1301 or 2-1401. As they say, timing is everything. The availability of relief from an order or judgment to which a defaulted party may be entitled and the standard the court must apply in determining whether a party is entitled to the relief he or she seeks depend almost exclusively on the timing of the request. Moreover, because of the procedural uniqueness of the Illinois Mortgage Foreclosure Law (IMFL), found in Article XV of the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure, an understanding of the interplay between the IMFL and the Article II civil practice statutes is critical for a successful litigant. In her February 2020 Illinois Bar Journal article, “Mortgage Foreclosure Relief,” Cook County Circuit Court Judge Cecilia Horan examines possible relief from default orders and judgments available in mortgage foreclosure cases and the limitations on those remedies.

Every personal injury lawyer has handled a motor-vehicle case. When photographs exist showing damage (or the lack thereof) to the vehicles involved in a collision, the parties will invariably try to admit the photos into evidence to support their theory of the case. If the photos show substantial damage, the plaintiff will seek to admit them to argue that the impact between the vehicles was significant, and that the force of the impact caused more serious injuries. Conversely, if the photos show little or no damage, the defendant will seek to admit the photos to suggest that the impact was minimal, and that the plaintiff was therefore not likely injured to the extent claimed. But what does all this mean now, in light of Peach v. McGovern, in which the Illinois Supreme Court recently held that in personal injury cases, expert testimony is not required to admit postaccident photographs of vehicles involved in a collision? In his February 2020 Illinois Bar Journal article, “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words,” Arlo Walsman examines this development in caselaw.