Chief Justice Rita B. Garman and the Illinois Supreme Court have invited Gov. Bruce Rauner and the entire state legislature to attend a special evening session of oral arguments.
The session will be at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 17, 2016, at the Supreme Court Building in Springfield and will mark the second special evening session the Supreme Court has held in recent years.
CARPLS Legal Hotline in Chicago seeks volunteer hotline attorneys wanted to give advice to low-income clients in the areas of landlord/tenant, consumer debt, and family law. Day and night shifts are available. Malpractice insurance is provided.
Daily shifts: Mondays - Fridays 9 a.m.-1 p.m. or 1 p.m.-5 p.m. A minimum commitment of 1 shift per week over a 10-week session is requested.
Evening shifts: Mondays or Wednesdays 5:30 p.m.–8 p.m. A minimum commitment of 36 hours over a one-year period is requested (about 1.5 shifts per month).
Registration for our May volunteer class is now open. For more information, contact Leslie Wallin at 312/421-4427 or lwallin@carpls.org or go to http://www.carpls.org/getinvolved/pro-bono-opportunities/
ISBA Director of Legislative Affairs Jim Covington reviews legislation in Springfield of interest to ISBA members. This week he covers The Parentage Act of 2015 (House Bill 4447), Income shares and child support (House Bill 3982), New filing fee (Senate Bill 3162), IMDMA cleanup (House Bill 1190), Trust law (Senate Bill 2842), Personal guardian (House Bill 5924), Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (House Bill 4648) and Land Trust Beneficiary Rights Act (House Bill 4697). More information on each bill is available below the video.
Asked and Answered
By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC
Q. I am the managing partner of a 12-lawyer insurance defense firm in Oklahoma City. We have four partners and eight associates. While we have grown over the last five or six years by adding associates, our profitability has remained flat. We feel that we are not getting the billable hours that we should out of our associates. What are other firms like ours getting out of their associates in terms of billable hours?
The Illinois Supreme Court will take its work on the road in May, when it will hear oral arguments at Benedictine University in Lisle.
The one-day change of venue is part of the Court's and Chief Justice Rita B. Garman's initiative to bring the Court to the people it serves and its continuing goal for greater transparency in the judicial process.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments in two cases starting at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, May 19, 2016, in Benedictine University's Daniel L. Goodwin Hall of Business, located at 5700 College Road in Lisle.
Attorney David Holtermann of the Lawyers Trust Fund of Illinois discusses recent rules changes to handling unidentified funds in IOLTA accounts.
Attorney Kim Davis discusses how to give an effective closing argument.
People reporting for jury service at the Rolling Meadows courthouse in the Circuit Court of Cook County will now have Wi-Fi access while they wait to find out if they will be considered to serve as jurors for a trial, Chief Judge Timothy C. Evans announced today.
Prospective jurors already have Wi-Fi access in the Richard J. Daley Center, the Leighton Criminal Court Building and the courthouse in Markham.
The Circuit Court is working with the Cook County Bureau of Technology to bring Wi-Fi to the jury assembly rooms at the Skokie, Maywood and Bridgeview courthouses.
The names of 13 new associate judges, selected in a vote of Cook County Circuit Court judges, were announced Tuesday by Michael J. Tardy, Director of the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts.
Ballots listing the names of 26 finalists, chosen from 283 candidates, were distributed to 249 circuit judges. Ballots were due April 15, 2016.
The Alliance of Bar Associations and the Chicago Bar Association evaluated the candidates. Each candidate was interviewed by a nine member nominating committee, comprised of Chief Judge Timothy C. Evans of the Cook County Circuit Court and eight presiding judges.
The Illinois Supreme Court has appointed Jacob H. Jost as the new Reporter of Decisions, a position that ensures opinions issued by the Supreme and Appellate courts are published with accurate case citations and proper style.
Mr. Jost's appointment took effect April 1, 2016. He replaces Urbana resident Amy L. Tomaszewski, who served in the role for two years. Mr. Jost joins the Court's staff from Chief Justice Rita B. Garman's office, where he had worked as a judicial law clerk since 2013.