Under the leadership of Chief Justice Thomas L. Kilbride, the Illinois Supreme Court established the Access to Justice Commission in June 2012 with the goal of removing barriers and increasing the ease of interacting with courts by persons who can’t afford lawyers to represent their interests and needs.
Practice News
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August 16, 2013 |
Practice News
1 comment (Most recent August 16, 2013)
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August 16, 2013 |
Practice News
Over the next two years, large numbers of Servicemembers will return home from deployment. Coming home from combat can present a difficult reintegration with family, friends and community. Many will face legal issues, increasing the overall demand for military legal assistance.
Help make military legal assistance available for returning Servicemembers.
Waves of returning Servicemembers will strain existing military legal assistance programs. Civilian attorneys can help meet the growing need by becoming a part of The Illinois Bar Association’s statewide effort to increase access to military legal assistance.
Help Servicemembers, Veterans and their Families resolve their legal issues.
More attorneys are needed to assist with:
- Family Law
- Finance/Banking
- Employment
- Health Care
- Immigration
- Elder Law
Learn more about how you can provide critical legal services to our returning Servicemembers.
To sign up please go to – http://militarylegalsupport.com
Follow us on Twitter - http://twitter.com/militarylegal
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August 15, 2013 |
Practice News
The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Office of the Chief Counsel in Chicago, Illinois, is responsible for providing legal advice, training and services in cases related to the ICE mission in Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, and Wisconsin. The office represents the United States in immigration removal proceedings, and provides legal support to ICE components focusing on customs, worksite enforcement, employment law, and administrative law. Legal externs assist in the representation of the United States government in immigration removal proceedings.
Legal Extern Location: Chicago, Illinois
Application Materials: Resume, transcript, writing sample, and cover letter indicating dates when available. Applications should be submitted to occ-chi-applications@ice.dhs.gov. All electronically submitted documents must be in MSWord or Adobe Acrobat format.
Qualifications: First-year (second semester) and second-year law students. Previous or concurrent course work in immigration law helpful, but not necessary. Must be a U.S. citizen. Will be subject to a background investigation due to the sensitive nature of the work performed.
Application Deadline: For Spring of 2014: Applications will be accepted between August 15, and September 30, 2013.
Minimum Weeks Required: 10 weeks minimum, 15 - 20 hours per week.
Salary: Volunteer (without compensation).
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August 14, 2013 |
Practice News
"With the rapid rise and fall of the housing market, Illinois has seen tremendous growth in the number of mortgage rescue services being offered to consumers who are delinquent on their mortgage payments and/or are at risk of foreclosure. Unfortunately, fraudsters have used these services to cheat consumers out of money and ownership and equity in their home," Jennifer D. Franklin of SIU School of Law writes in her excellent article on the Mortgage Rescue Fraud Act. The piece appears in the latest ISBA Commercial Banking, Collections, and Bankruptcy newsletter.
What kind of scams? Well, there's the consultant scam, where "for a large upfront fee the distressed property 'consultant' promises to buy time for the consumer and save the home by negotiating deals with their lenders," Franklin writes. These so-called consultants "often take the consumer’s money and fail to perform any services, thus leaving the consumer worse off then before."
The article offers great advice about how to use the Act to help your consumer clients recover from fraud perpetrators. Read it.
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August 14, 2013 |
Practice News
Asked and Answered
By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC
Q. I am the managing partner of a 17-attorney law firm in downtown Chicago. We are a litigation boutique firm with a majority of our work in insurance defense. We have been in practice for 7 years. While we grew quickly during the early years - we have reached a plateau and growth has stalled. We are planning our first strategic planning retreat and hope to develop a long-range strategic plan. Do you have any suggestions?
A. Where most planning efforts fall short is in the implementation of the plan. The plan lays on the shelf and collects dust. I suggest that the plan be implemented through the firm's existing management structure, i.e., the managing partner, executive committee, the strategic planning committee, and practice area chairs.
Individual partners should be assigned responsibility and held accountable for the satisfactory implementation of each phase of the plan in accordance with an agreed-upon timetable. This should be done during the planning retreat session.
Status reports should be provided to the other partners in each phase of the plan in order to keep them apprised of the planning activities.
Suggest an online project management system (portal) be used to track progress.
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August 9, 2013 |
Practice News
ISBA President Paula H. Holderman and CBA President J. Timothy Eaton wrote the letter to the editor (below) that appeared in today's Chicago Sun-Times. The letter is in response to a column by Neil Steinberg titled "Preckwinkle, Dart say bond court delays cost taxpayers $80 million a year"
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August 9, 2013 |
Practice News
Servicemembers return home from deployment believing their jobs are waiting for them. For some, the joy of coming home is short lived when they find their employer has replaced them.
After serving their country, their jobs should be waiting.
The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) prohibits employer discrimination because of military services and protects job rights and benefits for Servicemembers.
Many employers are not aware of these protections.
USERRA provides protection for:
- Military leave of absence
- Job seniority
- Status
- Pay and benefits
- Promotion and pension
- Disability as a result of military service
Returning Servicemembers are entitled to jobs comparable to their peers whose careers were not interrupted by military service. Employers are required to make reasonable efforts to upgrade the skills of returning employees so they can qualify for the positions they would have earned had they not left for military service.
Learn how you can help protect their employment.
To sign up please go to – http://militarylegalsupport.com
Follow us on Twitter - http://twitter.com/militarylegal
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August 8, 2013 |
Practice News
ISBA Director of Legislative Affairs Jim Covington reviews legislation in Springfield of interest to ISBA members. In this episode he provides an in-depth overview of House Bill 1452, the complete rewrite of Illinois' Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act. Much more information is available below the video.
Rewrite of Illinois’ Marriage Act
House Bill 1452 (Kelly Burke, D-Evergreen Park) is a complete rewrite of the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act that may be acted on in the fall veto session. This article is a summary of that bill.
You may want to download a copy of this 186-page bill to review it. It may be found at the General Assembly’s website at www.ilga.gov/ . I find that the PDF version is easier to read and usually select that option for that reason.
Terminology. Courts will no longer award custody or visitation under this bill. Rather, courts will allocate parental responsibilities to include parenting time. A parent may ask the court for permission to relocate with a minor child instead of removing the child. Interestingly, it continues to use the lawyerism dissolution of marriage. Have any of you ever heard this process referred to as anything other than a divorce?
6 comments (Most recent August 27, 2015) -
August 7, 2013 |
Practice News
Asked and Answered
By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC
Q. We are a 22-attorney firm located in Pittsburgh. While we represent both individuals and businesses, our focus is on small business representation. During the past few years we have come upon hard times. We have lost several partners and a couple of business clients and we have a few partners coming up for retirement. Several of our senior partners have suggested that we might be a merger candidate for a large law firm. What are your thoughts?
A. Don't count on a larger law firm coming to your rescue unless:
1. You have a practice that is strategically important to the larger firm (all practice areas).
2. You have an exceptional bench of superior lawyer talent with mixed age spread.
3. Your firm has had exceptional financial performance and on a par with the larger firm.
4. Your billing rates, methods, and practices are on a par with the larger firm.
5. Your partner earnings are on a par with the larger firm.
Unless the above ingredients are in place the firm may not be a suitable candidate for merger or it might find that the larger firm cherry picks some of the key partners off one by one.
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August 5, 2013 |
Practice News
The seventh circuit has ruled that the federal common-law doctrine of successor liability is applicable to cases filed under the Fair Labor Standards Act, even in states that limit liability to instances in which the buyer expressly or implicitly assumed the seller's liabilities.
In Teed, et al., v. Thomas & Betts Power Solutions LLC, 12-2440 and 12-3029, consolidated (7th Cir., 2013), a unanimous seventh circuit panel affirmed a Wisconsin District Court's finding of successor liability for FLSA claims, even though the defendant corporation purchased the plaintiffs' employer pursuant to an agreement that expressly stated the transfer of assets would be "free and clear of all Liabilities."
Gary R. Gehlbach, a partner with the Dixon firm of Ehrmann, Gehlbach, Badger, Lee & Considine LLC, said the seventh circuit's decision, drafted by Judge Richard Posner, created a tough result for the defendant corporation, which did not seek to reduce the purchase price when it bought the assets of the bankrupt predecessor corporation that employed the plaintiffs at the time of the alleged FLSA violations. Read more in the August Illinois Bar Journal.