Zombie nouns flourish in legal writing. They smother lively verbs and suck the vitality and clarity right out your prose. Bryan A. Garner believes that they are a bigger problem in legal writing than incorrectly using the passive voice.
Practice News
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August 15, 2012 |
Practice News
2 comments (Most recent August 16, 2012)
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August 15, 2012 |
Practice News
Asked and Answered
By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC
Q. I am the owner of a 12 attorney firm in Dallas. We have 26 people including attorneys and staff. I founded the firm 20 years ago. While we have an Accounting Manager - I am responsible for the management and direction of the firm. While we have done okay over the years - I often feel deficient as a manager and am not always sure that I am covering all of the bases. Is there such thing as management 101 for guys like me?
A. Mention Management 101 and I think of the five functions of management. Each of these roles must be performed by someone in every law firm and business if it is to be successful. In a small firm such as yours you must perform each of these functions and be reasonably good at all of them.
Here are the five functions:
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August 14, 2012 |
Practice News
By Honorable Barbara Crowder, Circuit Judge, Madison County
Everyone has heard the phrase, "get them young and train them." One usually thinks of this in terms of Olympic athletes who have been training since childhood, but the Third Circuit decided to try the concept with high-schoolers.
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August 14, 2012 |
Practice News
The law school experience tends to program lawyers to think cases and nothing but cases, but more and more it’s statutes and administrative rules where the action is. In Illinois, the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR) publishes the weekly Flinn Report that is a summary of the rules being proposed by State agencies. It is a PDF usually four to ten pages long.
The Flinn Report allows interested persons or parties an opportunity to give written comments on the proposed rules before they are accepted and published. These rules can significantly affect some of your practices.
It’s not a bad idea to skim the weekly Flinn Report much as you would skim case summaries in ISBA’s E-Clips or in the advance sheets.
Background information on JCAR and the link for the Flinn Report are here.
1 comment (Most recent August 16, 2012) -
August 13, 2012 |
CLE | Practice News
The Fall Semester of Fred Lane's ISBA Trial Technique Institute begins Sept. 4 at the ISBA's Chicago Regional Office. Listen to Fred discuss the class and find out more below the video.
More information is available at www.isba.org/cle/trial
Register online at www.isba.org/cle/trial/registration
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August 9, 2012 |
Practice News
Our panel of leading appellate attorneys review Thursday's Illinois Supreme Court opinions in the Civil cases Jane Doe-3 v. McLean County Unit District No. 5 Board of Directors and Santiago v. E.W. Bliss Company.
Jane Doe-3 v. McLean County Unit District No. 5 Board of Directors
By Karen Kies DeGrand, Donohue Brown Mathewson & Smyth LLC
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August 9, 2012 |
Practice News
Chicago attorney Laurel G. Bellows was sworn-in this week as the new president of the American Bar Association. Bellows, a principal of The Bellows Law Group, P.C. in Chicago, represents executives in the United States and internationally.
She has several areas of focus for the coming year. One is to call attention to human trafficking in the United States. She has has been authorized by the ABA Board of Governors to create a Task Force on Human Trafficking in the United States that will develop a range of anti-trafficking projects and coordinate efforts with other groups on the issue. A second priority is to look at cybersecurity and the roles that private business and government have to keep our nation secure from cyber attacks. Bellows also will appoint task forces on gender equity and another on civil trials. She also will continue the call for increased funding of the court system in the U.S.
A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Loyola University School of Law, Bellows has practiced law for more than 30 years. She practices law with her husband, Joel, in Chicago. They have four children and four grandchildren.
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August 9, 2012 |
Practice News
ISBA Director of Legislative Affairs Jim Covington reviews bills in Springfield of interest to ISBA members. In this episode he covers the Benefit Corporation Act, Calculation of child support, Juror's fees, Cell phones and driving, False UCC filings and Supervision and speeding. More information on each bill is available below the video.
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August 9, 2012 |
Practice News
OK, so the new public act is clear on when its effective date. Does it apply to your pending case? The Illinois Reference Bureau's Bill Drafting Manual has an excellent two-page summary of this issue here at pages 136 and 137.
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August 8, 2012 |
ISBA News | Practice News
President John E. Thies presented ISBA’s position against changing ABA ethics guidelines to permit nonlawyer ownership of law firms and sharing of law firm fees with nonlawyers in debate before the ABA House of Delegates on Monday. The ISBA Board of Governors passed a resolution in support of retaining a previously-adopted ABA policy that disallows such arrangements. ISBA and the ABA Senior Lawyers Division were the lead sponsors of Resolution 10A in the House of Delegates.
Resolution 10A seeks to reaffirm existing ABA policy that dates from 2000 – the MacCrate Resolution. That followed from an effort by accounting firms to provide legal services to their clients.
These accounting firms were dismissive of our ethical rules and persuaded an ABA commission that we should abolish the Rule 5.4 prohibition against the sharing of legal fees with non-lawyers and non-lawyer ownership.
This was Multi-Disciplinary Practice, or “MDP”, and permitting it was described as a critical part of providing better service to clients – it was supposed to be “consumer” friendly.
In actuality, it was an attempt to pad the bottom line at the expense of client service and protection.
Read the full text of President Thies’ remarks here