Illinois Supreme Court Justice Rita B. Garman announced Friday the formation of a judicial screening committee to help fill a vacancy in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit.
Justice Garman established the screening committee to assess the qualifications of those persons who have applied for appointment to the Circuit Court vacancy created by the upcoming retirement of Judge G. Michael Prall on Nov. 2, 2010. Under the Illinois Constitution, the vacancy will be filled by Supreme Court appointment.
After the committee has received public input, gathered information and interviewed each of the applicants, it will report its findings to Justice Garman, who will make a recommendation to the Supreme Court from among those applicants submitting their credentials to the committee. The person appointed will serve until the position is filled by General Election in November 2012.
Practice News
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August 27, 2010 |
Practice News
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August 26, 2010 |
Practice News
The Illinois Supreme Court has released its Call of the Docket for the September term. The schedule for oral arguments is slated to begin on Sept. 14 and close on Sept. 22. The court is scheduled to hear 24 cases this term. The cases are listed below. September Term 2010
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August 26, 2010 |
Practice News
You're in a pinch and you need a continuance. Happens to every litigator now and then. But there's a right way and a wrong way to seek one, Judge E. Kenneth Wright, Jr. explains in the latest ISBA Bench and Bar newsletter. "A common misconception is that courts grant continuances at will," he writes. Not true. Instead, "bases for continuances exist in statutes and court rules," and you need to understand them to properly frame your request. In his article, Judge Wright reviews the procedures for seeking a continuance and describes steps courts can take to ensure their decisions are upheld on review.
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August 25, 2010 |
Practice News
Your client is arrested for DUI based on his performance on some of the standard "walk a straight line" field sobriety tests conducted by the arresting officer, including a horizontal gaze nystagmus test. At the hearing on your motion to quash, the officer testifies that yes, she was trained how to do the tests, but no, her training wasn't based on the field training manual used by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That's not an uncommon response. And it's your opening to challenge the reliability of the results, Rachel J. Hess writes in the most recent ISBA Traffic Laws and Courts newsletter. "Defendant should argue that the field sobriety test results, particularly that of the HGN test, should be excluded because the officer was not properly trained in accordance with the [NHTSA's] standardized field training manual," she writes. Read her helpful primer.
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August 25, 2010 |
Practice News
Asked and Answered By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC Q. My partner and I just started our firm two years ago. We have one associate attorney and one staff member. As we grow our firm what should we keep in mind so we don't repeat some of the mistakes that I have seen in other firms that have not been successful? A. I often refer to what I call the Basic Building Blocks of Successful Law Firms which are:
- Partner Relations
- Leadership
- Firm Management
- Partner Compensation
- Planning
- Client Service
- Marketing
- Partner Defections
- Firm Splits and Break-ups
- Personal Fiefdoms
- Maverick Partners
- Hoarding Work
- Lone Rangers
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August 20, 2010 |
Practice News
By Shamla Naidoo Remember this rule: A lawyer must act competently to safeguard information relating to the representation of a client against inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure by the lawyer or other persons who are participating in the representation of the client or who are subject to the lawyer's supervision. This month, a Houston attorney's client allegedly found files relating to her legal matters dumped in a parking lot. According to an investigative reporter, the files were held in a storage facility but when the attorney failed to pay the bill, stored materials were auctioned off to a stranger. Among the many issues in this matter, the ethical question is whether the attorney acted competently to safeguard the client’s files. It makes business sense for attorneys to outsource various services to third parties, but we remain responsible for meeting our ethical obligations as well as to manage related and foreseeable risks related to these services. Practically, what are some of the risks related to off-site storage of legal documents and what should an attorney do about these?
- Have you done due diligence in selecting a document storage provider?
- Who has access to your physical storage space and are they authorized to have access to your files?
- Do you have contingency plans for access/transfer of your files if you are no longer capable of making decisions?
- Do you have plans for your files at contract expiration/termination?
- Does your contract with the service provider allocate consequential damages?
- Have you disclosed the foreseeable risks to your client?
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August 19, 2010 |
Practice News
By Robert A. Loeb Just when you thought it was safe to go back to reading the news, free from LeBron, Favre, Drew and Blago, . . . surprise, here’s another take on the trial of our former Governor. Guilty of one count, hung on 23, with near-unanimous votes to convict on at least several of those 23. Let’s try to avoid talk of bad hair and reality shows, and take a look at that we share as lawyers, such as trial practice and the criminal justice system. Some things are pretty clear, while there no right-or-wrong answers to questions about the case. Let’s start with the easiest one: Can it ever be advantageous to promise that a defendant will testify in a criminal trial? NO! When a defense attorney makes that promise in opening statement, and the defendant ultimately does not take the stand, the best that can happen is that the jury accepts the excuse, “They didn’t prove their case, so there is no need for the defendant to testify.” The worst that can happen is that the jury holds the broken promise against the defendant and his lawyer. There is nothing to be gained by making that promise. In analyzing the trial, we’ve now had the benefit not just of the 24 verdicts - but we’ve also heard the individual views of the trial from a few of the jurors. It seems that as a group they were diligent, deliberated in good faith, and had different views on different issues and different counts. That’s only to be expected from a group of 12 people. On many of the counts, there was but one holdout preventing a guilty verdict. There are a number of issues for which answers are not so clear when analyzing the past trial or predicting the retrial. What effect did Rod’s (and Patti’s) pretrial media exposure have on the jurors, even subconsciously? I don’t think we have enough information to determine to what extent the pretrial publicity affects the attitude of the holdout juror, nor the attitudes of prospective jurors in the retrial. The jury apparently wrestled with the issue of whether extortion was proven when none of the alleged schemes came to fruition. Under conspiracy law, the underlying crime doesn’t have to be completed, but that doesn’t mean that jurors don’t have real and legitimate problems with that doctrine. Do prosecutors need a smoking gun? Did they jeopardize their case by arresting Blagojevich too soon, thereby depriving themselves of more solid proof that the sale of the Senate seat was real? If there had been an acquittal, or a solid majority for acquittal, I would say that they did move too soon, at least from the narrow perspective of obtaining a conviction on those counts. On the other hand, they got 11 votes for conviction those counts, and they probably don’t have to do much differently to obtain a conviction next time. The trial raised other problematic, systemic issues for the criminal justice system. What kinds of jurors are we getting in high profile cases where we try to choose jurors who can ignore or put aside everything they have learned from the ubiquitous and saturating media? Is it at all realistic to expect that in a long and high profile trial that jurors don’t learn biased or inadmissible information from television, radio, emails, internet, Twitter, and who knows what technology will be here next year? And what else can the system do to ensure fair trials in light of these questions? So what happens in the next trial?
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August 18, 2010 |
Practice News
By John J. Horeled, Law Office of John J. Horeled, Crystal Lake Most of the literature on retirement discusses financial issues. While your stream of income will determine when and where you will retire, the purpose of this article is to go beyond the money. The financial industry is advocating that social security will go broke and that you need 75 percent or more of your income to retire. If you buy into this program, you may never retire. A meaningful retirement places a greater emphasis on satisfactory relationships with family and friends, and activities and hobbies that you enjoy. Prior to retirement, you should map out what groups - such as church, service groups and clubs - will continue to generate significant friendships. (Remember you may not want to leave your friends, but they may leave you anyway). What activities do you want to maintain or re-establish? What will they cost? Can you find them by moving to a lower-cost area? I believe that you will find that moving to a lower-cost area without a mortgage will provide you with the most flexibility. So, start looking at alternative locations. If you live in the suburbs of Chicago, maybe you can just move to the fringe or even an hour away from your current location. Does the new town have a church of your denomination, or are there social groups that you can join? Is there a college nearby that can provide reasonably priced entertainment? Lawyers, who are active in the ISBA, have a distinct advantage because we have a broad network. Call a colleague and ask hot it is to live (not work) in his or her community. Start looking 10 year before your planned retirement. The effort will be worthwhile.
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August 18, 2010 |
Practice News
Illinois Supreme Court justices and Appellate Court justices will join in helping incoming first-year students at six Illinois law schools gain early exposure to issues of professionalism as part of their law school orientations. The professionalism programs are organized and sponsored by the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism and are designed to both welcome law students to the profession and to introduce them to core concepts of professionalism inherent in the work of attorneys. Chief Justice Thomas R. Fitzgerald, Justices Robert R. Thomas, Thomas L. Kilbride, Rita B. Garman and Lloyd A. Karmeier of the Supreme Court as well as appellate justices will address incoming students at Northern Illinois University College of Law, University of Illinois College of Law, DePaul University College of Law, Loyola University School of Law, Chicago-Kent College of Law, and The John Marshall Law School. Law students at Southern Illinois University receive a similar orientation to professionalism under a separate program. In addition, the students will take a “Pledge of Professionalism.”
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August 18, 2010 |
Practice News
Asked and Answered By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC Q. We are a three attorney law partnership that does primarily business transactional work. My partner and I have been in practice together for four years. We are equal partners (50% each) as far as our partnership interests and we use these same interests for determining partner compensation. In other words we receive the same compensation. We recently have been discussing whether we should look into a different method for determining partner compensation. Currently we produce about the same level of fee revenue. What are your thoughts? A. I could write a whole book on compensation systems - but here are a few thoughts:
- Over the past 30+ years I have seen just about every form of compensation system that there is - from "even steven" systems such as yours to "eat-what-you-kill", other formula systems, profit center systems, objective systems, etc. No particular system is better than another system. It depends upon the firm - the culture - strategic goals - and the environment.
- If the system is working - sometimes it is better to leave it alone. There is nothing wrong with an "even steven" system as long as the contributions (fee generation, fee origination, firm management, and otherwise) made by both of you to the firm are perceived as equal. Frequently, partners start out making even contributions and down the road contributions change (often due to life or family changes) and are no longer in alignment.
- When perceived contributions get out of alignment partners are reluctant to have the candid discussions that need to occur as well as changes in the arrangement or compensation system.