Practice News
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May 24, 2010 |
Practice News
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May 24, 2010 |
Practice News
The Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts announced today that the Ninth Judicial Circuit judges voted to select Raymond A. Cavanaugh as an associate judge of the Ninth Judicial Circuit. Mr. Cavanaugh received his undergraduate degree in 1986 from Loras College, Dubuque, Iowa, and his Juris Doctor in 1990 from John Marshall Law, Chicago. Mr. Cavanaugh is currently affiliated with the Henderson County State’s Attorney’s Office in Oquawka.
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May 20, 2010 |
Practice News
FAMILY
Baumgartner v. Baumgartner
By Celia G. Gamrath, Partner, Schiller DuCanto & Fleck LLP In Baumgartner v. Baumgartner, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that the incarceration of a 20-year-old child is not a self-emancipating event that automatically terminates a parent's obligation to contribute to a child's postsecondary education expenses. Though Baumgartner decides only the question of incarceration, the Court's decision affects a broader range of cases in which a child marries or enters the armed forces. For parents, here's the rub: Self-emancipation for support purposes automatically occurs when a child reaches the age of majority; however, it does not necessarily occur if a child is convicted of a felony and incarcerated, gets married or joins the military. Under these scenarios, the Circuit Court must consider all relevant facts and decide whether the colossal event has the effect of emancipating the child and constitutes an abandonment of any pursuit of a higher education. A "lengthy incarceration is simply one of many situations in which a minor may be found to be emancipated." Case summary Supreme Court opinion 109047CIVIL
Founders Ins. Co v. Munoz
By Michael T. Reagan, Herbolsheimer Lannon Henson Duncan and Reagan PC Founders Ins. Co v. -
May 20, 2010 |
Practice News
By Shamla Naidoo You’ve heard about the issues with metadata—lawyers can inadvertently share privileged information, even with opposing counsel. You may also have reviewed the ethics rules on how to react when opposing counsel accidentally sends us a document containing metadata. Wouldn’t it be better to avoid sending the metadata in the first place? Lawyers review the content of legal documents before sharing them. However, metadata is part of the content of the electronic document - but it is not obvious, not on the face of the document - and may be easily overlooked. Careful review of metadata reduces the ethics burden created for other lawyers; increases client confidence in how sensitive matters are handled; and demonstrates competence to operate in the electronic age. There are expensive tools and services to help you manage your metadata; however, you can simply use the available features of your existing word processing software to do this for free. I use Office 2007 so the metadata management discussed here is limited to Word 2007 before converting them to PDF. First, you should clear any existing metadata from new documents since these may include default information. If you use templates or reuse documents, the name of the author of the template or source document may be embedded within your work product. To clear this information, click on the Office button (in the top-left corner of the Word window), select “Prepare”, select “Inspect Document”, and press the “Inspect” button. In the next screen, Word will display all locations where metadata was detected, including document properties, headers, footers, watermarks, etc.
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May 19, 2010 |
Practice News
Asked and Answered By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC Q. We are a four partner law firm on the west coast. Currently we each have a 25% partnership interest and we cut up the pie in accordance with these interests. Recently, our contributions have changed and we are considering other approaches to compensation. What are some of the systems in use by other law firms? A. Compensation plans in use in law firms run the gambit. But here are the typical approaches: Subjective Plans which review the performance of each partner and subjectively determine a relative value for each partner. These plans require evaluation of the individual, comparing the evaluation against those of all other partners and relating the determinations to available funds. Some firms use a democratic process in which each partner participates in the process and others use a committee to perform the evaluation. Increasingly, partners are required to submit personal business plans each year which must be approved by the partnership, executive, or compensation committee. Formula – Objective Plans which use a formula to assign value to various criteria to determine compensation. Approaches can range from eat-what-you-kill plans that focus only on a partner’s individual production to plans that assign values to the full range of compensation criteria. Some eat-what-you-kill plans employ a profit center approach in which each partner is set up as a department in the accounting system and fee revenue is assigned based upon generation, and indirect and direct overhead is allocated based upon a predetermined usage formula.
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May 18, 2010 |
Practice News
The Illinois Supreme Court disbarred 12 lawyers, suspended 26, censured 4 and reprimanded 2 in its latest disciplinary filing. Sanctions were imposed because the lawyers engaged in professional misconduct by violating state ethics law.
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May 18, 2010 |
Practice News
[caption id="attachment_11507" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Celia G. Gamrath"][/caption] The Illinois Supreme Court has appointed Celia G. Gamrath as a Circuit Judge of Cook County, Eighth Subcircuit, to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of the Hon. Thomas R. Chiola. This appointment is effective June 10, 2010, and terminates on December 3, 2012, Ms. Gamrath is a former judicial law clerk for the Honorable Thomas R. Rakowski of the First District Appellate Court of Illinois. She is a partner of Schiller DuCanto & Fleck LLP and concentrates in matrimonial law and appeals on behalf of individuals whose cases mainly involve the distribution of multi-million-dollar holdings and require sophisticated financial expertise. Ms. Gamrath has been recognized nationally as a top family law and appellate lawyer by Best Lawyers in America, Chicago Magazine’s Illinois Super Lawyers, the Leading Lawyers Network, and the Law Bulletin Publishing Company as one of “40 Illinois Attorneys Under Forty to Watch.” She is the recipient of several awards, including the Young Lawyer of the Year Award from the Illinois State Bar Association, the Alta May Hulett Award from the Chicago Bar Association, and The John Marshall Law School Distinguished Service Award. Ms. Gamrath graduated cum laude from The John Marshall Law School (J.D.) in 1994 and from Indiana University (B.S. in Business) in 1991. Ms.
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May 17, 2010 |
Practice News
The Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts announced Monday that Joshua A. Meyer received a majority of the votes cast by the circuit judges in the Seventh Judicial Circuit and is declared to be appointed to the office of associate judge. Mr. Meyer received his undergraduate degree in 1998 from Blackburn University, Carlinville, and his Juris Doctor in 2001 from St. Louis University. Mr. Meyer is currently affiliated with the Macoupin County Public Defender's Office, Carlinville.
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May 17, 2010 |
Practice News
The ISBA Intellectual Property Section Council and the DePaul University College of Law Center for Intellectual Property Law and Information Technology will host How to File a Copyright Application On-Line Using the eCO Electronic Filing System, a free brown bag copyright seminar on Wednesday, June 2, at DePaul's Loop campus. This live video conference with the U.S. Copyright Office is recommended for lawyers, paralegals and law students. The U.S. Copyright Office, in the summer of 2008, introduced the eCO electronic filing system for submitting copyright registration applications online. The seminar will be presented live by video conference, giving attendees the opportunity to see the presenters, Peter Vankevich, head of the Copyright Office Information Section and Ted Hirakawa, Assistant Chief of the Literary Division of the Copyright Registration and Recordation Program, on location at the Library of Congress, on Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C. Our presenters will conduct a simulated demonstration of registering a copyright application online and provide tips on how to make using the eCO fling system more efficient. Time permitting, Peter and Ted will field questions from attendees and share recent developments at the Library of Congress.
- Date: June 2, 2010 (Wednesday)
- Location: DePaul University
- Address: 1 E. Jackson Blvd, Chicago, Ste.
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May 13, 2010 |
Practice News
By Peter LaSorsa You have a trip planned for the Caribbean and you want to be able to stay in touch with the home office and clients—can you with your cell phone? The answer depends on the cell phone carrier and your cell phone. There isn’t enough space to write about all cell phone carriers or cell phones and pda’s so I will write about what I use. I travel to the Caribbean five or six times a year and I have the same access in the Caribbean as I have in Chicago. I have the Blackberry 9550 Smart phone through Verizon, which has UMTS (3G DATA) in over 85 countries. It also has access through various networks in over 200 countries. Check with your carrier for details but the following steps will apply to any cell phone carrier - only the details will change. There are some steps to take before you travel to ensure you have a smooth cell phone experience. First, make sure your cell phone subscription includes a global plan. Many do and if yours does not, you can sign up and cancel when you return. Additionally, you can rent a global satellite phone from Verizon for the period of travel. If you do have a global plan, make sure your SIM card is installed. If you purchased your phone at a store they did this for you. Lastly, with Verizon dial #228 and press send to get an updated preferred roaming list. There will be two different types of networks when traveling, GSM and CDMA. I don’t have enough space to provide details of each but when making a call outside of the U.S. you can tell you are in the GSM network because there will be a GSM or GPRS icon in the top right.