In 2009, 27,200 attorneys provided pro bono legal services totaling 2,197,041 legal service hours, including 1,113,778 hours of legal service provided directly to persons of limited means - an increase of 2.1% over 2008. That's according to the latest Annual Report from the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission.
The ARDC also reported that the Master Roll of Attorneys rose 1% from 2008 to 84,777 as of Oct. 31, 2009. The counties with the greatest increase in attorney population include DeKalb (6%), Peoria (3%), Champaign (2%) and Kane (2%).
The Commission docketed 5,834 investigations into alleged attorney misconduct, a 1% decrease from the year before. The top three areas of grievance involve problems with the client-attorney relationship including allegations of neglect (37% of all investigations), failing to communicate (17%) and conduct involving fraud or deceit (15%). Consistent with prior years, the areas of practice most likely to lead to a grievance are criminal law, domestic relations, tort and real estate.
Click below to read more from the ARDC's 2009 Annual report.
Practice News
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May 3, 2010 |
Practice News
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April 30, 2010 |
Practice News
At a press conference Tuesday at the Marion County Courthouse, Judge George Lackey and Circuit Clerk Ronda Yates announced the opening of a new internet-based Marion County Legal Self-Help Center. The legal self-help center was developed to provide accurate information on Illinois law to the growing number of people who must come to court and represent themselves. Individuals using the self-help center will be able to access information about a wide variety of civil legal problems, including videos on going to court, court pleadings and information on other legal organizations. For those people who have access to a computer with an internet connection, the center is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week at http://marion.illinoislegalaid.org. “We want everyone to have an attorney to represent them in court, if at all possible. In a number of instances, people are not able to afford an attorney. Our local legal aid, Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance, has far more requests for service than it can meet either with its staff attorneys or its volunteer attorneys,” said Judge Lackey. “In those situations where people must come to court on their own, the legal self-help center will provide them with useful information and pleadings for a number of simpler civil legal problems,” he said. “All too often, unrepresented people show up in court with little idea about how the court system works or what they need to do. For those people who are willing to take the time, the Marion County Legal Self-Help Center will provide helpful information and guidance, including legal forms,” Judge Lackey said.
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April 29, 2010 |
Practice News
You've had enough of the Client from Hell. Or maybe the Client from Hell fires you. In either case (or any number of others), you need to withdraw from the representation. The good news -- you almost certainly can. But make sure you do it properly, Helen Gunnarsson writes in the May Illinois Bar Journal.
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April 28, 2010 |
Practice News
Do any divorce work? If so, take note: you can now appeal a custody judgment before the rest of the case is final. You no longer have to wait for all the other issues (e.g., property allocation) to be resolved before doing so. Once you appeal -- or if you don't appeal and the deadline for filing one passes -- the custody judgment is no longer subject to modification. It's locked in. That brings stability, which is good for kids. But it also means you'd better be on your toes. As first district Justice Mary Jane Theis told Helen Gunnarsson in the April Illinois Bar Journal, when you get a custody judgment from the trial court "you must appeal within 30 days or you will lose your right to appeal forever." The stakes are higher than ever, in other words. That's why family-law practitioners would do well to read the tandem articles in the most recent ISBA Family Law newsletter by Justice Theis and Cook County trial Judge Edward R. Jordan, which discuss the implications of this and related aspects of the supreme court's rule change (it took effect last February 26). Read their articles.
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April 28, 2010 |
Practice News
Asked and Answered By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC Q. We recently implemented a new computer system and spent a lot of money on initial software training. However, our attorneys and staff must have forgotten everything they learned. It seems that they are only using a fraction of the software’s capabilities. A. Training and skill development is not easy. Studies reveal that 90 percent of the people who attend seminars and training sessions see no improvement because they don’t take the time to implement what they learn. Practices create habits and habits determine your future. Up to 90 percent of our normal behavior is based on habits. The key to skill learning is to get the new skill to become a habit. Once the new habit is well developed it becomes your new normal behavior. This requires practice. Unfortunately, law firms do not give employees time to practice and experiment. Research on memory and retention shows that upon completion of a training session, there is a precipitous drop in retention during the first few hours after exposure to the new information. We forget more than 60 percent of the information in less than nine hours. After seven days only 10 percent of the material is retained. Most memory loss occurs very rapidly after learning new information. Your employees can improve their memories by:
- Engaging in rehearsal/practice
- Scheduling distributed practice
- Minimizing interference
- Engaging in deep mental processing
- Emphasizing transfer
- Organizing information
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April 27, 2010 |
Practice News
In Ford v. Grizzle, "the fifth district held that the trial court did not err in admitting photographs of the plaintiff’s vehicle collision without expert testimony," Steve Buser writes in the May issue of Trial Briefs, newsletter of the ISBA's Civil Practice and Procedure Section. As Steve notes, this is the third time in as many years that the fifth district has ruled on this issue. "Who would have thought 20 years ago that Illinois appellate courts would now be spending so much time on the admissibility of photographs of vehicles in automobile accident litigation?" Read his article.
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April 27, 2010 |
Practice News
Chief Justice Thomas R. Fitzgerald and the Illinois Supreme Court announced Tuesday the creation of a Special Supreme Court Advisory Committee for Justice and Mental Health Planning to maximize the use of court and community resources in aiding the rehabilitation and treatment of accused offenders with mental health issues. The Committee is generally charged with studying, reviewing and collaborating "on issues and matters related to mental illness and the justice system" with the aim of making recommendations to the Supreme Court. Specifically, the Supreme Court has asked the Committee to formulate and prioritize recommendations in improving communication, data gathering and information sharing between the mental health and criminal justice systems. It is expected that members of the Committee will participate in the continuing statewide strategic planning process initiated by the Division of Mental Health of the Illinois Department of Human Services. The Court also asked the committee to identify and consider appropriate diversion models for persons with mental illness and to report on what works best in Mental Health courts in Illinois, including how to continue care for persons with mental illness as they transition from the criminal justice system to mental health services. Judges appointed to the Committee serve in the counties of Cook, Madison, Rock Island, St. Clair, Kankakee, Macon, Lake, McLean, Kane and Winnebago, but recommendations could affect criminal justice and mental health populations statewide.
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April 27, 2010 |
Practice News
[caption id="attachment_10741" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Michael B. Hyman, Ameet Sachdev, Larry Yellen, Robert J. Anderson"][/caption] Media Coverage of the Courts will be the topic of Judicial Perspective, a half-hour cable program presented by the Illinois Judges Association (IJA), airing on Chicago Access Network Television, Channel 21 in Chicago, on Tuesdays, May 4 and May 18 at 10:30 p.m. Appearing on the show are program moderator Michael B. Hyman, a Cook County Circuit Court judge and IJA officer; Ameet Sachdev, a legal reporter for the Chicago Tribune; Larry Yellen, investigative reporter for Fox Chicago News; and Robert J. Anderson, a judge in the 18th Judicial Circuit. The Illinois Judges Association, formed in 1971, provides continuing legal support to members of the judiciary and education to the public on matters regarding the court system.
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April 26, 2010 |
Practice News
SJRCA 120 (Harmon, D-Oak Park) requires minimum periods as a licensed attorney before he or she is eligible to serve as a circuit, appellate, or supreme court judge. Associate judges are not included in this amendment. As introduced, it required 10 years for a circuit, 12 years for an appellate, and 15 years for a supreme court judge. SJRCA 120 was amended so that circuit judges serving in subcircuits must be licensed for five years. It is on third reading in the Senate.
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April 22, 2010 |
Practice News
Assistant U.S. Attorney Edmond E. Chang has been nominated to fill a vacancy on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Mr. Chang is the first Asian Pacific American to be nominated to sit as an Article III judge within the 7th Circuit. Edmond E. Chang is an Assistant United States Attorney with the Northern District of Illinois, where he has served since 1999. He is presently the Chief of Appeals of the Criminal Division, where he has supervised over 300 appeals in the Seventh Circuit. He has also served in various other positions within the U.S. Attorney's office, including Deputy Chief of the General Crimes Section. Mr. Chang is a 1994 graduate cum laude of Northwestern University School of Law and a 1990 graduate cum laude of the University of Michigan, where he received a degree in Aerospace Engineering.