Practice News

Illinois State Bar Association Assembly member Andrea M. Schleifer has been appointed as a Circuit Judge of Cook County, Twelfth Subcircuit. This appointment fills the vacancy created by the retirement of the Honorable Mary K. Rochford. It is effective Nov. 16, 2010, and terminates on Dec.3, 2012.

The legal-writing experts frown on over-quoting, particularly from court opinions. Your readers tend to hurdle a big block quotation; they don't read it at all. You will be more effective if you paraphrase the quoted material or just use the best part of it. This also gives you an opportunity to make your point as persuasively as possible. Even if you use a block quotation, paraphrasing what it says as to introduce it has a better chance of getting read than the quotation itself. Or, to think of it in another way, you introduce your quoted material with a paraphrase just as a moderator introduces a speaker. (Kenneth F. Oettle, "Give a Quotation a Good Introduction," the Scribes Journal of Legal Writing, Vol. 11, p. 137 (2007)). Don’t believe me? Check Illinois Supreme Court Rule 341(a), which states in part that “lengthy quotations are not favored and should be included only where they will aid the court’s comprehension of the argument.”

The John Marshall Law School has opened up applications for the inaugural George N. Leighton Fellowship for the Study of Prisoners’ Rights. The 2-year fellowship, targeted toward recent law school graduates, will explore issues relating to prisoners’ rights and improvements to the criminal justice system. Applications are due to the school by November 1, 2010. The fellowship honors the Honorable George N. Leighton for his many years of service to The John Marshall Law School - as an adjunct professor teaching classes in prisoner’s rights and criminal law and procedure. It also celebrates his career devotion to equal justice under the law – both off and on the bench – protecting the rights of his clients and all citizens, whatever their station in life. The Leighton fellowship is designed for attorneys who have a strong interest in constitutional law, research and advocacy. Applicants will be notified of the Fellowship selection in March, 2011, and the appointment will begin in August, 2011. The Fellowship includes an annual stipend of $40,000 for expenses related to research and scholarship, and will cover reasonable travel expenses. At the end of each year, the Leighton Fellow will submit an article for publication.

From the Illinois Judges Association – The special interest groups trying to oust incoming Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court Tom Kilbride in his retention election pose a direct threat to fairness and impartiality of all Illinois judges. Through the use of deceptive and slick marketing, those sullying Justice Tom Kilbride are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for their own ideological and political ends at the expense of the touchstone of the American legal system – a judiciary independent of all influences and interests. The Illinois Judges Association opposes any effort to “get” judges for doing their jobs. It undermines the ability of judges to carry out their judicial functions. It constitutes a dangerous intrusion upon independent judicial decision-making. And it is a blatant affront to everyone that the judiciary serves. The public rightly demands that judges decide cases based on the law, not policy, popularity, or political views. As John Adams declared in the Declaration of Rights of the Massachusetts Constitution, "It is the right of every citizen to be tried by judges as free, impartial and independent as the lot of humanity will admit." Yet, the incendiary attacks on Justice Kilbride seek nothing of the sort. To achieve their ends, special interest groups have resorted to ugly misrepresentations and falsehood of Justice Kilbride’s opinions. What political motive do they have? Playing politics with a judge's record, distorting it for political reasons, is unfair and dishonest.