Perhaps no one has been more outspoken regarding the importance of oral arguments in appellate courts than Illinois Supreme Court Justice Karmeier, who has reiterated the importance of providing appellate counsel an opportunity to “isolate and clarify the core issues in a case and to direct the court’s attention to matters that may have been overlooked or misunderstood.” As chief justice, he categorized the “interactive nature” between counsel and the justices as being “invaluable” to the court’s decision-making process and emphasized the importance of the interaction between the justices themselves during oral argument. Justice Karmeier also lauded oral argument as a key component to “providing public visibility and institutional legitimacy to our system of judicial review.” All of these statements came to fruition in an amendment of Illinois Supreme Court Rule 352, known affectionately by some as “Thou shalt oral,” which into effect July 1, 2018, and has had a significant impact on appellate advocacy. In her November Illinois Bar Journal article, “Oral Arguments: More and Less Remote,” Amanda Hamilton discusses the steady increase in oral arguments in Illinois appellate courts and why Illinois appellate practitioners must be prepared to present and defend their positions on complex issues at oral argument with increasing frequency.
Practice News
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November 23, 2020 | Practice News
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November 19, 2020 | Practice News
The Illinois Supreme Court today announced the amendment of Rule 113.
The changes go into effect December 1.
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November 19, 2020 | Practice News
The Illinois Supreme Court handed down seven opinions on Thursday, November 19. They included opinions in two criminal cases and five civil cases.
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November 19, 2020 |
Practice News
The U.S. Attorney's Office Central District of Illinois is accepting applications for an assistant United States attorney opening in its Criminal Division.
Applicants must be United States citizens or nationals; submit to a background investigation, credit and tax checks, and drug test; be registered for selective service, if applicable; and have a J.D. degree and active member of the bar (any U.S. jurisdiction).
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November 16, 2020 | Practice News
The term “hindsight bias” is defined as “the tendency, after an event has occurred, to overestimate the extent to which the outcome could have been foreseen.” A new trend in Illinois is for litigants to attempt to introduce evidence of hindsight bias through opinion testimony by experts in human factors or psychology. These opinions have been commonly offered by defendants in negligence cases to argue that jurors should not judge their conduct with the benefit of hindsight information learned after a plaintiff’s injury; instead, they should consider only the information that a defendant possessed at the time of his alleged negligence. As Arlo Walsman notes in his November Illinois Bar Journal article, “Hindsight is 20/20,” the Illinois Appellate Court has not yet ruled on the admissibility of expert-opinion testimony regarding hindsight bias and trial courts have reached different conclusions on this issue. In his article, Walsman highlights the legal issues surrounding the use of expert-opinion testimony on hindsight bias and practical tips for lawyers to consider when confronted with such evidence.
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November 13, 2020 |
Practice News
The Illinois Supreme Court announced the filing of lawyer disciplinary orders on November 13, 2020. Sanctions were imposed because the lawyers engaged in professional misconduct by violating state ethics law.
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November 12, 2020 | Practice News
The Illinois Supreme Court has announced that Cook County Circuit Judge LeRoy K. Martin, Jr. has been assigned as an Appellate Court Justice in the First District.
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November 10, 2020 | Practice News
In light of the continuing risks to public health and the overall successful administration of the October remote exam, the Illinois Supreme Court has determined that the February 2021 Uniform Bar Exam (UBE) in Illinois will be administered remotely.
The filing deadline for the February 2021 exam remains Tuesday, December 15, 2020. Further information will be posted on the Board of Admissions website.
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November 10, 2020 | Practice News
Justice Robert L. Carter of the 3rd District Appellate Court has been selected to join the Illinois Supreme Court next month, pending the Illinois State Board of Elections proclaiming the results of the November 3 election.
The appointment of Justice Carter is effective December 8, 2020, and terminates December 5, 2022, when the seat will be filled by the November 2022 General Election. The Supreme Court has constitutional authority to fill all judicial vacancies.
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November 9, 2020 | Practice News
In their November Illinois Bar Journal article, “A Palpable Conflict,” Anthony J. Longo and John M. Fitzgerald pit two ancient doctrines against each other: the law of the case vs. subject-matter jurisdiction. What happens, Longo and Fitzgerald ask, when subject-matter jurisdiction and the law-of-the-case doctrine clash? In other words, does the law-of-the-case doctrine really bar someone from relitigating the court’s subject-matter jurisdiction in a subsequent appeal? The authors, in their article, “A Palpable Conflict,” show that there is a split of authority on this issue. While the majority of reported Illinois decisions on this issue have held that the law-of-the-case doctrine indeed bars relitigating a court’s subject-matter jurisdiction, a minority of cases have found (or at least strongly suggest) that defects in subject-matter jurisdiction can indeed be raised at any time—including after the appellate court has already ruled that it does possess subject-matter jurisdiction.