Join us in Collinsville on Friday, June 27 for a comprehensive overview of the federal civil practice addresses the most common issues faced by practitioners and offers advice from the bench and experienced lawyers on how to handle them! Attorneys with all levels of experience who practice law in federal court will gain a better understanding of: the issues that can arise while pleading in federal court, including jurisdiction issues, venue concerns, and removal/remand issues; disclosing electronically stored information during discovery; how to prepare for and conduct successful settlement conferences; the recent developments in admissibility of fact; how to effectively present testimony during the trial; current trends in mass tort and class action practices; and much more!The program is presented by the ISBA Federal Civil Practice Section and qualifies for 4.0 hours MCLE credit.Click here for more information and to register.

The Assembly meeting agenda has been posted at http://www.isba.org/leadership/assembly/minutes. This page is password protected and available only to ISBA members. The Assembly will next meet on Saturday, June 21 at the 138th Annual Meeting at the Grand Geneva Resort & Spa in Lake Geneva, Wis.

Asked and AnsweredBy John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMCQ. I am the founder and owner of a personal injury plaintiff practice located in Lexington, Ky. I have two associates and four support staff members. All of our cases are handled on a contingency fee basis and our swings in fee collections from year to year can be substantial. I am 64 and would like to transition my practice and retire within the next three years. Both of my associates would like to take over my practice. I believe I am entitled to compensation for my practice and am desiring a fair buyout. I would appreciate hearing your ideas concerning a buyout approach.

On May 29, and effective July 1, the Illinois Supreme Court amended Supreme Court Rules 201 and 214 to make discovery of electronically stored information, or ESI, more efficient. Among other things, the changes empower courts to deny ESI discovery requests that are too burdensome, and they remove the outdated (and often ignored) requirement that ESI be produced in print form.Rule 201 as amended expressly discourages discovery requests that are “disproportionate in terms of burden or expense” and specifies that a “court may determine whether the likely burden or expense of the proposed discovery, including electronically stored information, outweighs the likely benefit”….The amendments also add a definition of ESI to the court’s discovery rules for the first time.Rule 214 was revised to provide that “if a request does not specify a form for producing electronically stored information, a party must produce it in a form or forms in which it is ordinarily maintained or in a reasonably usable form or forms.” It also eliminates the requirement that ESI be “produce[d]…in printed form”….Timothy Chorvat of Jenner & Block, chair of the ISBA’s Civil Practice and Procedure Section, said the amendments are “important and welcome reforms to the procedures governing discovery of ESI. Computer data makes up an ever-increasing proportion of the information that parties exchange in discovery, and the new rules will assist parties to effectively manage the production of electronically stored information while at the same time providing protections against disproportionate burdens and costs.”