The Illinois State Bar Association’s Lawyer Finder Service provides referrals to local lawyers Mondays through Fridays. The Service makes referrals in a number of areas of law. For the month of February 2020 there were more than 600 referrals given.
Here are the results for February 2020:
The Illinois Supreme Court handed down one opinion on Wednesday, February 26. In Burns v. Municipal Officers Electoral Board, the court upheld the constitutionality of a provision of the Illinois Municipal Code restricting the power of home rule municipalities to impose term limits.
Several ISBA members attended an Illinois Senate Judiciary hearing on March 3 to support the Transfer on Death Instrument bill (SB-3150).
Those photographed above include ISBA members Charles Brown and Nathan Hinch, as well as Sen. Jason Barickman, who sponsored the bill.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit is accepting applications from all qualified applicants for the position of federal public defender for the Southern District of Illinois headquartered at East St. Louis. The appointment is for four years at a current salary of $170,800. The federal public defender, under authority of 18 U.S.C. § 3006A(g)(2)(A), provides criminal defense services to individuals unable to afford counsel. The courts are an equal opportunity employer and all applications will be subject to the same standard of review.
Justice Charles E. Freeman, who had a long and distinguished career on the Illinois Supreme Court from 1990 to 2018 and was the first African American to serve on the Court and as Chief Justice, passed away on March 2, 2020. He was 86.
“It is with great sadness that I have learned of the passing of Justice Charles E. Freeman. Charles and I had been acquaintances for several decades before I joined the court, having often attended many of the same social events,” Chief Justice Anne M. Burke said. “However, we became close friends once we became colleagues and I considered Charles to be my mentor. He was a gentleman and a truly gracious individual. I never heard him say an unkind word about anyone. He was a consensus builder and treated everyone equally and with respect.”
Join us in Chicago or via live webcast from 1-4:45 p.m. Wednesday, March 25 to learn how to make your e-filing easier by using Adobe Acrobat and PDF files! Today, it is impossible to practice law without encountering PDF files on a regular basis. As such, every lawyer needs to understand how they should be used, their benefits, and their risks. The benefits range from protecting files via password encryption to eliminating compatibility issues when sharing documents with others to reducing paper in your office. Risks include the fact that PDFs can be easily edited unless they’re locked down.
As rewarding as it sometimes is, working with traumatized clients also can be difficult: A client’s trauma can undermine the client’s own goals for representation. And sharing the burden of a client’s trauma can wear on the attorney. But by understanding the nature of trauma, how it’s expressed, and how to respond to it, lawyers can anticipate and prepare for its unpredictable effects. The Illinois Bar Journal’s March 2020 cover article, “The Traumatized Client,” examines what may be taking place in the minds of traumatized clients and introduces several strategies attorneys can use to help the client work through the trauma and focus on the case.
Join us in Chicago or via live webcast from noon until 3:45 p.m. Thursday, March 19 to learn what attorneys need to know about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This seminar is intended for any practitioner working with clients who are veterans or who have otherwise experienced trauma from violence, abuse, neglect, or exploitation. Attorneys at all levels of practice experience who attend this seminar will better understand: what PTSD is and how it affects a person; how PTSD is treated; the practice areas that PTSD is most commonly seen throughout our legal system; and how to address PTSD in clients regardless of the source of trauma.
ROSS Intelligence is now offering a member benefit to the ISBA.
ROSS’s user base already includes attorneys, paralegals, law students, and librarians throughout Illinois, and pro bono attorneys throughout the state have already been using ROSS for several years. This relationship now provides all members of the ISBA with an enhanced member benefit and training opportunities, opening up the doors for members across the state to incorporate the next generation of legal research tools into their practice.
