Illinois Supreme Court Amends Rule 23 to Allow Citation of Unpublished Appellate Court Rulings

Posted on November 20, 2020 by Timothy A. Slating

Chief Justice Anne M. Burke and the Illinois Supreme Court announced today the amendment of Rule 23, which will allow litigants to cite unpublished opinions from the Illinois Appellate Courts for persuasive purposes. Amended Rule 23 is effective Jan. 1, 2021.

The Illinois Supreme Court Rules including Amended Rule 23 can be found on the court's website.

U.S. Attorney’s Office Seeks Assistant U.S. Attorney

Posted on November 19, 2020 by Rhys Saunders

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).

Hindsight is 20/20

Posted on November 16, 2020 by Rhys Saunders

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.