The Illinois Supreme Court and Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts (AOIC) today announced the hiring of Deanie Brown as the Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer (CDIO), a senior level position reporting to the AOIC Director. Her first day will be November 2, 2020. 

The Illinois Supreme Court handed down nine opinions on Thursday, September 24. In People v. Stoecker, the Court affirmed the dismissal of a defendant’s petition for relief from judgment. In People v. Hollahan, the Supreme Court ruled that there was no error in a circuit court allowing a jury to watch a video of the defendant’s DUI stop in the courtroom with the defendant present. In People v. Gaines, the Court considered whether a trial court’s sua sponte vacatur of a defendant’s guilty plea and his subsequent trial violated double jeopardy. In People v. Deleon, the Court considered whether section 112a-11.5 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1963 which permits the issuance of a protective order in a crime involving domestic violence, a sexual offense, or stalking, is unconstitutional on its face and as applied to a defendant. In United States v. Glispie, the Supreme Court answered a certified question by the Seventh Circuit, holding that the limited authority doctrine applies to residential burglary by entry.

Project ECHO, an Appalachian/Midwest Regional Judicial Opioid Initiative (RJOI) program, has officially kicked off in Illinois. Project ECHO provides education on issues including the physiology of addiction, evidence-based programming interventions, and medication assisted treatment to Illinois judges in order to help judges address opioid abuse in criminal and family court cases.

Trade secrets such as the Coca-Cola recipe may seem out of reach for many companies, but there are more things to protect than just the obvious—consumer lists and processes, to name a few. Join us from 1:30 until 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, October 6, to learn about confidentiality agreements and how they can help keep your clients’ secrets safe. Learn how to draft confidentiality agreements, how to avoid having the agreement upended by courts, and under what circumstances an employee should be required to sign the agreement. A discussion on whether or not blanket agreements can survive a court challenge is also included.

The login for the ISBA website will be disabled at noon on Thursday, September 24. This will affect access to CLE, Fastcase, ISBA Central, the store, members-only content and other features requiring login. We estimate it will take 1-5 hours to bring these services online.

During this time, the ISBA website pages not requiring a login will be available, and discussion emails via ISBA Central will still function. If you login to CLE, Fastcase, and ISBA Central before noon, you might be able to use them during the downtime.

Judge Blanche M. Manning was born in December 1934 in Chicago, Illinois.

She received her Bachelor of Education from Chicago Teachers College in 1961, a Juris Doctor from John Marshall Law School in 1967, a Master of Arts from Roosevelt University in 1972, and a Master of Laws from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1992.

Judge Manning attended law school while working as a Chicago Public School teacher. She also taught at Malcolm X Community College and DePaul University College of Law at various points throughout her career. She held many legal positions, including working as an Assistant State's Attorney for the Cook County State's Attorney's Office, supervisory trial attorney at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, general attorney at United Airlines, and Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.

Bostock v Clayton County Georgia was the landmark case decided June 15, 2020 by the U.S. Supreme Court establishing that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is illegal. Don’t miss this in-depth look at how this case will impact future anti-discrimination laws, as well how the underpinning tensions of statutory interpretation and judicial philosophies brought a conservative justice to a surprising conclusion.

The Illinois Supreme Court announced the filing of lawyer disciplinary orders on September 21, 2020. Sanctions were imposed because the lawyers engaged in professional misconduct by violating state ethics law.

With the passing of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, our nation has lost one of its most brilliant and compassionate legal minds. The Illinois State Bar Association mourns her passing and this great loss to the legal community.

Ordinarily, an estate is taxed based on the value of its assets as of the decedent’s date of death. But for federal estate tax purposes, an alternate valuation date could be selected if it results in both the gross estate and the estate tax being reduced. The alternate valuation date is the date six months after the date of death. Utilizing the alternate valuation date would thus necessitate the filing of a federal estate tax return. In his September Illinois Bar Journal article, “COVID-19, Death, and Taxes,” Richard Hirschtritt discusses whether an Illinois resident who owns publicly traded stock, commercial real estate with an Illinois situs, and/or a business that has been adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and has died within six months prior to the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak is subject to state or federal estate taxes.