Attend for only $25! A special thanks goes out to the program’s financial supporters — Brooks McCormick Jr. Trust for Animal Rights Law and Policy and Best Friends Animal Society — for helping to make this opportunity possible.

Don’t miss ISBA’s Illinois Animal Law Conference in Carbondale on Feb. 9! Get the updates you need to affectively advise your clients on a number of important animal law topics. Family law attorneys, animal law practitioners, environmental law lawyers, agricultural law attorneys, and counsel for municipalities with all levels of practice experience who attend this seminar will better understand: what Hurricane Harvey and Irma have taught us about animals and natural disaster planning and recovery; the regulation of feral and community cats; what you need to know about assistance animals; how the Bad Newz Kennels case has affected animal laws; how to handle the family pet in marriage dissolution cases; the regulations affecting humane care, animal control, and dangerous/vicious dog proceedings; the developments in farm animal protection; the ethical issues to be aware of when handling an animal law case; and much more.

Law firms close for any number of reasons, not just when a lawyer reaches a certain age and decides to retire. Firms may merge, lawyers can go in-house on the corporate side and close their practice, and death or disability can shut a firm’s door unexpectedly, as well.

If your practice closes, especially unexpectedly, have you thought about how your clients will be taken care of if you are no longer available? More importantly, have you thought about what happens with malpractice claims that may be made against you after your firm has closed?

Financial institutions, healthcare entities, and government agencies might top the list of targets for those who wish to hack into computer systems and steal money, personal data, or other information. But everyone - including those in the legal world - is vulnerable and should implement, and continuously upgrade, cybersecurity defenses.

"Security is no longer somebody else's problem. It's affecting pretty much everybody, regardless of industry," says Adrian Vargas, manager, security & privacy risk consulting at Crowe Horwath in Chicago, who appeared at a CLE program on the subject presented by the ISBA's Insurance Law Section. 

In an Agreed Final Order, nonlawyer William Bowen was found guilty of minor indirect criminal contempt for engaging in the unauthorized practice of law by providing dissolution of marriage services including preparation of a petition for dissolution of marriage. Mr. Bowen was fined $500, and sentenced to six months of probation. ARDC v. William Bowen, Cook County No. 17 MC1-600179 (January 24, 2018).

Asked and Answered

By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC

Q. Our firm is a 17-attorney firm is San Diego. We are a boutique business litigation firm and we represent companies of all sizes. We represent several Fortune 500 companies. I am a member of our three-member marketing committee and during our last meeting one of our members suggested that we consider a formal survey of our clients. What are your thoughts regarding client satisfaction surveys? Is this something we should consider?

Volunteers are needed for the 2018 ISBA High School Mock Trial Invitational, which is co-administered by the ISBA and the Illinois Trial Team of the University of Illinois. It will be held at the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign on March 24-25.

This program provides an opportunity for students to learn what it is like to prepare and present a legal case before the Illinois Courts. Participating students gain a better understanding of the justice system and improve their knowledge, skills, and ability to articulate in a reasoned, thoughtful manner.

Don’t miss ISBA’s annual Federal Tax Conference in Chicago or via live webcast on February 2, 2018, which features a wealth of information and updates for tax lawyers, business law attorneys, and trusts and estates practitioners. Attorneys with basic practice experience who attend this conference will obtain a better understanding of: the tax issues to be aware of for non-profit organizations and tax exempt entities; the statutory and regulatory changes to individual tax laws; the ethical issues to consider when representing clients during an IRS inquiry; how a plan structure within an estate can impact income and estate taxation; how to spot potential tax protesters prior to accepting them as clients (and the hazards you may face if you are retained by this type of client); changes to the partnership audit regulations; corporate and partnership tax issues; and much more!

The Illinois Supreme Court handed down four opinions on Friday, Jan. 19, including the highly-anticipated Bogenberger v. Pi Kappa Alpha Corp., in which the court considered who can be held liable for a fraternity pledge's alcohol-related death during an initiation ritual. The court also addressed the deadline to timely file a motion to quash service in a residential mortgage foreclosure action in Bank of New York Mellon v. Laskowski, reversed and remanded the appellate court's decision to overturn a defendant's first degree murder conviction in People v. Carey, and determined whether the one-act, one-crime rule prohibits multiple convictions arising out of the defendant's single act of gun possession in People v. Coats. Leading appellate attorneys review these cases below.

Bogenberger v. Pi Kappa Alpha Corporation, Inc.

By Karen Kies DeGrand, Donohue Brown Mathewson & Smyth LLC
 
Here the Illinois Supreme Court addressed the civil liability ramifications of excessive alcohol consumption at a fraternity pledging event. The court addressed whether the national organizations of a fraternity, a local chapter of the fraternity, its officers, pledge board members and active members, along with non-member sorority women, owed a legal duty to a prospective pledge who died from alcohol poisoning during a pledge event. The court ruled that all but the national entities owed a duty on the allegations of the complaint.  

ISBA has added fully-automated estate plan drafting system to IllinoisBarDocs, the document assembly system  built around a library of Illinois-specific legal forms. You can create will- or trust-based plans or, if you are unsure what is best for your client, run the complete system to be guided through questions that result in a custom plan.