Michael J. Tardy, Director of the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts, announced today that the Sixteenth Judicial Circuit judges voted to select Charles E. Petersen as an associate judge of the Sixteenth Judicial Circuit.
Illinois attorney Kurt Lloyd of Lloyd Law Group, Ltd., shares tips about using standards and medical literature when presenting expert witness testimony.
On December 1, 2016 the Department of Labor's new overtime rule, which raised the wage threshold for workers who are exempt from overtime, was supposed to take effect. However, on November 22, 2016, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas issued a nationwide injunction against the implementation of the rule.
Chicago attorney Alisa Arnoff says the injunction has created a tricky situation for some employers who are already complying with the rule. They risk serious morale problems if they change employee titles, exemption status, and/or compensation back to pre-rule levels. Those problems may be on top of morale problems caused when employers initially complied with the rule. Some employees may have been disappointed to lose overtime compensation by being given a raise in pay and presumably duties qualifying them as exempt. Others might have been disappointed that they are no longer exempt executive, administrative, or professional employees, and are now simply "hourly," regardless of the potential for overtime pay. Right now, employers are in a "wait and see" position, she notes. Read more about the injunction in the January Illinois Bar Journal.
The Supreme Court of Illinois announced the filing of lawyer disciplinary orders on January 13, 2017, during the January Term of Court. Sanctions were imposed because the lawyers engaged in professional misconduct by violating state ethics law.
Asked and Answered
By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC
Q. I am the owner of an eight-attorney insurance defense firm in San Antonio, Texas. I have been practicing fifteen years. I am forty-five years old. Many of my peers in firms my size are in partnerships. Is my situation unusual? Should I consider having partners?
Nominations are being accepted for the 2017 class of Laureates of the ISBA Academy of Illinois Lawyers. ISBA members may submit nominations of colleagues through February 17, 2017.
A class of Laureates is selected by the Academy Board of Regents. Nominees must be ISBA members who personify the values, standards and ideals of the best of the legal profession.
With the public domain citation system firmly in place in Illinois, there's no reason for Rule 23(e) nonprecedential, noncitable orders to exist - and plenty of reasons for them to go, argues Mount Vernon lawyer Morris Lane Harvey in the January Illinois Bar Journal.
Rule 23 allows a reviewing court to issue a decision as an unpublished order if the ruling does not make law. The Illinois Supreme Court adopted Rule 23 decades ago as part of a move to reduce the number of appellate opinions when shelves were groaning under the many volumes of print reporters. But now that the official opinions appear on the supreme court's website, not in print - and Rule 23 orders are archived and publicly available there as well - the principal rationale for allowing unpublished orders has vanished, Harvey argues.
And a look at supreme court stats reveals that many Rule 23 orders are hardly routine dispositions, he writes. "According to statistics published in Kirk Jenkins' Illinois Supreme Court Review blog in March 2015, 42.31 percent of the cases reviewed by the Illinois Supreme Court in the year 2014 were Rule 23(b) orders," he says. "If a central rationale for limiting Rule 23(b) is to 'curtail the publication of unnecessary opinions,' why have so many of them found their way onto the supreme court's docket?" Read Harvey's IBJ article to find out more.
Illinois attorney Kurt Lloyd of Lloyd Law Group discusses using published hearsay documents when presenting expert witness testimonies.
ISBA Director of Legislative Affairs Jim Covington reviews legislation in Springfield of interest to ISBA members. This week he covers the Title Insurance Act, Collaborative Process Act, Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act, Illinois Administrative Procedure Act and Setting bail.
More information on each bill is available below the video.
Get the information you need regarding anti-discrimination and consumer protection laws regarding housing and property rights! Don’t miss this four-part series that explores the housing access injustices suffered by individuals and families facing economic challenges across the spectrum and how their communities are being devastated.
Join us via the Internet on January 25, 2017 for Part 1, which examines a number of housing issues, including: how the SCOTUS Opinion in Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs vs. The Inclusive Communities Project may impact access to affordable, quality housing for low-income minority residents; the impact of affordable housing initiatives on individuals and communities; which housing initiatives work and which ones promote racial, ethnic, and socio-economic class segregation; the successes and failures of government-funded housing programs; HUD’s 2015 ‘guidance’ stating that “adverse housing decisions may constitute racial discrimination”; and the impact on children’s educational progress and opportunities due to constant residence changes.