ISBA Mutual's Basketball, Brackets and Bragging Rights event is coming up and you’re invited!

They are opening their doors, celebrating their new space, setting up 3 screens to show the action, sharing snacks and libations… Join them to mix, mingle and cheer on your favorite tourney teams. (You can even work during lulls – WiFi is available and so are private micro-offices.)

C’mon by during game time – starting at 11 a.m.:

• First round: March 17 & 18
• Regional finals and semifinals: March 24 & 25

ISBA Director of Legislative Affairs Jim Covington reviews legislation in Springfield of interest to ISBA members. This week he covers Judicial Facilities Fee (Senate Bill 2503), Condominium Property Act (Senate Bill 2863), Juries in civil litigation (Senate Bill 3286), Adoption Act (Senate Bill 2926), Trusts (Senate Bill 2842) and Supplementary proceedings (Senate Bill 3303). More information on each bill is available below the video.

The ISBA Marketing & Communications Committee would like to invite you to march in the St. Patrick's Day Parade this Saturday, March 12. The Committee will be meeting at the Chicago Office, 20 S. Clark, 9th floor between 11 and 11:30 a.m. before marching over to the parade site on Columbus Drive. You may also meet the group at ISBA's parade spot No. 104. The parade kicks off at noon.

Contact Chris Bonjean at cbonjean@isba.org for further information.

Attorney David Holtermann discusses holding client funds in trust through an IOLTA account.

The Illinois State Bar Association, DuPage County Bar Association and Northwest Suburban Bar Association will host a Derby Day at Arlington Park on May 7. Join us for a fun day of networking and racing.

Most attorneys know their firm's website needs to be optimized so it's appealing to consumers and shows up in Internet searches. But how do you accomplish this when consumers' preferences and the algorithms behind search engines (e.g., Google) are constantly evolving? In a recent post on Attorney at Work, Mike Ramsey provides six tips to help ensure that your website is serving your marketing needs. Here are two of them.

1. Use responsive design. Research shows that a growing number of consumers are accessing websites via mobile devices. For your website to have its greatest impact, it must look good on smartphones and tablets as well as traditional desktop computers. You do this by using a "responsive design" for your website, which means that it can adapt to different devices and look good on them regardless of their screen size.

2. Speed up your site's load time. If your website takes too long to load, you not only risk consumers going elsewhere, but you'll also end up lower in Google's search results. To help speed up your site, Ramsey suggests removing oversize images that "are just wasted space on a website." Google provides a free tool to check you site's speed, which you can access at https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/.

Read Ramsey's article for the other four tips, which were summarized in the March Illinois Bar Journal Biz&Tek column.

Don’t miss this live webcast on March 24, 2016 that discussion on the legal issues surrounding social media, including common intellectual property, discovery, and ethical concerns that can arise from your client’s use of social media. Attorneys with basic practice experience who attend this live webcast will better understand: trademark issues and risks that clients face when using social media; how to respond to the unauthorized use of trademarks on social media; how to advise your business client on social media policies in the workplace; how the National Labor Relations Board treats social media discussions, especially between employees; how to identify and avoid ethical pitfalls that may arise when using social media in your practice, including issues with advertising and communication with court personnel, opposing parties, or potential clients; the evidentiary and practical issues encountered when using social media at trial; how the Cable Communications Act and Stored Communications Act have affected providers’ reluctance to turn over information and discovery obtain from social media accounts; and much more!

The Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts announced Wednesday that the Eleventh Judicial Circuit judges voted to select Amy L. McFarland as associate judge of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit.

Ms. McFarland received her undergraduate degree in 1996 from Illinois State University and her Juris Doctor in 1999 from the University of Denver. Ms. McFarland is currently affiliated with Bloomington Legal Services.