Justice Thomas L. Kilbride and the Illinois Supreme Court have announced the appointment of Galesburg attorney Anthony W. Vaupel as a Circuit Judge in the Ninth Judicial Circuit.

Mr. Vaupel was appointed by the Court to fill the vacancy created by Chief Judge James B. Stewart, who retired on October 1, 2015. His appointment takes effect December 7, 2015, and will terminate on Dec. 5, 2016, when the position is filled by the 2016 General Election.

A one-of-a-kind adoption proceeding will take place in a Cook County courtroom on Friday as a brother and sister become cousins when they are separately adopted by two adult sisters.

The 5-year-old boy and 8-year-old girl are two of the seven children whose adoptions will be finalized at 10 a.m. on Friday in Courtroom 1707 of the Richard J. Daley Center, 50 W. Washington St.

The oral argument in the Chicago municipal and laborers pension law matter will be heard by the Illinois Supreme Court on Tuesday, November 17, 2015.

Mary J. Jones, et al. v. Municipal Employees' Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago, et al. is the third of four cases set for argument on November 17 at the Supreme Court Building at 200 East Capitol Avenue in Springfield. The first argument will begin at 9 a.m.

The argument in Jones will be captured by multiple high-definition cameras installed in the Courtroom and streamed live by Advanced Digital Media, Inc./ Blueroomstream.com.

Under Supreme Court rules, Advanced Digital Media applied for and was granted permission to serve as the media pool for the argument.
The live stream will be available at https://livestream.com/blueroomstream/events/4484348.

Audio and video of the argument will also be available later on November 17 on the Illinois Supreme Court's website at www.illinoiscourts.gov/Media/On_Demand.asp.

For members of the media who plan to attend the argument in person, please be aware that seating within the Courtroom is limited and there is no reserved seating. Auxiliary seating is available in a room adjacent to the second floor Courtroom, where the argument will be streamed on a monitor for viewing.

Ketki Shroff Steffen has been appointed as a Circuit Judge of Cook County, 13th Subcircuit. This appointment fills the vacancy created by the retirement of the Hon. Thomas P. Fecoratta, Jr. It is effective Nov. 12, 2015 and terminates on Dec. 5, 2016.

Chief Judge Kathryn E. Creswell and Circuit Court Clerk Chris Kachiroubas are pleased to announce that the 18th Judicial Circuit (DuPage County) has received permission to implement mandatory e-filing of authorized civil cases. Starting on Jan. 1, 2016, new civil cases, as well as pleadings in existing matters, will be required to be filed electronically. In order to assist self-represented parties, work stations in the Circuit Clerk's Office and assistance through the DuPage Law Library will be made available.

DuPage County is the first county in Illinois to be approved for mandatory e-filing of civil cases. Chief Judge Creswell stated, "Electronic filing provides advantages in time, labor and convenience to the Court, the Clerk and the litigants."

"DuPage County has been e-filing since 2004 and this would be the next natural progression. Mandatory e-filing will move the State Court system into a new level of efficiency and accuracy while reducing paper and court/government overhead," Circuit Clerk Kachiroubas added. "The process is simple, but meets the high standard of the Illinois Statutes. Both the first-time filer and the seasoned legal professional will find the system accomodating and competent."

There are no additional fees to e-file in DuPage County. E-file documents are immediately availabed on the Court record upon acceptance by the Circuit Clerk's Office. E-File in DuPage County in online at www.i2file.net.

According to a recent report from ABC 7 News, internal audits of the Illinois State Police crime lab's toxicology section reveal fundamental problems with the section's testing methodology.

Wheaton criminal defense attorney Donald J. Ramsell discovered an internal audit dated July 13, 2011 while defending a DUI case. Ramsell said the audit revealed that crime lab scientists were not using proper validations to ensure the accuracy of their test results. In particular, the data used for testing blood samples was inaccurate, he said.

According to the 2011 audit, control charts, which are statistical tools used to monitor the predictability of the testing process, were inaccurate, Ramsell said. This could have prevented crime lab technicians from knowing that the testing process was not working, he said. For their part, state police representatives told ABC 7 News that validation studies "are [not] necessary for ISP to show its method is valid. The ISP uses a valid method in blood alcohol testing which is widely accepted in the scientific community." Find out more in the November Illinois Bar Journal.

The 100th birthday of the Madison County Courthouse in Edwardsville featured a presentation by Third Judicial Circuit Chief Judge David Hylla of framed Declarations of Independence hand-rolled from the plates at the Bureau of Printing and Engraving. The circuit judges and the Madison County Bar Association were the donors of one framed declaration for each circuit judge's courtroom and one for the lobby of the 100-year-old courthouse. Circuit Clerk Mark Von Nida spoke of the history and mysteries from the courthouse following the dinner held on the first floor atrium of the courthouse sponsored by the Madison County Historical Society.

Pictured at the 'Dining in History' event held in the Madison County Courthouse on Nov. 8 are (from left) Supreme Court Justice Lloyd Karmeier, Von Nida and Hylla.

Asked and Answered

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

Q. I am a partner in a 14-attorney firm in Chicago's western suburbs. We have five equity partners and nine associates. We are currently leasing office space that we have outgrown. As we are approaching the end of our lease we are considering buying our own building. We would appreciate your thoughts.

A. I find that many firms have difficulty dealing with all of the moving parts of buying and building out a building and the distractions and time that it takes away from the law practice. Owning your own building can provide numerous financial and tax advantages and If you decide to go this route hire professionals to help expedite the process and a real estate building management company to manage the building when it is completed.

I strongly suggest that you create a separate entity that will own the building and separate building ownership from the law firm ownership structure. I suggest that participation in ownership of the building be optional for law firm equity partners that want to invest in the building.

It is hard enough for new partners to fund their capital accounts or buy-ins without having a mandatory building buy-in. Recently I have seen a few merger and lateral partner opportunities go south as a result of buildings, real estate, and mandatory buy-ins.

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Illinois veterans need access to legal services and in response, the ISBA Board has adopted a Resolution Encouraging Law Schools to create Veterans’ Legal Clinics

By Alice Kush, Ex-Officio, ISBA Health Care Law Section

In an October 2014 survey performed by the prestigious Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, half of respondents in military households in southern Illinois identified access to VA healthcare benefits and the wait times for care at VA facilities as a veteran’s greatest challenge. The ISBA Healthcare Section Council began researching this problem last year and soon realized that many of these veterans really needed access to lawyers to help them with problems that they have developed as a result of their service.  We found three lawyers, working for Land of Lincoln, who work very hard to provide legal services to veterans.  However, significant legal services are provided by the Veterans’ Legal Clinic at John Marshall Law School in Chicago. That clinic fielded over 1,000 calls from veterans in 2014 with their staff of law students and faculty as well as the assistance of 350 attorneys who volunteer their services.  Veterans have come to John Marshall’s legal clinic from all of the state.