The Illinois State Bar Association's Board of Governors elected a new secretary and treasurer at its meeting Friday in Chicago.

James F. McCluskey (left) will serve as secretary. McCluskey is a founding member of Momkus McCluskey, LLC in Lisle. He is in his fifth year on the Board. He has served as Chair of the ISBA Assembly Agenda & Program Committee and is a past member of the ISBA Civil Practice & Procedure Council.

Judge Celia G. Gamrath (right) of Chicago was named treasurer. She is serving her second stint on the Board after being the Under 37 representative for Cook County from 2005-2008. She was a partner at Schiller, DuCanto and Fleck before becoming a judge in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Domestic Relations Division. She has served on the Assembly and was a member of the ISBA Young Lawyers Division from 1998-2006.

The Board welcomed new members Bridget Duignan, Al Durkin, Gamrath and Kenya Jenkins-Wright of Chicago, Carey Gill of Carbondale, Hon. Elizabeth Rochford of Lake Forest, David Sosin of Orland Park and Angel Wawrzynek of Mattoon.

The Illinois Bar Foundation will honor Manny Sanchez of Sanchez Daniels & Hoffman, LLP with the Distinguished Award for Excellence at Gala 2013 on Oct. 18. The Gala will take place at 6:30 p.m. at the Four Seasons Hotel in Chicago. This year’s leadership includes Robert A. Clifford of Clifford Law Offices and William A. Von Hoene Jr. of Exelon Corporation as Gala Chairs, as well as the Hon. Russell W. Hartigan, Circuit Court of Cook County and Shawn S. Kasserman, of Tomasik Kotin Kasserman as Board Gala Chairs.

The night includes cocktails, live and silent auctions, a raffle, dinner and dancing. To become a sponsor or purchase tickets, please call the IBF at 312.726.6072.

For more information, visit the IBF website at www.illinoisbarfoundation.org.

Chief Justice Thomas L. Kilbride announced on Thursday the names of six attorneys who have applied to fill a judicial vacancy in the Ninth Judicial Circuit. The vacancy was created by the retirement of Fulton County resident Circuit judge Edward R. Danner.

In case you're wondering — and we know you are — mooning your boss is "good reason" for termination.

Asked and Answered

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

Q. I am the managing partner of a three attorney personal injury plaintiff firm in Indianapolis. We have a total of 600+ open PI files. What are some of the key financial metrics/indicators that we should be using to manage the practice?

A. From your case count it is obvious that you a managing a high volume practice. In addition to selecting the right cases, managing your inventory (case portfolio) is crucial as is managing and monitoring the effectiveness of your marketing investments. Here are a few metrics that you might consider incorporating into a one page report with trend line charts. You can design the report in Excel and pull the numbers from detail reports from your case management system:

Plotted by Month

• Fees Collected by Case Type 
• Number of New Client Appointments Made
• Number of New Client Appointments Kept
• Number of New Cases Conditionally Signed
• Number of New Cases Accepted/Opened
• Number of Later Case Dumps
• Ratio of New Cases to Dumps
• Number of Demands
• Number of Files Closed
• Number of Open Cases - by Case Type
• Total Open Cases
• Number of Open Cases Per Lawyer
• Average Age of Open Cases (Turnover)
• Expected Fees - Value of Case Inventory by Case Type (Expected Value)
• Total Expected Fees - Value of Total Case Inventory/Pipeline
• Average Case Fee
• Marketing/Referral Source - No of cases opened each month by referral source.

This will get you started.

By Wendy Vaughn, Clinical Assistant Professor,
NIU College of Law, Zeke Giorgi Legal Clinic

During its 137th annual meeting, the Illinois State Bar Association awarded John C. McAndrews Pro Bono Service Awards to attorney Michael McEIvain, the McDonald’s Corporation, and the Clark County Bar Association for performing extraordinary pro bono service in civil legal matters. The John C. McAndrews Pro Bono Service Awards are awarded each year to individuals, law firm / corporate legal departments, and bar associations who either provide free legal services to residents of Illinois who are unable to afford a private attorney or expand the availability of legal services to income eligible residents of Illinois. The John C. McAndrews Pro Bono Service Awards are granted each year in memory of attorney John McAndrews who was a champion of pro bono services throughout his career and instrumental in establishing the Illinois Pro Bono Center, as well as implementing the findings of the Illinois Legal Needs Study.  

Mediation is designed to resolve differences both in and out of the court, and requires a very different mindset than courtroom litigation. Join us in Chicago on September 16^th for this week-long mediation training and learn how to resolve conflicts in a non-adversarial, non-confrontational manner, allowing peaceful resolutions between parties.

The program is taught by Richard Calkins and Fred Lane—two nationally recognized mediators, authors and educators. Until 20 years ago, both Mr. Calkins and Mr. Lane were well-known and highly regarded litigators. Since then, however, they have successfully mediated over 5,000 cases.

The program qualifies for 40.0 hours MCLE credit, including 40.0 hour Professional Responsibility MCLE credit (PMCLE subject to approval).

Click here for more information and to register.

The Illinois Supreme Court recently adopted Illinois Rule of Evidence 502 and issued its Center Partners decision. Together, they set important new limits on the doctrine of subject matter waiver of attorney-client privilege, establishing that waiver only happens when there are intentional disclosures designed to give the disclosing party an unfair tactical advantage in litigation. Here's an analysis by Gino DiVito and coauthors from the July IBJ.

Our panel of leading appellate attorneys review Thursday's Illinois Supreme Court opinions in the civil case The Hope Clinic for Women, Ltd., v. Flores and the criminal case People v. Lacy.

CIVIL

The Hope Clinic for Women, Ltd., v. Flores

By Alyssa M. Reiter, Williams, Montgomery & John Ltd.

The Illinois Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of the Parental Notice of Abortion Act of 1995 (generally, but with certain exceptions, prohibiting a physician from performing an abortion upon an unemancipated minor unless notice is given to an adult family member) against challenges that it is facially invalid, violating the privacy, due process, equal protection, and gender equality clauses of the Illinois Constitution of 1970. 

The parties agreed that a right to abortion exists under the Illinois Constitution but disputed whether that right arose from the privacy clause (which is in the state constitution but not the federal constitution) or from the due process clause.

The Court reviewed the history of the privacy clause and determined that any right to abortion in Illinois “is clearly not grounded in the privacy clause of our state constitution.” 

ISBA Director of Legislative Affairs Jim Covington reviews legislation in Springfield of interest to ISBA members. In this episode he covers Juvenile Court Act (Public Act 98-62), Raising the age of juvenile court (Public Act 98-61), Concealed carry (Public Act 98-63) and Real estate documents and thumbprints (Public Act 98-0029). More information on each bill is available below the video.

Juvenile Court Act. Public Act 98-62 (Tracy, R-Quincy; Clayborne, D- E. St. Louis) amends the “continuance under supervision” section (Section 615) to track the procedure followed in adult criminal court. It does the following: (1) Leaves current law so that a case may be continued under supervision before a finding of delinquency with the approval of the state’s attorney. (2) Amends § 615 to allow the court to continue case under supervision after a finding of delinquency. It adds the same criteria from the supervision statute in the Criminal Code that the judge must consider before ordering supervision. Regardless of when this happens, current law is retained that prohibits a case from being continued under supervision for any forcible felony, a Class X felony, and first-degree murder. Effective January 1, 2014.