Our panel of leading appellate attorneys review Friday's Illinois Supreme Court opinions in the civil cases Griggsville-Perry Community Unit School Dist. No. 4 v. Ill. Educational Labor Relations Bd. and State Bank of Cherry v. CGB Enterprises, Inc. Quick Takes on Friday's criminal opinions will be available next week.
Half way through its two-week campaign from Feb. 18-March 1 to raise one million meals, the Lawyers Feeding Illinois campaign has reached a significant milestone, having raised more than 500,000 meals, according to ISBA President John E. Thies. The campaign, conducted in cooperation with Feeding Illinois, is chaired by Thies’s wife Terry.
More than 90 lawyer teams throughout the state have registered to participate, including 28 local, ethnic and specialty bars. In addition, state judges have set up collection boxes in some 20 courthouses to collect non-perishable food items. Attorneys’ Title Guaranty Fund, an event sponsor, is also collecting food at several of its lawyer-members’ offices statewide.
Check out the team leaderboard and donate at http://lawyersfeedingil.org/
ISBA President John E. Thies recently discussed the impact of law school debt on the delivery of legal services in Illinois at the University of Illinois School of Law and with the Champaign News-Gazette.
Thies spoke to law students, student organization leaders, and Dean Bruce Smith at his alma mater, the University of Illinois College of Law. The event was sponsored by the Christian Law Society and the College of Law.
Today's law school students, on average, face a debt load of about $100,000 for legal education.
That figure, Thies said, doesn't include debt they may have incurred as a result of undergraduate education.
Speaking at the University of Illinois College of Law on Tuesday, Thies told students that their counterparts over the next 10 to 15 years will probably face similar challenges.
But over the long term, that kind of debt for legal education is "unsustainable," given salaries in the profession
Read the full story at http://www.news-gazette.com/news/education/2013-02-20/thies-law-school-debt-unsustainable-over-long-term.html
Don’t miss ISBA’s annual Quincy Regional Event in Quincy on March 8th! Enhance your professional excellence by attending this full-day seminar that gives you the opportunity to update your knowledge in a number of general practice areas with an emphasis on office practice updates. Topics include: mediation and alternative dispute resolution (non-mandated mediation); developments in real estate law; professional responsibility; Supreme Court rules; and risk management issues. Additionally, the program is comprised of two breakout sessions dealing with estate planning, family and domestic relations update, criminal law, elder law, evidence-based sentencing, employment law, and current trends in crime. General practice attorneys with all levels of practice experience will benefit from attending this informative seminar.
The program is presented by the ISBA General Practice, Solo, and Small Firm Section and the Adams County Bar Association, and qualifies for 7.0 hours MCLE credit, including 1.0 hour Professional Responsibility MCLE credit (subject to approval).
Click here for more information and to register.
The Illinois Supreme Court announced on Friday new rules aimed at mitigating abuses and uncertainty in mortgage foreclosures, and helping those who face the loss of their homes by imposing several require-ments on mediation programs and lenders seeking to foreclose.
These include the identification of resources for government-certified counseling, for free legal represen-tation to eligible homeowners, interpretive services and sworn assurances that all loan modification efforts have been made by the lender.
The three, stand-alone Supreme Court rules reflect the Court's concern over well-publicized deceptive practices at the national and local level and the significant impact the continuing flow of residential mortgage foreclosures is having on Illinois citizens and communities.
The rules are a direct outgrowth of public hearings and 21 months of work by the Special Supreme Court Committee on Mortgage Foreclosures, whose formation was recommended by Justice Mary Jane Theis.
The Chicago Bar Association Young Lawyers Section and the Illinois State Bar Association Young Lawyers Division invite you to an evening of mixing and networking with Chicago’s legal professionals. Local and specialty bar associations in the Chicagoland area have been invited to join the festivities.
Complimentary appetizers and two drinks for the first 200 attendees.
We hope to see you there!
All are welcome. RSVP to yls@chicagobar.org.
Co-Sponsors Include:
ISBA Director of Legislative Affairs Jim Covington reviews bills in Springfield of interest to ISBA members. In this episode he covers Civil litigation and settlements (Senate Bill 1912), Required liability coverage for drivers (Senate Bill 1898), Motion to dismiss or quash (Senate Bill 1500), Consumer Reciprocal Attorney’s Fees Act (Senate Bill 1901) and UM arbitration (Senate Bill 1636). More information on the bill is available below the video.
Like it or not, do-it-yourself law sites are proliferating. An Illinois lawyer thinks fellow practitioners should respond by using technology more efficiently and by serving and billing clients in new ways -- by riding the DIY wave instead of getting swamped. Read all about it in the March Illinois Bar Journal.
Michael J. Tardy, Director of the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts, announced Wednesday that the circuit judges of the 20th Judicial Circuit voted to select Joseph D. Christ and Christopher T. Kolker as associate judges of the 20th Judicial Circuit. As no candidate received a majority of votes to fill the third vacancy, a runoff is necessary.
Mr. Christ received his undergraduate degrees in 1986 from Illinois State University in Normal and his Juris Doctor in 1993 from the Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan. Mr. Christ is currently affiliated with the St. Clair County State's Attorney's Office in Belleville.
Mr. Kolker received his undergraduate degree in 1989 from Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona and his Juris Doctor in 1998 from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. Mr. Kolker is currently engaged in practice with the Kolker Law Offices, P.C., in Belleville.
Asked and Answered
By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC
Q. I am the founder and owner of a law firm in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. I have three other attorneys and 4 staff members. We represent primarily business and civic organizations. Our fee revenues are around $735,000 per year and I take home $175,000 to $200,000 from the practice. I am looking to sell the practice to either the associates in the firm or another law firm. Do you have any idea what my firm might be worth?