ISBA President John E. Thies discusses a great new benefit coming for ISBA members - free CLE. He also urges members to make new skills a habit so that it becomes your "new normal" behavior. Find out more about the ISBA's new free CLE benefit at www.isba.org/freecle

The Illinois State Bar Association honored members who have been admitted to practice for 50 years at a luncheon on Wednesday at the Sheraton Hotel & Towers in Chicago. Moline attorney Martin Katz spoke on behalf of the Class of 1962 Class of Distinguished Counsellors.

Congratulations to the 1962 Class of Distinguished Counsellors:

ISBA Laureate Mary Lee Leahy passed away Wednesday in Chicago. She was 72. Leahy was best known for winning the U.S. Supreme Court case Rutan v. Republican Party of Illinois – which banned most political hiring. She passed away in her Chicago condominum following a battle with pancreatic cancer.

Here is the bio from her 2001 Laureate induction: Two years after she graduated from law school in 1966, Mary Lee Leahy was principal attorney in the first of several landmark cases she has won in her distinguished career.

Pickering versus Board of Education, argued in the U.S. Supreme Court, established the right of public employees to publicly criticize their employers.

Perhaps her most familiar case – Rutan – was a class action decided in 1990 by the U.S. Supreme Court. It established the right of public employees to support or not to support a political party or candidate for public office without being denied promotion, transfer, recall from lay-off and employment due to a political patronage system. As the saying goes, "this changed everything."

The Illinois State Bar Association's Special Committee on Law School Debt, formed by President John E. Thies, held the final of five open hearings on Wednesday, Dec. 12 at the Chicago Regional Office. The committee heard from several lawyers with over $100,000 in law school debt. One lawyer, who has sued three area law schools, said that law student loans need to be capped and need to be made dischargeable in bankruptcy. Many of the law students who spoke said they are on payment plans that don't cover the cost of the interest on their loans - so no principal is being paid off and additional interest is accruing.

The committee is co-chaired by Dennis J. Orsey of Granite City and Appellate Justice Ann B. Jorgensen. President Thies will deliver a report on what the committee learned at the June Assembly Meeting and will share the information with the American Bar Association.

[A version of the following article by Chicago writer Maria Kantzavelos will appear in the January Illinois Bar Journal as part of a longer piece about the Illinois Supreme Court's e-filing initiative.]

Effective Jan. 1, attorneys and parties involved in civil cases in circuit courts statewide must include an email address for service of documents on appearances and on all pleadings filed in court. The amendments to Supreme Court Rule 11, announced in October, make the following changes:

Asked and Answered

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

Q. Our 16 attorney firm is having our first planning retreat next week to plan for 2013. I have been charged with putting together the agenda and program. Do you have any suggestions that we as a firm might consider or think about adopting?

A. Here are a few ideas that you might want to consider.

Circuit Court of Cook County Chief Judge Timothy C. Evans today announced beginning January 14, 2013, the public will not be permitted to bring cell phones and other electronic devices into any Circuit Court of Cook County courthouse facility except for the Richard J. Daley Center Courthouse.  The ban will affect only those courthouse facilities in which criminal matters are heard.*