ATLANTA – February 17, 2026 – Ogletree Deakins, one of the largest labor and employment law firms representing management, is pleased to announce three new office managing shareholders.

Boomers to Gen Z: Managing Intergenerational Attorneys

In 2024, the Second District of the Illinois Appellate Court clarified the process to judicially remove liens from a decedent’s real estate in probate proceedings, explain Fredric Bryan Lesser and Jeffrey P. O’Kelley in their February 2026 Illinois Bar Journal article, “Lien Over.” That process and the decision explaining it, are not without controversy, Lesser and O’Kelly continue. In fact, in response to the Second District’s decision, the Illinois legislature is now considering amending the 138-year-old statute that empowers the probate court to remove liens.

Marcia M. Meis, Director of the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts, announced today that the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit judges voted to select Aaron C. Kaney as an associate judge of the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit.

Mr. Kaney received his undergraduate degree in 2007 from Taylor University in Fort Wayne, Indiana and his Juris Doctor in 2010 from Regent Law School in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Mr. Kaney is currently affiliated with the Carroll County State's Attorney's Office in Mount Carroll, Illinois.