Illinois Bar Journal

The 2022 first place winner of the Lincoln Award Legal Writing Contest is Daniel C. Katzman, a partner at Katzman & Sugden, LLC, Belleville, who wrote “A Brave New World of Digital Payments for Lawyers?” Daniel's article will appear in the February issue of the Illinois Bar Journal.

You’ve heard about “implicit bias” and “microagression.” What about “microinvalidations” and “microinsults”? The cover story for December’s Illinois Bar Journal wades into these sensitive terms based on interviews with Dana and Keith Cutler, cohosts of the television show, Couples Court With the Cutlers. 

Since 1999, when Illinois passed the Electronic Commerce Security Act (ECSA), Illinois has recognized electronic documents and electronic signatures. Over the last 22 years, the law on electronic documents and electronic signatures has remained largely unchanged—until this year, writes Ray Prather in his November Illinois Bar Journal article, “Sign, Sign Away.” 

How might Illinois take more seriously its Constitution’s directive of returning offenders of all ages to useful citizenship. In their October Illinois Bar Journal article, “Useful Sentencing,” Andrea D. Lyon and Hannah J. Brooks show how Illinois courts have interpreted this part of the state’s constitution in lockstep with the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretations of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition against “cruel and unusual” punishment—and how Illinois has seriously reassessed its position on sentencing in light of the major decisions on that subject from both the U.S. Supreme Court and the Illinois Supreme Court.