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  • August 26, 2015 | ISBA News
    ISBA President’s Club 2015

    The Illinois State Bar Association would like to thank the members listed below for joining the 2015 President’s Club. This program helps support capital development projects and member service projects. The 2016 program will kick-off at the 2015 Midyear Meeting. More information, including donation amount and benefits, will be available closer to that date. Thank you again for your support of ISBA. View our photo gallery of President's Club 2015 members at iln.isba.org/gallery/925/president%27s-club-2015

  • August 14, 2015 | ISBA News
    Illinois Bar Foundation names 2015 Recipients of Post Graduate Legal Fellowship Program

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    The Illinois Bar Foundation (IBF), the charitable arm of the Illinois State Bar Association, has awarded its 2015 Post Graduate Legal Fellowship Program grants to three 2015 law school graduates.

    The Fellowships, which provide clinical support for three law school legal clinics, were awarded this summer to Calli Leigh Burnett, of Chicago; Bryan McIntyre, of Urbana, and Marishonta M. Wilkerson, of Milwaukee.

    The foundation launched its Post Graduate Legal Fellowship Program in 2014 to fund public interest jobs for recent law graduates, according to Shawn Kasserman, IBF president. The foundation will award $25,000 to each of the three fellowships. The law schools will each contribute a stipend to help fund the positions.

    Wilkerson will serve at NIU Law’s Zeke Giorgi Clinic in Rockford; McIntyre will work in the Civil Litigation Clinic at the University of Illinois; and Burnett will support the Community Law Center Clinic at Loyola University Chicago.

  • August 7, 2015 | ISBA News | Member Services
    Illinois Lawyer Finder makes over 900 referrals in July

    The Illinois State Bar Association’s Lawyer Finder Service provides referrals to local lawyers Mondays through Fridays. The Service makes referrals in a number of areas of law. For the month of July 2015, there were 877 calls and 909 areas of law. ISBA helped people in need of legal services find lawyers in the following areas:

    Here are the results for July 2015:

    • 909 phone referrals made by Lawyer Finder staff
    • Most requested areas of law: Family (156), Personal Injury (117), Criminal Law (88), Real Estate (75), Civil Disputes (73), Employment Law (65), and Estate/Probate Law (37).
    • 19,833 visits to IllinoisLawyerFinder.com (17,430 unique visitors)

    Want to be part of the ISBA Lawyer Finder Service? Call (800) 252-8908 and ask for the Legal Department, or visit www.illinoislawyerfinder.com

    Clients should call (800) 922-8757.

  • July 31, 2015 | ISBA News
    Illinois Bar Foundation adds 5 new members to Board

    The Illinois Bar Foundation, the charitable arm of the Illinois State Bar Association, has added five members to its Board of Directors.

    Newly-elected members are Christopher W. Niro, a senior associate attorney at Niro, Haller & Niro in Chicago; Chantelle A. Porter, a senior associate attorney at A. Traub & Associates with offices in Arlington Heights and Lombard; Gregory L. Shevlin, a partner in the Belleville law firm of Cook, Ysursa, Bartholomew, Brauer & Shevlin, Ltd.; Rory T. Weiler, a partner in Weiler & Lengle, P.C. in St. Charles; and Sonni Choi Williams, Deputy Corporation Counsel for the city of Peoria. Weiler and Shevlin will serve two-year terms and the other board members will each serve a one-year term.

  • July 10, 2015 | ISBA News
    Illinois Bar Foundation elects new officers

    The Illinois Bar Foundation, the charitable arm of the Illinois State Bar Association (ISBA), has elected its officers for the organization’s 2015-16 fiscal year. They are: Shawn S. Kasserman, founding member, Tomasik Kotin & Kasserman, LLC, president; Elizabeth A. Kaveny, partner, Burke, Wise, Morrissey & Kaveny, first vice president; Perry J. Browder, shareholder, Simmons Hanly Conroy, second vice president; Timothy W. Kelly, principal, Kelly Law Offices, third vice president; Lisa M. Nyuli, partner, Ariano Hardy Ritt Nyuli Richmond Lytle & Goettel P.C., treasurer; and Donald Tracy, partner, Brown, Hay & Stephens, LLC, secretary.

    The Illinois Bar Foundation, which is the charitable arm of the Illinois State Bar Association, strives to ensure meaningful access to the justice system, especially for those with limited means, and to assist lawyers who can no longer support themselves due to incapacity. This year, the foundation will distribute more than $850,000. The Illinois Bar Foundation is located at 20 S. Clark St., Suite 910, Chicago, IL  60603. Call (312) 726-6072 or visit www.illinoisbarfoundation.org.

  • July 6, 2015 | ISBA News | Member Services
    Illinois Lawyer Finder makes over 800 referrals in June

    The Illinois State Bar Association’s Lawyer Finder Service provides referrals to local lawyers Mondays through Fridays. The Service makes referrals in a number of areas of law. For the month of June 2015, ISBA helped people in need of legal services find lawyers in the following areas:

    Here are the results for June 2015:

    • 825 phone referrals made by Lawyer Finder staff
    • Most requested areas of law: Family (171), Personal Injury (121), Civil Disputes (76), Criminal Law (70), Employment Law (63), Real Estate (47) and Estate/Probate Law (35).
    • 19,327 visits to IllinoisLawyerFinder.com (16,946 unique visitors)

    Want to be part of the ISBA Lawyer Finder Service? Call (800) 252-8908 and ask for the Legal Department, or visit www.illinoislawyerfinder.com

    Clients should call (800) 922-8757.

  • June 30, 2015 | ISBA News | Practice News
    ISBA issues 2 ethics opinions

    The Illinois State Bar Association issued two ethics opinions June 30, 2015:

    • Ethics Opinion 15-01: An in-house lawyer, admitted to the bar of a state other than Illinois but with a permanent office in Illinois, may practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office on behalf of his or her employer without a limited license under Illinois Supreme Court Rule 716. Such a lawyer’s practice is restricted to those activities that are authorized by 37 C.F.R. 11.5(b).
    • Ethics Opinion 15-02: A lawyer may deposit his own funds into a client trust account to pay bank service charges on that account, and should pay himself back such funds when they are no longer necessary for that purpose. Unidentified funds contained in a client trust account must, after one (1) year from the discovery of the unidentified funds, be remitted to the Lawyers Trust Fund of Illinois. Unclaimed funds contained in a client trust account should, after five (5) years, be remitted to the State as abandoned property.

    View our full database of ethics questions on our ethics page at www.isba.org/ethics

  • June 30, 2015 | Practice News | ISBA News
    Selfies and Other New Trends in Court Terminology

    By Judge Barb Crowder, Edwardsville

    There is now a book entirely of “selfies” (photographs one takes of oneself). The concept has been around since the 1800s, yet has taken over as a new term that everyone understands. “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” (Romeo and Juliet). William Shakespeare may have been among those who first pointed out that the names of things do not affect what they are but even he recognized that a turn of phrase can make a concept instantly understandable. 

  • June 29, 2015 | ISBA News
    New ISBA secretary, treasurer elected

    The Illinois State Bar Association's Board of Governors elected a new secretary and treasurer at its meeting June 20 in Lake Geneva. For the first time in many years, President Umberto S. Davi held the Board's organizational meeting in conjunction with the Annual Meeting.

    David Sosin, of Orland Park, was named treasurer. He is the founding partner in the Orland Park firm of Sosin & Arnold, Ltd. He has served on the Board of Governors since 2013 and is a past president of the Illinois Bar Foundation. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the ISBA Mutual Insurance Company. Sosin has been honored as a 2011 Laureate of the ISBA Academy of Illinois Lawyers and has received an ISBA Board of Governors Award.

    Sonni Choi Williams, of Peoria, will serve as secretary. She is Deputy Corporation Counsel for the City of Peoria. Williams has served on the Board of Governors since 2012 and the Assembly since 2004. She received the ISBA Diversity Leadership Award in 2015.

    The Board welcomed new members Dennis J. Orsey of Granite City, Daniel R. Saeddi of Chicago, Kent A. Gaertner of Wheaton and Rory T. Weiler of St. Charles.

    President Davi appointed Williams and Chantelle Porter to the Board of the Illinois Bar Foundation.

  • June 25, 2015 | ISBA News
    Davi's presidential agenda, immigrant success story

    Initiatives on law school debt, solo and small-firm CLE, and programs to provide legal forms to attorneys and civics education to non-attorneys will top the agenda of incoming ISBA President Umberto Davi, a solo matrimonial and real estate practitioner in Western Springs who took the helm on June 19.

    Davi also would like to explore the possibility of extending to the private sector the 711 license that currently allows third-year law students to practice in court but only under the supervision of public sector legal offices like state's attorneys and public defenders. It's a move he figures might help to address the debt issue in addition to providing practical experience for young lawyers.

    It's an "ambitious plate," he says. But ambitious plates are nothing new for Umberto Davi, whose accomplishments in law and life defy easy description for many who have known him. Davi arrived in Illinois from Sicily at age 14 with a recently widowed mother, two younger brothers, no knowledge of the English language, and little more than the clothing he wore and the change in his pocket. Find out more in the July Illinois Bar Journal.

    Read Jan Davi's biographical tribute at www.isba.org/davibio