ISBA Staffers Lead Professional Associations; ISBA Board Asks High Court to Consider Impact of E-Filing on Pro Se Litigants; Illinois Bar Foundation Elects 2017-18 Officers.

ISBA staff members were installed last month as presidents of two of the leading organizations serving the bar association community.

ISBA Executive Director Robert E. Craghead took the helm of the National Association of Bar Executives at the group's annual meeting in New York City. NABE members are management-level staff who work for state, metropolitan, and local bar associations from around the country. Craghead is the third ISBA executive director to serve as NABE president. Amos Pinkerton led the group in 1954-55, as did John H. Dickason in 1976-77.

Craghead has been active in NABE for decades, having served on the governing board and numerous committees. He received the organization's Bolton Award for Professional Excellence in 2003. For more about his ISBA career, now in its fourth decade, see the December 2015 Illinois Bar Journal at www.isba.org/ibj/2015/12.

Jeanne Heaton, ISBA's Director of CLE, became the president of the Association for Continuing Legal Education (ACLEA) at the association's annual meeting in Montreal. She is the first ISBA staff member to lead ACLEA. She joined the ISBA as director of continuing legal education in November 2006.

ACLEA is an international association for CLE professionals. Most members are from the United States and Canada, but they also hail from the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Africa, and Mexico.

ISBA Board Asks High Court to Consider Impact of E-Filing on Pro Se Litigants

The ISBA Board of Governors voted at its July 21 meeting to ask the Illinois Supreme Court not to require self-represented litigants to use the e-filing system that launches in January until the impact of mandatory e-filing on nonlawyers can be studied and addressed. Speaking on behalf of the proposal, Board member Angelica Wawrzynek of Mattoon noted that no other mandatory e-filing state requires pro se litigants to file cases electronically and that two-thirds of civil cases filed outside Cook County in 2015 included at least one self-represented litigant.

In other action, the Board

• agreed to join the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers in filing an amicus brief in In re the Marriage of Goesel, 2017 IL App (3d) 150101. The ISBA/AAML brief will support the court's ruling that earned and paid legal fees are not available for disgorgement as part of an interim fee award under the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act;
• approved an ethics opinion stating that an in-house lawyer may provide legal services to multiple subsidiaries of the same corporate parent as long as doing so doesn't otherwise violate the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct;
• voted to support an ABA resolution that urges states and units of local government to adopt a policy of trapping, neutering, vaccinating, and returning stray cats to the community;
• elected Alton lawyer and Illinois Bar Foundation President Perry Browder to fill out the remaining year of Dennis Orsey's Board term (Orsey was elected ISBA Third Vice President in May); elected Chicago lawyer Bridget Duignan ISBA Treasurer and Lake County Judge Elizabeth Rochford ISBA Secretary; and elected Chicago lawyers Jill O'Brien and Evan Schanerberger to the ISBA Assembly for two- and one-year terms, respectively.

Illinois Bar Foundation Elects 2017-18 Officers

The Illinois Bar Foundation recently elected officers for the organization's 2017-18 fiscal year. They are: Perry J. Browder, shareholder, Simmons Hanly Conroy, president; Timothy W. Kelly, principal, Kelly Law Offices, first vice president; and Deane B. Brown, partner, Hughes Socol Piers Resnik Dym, second vice president. William A. Peithmann, principal of The Peithmann Law Office, was elected third vice president. Mark L. Karno, principal of Mark L. Karno & Associates, L.L.C., was elected treasurer, and Donald R. Tracy, partner at Brown Hay + Stephens, was re-elected secretary.