Advocates offer April 7 CLE on practice before the Appellate and Supreme Courts

The Advocates Society will offer dinner and an hour and a half CLE program at their upcoming general meeting, Tuesday, April 7, starting at 6:30 p.m., at the Copernicus Center, 5216 W. Lawrence. The details and list of speakers is on the program flyer, reproduced above.

The cost (including dinner) is $30 ($20 for Advocates members). Sponsorships are also available, for $100, which also includes dinner and the CLE program. Tickets are available at this page of the Advocates website

The CLE program, "Do's and Don'ts When Practicing Before the Illinois Supreme and Appellate Court" will cover topics like:

• Making your record,


• Writing effective briefs, and


• Best practices for oral arguments before the Illinois Supreme Court and Appellate Court.

Not specified among the topics -- so I am not stealing the thunder of any of the august jurists who will hold forth on April 7 -- is the case I stumbled across while doomscrolling on X recently: It seems a prosecutor in a Georgia case submitted a proposed order that included AI-generated hallucinations... and the judge signed the order... and then, on appeal, after those illusory citations were revealed as such, the prosecutor tried to argue that the trial court had added them. Here's my pro tip -- which I now offer free, gratis, and for nothing -- (1) don't use AI-generated hallucinated citations in your briefs or other court filings, but (2) if you by some chance do use such citations, through inadvertance, inattention, or anything else, don't try to blame the trial court for your mistake!