Today is "Love Litigating Lawyers Day"

No, seriously. I found it on line. And, as we all know, if it's on the Internet it must be true. Right?

Right?

Well, anyway, this should do wonders for civility in the profession, at least for a day.

And if there's a special day for transactional lawyers, please let me know. I'll post that too.

Finally, a note to the CBA and ISBA: It's probably too late for your 2013 paper diaries, but "Love Litigating Lawyers Day" should be included in your 2014 books. And don't forget "International Be Kind to Lawyers Day" on April 10.

Judicial selection reform: Panel discussion on 9/11

"Improving Judicial Selection: Are We Ready for Reform?" That's the title of a panel discussion that Better Government Association will sponsor on September 11, from 5:30 to 7:00pm, at the Union League Club, 65 W. Jackson.

BGA President and CEO Andy Shaw will moderate the discussion. Panelists will include Retired Appellate Court Justice Gino L. DiVito and Brian Gladstein, the Executive Director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform.

Admission to the event is free but registration is required. To register, visit this page on the BGA website.

P.A. 97-1104 provides only illusion of enhanced school safety

I heard about the new school safety statute on WBBM. For details I turned to Capitol Fax.com -- and, sure enough, in a Sidebar, there was a link to the Governor's August 27 press release on HB 5602, now P.A. 97-1104. The new statute becomes effective on January 1, 2013. Or does it merely go into effect?

Among the statutes amended by P.A. 97-1104 is §22-20 of the School Code, 105 ILCS 5/22-20.

The addition to §22-20 made by the new statute is underlined; the language deleted is stricken out:

Sec. 22-20. All courts and law enforcement agencies of the State of Illinois and its political subdivisions shall report to the principal of any public school in this State whenever a child enrolled therein is detained for proceedings under the Juvenile Court Act of 1987, as heretofore and hereafter amended, or for any criminal offense or any violation of a municipal or county ordinance. The report shall include the basis for detaining the child, circumstances surrounding the events which led to the child's detention, and status of proceedings. The report shall be updated as appropriate to notify the principal of developments and the disposition of the matter.

The information derived thereby shall be kept separate from and shall not become a part of the official school record of such child and shall not be a public record. Such information shall be used solely by the appropriate school official or officials whom the school has determined to have a legitimate educational or safety interest principal, counselors and teachers of the school to aid in the proper rehabilitation of the child and to protect the safety of students and employees in the school.

Governor Quinn's press release states that this new statute was inspired by "an incident at School District U-46 in Elgin where a teacher was attacked by a student who was under investigation at the time for two other violent attacks."

If the school had known about the ongoing criminal investigation of the student, you see, the school might have been able to prevent the incident entirely.

The important thing to keep in mind, however, is that §22-20 has been on the statute books, in one form or another, since 1961. At the time of the Elgin school attack which inspired HB 5602's principal sponsors, Rep. Carol Sente (D-Vernon Hills) and Sen. John Millner (R-Carol Stream), the police who were investigating the student for two other violent attacks were under an affirmative, mandatory obligation to report that investigation to the principal of the school where the student was enrolled.

Now, I am not privy to the facts of the Elgin incident. Perhaps the local police followed the law and told the principal about ongoing criminal investigation of the student who subsequent assaulted a teacher. Perhaps the principal was the bottleneck in that case -- afraid to disseminate the information too broadly among the endangered faculty. The new language arguably clarifies the principal's discretion to tell anyone who needs to know, anyone who has "a legitimate educational or safety interest."

But perhaps the police did not tell the principal in Elgin either.

And do you know the consequence that the police face for failing to follow the express mandate of §22-20?

None whatsoever.

This harsh assessment is based on a recent Illinois case, Doe v. Village of Schaumburg, 2011 IL App (1st) 093300.

Full Disclosure: I was one of the attorneys for the losing plaintiffs in that case.

The facts of the case are heart-rending, even in the brief summary offered by the Appellate Court opinion (2011 IL App (1st) 093300, ¶6):

From August to October 2005, [Christopher] Girard was enrolled in a physical science class at Hoffman Estates High School. Minor Doe and minors Amy, Ann, Jane, and Mary Roe, who were enrolled in a special education program at the high school, also attended the class. During the class, Girard forcibly engaged in various acts with them such as touching their “breasts, vagina and buttock” and anal and vaginal penetration. In August 2007, Girard pleaded guilty to a number of sexual assault charges, including charges of assaulting girls at Hoffman Estates High School in 2005.

The tragedy here was that Girard had been arrested by Schaumburg police in July 2004 and charged with aggravated criminal sexual assault of a minor child but the Schaumburg police did not tell the Hoffman Estates principal. A Schaumburg officer may have mentioned something about Girard's arrest to the Hoffman Estates police officer assigned to the school, but that officer did not tell the principal either. (2011 IL App (1st) 093300, ¶5.)

(The case arose on the pleadings; these are the allegations of the Complaints filed by the several victims. Whether discovery against remaining parties reveals different facts is beyond the scope of this post and is entirely beyond my knowledge.)

The Appellate Court agreed that violation of §22-20 of the School Code might give rise to a duty in tort against the police officer defendants (2011 IL App (1st) 093300, ¶11):

We agree with plaintiffs that a violation of a statute such as the School Code can give rise to a tort claim. See Noyola v. Board of Education, 179 Ill. 2d 121, 130-31 (1997). Furthermore, plaintiffs’ well-reasoned arguments may very well support their contention that the School Code imposes certain duties upon those parties subject to its provisions. However, we need not address whether defendants here owed a statutory or common-law duty to plaintiffs. The existence of a duty and the applicability of an immunity are separate issues.

And, the Appellate Court held, the police were immune from liability despite their failure to comply with the law, determining that, "even if defendants owed such a duty and breached that duty, provisions of the Act may immunize them from liability," §§4-102 and 2-205 of the Tort Immunity Act, 745 ILCS 10/4-102 and 745 ILCS 10/2-205, "immunize defendants from the tort liability alleged in plaintiffs' complaints" (2011 IL App (1st) 093300, ¶11).

Section 4-102 of the Tort Immunity Act states:

Neither a local public entity nor a public employee is liable for failure to establish a police department or otherwise provide police protection service or, if police protection service is provided, for failure to provide adequate police protection or service, failure to prevent the commission of crimes, failure to detect or solve crimes, and failure to identify or apprehend criminals. This immunity is not waived by a contract for private security service, but cannot be transferred to any non-public entity or employee.

Section 2-205 of the Tort Immunity Act states, "A public employee is not liable for an injury caused by his adoption of, or failure to adopt, an enactment, or by his failure to enforce any law."

The Appellate Court rejected plaintiffs' argument that the failure to follow (to obey) the law is not the same thing as failing to "enforce" a law. "The failure to follow the provisions of a statute is, in essence, the failure to enforce the statute." (2011 IL App (1st) 093300, ¶17.) The Illinois Supreme Court refused to grant leave to appeal.

The Tort Immunity Act serves a valuable purpose, protecting the taxpayers from raids against the public purse. In these difficult economic times, the concern for the public purse is particularly understandable.

But it is absolutely pointless to pass a statute requiring disclosures for the protection of teachers and students and staff unless there is some expectation that the statute will be obeyed. In Doe, the failure to obey the statute resulted in no adverse consequence to the police departments that failed to obey the law. Why should any department be expected to obey the law as now amended?

While P.A. 97-1104 also amends two provisions of the Juvenile Court Act of 1987, P.A. 97-1104 does not amend any provision of the Tort Immunity Act. It therefore provides no new incentive for any police department to follow the law to replace that which was conclusively removed by the Doe court. Nor is it unfair to suppose that police departments or individual officers may be reluctant to advise school authorities of students who have become embroiled in the criminal justice system. The default mode in all juvenile cases is confidentiality. That has been the hallmark of the juvenile justice system in this state from the time it was first established at the turn of the 20th Century. Police officers are trained not to disclose the identities of arrested juveniles outside the juvenile justice system. On paper, at least, P.A. 97-1104 represents a narrow departure from, or exception to, that rule of confidentiality -- but, while Doe remains good law at least, it is a meaningless, toothless exception that can be routinely ignored.

Thus, as stated at the outset, P.A. 97-1104 goes into effect on January 1, 2013. But it will not be effective. It provides a mere illusion of enhanced safety in our schools.

Kaplan, Kyriakopoulos receive new assignments

The Illinois Supreme Court has appointed Judge James L. Kaplan to a 12th Subcircuit vacancy created by the recent death of Judge Edward R. Jordan.

In another order entered this week , the Supreme Court appointed Judge Anthony C. Kyriakopoulos to a 10th Subcircuit vacancy created by the recent retirement of Judge Daniel J. Sullivan.

At the time of this new appointment, Judge Kaplan was serving pursuant to an appointment to the Cole vacancy in the 8th Subcircuit. Judge Kaplan was a candidate for this vacancy in the March primary, but Chicago Deputy Corporation Counsel John H. Ehrlich emerged as the victor in a crowded field.

At the time of his new appointment, Judge Kyriakopoulos was serving by appointment to the Locallo vacancy in the 10th Subcircuit. He filed for that vacancy in the March primary, but withdrew after former Chicago Ald. Thomas R. Allen (who had been appointed to the countywide Pucinski vacancy) filed in that same race.

The new appointments for Judges Kaplan and Kyriakopoulos became effective August 23; the appointments expire on December 1, 2014.

Retention Judges Reception September 13

The Committee for Retention of Judges in Cook County in 2012 is hosting a reception to raise funds for judges seeking retention in Cook County this year.

The reception will be held on Thursday, September 13, from 5:00 to 8:00pm in the Preston Bradley Hall at the Chicago Cultural Center (the old main library building), 78 E. Washington Street. Tickets are $125 each.

For more information about the event, or to reserve tickets at the door, email mleavitt@grundlaw.com.

Two articles in today's Law Bulletin suggest structural flaw in the legal profession

Today's Chicago Daily Law Bulletin carries two articles that expose what may be a structural flaw in the legal profession itself.

Too big a claim, you say? I believe I can back it up.

First, read Jerry Crimmins' front page story, "Increase in law firm head count exceeds the demand." Crimmins writes that two independent reports, the Citi Midyear Report from the Citi Private Bank Law Firm Group and the Peer Monitor Index Report from Hildebrandt Institute, have concluded, "An increase in lawyer head count in U.S. law firms exceeded demand for legal work in the first half of 2012."

The surveys cover the bigger firms, of course -- the "silk-stocking" firms, the "white shoe" firms (when was the last time any big firm partner actually wore white shoes?) -- the firms that have hitherto set the pace in all the partner income surveys (per Crimmins' article, 114 firms were surveyed by Hildebrandt, while 176 firms were surveyed by the Citi Private Bank).

A lot of these firms slowed hiring and shed talented attorneys at the height of the Great Recession. It was thought that recent hiring increases portended a return to business as usual.

But these surveys suggest otherwise.

Crimmins quotes Joseph B. Altonji, a law firm consultant and co-founder of the LawVision Group as saying that "demand for law firm work 'never recovered' from the drop at the start of the recession in 2008" and probably will not recover "to recover to prerecession levels 'even if the economy gets better.'"

Meanwhile, on page 6, the Law Bulletin reprints an AP story by Dave Collins under the headline, "More people go to court without representation."

Collins begins by focusing on one pro se litigant, Jennifer Garcia, a single mother of two, who has gone to court representing herself on various matters several times over the last three years. Collins writes, "Garcia is part of a crush of people who are representing themselves in the nation's civil courts because they can't afford lawyers, who typically charge $200 to $500 an hour. The boom has overwhelmed courts and sparked new efforts to get attorneys to meet what the American Bar Association says is its professional responsibility to offer free legal services to people in need."

This has been the traditional response of the legal profession to pro se litigants: All (or nearly all) pro se litigants are poor people and we lawyers, better educated and more fortunate, must volunteer to help them, without cost, pro bono.

It is a generous, laudable response. This spirit animates the Illinois Supreme Court's recent adoption of Rule 10-100. The impulse to provide professional services on a voluntary basis has its roots in many religious and ethical traditions (see, for example, Matthew 14:7, "The poor you will always have with you, and whenever you wish you can do good to them....").

But are all these new pro se litigants really "poor people"?

Per Collins' article:

Several states report high percentages of civil and family cases with at least one self-represented person. In Connecticut, 85 percent of the approximately 45,000 family law cases in the 2011 fiscal year had at least one self-represented party.

In other words, pro se litigants are starting to show up with increasing frequency in courtrooms that hear matters other than collection cases or mortgage foreclosures.

To meet this influx of unrepresented litigants, court systems are increasingly stretching the definition of "voluntary." Illinois lawyers are already required to report whether they perform any pro bono work or donate to legal charities and, if so, to reveal how many hours they've worked or dollars they've given. According to Collins' article, New York State will now require attorneys in that state to 'volunteer' 50 hours of pro bono service in order to keep their licenses.

Judges privately express frustration with dockets increasingly clogged with pro se cases; even careful viewing of The People's Court turns out to be less than optimal training for real-life courtroom appearances. Given a choice, most judges would want all parties before them to be represented by counsel.

But the trend now is otherwise.

So: On the one hand we have slowing demand for legal services, even among well-heeled or corporate clients and, on the other, we have a huge uptick in pro se litigants in our courts.

What does that tell us? Even allowing for inescapable truth that the Great Recession has swelled the ranks of truly poor people, I submit that these two stories, taken together, suggest that those that can afford to hire us are doing so as infrequently as possible; those who might be able to afford to hire us are choosing to try to go it alone. And that means we may be pricing ourselves beyond the reach of our customers. In a time when many new lawyers can't find work and established lawyers are tightening their belts, we have many prospective clients choosing not to use lawyers at all, or to use them minimally. I think this may constitute a structural flaw in our profession.

Interestingly enough, a third article in today's Law Bulletin suggests one possible explanation for how lawyers are pricing themselves beyond the reach of clients -- a topic to which I hope to return in a few days. (And, no, it's not hourly rates.)

Christine Cook campaign website found

A campaign website for Christine Cook, Republican nominee for the "A" vacancy in Cook County's 4th Judicial Subcircuit, is now up and running.

That's a link in the preceding sentence; a link has also been added to the Sidebar.

Cook's opponent in the November election is Democrat Edward M. Maloney.

Judge Larry Axelrood's final fundraiser August 27

Associate Judge Larry Axelrood eked out a narrow victory in the race for the Epstein vacancy in the 9th Subcircuit this March. Although he faces no opposition in November, he does have a campaign debt to retire.

Accordingly, per email received from Thom Mannard, Judge Larry Axelrood has scheduled his final fundraiser for Monday, August 27 at the Wilmette Golf Club, 3900 Fairway Drive in Wilmette from 5:30 to 7:00.

For further information about the event, or to make reservations, email electjudgeaxelrood@gmail.com.

Judge Bill Taylor appointed to Appellate Court

The Illinois Supreme Court has appointed Cook County Circuit Court Judge Bill Taylor to the Illinois Appellate Court vacancy created by the recent death of Justice Joseph Gordon.

Judge Taylor's appointment became effective July 27 and runs through December 1, 2014.

Clerk's employee arrested for taking records home... to shred

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that, "A veteran Cook County Circuit Court employee was ordered held in lieu of $750,000 bail Saturday for allegedly taking court files from work and then shredding them at her kitchen table."

Rumman Hussain writes that Jeannette Neibauer was arrested at the Daley Center last Friday. At the time of her arrest, Neibaurer was assigned to a courtroom in the Law Division (and, no, the paper did not specify which room).

Hussain's article also does not specify what records were allegedly shredded. Were whole files really removed from the courthouse? Or (and this seems more likely if my understanding of work flow patterns is not too long out of date) does this loss involve the removal of documents that were to be coded for the Clerk's computer docket system before physical filing?

Every Cook County attorney who's handled a civil appeal recently has a story or ten about documents missing when it came time to assemble the Record on Appeal. The allegations against Ms. Neibaurer, if true, may solve some of those mysteries.

Gov. Quinn's gain is a loss for local judicial election coverage

From yesterday's Sneed:

Bye, Abdon . . .

Gov. Pat Quinn snagged the Chicago Sun-Times’ award-winning political reporter Abdon Pallasch to be Illinois’ assistant budget director.

◆ Let’s hope his 25 years dissecting federal, state, county and city budgets for the Chicago Sun Times and other publications will help him sort out the state’s financial mess.

Pallasch, an alumnus of the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, was one of the few reporters on either of Chicago's major newspapers to provide serious coverage of Cook County judicial elections.

His articles on Cook County Democratic Party judicial slatemaking sessions will be particularly missed.

Illinois Judges Foundation sponsors Comedy Night on July 24

Email received this morning from Christine Athanasoulis advises that the Illinois Judges Foundation is sponsoring a Comedy Night this coming Tuesday, July 24, at The Second City e.t.c. Stage, 230 W. North Avenue (2nd floor).

Tickets for the event are $100 each. The price includes admission to a pre-show reception (with open bar) and a ticket to the show (at which there's a cash bar).

To register for the event, simply click this link. For more information about the event, or for sponsorship opportunities, contact Kathy Hosty at khosty@chicagobar.org.

The Illinois Judges Foundation was founded in 2007 and is the charitable arm of the Illinois Judges Association. The IJF funds educational, civic, and scholarship projects that benefit youth and law students, and encourages judicial participation in these endeavors, to advance the rule of law, the legal profession, and the administration of justice.

Can law schools be used for the actual training of new lawyers?

The cover story in this month's ABA Journal, by Indiana University Law Professor William D. Henderson and Rachel M. Zahorsky, "The Pedigree Problem: Are Law School Ties Choking the Profession?," raises (inadvertently, I suspect) a real question about the basic use or purpose of a law school education.

Is law school just three years' penance that must be served before becoming eligible to sign up for a bar review course (the bar review course being the real prerequisite for passing a state's bar exam)? I would like to think otherwise, but Professor Henderson and Ms. Zahorsky noted that graduates of even the nation's most prestigious laws schools have long been deemed incapable of practicing their profession without extensive post-graduate training:

The most successful of corporate law firms adapted to this business climate by hiring promising law school graduates and embedding them into their own training system, which over several years supplied inductees with a well-rounded and complete skill set that could be deployed for the benefit of clients.

The most famous training program was implemented by Paul Cravath, the brilliant business lawyer who went on to build the white-shoe firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore. According to the firm’s history, published eight years after Cravath’s death in 1948, the primary purpose of the Cravath system was to create “a better lawyer faster.”

One key operational question of this training model was entry-level hiring. Cravath and his contemporaries favored graduates of a handful of Ivy League schools — namely Harvard, Columbia and Yale — and so-called national law schools, including the universities of Virginia and Michigan, for the coveted training positions.

A young man or woman graduates from any medical school and is thrown into the overnight shift in the a busy ER, treating traumas and heart attacks and chronic diseases right from the start. But a young man or woman, even one from the law schools at Harvard or Yale, goes to a silk-stocking firm and disappears into the library for a few years, looking up cases, reviewing documents, eventually getting the opportunity to carry a senior associate's briefcase to court for a status hearing (the senior associate's hands are full carrying the junior partner's briefcase; the junior partner is encumbered with the senior partner's papers). Despite the superior 'legal education,' the firm's lawyers had to be 'built' from the ground up.

Henderson and Zahorsky cite a number of reasons why the white-shoes firms took (and still take) only Ivy League graduates (or graduates of a few others, depending on the city where the firm is located): "They required extensive undergraduate education, their courses of study were full time and taught by scholarly faculty, and they tended to admit students well-connected to the commercial world."

Only this last factor is relevant: The Ivy Leaguers knew the captains of finance and industry for whom they'd toil. They were related by blood or marriage, or at least had common acquaintances from their prep school or undergraduate days. The kid from Loyola's night school or Henderson's own Indiana University would probably have none of these connections. These people from the hinterlands might not 'fit in.' At one time, this 'they're-not-our-people' approach was blatantly racist and sexist both. Times have changed; the school tie is now more important than ethnicity or gender. But the large law firms, for all their pro bono efforts, are not social service agencies; they will only hire people that their clients will feel comfortable with from the start, lest their clients go somewhere else where they will feel more at home. (Actually, pro bono cases give the new big-firm lawyers opportunities to develop courtroom skills without jeopardizing real business -- it's become an important part of the training program.)

Henderson and Zahorsky write about how law schools around the country aped the Ivy League casebook method, apparently believing -- and certainly asserting -- that there was something in the curriculum that gave the Ivy League graduates greater opportunities. Henderson and Zahorsky are on familiar ground here; this is an oft-told tale. But could these long-ago law school advocates really have been that naive?

When law schools try to teach practical skills (such as those displayed at mock trial competitions), the supposed distinctions among law schools blur considerably. Henderson and Zahorsky cite the results of the National Trial Competition:

Since its inception in 1986, a handful of teams has dominated the league tables, including Stetson (five-time winner), Northwestern (four-time winner), Chicago-Kent (three-time) and Temple (three-time). The trial teams are judged blind; law school affiliations are not revealed until the end of the tournament.

The appearance of top-tiered Northwestern Law with tier-two Temple and Chicago-Kent and tier-three Stetson suggests incoming credentials do not preordain performance as a lawyer. And the repeat appearance of a handful of schools suggests expert coaching and practice — a form of legal education — may be the real linchpin of excellent courtroom advocacy.

A few years ago, in an undergraduate trial practice competition, Elgin Community College beat Yale. (The team from ECC hadn't been invited initially; they were only permitted to enter after a scheduled team dropped out. They were brought in as punching bags. And they punched back!)

I wrote for the law school newspaper when I was in law school, roughly 35 years ago. When the schedule for an upcoming semester was announced, all the 'bar courses' -- that is, the courses that one would want to take if one had an interest in, say, passing the bar examination -- were distributed throughout the day in such as way as to make it difficult, if not impossible, for a student to put together enough consecutive hours to present him or herself as a viable law clerk to a firm. As a student journalist, it fell to me to interview the school administrator to find out why the schedule was thus arranged. "We don't want our students to work outside of school," the administrator told me. (And, yes, I'm being deliberately vague about the identity of the interview subject.)

But it was only by clerking that most students could hope to find jobs. One or two might get a sniff from a local big firm, a few more would get state court clerking jobs -- but what about the rest of us?

In the ER, no one cares where your medical degree is from. The new doctors from Harvard or Acme Night School must all perform to the same standard of care -- and right from the start, too. Professor Henderson and Ms. Zahorsky cite a lot of psychological jargon in their article, but it's all beside the point. Until law schools produce graduates who can appear in court or document or close complex transactions right from day one, they are irrelevant obstacles that must be overcome before a hopeful young lawyer can begin to learn his or her chosen trade.

Distinctions among law schools: Real or random?

You can read the cover story in this month's ABA Journal, by Indiana University Law Professor William D. Henderson and Rachel M. Zahorsky, "The Pedigree Problem: Are Law School Ties Choking the Profession?," and decide for yourself.

For my part, however, that aspect of the article called to mind this cartoon I'd seen on xkcd some time ago.

(Click on the link to see Randall Munroe's embedded comment.)

The ABA Journal article also addresses ways in which law schools are trying to reinvent themselves, update their curricula, and make themselves more relevant in the modern age -- all of which raises an (I think) unintended question of just how useful or relevant law school ever was to the actual practice of law.

More on that in the next post.

The miserable employment situation for new law graudates: One 2011 graduate's story

My June 15 post, Congratulations 2012 law school graduates: What were you thinking, generated a fair amount of traffic, as did the follow-up,Update on last Friday's post on the parlous prospects for new law grads. The posts also generated a thoughtful letter from a 2011 law graduate. I've communicated with this individual since.

When I wrote advising that I intended to publish his letter, he asked me not to publish his name because he's recently found work on a "document review project" paying $30 an hour. Although he says the work is "mind numbing," and only temporary, he does not want to jeopardize either his present situation or his future prospects by revealing too much identifying information. I've chosen to respect his wishes and edited the letter accordingly:

I graduated from a Midwestern state law school. The school was ranked among the top 50 nationally. Tuition is comparable to most of the rates you listed. I believe I received a good education there and the school actually maintained all scholarships. (This is unlike many schools where a student who fails to meet the merit requirements after the first year loses that scholarship. Schools extend so many scholarships that statistically some students will lose them after the first year by not being above x% of the class. At my school, many of my classmates avoided crushing debt because the school's willingness to extend all scholarships.)

One of the main questions you seem to ponder is: "Why do we do this to ourselves?" You talk about how courts have dismissed lawsuits by basically saying: "if you were smart enough to get into law school, you should have been smart enough to see through the rosy employment and salary figures put out by all the law schools."

My only explanation is:

1. I understood the numbers were "rosy," but it was hard to really understand how badly they were off at the time. It's like the old quote: "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics." The numbers are just so far out of tune with reality that no one knew how bad it was. Eventually you just assume there is some accountability there. That law schools wouldn't and couldn't fudge the numbers that badly. We were wrong. The University of Illinois, a school I considered, was making numbers up!
2. Everyone assumed the economy would be better by the time we graduated law school. When you are in your twenties, three years is a long time. You assume things will be different when it's your turn to be actively job hunting. For that we have no one to blame but ourselves.
3. We just really wanted to be attorneys. Most of us still do.

As for the job market itself, it's as miserable as advertised. It's been seven months since I was admitted to the bar and I have had two interviews. Short of those interviews, I have had no success greater than a courtesy email informing me that my application was received. I have spent most of my time either covering appearances for other attorneys or working on document review projects for an hourly wage. Nine out of 10 times an alum won't return a phone call or email. When they do, normally their advice is to go get an MBA. My story is a dime a dozen among my classmates and peers. In fact, it's much better than most, as you generally can't get document review jobs anymore without prior document review experience! If a respectable firm offered me $10,000 for a position, I would leap at it. Right now experience is worth its weight in gold. There are jobs for attorneys being advertised, but very very few entry level positions.

The problem is, what's the alternative? Most attorneys have English or Poli-Sci backgrounds. What kind of job will you get with that? I have a Business and Finance double major and I have yet to even get a response from a company based on that. It's easy to think that we should just move on, but many of us just can't.

If recent news accounts can be believed, this young man's experience is all too common. Roughly half of the members of the 2011 graduating class of Loyola and IIT-Kent are apparently in this same situation; six out of 10 DePaul's 2011 graduates are still looking for full-time legal work. Twelve per cent of the University of Chicago's graduates can't find work, for cryin' out loud. Yes, the unemployment situation for newly minted lawyers is clearly exacerbated by the many continuing problems with the economy as a whole -- but the theory has always been that the more education one has, the less likely one is to become a victim of the economy. Clearly, the experience of recent law school graduates has been quite different; that suggests that something is fundamentally wrong with our legal education system, doesn't it?

Science explains the benefits of aging generally, and perhaps the benefit of aging for mediation in particular

"At twenty years of age the will reigns;

at thirty the wit; at forty the judgement."

-- Benjamin Franklin

At one point, all human cultures accepted a correlation between age and wisdom. In Republican Rome, for example, the first to speak in any Senate debate was the princeps senatus, the most senior senator, drawn from the ranks of the patrician consulares; only after he spoke could the rest of the consulares, that is, those who had held been elected consul (and no one could be elected counsel before 'his own year' -- 42 for plebeians, 40 for patricians) provide their opinions.

Then, in America, came the Baby Boomers -- and they proclaimed that no one over 30 could be trusted. That was, of course, before the Baby Boomers began turning 30. Now the Boomer generation orbits somewhere around 60 -- and, not surprisingly, science has been deputized to discover why gray hair should now be considered a good thing.

An article by Helen Fields on Smithsonian.com, "What is So Good About Growing Old," says that researchers are discovering that there are real advantages to aging.

"In a University of Illinois study," for example, Fields writes, "older air traffic controllers excelled at their cognitively taxing jobs, despite some losses in short-term memory and visual spatial processing. How so? They were expert at navigating, juggling multiple aircraft simultaneously and avoiding collisions."

As we age, apparently, we become better at conflict resolution as well:

For a 2010 study, researchers at the University of Michigan presented “Dear Abby” letters to 200 people and asked what advice they would give. Subjects in their 60s were better than younger ones at imagining different points of view, thinking of multiple resolutions and suggesting compromises.

The current research on aging provides a scientific explanation for the increasing importance of mediation in resolving civil disputes.

The trial of a lawsuit is a win or lose, 1 or 0, hit or miss proposition. Mediation, however, under the direction of one sufficiently trained and experienced, can provide the compromises or "multiple resolutions" that can send all parties to a dispute home satisfied (if not exactly happy).

Judicial service is not an essential prerequisite of the successful mediator. Judicial service is merely one kind of experience that a good mediator can draw upon in helping to facilitate the resolution of civil disputes. In a lot of cases, judicial service may be very relevant experience on which to draw and, thus, many ex-judges have become quite successful mediators. But it is the wealth and variety of experience, judicial or otherwise, that the mediator brings to the process that enhances the prospects for success: It is the mediator's age, and the wisdom that experience has provided, that is important, not whether there is an old robe hanging in the mediator's closet.

Woman sues N.J. Little Leaguer for errant throw

While the AP story (on the USA Today website) doesn't say whether Elizabeth Lloyd was at a New Jersey park in May 2010 to watch a Manchester Township Little League game, Nicholas Huba's story in the Asbury Park Press says that Lloyd, who recently sued young Matthew Migliaccio, was there to watch her son play.

Ms. Lloyd was apparently seated at picnic table adjacent to a fenced-in bullpen area where 11-year old Migliaccio was warming up a pitcher. That's young Mr. Migliaccio in the accompanying photo, sitting on the bench where he says Ms. Lloyd was sitting when he uncorked a wild throw. Instead of hitting the pitcher's glove, Migliaccio's ball sailed 10 feet over the other kid's head, hitting Ms. Lloyd in the face.

Huba writes that the table was five feet away from the bullpen, down the third base line; the caption to the photograph (which is taken from Huba's article) puts the bullpen behind Migliaccio in the photograph. (None of the articles I reviewed address the height of the fence separating the bullpen and the spectator area at the time of the incident. It would be interesting to know, for example, whether that ad sign was in place when all this happened.)

In an article posted June 26, the Newark Star-Ledger quotes Migliaccio in an interview with Good Morning America as saying, "I went over to see if she was okay, and she said that she was fine and not to worry about it." But Huba's account for APP.com says Lloyd "was taken to a hospital emergency room after the May 2010 incident – [she] had to undergo reconstructive surgery and suffers from headaches." Lloyd is alleging "multiple fractures," Huba writes.

And Lloyd is alleging that Migliaccio hit her intentionally, according to Huba. Huba quotes Riaz A. Mian, Lloyd's attorney, as charging Migliaccio threw "his best fast ball over the bullpen into the picnic area, striking my client in the face."

According to the linked AP account:

The lawsuit filed April 24 alleges Migliaccio's errant throw was intentional and reckless, "assaulted and battered" Lloyd and caused "severe, painful and permanent" injuries.

A second count alleges Migliaccio's actions were negligent and careless through "engaging in inappropriate physical and/or sporting activity" near Lloyd. She continues to suffer pain and anguish, incur medical expenses and has been unable to carry out her usual duties and activities, the lawsuit says.

And Lloyd's husband, in a third count, is suing for the loss of "services, society and consortium" of his wife.

At this distance, it's easy to be snarky: Can the mother of a Little Leaguer not know that it's a bad idea to sit anywhere near the area where catchers are warming pitchers? (It's also a good idea not to sit behind the first baseman when he tries to warm up the infield.) Can a typical 11-year old Little Leaguer really throw hard enough to break glass, much less someone's face?

But even assuming Ms. Lloyd really was seriously injured, why would she sue a little kid?

I don't pretend to know what the law may be in New Jersey, but -- in Illinois -- there may have been no one else to sue.

In Illinois, the Baseball Facility Act, 745 ILCS 38/1 et seq., and the Recreational Use of Land and Water Areas Act, 745 ILCS 65/1 et seq., would operate to severely limit Ms. Lloyd's choices about whom to sue.

And this isn't just a blogger speculating: Debbie Vaughn was hit by an 11-year old's errant warm-up throw in 2005 while watching her son's game at West Frankfort Park in downstate Franklin County -- and the Illinois Appellate Court found that these statutes barred her claims against the West Frankfort Recreation Association and its alleged agent, Jarrod Barton, the coach (and father) of the kid who uncorked the errant throw. Vaughn v. Barton, 402 Ill.App.3d 1135, 933 N.E.2d 355 (5th Dist. 2010). However, just because there may not be a statute (yet) immunizing kids from the consequences of making bad throws while warming up to play baseball doesn't mean it's a particularly good idea to try and sue a kid.

If you look at the news coverage swirling around the Migliaccio case, you'll note that the young man's father and the young man's attorney are both angry that Little League is not coming to the boy's defense. The important part of this, though, is that the Migliaccio family's homeowner's insurance will be providing a defense for this suit.

And bringing a motion to dismiss in rather short order, I expect.

Tributes pouring in for Justice Joseph Gordon

The email took me by surprise this afternoon: "The Appellate Lawyers Association regrets to inform you of the death of Justice Joseph Gordon of the Illinois Appellate Court."

The Chicago Daily Law Bulletin reports tonight that Justice Gordon, 79, suffered a fatal heart attack while working at his desk.

I had the pleasure and privilege of appearing in front of Justice Gordon many times but my favorite memory of Justice Gordon concerns a case that never even got briefed.

Justice Gordon conducted the one and only Rule 310 Prehearing Conference I've ever had in that court. I'd been hired to represent a young doctor in an appeal from a judgement obtained against him by the State of Illinois. I can't go into the particulars, of course. I can say that the young doctor and his original attorney turned down a number of chances to settle in the trial court and they shouldn't have. By the time the doctor saw the light, however, the State was no longer willing to settle. Nevertheless, Justice Gordon made a heroic effort -- and he persisted, even when the State became intransigent. Indeed, the more the State refused, the harder he tried. It was a long and ultimately frustrating day. The prehearing conference didn't work, in the end, but I will remember Justice Gordon's effort if I live to be 110.

Justice Gordon will be sorely missed.

Arbitration participant's specific questions and some general answers

There's a disclaimer on this blog that reads, in pertinent part, as follows:

Nothing in this blog is meant to create, nor should it be construed by you as creating, an attorney-client relationship. Sending an email to this blog or leaving a comment to a post does not create, nor should it be construed by you as creating, an attorney-client relationship.

Nevertheless, someone identified as "MC" left a question on an older page two post recently. MC's questions, lightly edited:

I went to an arbitration hearing the other day. I was the plaintiff in a small property-damage claim, against a substandard carrier. I presented my side to the arbitrators as did the defendant. I was not aware of Supreme Court Rule 90(c) until after the arbitration meeting. The arbitrators never asked me for a copy of the repair estimate I had with me. After the arbitration meeting, the clerk at the Skokie Courthouse told me that I had won, but that the award was zero dollars because I did not prove damages. If I reject the award, will the same arbitrators be involved in reviewing the 90(c) package that I will be submitting? Why didn't any of the arbitrators ask for my damage estimates?

If MC has these kinds of questions about court-annexed arbitration in Cook County, others may as well.

Failure to be aware of Rule 90(c). "[A] party who chooses to proceed pro se must comply with the same rules of proceedings as an attorney." Paddock v. Department of Employment Security, 184 Ill.App.3d 945, 540 N.E.2d 1053, 1055 (1st Dist. 1989). "A pro se litigant while traversing the procedural minefield of litigation is bound to strict compliance with the requirements of the statute." Dolido v. Zenith Radio Corp., 194 Ill.App.3d 268, 272, 550 N.E.2d 1225 (1st Dist. 1990). "While reviewing courts are open to all persons who seek redress of their grievances, a party's decision to appear pro se does not relieve that party from adhering as nearly as possible to the requirements of the rules of practice enunciated by our supreme court," Peeples v. Johnsburg. 403 Ill. App. 3d 333, 335, 932 N.E.2d 612 (2nd Dist. 2010, quoting McCutcheon v. Chicago Principals Association, 159 Ill. App. 3d 955, 960, 513 N.E.2d 55 (1st Dist. 1987).

In other words, folks like MC are free to proceed without a lawyer ("pro se" merely means "for oneself") but they are assumed to know everything that a lawyer should know about how to conduct their hearing. Think about that: Lawyers have years of specialized education and must pass a licensing exam. And not all lawyers are equally comfortable in court; there are many, many great lawyers who would be completely lost in a courtroom... or even at an arbitration. So... people are free to represent themselves in an arbitration, but is it really a really good idea?

Rule 90 is no magic talisman. What Rule 90(c) does is provide a streamlined method for the introduction of evidence at -- and only at -- the arbitration hearing.

The rule is not meant to confer an advantage on either party; it's purpose is to allow a complete case to be presented and decided in a two-hour window. As a practical matter, especially in personal injury cases, it makes it much easier for plaintiffs to present their proof. If the requirements of the rule are met, medical records and bills are presumptively admitted; there's no need to try and get a doctor to come in and testify, because the doctor's diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis are all in that neatly arranged, page-numbered 90(c) package. (That's a huge reason why there is such a discrepancy between amounts awarded at arbitration and trial: In smaller cases, it's difficult, and sometimes impossible -- at least financially -- to get a doctor in to authenticate records, and without the automatic admissibility of 90(c), a lot of the stuff that's right there for the arbitrators to see is never seen by the judge or jury at trial.)

The arbitrators never asked me for a copy of my repair estimate. Maybe it's different on Judge Judy or The Peoples' Court, but at an arbitration hearing, the parties are responsible for presenting their own case.

I believe arbitration is statewide now but, when the program came to Cook County, it was as part of the first expansion of the concept from a pilot program in Winnebago County. I was in the first class of Cook County arbitrators somewhere around 20 years ago; our training materials included a video from Rockford. If I recall correctly, the arbitrators in the videos asked a lot more questions than was ever customary in this jurisdiction. But these questions were meant to clarify or assist the arbitrators' understanding of the facts presented; there was never a suggestion that arbitrators should ask questions that would lead a party through his or her case-in-chief.

A timely rejection of an arbitration award gets a case back on the trial call. There is no second chance at arbitration. The streamlined procedures of Rule 90 will not apply at trial. And if it is difficult for a party to represent himself or herself at an arbitration, it is that much harder to proceed pro se at trial.

Conclusion. We live in interesting times. While many new law school graduates are begging for jobs, and with lots of lawyers at all experience levels hurting for business during this never-ending recession, the Illinois Supreme Court has just adopted Rule 10-100, creating a Commission on Access to Justice "to promote, facilitate, and enhance equal access to justice with an emphasis on access to the Illinois civil courts and administrative agencies for all people, particularly the poor and vulnerable."

It seems there are more lawyers, and more people needing lawyers, than ever.

It might be good to figure out how to get these folks together in ways that would benefit all of them.

Update on last Friday's post on the parlous prospects for new law grads

ABA Journal Law News Now updated its story on the Boston law firm looking to hire an associate for $10,000 a year: More than 50 people have now applied.

Of course, the job also comes with a bus pass (and a clothing allowance and other benefits).

Yesterday, the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin carried a story about a report issued by Law School Transparency, a Tennessee-based nonprofit group that pushed for law schools to report accurate job data. According to their report, only 55% of 2011 law school graduates found full-time, long-term legal employment within nine months of graduation.

Mary Kate Malone's article for the Law Bulletin says that, locally, 2011 University of Chicago graduates fared best, with 88% finding full-time, long-term legal work. On the other hand, only 48% of Loyola's 2011 law graduates had full-time, long-term legal work -- and only 49% and 39%, respectively, for graduates of IIT-Chicago Kent and DePaul.

Yikes.

The Law School Transparency website can be accessed here.

And while we're on the subject of yesterday's Law Bulltein...

You may have noticed Jerry Crimmins's article about Ald. Edward M. Burke's City Club speech Monday about the forthcoming 200th anniversary of the Battle of Fort Dearborn. With Ald. Burke's sponsorship, the Chicago City Council passed a resolution earlier this month also commemorating the anniversary.

The City Council resolution, Crimmins writes, "says that 'as a result of the battle, 35 soldiers, 12 militiamen, two women and 12 children were killed' on the Fort Dearborn side, and 'as many as 15 Native Americans were slain.'"

Just a hunch here, but I'm pretty sure that Crimmins's assignment on this story was anything but accidental. Crimmins is the author of Fort Dearborn, a carefully researched, entertaining historical novel, published in 2006. The Battle of Fort Dearborn is, unsurprisingly, the climax of the narrative.



(And, yes, the novel is still available on Amazon.)

Congratulations 2012 law school graduates: What were you thinking?

This is a post I started writing weeks ago -- but it seems like every time I opened my email, there was something new to add.

I started out looking at the terrible story out of Boston: A firm there offered a job paying $10,000 a year -- and got 32 applicants. (The link is to Martha Neil's May 31 article on ABA Journal Law News Now.)

Neil's post linked to Lisa van der Pool's May 31 post on the Boston Business Journal website. Ms. van der Pool's post included a screen grab of the Boston College Law School website where the below-minimum-wage job was posted; I've grabbed it in turn:



The job is not quite as terrible as the articles make it sound. Pay is estimated, based on what the new attorney can likely bill and collect on his or her own case load -- but if you read the ad, the firm would also provide malpractice and health coverage, a bus pass (so the impecunious lawyer can get to and from work), and even an employer-paid clothing allowance.

On the other hand, Boston College claims that the median salary of its 2010 graduates nine months after graduation was a heck of a lot more than $10,000 and a bus pass, even in the public sector:



Of course, charts like this recall to mind the phrase often associated with Mark Twain (though he attributed it to Benjamin Disraeli -- and Disraeli wasn't the source either): "There are lies, damned lies and statistics."

Who responds to salary surveys? Those who got the prestige clerkships and those who hooked on with silk-stocking firms -- or the ones flipping burgers?

In an article that appeared in the January 9, 2011 New York Times ("Is Law School a Losing Game?"), David Segal quoted Indiana University Law Professor William Henderson as saying, "Enron-type accounting standards have become the norm."

When a law school claims that x percent of its graduates are employed nine months after graduation, it means employed anywhere -- whether the job requires a law degree or not.

A law grad, for instance, counts as "employed after nine months" even if he or she has a job that doesn't require a law degree. Waiting tables at Applebee's? You're employed. Stocking aisles at Home Depot? You're working, too.

Segal's 2011 article said that February 15 was the magic date on which employment is calculated for purposes of the all-important U.S. News & World Report law school rankings.

A number of law schools hire their own graduates, some in hourly temp jobs that, as it turns out, coincide with the magical date. Last year, for instance, Georgetown Law sent an e-mail to alums who were "still seeking employment." It announced three newly created jobs in admissions, paying $20 an hour. The jobs just happened to start on Feb. 1 and lasted six weeks.

(Segal noted that Georgetown insisted that none of these graduates were counted as employed, but his skepticism about this claim seemed apparent.)

I couldn't help but think about the part-time Georgetown jobs when I read Jerry Crimmins's June 1 article for the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, "University of Chicago pays for jobs for some 2011 law grads." Crimmins reported that the U of C released a chart (like the BC Law chart, above) which showed "stellar occupational achievements" by its Class of 2011.

The chart says 199 of 203 graduates, or 98 percent, got jobs. Of those, 181, or 89.2 percent, got jobs that require passage of the bar.

More than half, 117 of last year's graduates took jobs in law firms. Eighty-three of those grads took jobs in the nation's biggest firms with 501 or more lawyers.

Twenty were hired in highly sought after judicial clerkships.

The median starting salary for full-time, employed graduates of the class of 2011 is $160,000. This is based on salaries reported by 178 of 199 employed graduates.

However, according to Crimmins's article, the University of Chicago also announced that "at least 11 percent of its class of 2011 graduates took jobs that were funded by the law school," jobs "that are good for only one year."

In the current climate, it is perhaps not so surprising that the U of C is admitting that it has created jobs for a large portion of its 2011 graduating class.

Since David Segal's January 2011 article in the New York Times, suits have been filed against a number of law schools around the country, alleging various theories of fraud and misrepresentation, particularly in the disclosure of post-graduation salary and employment prospects.

The first of these may have been filed last summer against Michigan's Thomas M. Cooley Law School and New York Law School. Earlier this year, suit was filed against three Chicago law schools (DePaul, Kent and John Marshall). Ameet Sachdev's article for the February 2, 2012 Chicago Tribune reported that the "Chicago suits were part of coordinated attack on legal education mounted by New York plaintiffs attorneys David Anziska, Jesse Strauss and Frank Raimond. Nine additional suits were filed against schools in Florida, California, New York and Delaware." (See also, Michael Vasquez's March 22, 2012 article in the Miami Herald, "UM, St. Thomas law schools subject of fraud lawsuit" and a February 2, 2012 article in the Wall Street Journal, "Corporate News: Law Grads Claim Schools Misled," by Joe Palazzolo and Jennifer Smith.)

Now, even newly minted law school graduates should know that the mere filing of a lawsuit does not guarantee success -- and, indeed, the first results are encouraging for the law school defendants. Deborah L. Cohen reports in the June 2012 ABA Journal ("Few Jobs, But a Rack of Suits") that New York Supreme Court Justice Melvin Schweitzer dismissed the suit against New York Law School on March 21. According to Cohen's article, Schweitzer wrote, "The court does not view these post-graduate employment statistics to be misleading in a material way for a reasonable consumer acting reasonably."

In other words, if you were smart enough to get into law school, you should have been smart enough to see through the rosy employment and salary figures put out by all the law schools. A similar theme was sounded in Sachdev's February 2 Tribune article.

William Robinson, president of the American Bar Association, told Reuters in an interview last month, "It's inconceivable to me that someone with a college education, or a graduate-level education, would not know before deciding to go to law school that the economy has declined over the last several years and that the job market out there is not as opportune as it might have been five, six, seven, eight years ago."

Not as opportune?

On June 7, Lorene Yue posted an article on the Crain's Chicago Business website, "2011 law grads' job market worst in 17 years." Shaun Zinck's article for the June 7 Chicago Daily Law Bulletin was headlined, "Stats show dismal job market for law grads." Debra Cassens Weiss's June 7 article on ABA Journal Law News Now was headlined "Only 65 Percent of 2011 Law Grads Have Jobs Requiring Bar Passage, a Record Low."

Each of these articles cited to a report issued by the National Association for Law Placement (press release, selected findings).

These findings, bad as they are, may be understated. Ms. Yue, reviewing the complete NALP report noted, optimistically, that three Chicago area schools, the University of Chicago, Northwestern and Loyola, had employment rates that surpassed the national average calculated by NALP. (A chart from Ms. Yue's article is reproduced below.)



Encouraging, no?

Well... no. Remember Jerry Crimmins's article about the University of Chicago acknowledging that it created jobs for 11% of its graduates?

But though law jobs are scarce, even for graduates of the most prestigious schools, there's still plenty of debt to go around. Just yesterday, Rachel M. Zahorsky posted an article on ABA Journal Law News Now, "Law Grads ‘Indentured Servants’ to Loans, Law Prof Says; Law School Crisis a Symptom of Weak Economy." According to that article, the average law school graduate can expect a sheepskin and $150,000 in student loans.

That number may be a little high, at least as an average. Greg Moran, writing in the March 31, 2012 San Diego Union-Tribune quotes a U.S. News & World Report survey about how much 2011 law school graduates owe after graduation. Those owing the most come from these schools:

John Marshall Law School (Chicago): $165,178
California Western School of Law (San Diego): $153,145
Thomas Jefferson School of Law (San Diego): $153,006
American University (Washington, D.C.): $151,318
New York Law School (New York): $146,230
Phoenix School of Law (Arizona): $145,357
Southwestern Law School (Los Angeles): $142,606
Columbus School of Law at Catholic University of America (Washington, D.C.): $142,222
Northwestern University [Chicago]: $139,101
Pace University (White Plains, N.Y.): $139,007

Anyway, congratulations to the Class of 2012. Stop reading and go back to studying for the bar exam. Maybe it will work out for you.

Pictures from today's Norwood Park Memorial Day Parade

The annual Norwood Park Memorial Day Parade wound its way through the neighborhood earlier today. The Edison Park American Legion and the American Flag Coalition led the way.

You can't have a parade in Chicago without politicians. Groups for State Senator John Mulroe (D-10) Ald. Mary O'Connor (D-41) represented the Democrats at the front of the parade; groups for County Commissioner Peter Silvestri (17th) and State Rep. Michael McAuliffe (R-20) represented the Republicans at the front of the parade.

Cook County Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Commissioner Frank Avila was further back in the parade, but we'll keep all the politicians together in this post.

But it wouldn't be much of a parade without a grand marshal, motorcycles, marching bands....

Want more? Turn to page two.

Judge Thomas J. Carroll appointed to Felton vacancy

The Illinois Supreme Court has appointed Judge Thomas J. Carroll to the countywide vacancy created by the recent death of Judge Donna Phelps Felton.

Judge Carroll's appointment became effective last Friday and will expire on December 1, 2014. At the time of this appointment, Judge Carroll was serving on the bench by appointment to the McSweeney Moore vacancy in Cook County's 3rd Subcircuit.

Judge Carroll was one of several candidates to file for the McSweeney Moore vacancy in the March primary, but Carroll and all the other hopefuls in that race withdrew in favor of Daniel R. Degnan, Executive Director of the Cook County Employee Pension Fund and the son of former state senator and one-time director of the mayor's Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, Timothy F. Degnan. Daniel R. Degnan was unopposed in March; he face no opposition in November.

Prior to his initial elevation to the bench, Judge Carroll was a criminal defense attorney. He has also worked as an Assistant Public Defender.

Sixty Cook County Judges file for November retention ballot

Sixty Cook County Circuit Court Judges elected or retained in 2006 have filed to appear on the retention ballot in the November 2012 general election, according to information furnished by the Illinois Secretary of State.

The last day for a judge to provide a declaration of candidacy was May 6, according to the Illinois State Board of Elections website.

If normal patterns hold, some of these jurists will withdraw their retention bids between now and the election. Three of the judges on this list are serving on the Appellate Court; two, Maureen Elizabeth Connors and P. Scott Neville, Jr., won their respective races in the March Democratic Primary and face no opposition in November. They are likely to withdraw their retention bids. On the other hand, Judge Stuart E. Palmer was assigned by the Illinois Supreme Court to serve on the Appellate Court. He would have to be retained in office as a Circuit Court Judge in order to continue in his assignment on the Appellate Court.

Also on the list of judges currently seeking retention is Cynthia Brim. Currently, Judge Brim has been removed from all judicial duties by order of the Executive Committee of the Circuit Court of Cook County. The suspension came after Judge Brim was arrested at the Daley Center, charged with allegedly shoving a Cook County Sheriff's deputy and tossing a set of keys at a security checkpoint.

One Justice of the Appellate Court, James Fitzgerald Smith, has filed for retention in the First Appellate District (Cook County). Several downstate Appellate Court justices have also filed for retention, Tom M. Lytton and Daniel L. Schmidt (3rd District), John Turner (4th District), and Melissa Ann Chapman (5th District). No Supreme Court Justice will be on the retention ballot in Cook County; Justice Rita B. Garman has filed for retention in the downstate 4th District.

A complete list of Cook County Circuit Court Judges who have filed for retention in November follows:

• Martin S. Agran
• Patricia Banks
• Ronald F. Bartkowicz
• Carole Kamin Bellows
• Maura Slattery Boyle
• Daniel Patrick Brennan
• Cynthia Brim
• Rodney Hughes Brooks
• Mary Margaret Brosnahan
• Robert Lopez Cepero
• Gloria Chevere
• Matthew E. Coghlan
• Maureen Elizabeth Connors
• Grace G. Dickler
• Christopher Donnelly
• Loretta Eadie-Daniels
• James D. Egan
• Kathy M. Flanagan
• Ellen L. Flannigan
• Peter Flynn
• Raymond Funderburk
• Joyce Marie Murphy Gorman
• Catherine Marie Haberkorn
• Orville E. Hambright
• Pamela E. Hill Veal
• Carol M. Howard
• Garritt E. Howard
• Michael J. Howlett, Jr.
• Anthony A. Iosco
• Moshe Jacobius
• Edward R. Jordan
• Paul A. Karkula
• Joseph G. Kazmierski, Jr.
• Stuart F. Lubin
• Marvin P. Luckman
• Marcia Maras
• Jill C. Marisie
• James Michael McGing
• Mike McHale
• James Patrick Murphy
• Thomas W. Murphy
• Lisa Ruble Murphy
• Marya Nega
• P. Scott Neville, Jr.
• Patrick W. "Pat" O'Brien
• Joan Margaret O'Brien
• Ramon Ocasio III
• Stuart E. Palmer
• Lee Preston
• Mary Colleen Roberts
• Thomas David Roti
• Drella C. Savage
• Colleen F. Sheehan
• Diane M. Shelley
• Bill Taylor
• James M. Varga
• Carl Anthony Walker
• Richard F. Walsh
• Camille E. Willis
• E. Kenneth Wright, Jr.

FWIW among this year's Kogan Award winners

The Chicago Bar Association's 23rd Annual Herman Kogan Media Awards were handed out Wednesday, May 9 at a luncheon at Petterinos in Chicago's Loop. WLS-TV anchor Ron Magers served as the keynote speaker.

Tribune reporters David Jackson and Gary Marx were honored in the print category for their series "Fugitives from Justice," about criminals who have fled overseas to avoid prosecution. In addition to the Kogan award, "Fugitives from Justice" has received the Watchdog Award for Excellence in Public Interest Reporting from the Chicago Headline Club and a Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism. "Fugitives from Justice" was also a finalist for this year's Pulitzer Prize in the investigative reporting category.

Mark Suppelsa and Marsha Bartel of WGN-TV received a Kogan Award for their broadcast series "Pension Games," a multimedia series (in conjunction with the Chicago Tribune) that exposed waste and fraud in the state pension system. The "Pension Games" series has also won two Lisagor Awards from the Chicago Headline Club and the 2012 Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Award for Investigative Reporting from the Better Government Association.

The third Kogan Award winner, in the online category, was yours truly. Photographic evidence is supplied above for the understandably skeptical. The particular post singled out was "In defense of the Supreme Court's recent practice of recalling appointed judges who've lost in a primary election."

In addition to the three Kogan Awards, the CBA gave out three Meritorious Achievement Awards on Wednesday.

John Marshall Law School Professor and Chicago Daily Law Bulletin columnist Timothy P. O'Neill was given a Meritorious Achievement Award for his anti-death penalty column, "Some Advice: Let's Leave Well Enough Alone."

Angela Caputo of the Chicago Reporter received a Meritorious Achievement Award for "Out at First," about the Chicago Housing Authority's "one strike policy" of seeking the eviction of families when any person residing with that family is accused of any crime. "Out at First" won a Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists in the category of Public Service in Magazine Journalism (Regional/Local Circulation) and a Lisagor Award from the Chicago Headline Club in the category of general-interest publication, circulation less than 20,000.

The third Meritorious Achievement Award went to Cate Cahan and Robert Wildeboer of WBEZ Radio for the series, "Whatever Happened to Marcus?" This series also received a Lisagor Award from the Chicago Headline Club in the radio category.

The Herman Kogan Media Awards are named for the late Chicago newsman Herman Kogan. A reporter, feature writer, columnist and editor at various times with the Chicago Tribune, Sun-Times, and the old Daily News, Kogan also won three Emmys during a mid-1960's stint as assistant general manager of news at WFLD. Along the way, Kogan also hosted two programs on WFMT radio, "Critics Choice" and "Writing and Writers."

Kogan was the author of several books on Chicago themes including Big Bill of Chicago, a biography of William Hale Thompson (with Lloyd Wendt); Lords of the Levee: the Story of Bathhouse John and Hinky Dink (also with Wendt -- also released under the title Bosses in Lusty Chicago: the Story of Bathhouse John and Hinky Dink) and The Great Fire, Chicago, 1871 (with Robert Cromie).

The First Century, the story of the Chicago Bar Association's first 100 years, was a solo effort.

Forgetfulness may not be a sign of aging, just the result of a change of venue

A colleague told me recently that while driving to work he'd thought of a long list of things to accomplish but -- just as soon as he set foot in his office -- he couldn't remember anything on his list. "I must be getting old," he complained.

A note by Marc Silver in the "Next" section of this month's National Geographic provides a happier explanation. He writes of research published by Notre Dame's Gabe Radvansky that suggests that people simply don't remember things as well when they cross through a doorway. Silver summarizes Professor Radvansky's conclusion: "Change of venue makes the brain 'push old stuff out and focus on what's going on now,' a good strategy for cavemen heading from forest to field."

Radvansky's paper, which was published in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, may be accessed here. Another summary of Radvansky's work, by Susan Guibert, can be found on the Notre Dame website.

Is pulling down an opponent's campaign signs a crime?

The answer to this question (and all lawyers out there are invited to say it along with me) is: It depends. Let me explain.

The possible pilfering of campaign signs is in the news today because of an article by Jeremy Gorner in today's Chicago Tribune, about the arrest of Carl Boyd on the night before the March 20 primary.

Boyd was the winner of the Democratic Primary for Circuit Court Judge in Cook County's 2nd Judicial Subcircuit. He faces no opposition on the ballot in November.

Quoting from the linked Tribune article:

According to a police report, a Chicago police sergeant spotted Boyd removing [Chester] Slaughter campaign signs and placing them in the trunk of his 2000 BMW near 119th and Halsted streets early on March 19. [Slaughter was one of Boyd's three primary opponents.]

Police reported recovering 12 of Slaughter's campaign signs from Boyd's car.

Boyd was arrested on a misdemeanor theft charge, booked at the Calumet District police lockup and released later in the morning after posting $200 in cash for bail.

What's missing from this account is an essential element that might make Mr. Boyd's alleged conduct into a crime.

I have no opinion as to whether Mr. Boyd did or did not do something in violation of the law.

However, in 1984, in Members of the City Council of the City of Los Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466 U.S. 789, 104 S.Ct. 2118, 80 L.Ed.2d 772, the United States Supreme Court upheld a city ordinance that prohibited the erection of campaign signs on public property. Most cities and villages in Cook County also have some sign ordinance prohibiting campaign signs on public property; some even have provisions that purportedly allow municipalities to bill campaigns whose signs are removed from streetlights or public parkways by public employees. In this sense, signs on lampposts or posted at intersections may be considered abandoned and might be removed by anyone.

On the other hand, uprooting and removing a campaign sign planted by a homeowner in his or her own front lawn might very well constitute misdemeanor theft.

In other words, if Candidate A is pulled over by the police and is found to have a whole bunch of Candidate B's signs in the back seat, it may look a tad unseemly -- but where those signs came from is the key factor in determining whether Candidate A has committed a crime.

Judge's daughter in the running for Miss USA

Beauty contests are beyond the usual scope of this blog, but a Facebook message this evening got me looking into the upcoming Miss USA Pageant.

The next Miss USA will be crowned June 3 in a live NBC television broadcast. To boost interest in the contest, the pageant organizers are running an online election: Anyone can vote for their favorite Miss USA contestant; the winner is guaranteed a place among the pageant semifinalists.

The Illinois representative in the Miss USA contest (shown above) is Ashley Hooks; her proud father is Cook County Circuit Court Judge William H. Hooks. It was Judge Hooks who sent me the Facebook message this evening, looking to spread the word about his daughter's Miss USA bid. "People can vote on line up to 10 times per day, per email account," Judge Hooks wrote. Voting is underway now, and continues through June 2 at noon ET. Votes can be taken at this link or on Facebook or Twitter.