Notes on yesterday's note-taking order: Ban or boon?

My phone dinged late yesterday afternoon because of this tweet from Sun-Times education reporter Lauren FitzPatrick:

Whoa! Cook County Chief Judge Timothy C. Evans had banned electronic note taking in the courts? Luddites like me who still use diary books (the diary's batteries never fail, although it is just as prone to data entry errors as its electronic counterparts) would not be impacted by such an order, but I could see where such an order, if true, would provoke full-blown angst among my more gadget-inclined colleagues.

I was in the middle of working my law job at the time, but when I could return to the story I found an email from Judge Evans' press aide Rose Mary Marasso, providing both a press release about Judge Evans' order and the order itself.

The above link will take you to the text of yesterday's order, but, in my reading, there are three operative points:

1. Note-taking is permitted in court proceedings conducted in Cook County courtrooms;
2. Taking notes in court proceedings is subject to the court’s General Administrative Order No 2013-05 - Cell Phones and Other Electronic Devices; and
3. Individual judges and deputy sheriffs have the right and duty to keep order in their own courtrooms.

Technically, if you look at GAO 2013-05, the cell phone ban applies only to the Leighton Criminal Courthouse (which you may still think of as 26th & Cal). The earlier, wider cell phone ban, which included all Cook County courthouses except the Daley Center, was superseded by this order. Some readers will protest that there are still cell phone bans at the suburban Municipal District courthouses, but these are at the discretion of the presiding judges in those courthouses (and, given the criminal trials that take place in those buildings, exist for the same good reasons as the ban at 26th Street).

And, in any event, the current ban does (and, for that matter, the ban imposed by its predecessors did) not apply to reporters.

On the other hand, at least as I'm reading the rules, in-trial tweeting by reporters was neither permitted nor prohibited by the Chief Judge except in cases where a trial was permitted to be broadcast under the procedures adopted by the Illinois Supreme Court -- in which case "members of the news media may also use their electronic devices in the courtroom to communicate with news media colleagues, provided court is not in session."

But -- bottom line, as I see it -- courtroom cell phone use by lawyers and reporters alike was pretty much subject to the discretion of the individual courtroom judge prior to yesterday afternoon and remains so following the adoption of this order. Most judges in my experience take a fairly indulgent view of technology; in many courtrooms the problem is not so much getting the judge's permission (or quiet acquiescence) as it is getting a viable cellular signal.

There may be a back-story behind yesterday's order: Some judge somewhere may have threatened to take a reporter's devices. There could be a couple of judges who suspect that they are the subject of a reporter's attention, not the case or cases on the day's docket. These few, if there really are any, may see yesterday's order as a limitation. No one else should.

Or have I missed something?

Cook County Bar Association Centennial Celebration on June 21

The Cook County Bar Association has asked me to help get the word out about its centennial celebration, Destiny in Time, set for Saturday, June 21 at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, 151 East Wacker Drive.

Cocktails begin at 6:30, the dinner begins at 7:30 and a 'nightcap party' starts at 10:30. As part of the program, Celestia L. Mays will be sworn in as the new President of the CCBA.

Tickets for the event are $200 apiece. For more information, or to order tickets, contact CCBA Executive Director Cordelia Brown at (312) 630-1157 or, by email, at cbrown@cookcountybar.org.

Norwood Park Memorial Day Parade remembers America's fallen servicemembers

It's not fancy. But it's respectful. And it provides an annual opportunity for all of us to remember that Memorial Day is more than just the unofficial start of summer. It's more than a day off. The annual Norwood Park Memorial Day Parade provides an opportunity for Americans to recall, remember, and reflect upon the ultimate sacrifice made by so many in the service of the nation.

Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day. It was long a solemn duty for grieving mothers and widows to decorate the graves of their loved ones. The practice became institutionalized in the aftermath of the Civil War. Many communities, North and South, claim to have originated the observance. But the traditional May 30 date was selected in 1868, and promoted by the Union Army veterans organization, the Grand Army of the Republic. The original date of Memorial Day was chosen because (somehow) there had been no major battle on May 30.

Eventually Memorial Day became recognized as a day to honor all of America's war dead, in any war, declared or otherwise. It became a Monday holiday in 1968.

Of course, the kids watching yesterday may have been a little vague on the history. That's OK; they were there.

Iraq War veteran John Joyce served as Grand Marshall of yesterday's parade. (The link is to the DNAinfo Chicago article, by Heather Cherone, about Joyce's military and civilian careers.)

Of course, you can't have a parade without politicians, and there were both some local dignitaries...

... and some political candidates.

The appearance of the Bagpipes and Drums of the Emerald Society of the Chicago Police Department was pursuant to bipartisan agreement.

The Norwood Park Memorial Day Parade ends at Taft High School. Not surprisingly, Taft had a large contingent marching in the parade.

More parade photos can be found on page two.

Redistricting Amendment in jeopardy before State Board of Elections

The Illinois Independent Redistricting Amendment may never make it on this year's ballot. Both the Sun-Times Early & Often site and the Tribune's Clout Street report this morning that the Illinois State Board of Elections' initial review of the 507,467 signatures submitted in order to get the amendment before the voters has found 54% of the signatures to be invalid.

The linked articles indicate that the ISBE is required to conduct a review of 5% of the signatures submitted. In this review, only 46% of the signatures were deemed valid. If this rate is projected to the petition as a whole, it will fall well short of the 298,400 valid signatures necessary to qualify for the ballot.

Rick Pearson's Clout Street post notes that, "This year marked the first time that the State Board of Elections had conducted the signature validation requirement in-house per a change in the law. In prior years, local county clerks were charged with overseeing the signature checks." According to Dave McKinney's Early & Often post, the group sponsoring the amendment "now has seven business days to go through the 13,807 signatures that the state board deemed invalid and attempt to prove they are, in fact, the names of registered voters who live at the address they indicated on the group’s petitions." In both posts, Michael Kolenc, the campaign manager for the amendment, is quoted as being confident that the amendment will qualify for the ballot.

If the amendment does qualify for the November ballot, a suit is already pending to knock it right back off. The case is Clark v. Board of Election Commissioners, et al., 14 CH 7356. Election attorney Michael J. Kasper represents the plaintiffs in this matter, a who's-who roster that includes retired Commonwealth Edison CEO Frank Clark; housing developer Elzie Higginbottom, Jr.; community organizer Rev. Leon Finney; and Craig Chico, the President and CEO of the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council (and brother of former Illinois State Board of Education Chairman, mayoral candidate, and prominent Rauner supporter, Gery Chico).

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Updated to provide additional information.

In the law, civility flows from confidence, certitude

We hear a great deal these days about the need for "civility" amongst lawyers -- yes, even among criminal lawyers, for all you literalists out there -- the idea being that, in beating each other over the head, we should neither mean nor take it personally. We are zealous advocates, yes, but not mere mercenaries. We may heap scorn, where warranted, on an opponent's argument, but not on the opponent him- or herself.

How the heck do we do that?

John Flynn Rooney's recent Law Bulletin article on the occasion of the passing of Lloyd Williams (subscription required) includes this tribute from Williams' long-time partner C. Barry Montgomery:

Williams “exemplified the lawyers that existed 20 to 40 years ago when we all knew each other, we dined together, we drank together and we respected each other,” Montgomery said. “We fought like hell in the courtroom, but we were the best of friends once we left the courthouse.”

Montgomery said that Williams was one of the last old-school defense lawyers. Rooney writes that "Williams enjoyed his camaraderie with other lawyers including plaintiff attorneys Philip H. Corboy and Leonard M. Ring. After trials, he had a martini and took his trial team out for dinner."

Social scientists tell us that, as we get older, it is natural to see our vigorous youth as the dying days of a Golden Age, and the present day as a Bronze Era, at best, or maybe even an age of tin. Some may be tempted to dismiss Mr. Montgomery's tribute as just another dubious recollection of a probably fictional time When Giants Walked the Earth. But what if we accept the recollections as largely true? We can then try and figure out how our predecessors could get along so well together, and why we so often have more difficulty.

We all knew each other, Montgomery said. That may not have been literally true, but there's no question that the legal community was smaller a generation ago. We have over 93,000 attorneys in Illinois these days.

But familiarity alone can't account for the idyllic recollections in the recent Williams tribute. After all, haven't we been taught that 'familiarity breeds contempt'?

I submit that the real reason that trial lawyers may have gotten along better in Days of Yore comes from the fact that, in those days, trial lawyers really tried cases. A lot of cases. They were comfortable in the courtroom. They knew what they were doing; they understood what their opponents were doing.

I don't think we have as many trials these days -- we've all read periodic complaints about how the civil jury trial is rapidly becoming an endangered species -- and, even if we do, the trials we have are divided up among many more attorneys.

Additionally, the law has become exponentially more complicated over the course of the last 30 or 40 years. I remember my father would get the new edition of the old Illinois Revised Statutes every couple of years. I remember how the volumes got progressively thicker with each new edition, even as the number of volumes increased. That process did not slow down any when I became an attorney. And case law has expanded with the statutes.

Moreover, today, federal laws and regulations reach into our state courts in ways that our martini-sharing elders could not have imagined back when they were in their prime. Take HIPAA, for example.

It's harder and harder, therefore, for an attorney to truly develop the kind of serene confidence that some of our predecessors seem to have enjoyed. In our fear that we may have missed something we may try to reflexively block anything our opponent attempts because we don't know whether he or she has found an 'edge' or some 'leverage' that will make us look stupid (or, in my case, more stupid).

How can we avoid this temptation to incivility? We must strive to master some area, some aspect of the law where we can speak with the same confidence as our elders. Because the law is so much more complex in the modern age, we may not be able to master the same broad swaths of legal knowledge that our predecessors commanded. We may not rule mountaintops, only hillocks, or maybe only anthills, but we can become thoroughly knowledgeable in something. When we handle cases in that chosen area, we can be as civil as our elders ever were, secure in the knowledge that we know the range of possible outcomes. (And, if we have to step outside that comfort zone, as we inevitably will from time to time, we have to be secure enough to seek guidance and counsel from persons expert in that area, no matter how much gray hair we have.)

Judges have a role to play in this as well. I believe it must be easier for state court judges than those in the federal court. Although the District Courts may have limited jurisdiction, the judges of the Northern District of Illinois are required to become conversant in the huge variety of cases, civil and criminal alike, that may appear on the docket on any given day. Our Circuit Court judges' task is easier because our state courts are more specialized.

Thus, the diligent jurist has a greater opportunity in the Circuit Court system to truly master the law in the types of cases that appear on his or her daily docket, to learn the precedents and to rule in accordance with these. Even if he or she had not practiced extensively in an area to which he or she is assigned, he or she can read up on the area, consult with the other judges in the division (and master the bench book, if there is one) and thereby develop the necessary expertise. When the lawyer-experts collide before the diligent jurist, all can be reasonably confident that, if the facts come in this way, a particular result is certain. There would be a large measure of predictability, even of certainty. If lawyers with these credentials can not be civil to one another in such a forum, at least one of them deserves to be taken to the woodshed.

Decision of the Illinois Courts Commission in the Brim matter

Here, if this plug-in works, is the text of the Illinois Courts Commission Order In re Circuit Judge Cynthia Y. Brim, 13-CC-1.
Illinois Courts Commission decision in Brim matter.pdf
The unfortunate facts of the case are well known and covered in some detail in the decision of the Courts Commission. This is perhaps the key language:

[Judge Brim] testified that stress and being overworked trigger her mental breakdowns. The judicial office, due to the nature of the issues addressed and the extent of the caseload, is stressful. * * * The public expects and deserves predictability in the judicial process, and the unpredictable and unrecognizable nature of respondent's mental illness places the public at risk. While the testimony at the hearing before the Commission indicated that respondent's episodes would be minimal as long as she was on medication, there was still a five to ten percent chance of another episode. The specific incidents of misconduct in this case, and respondent's history of mental illness, demonstrate that respondent is unable to uphold the integrity of and promote public confidence in the judiciary.

We are sympathetic to respondent's mental health issues. Nonetheless, the judicial profession requires a high level of mental ability and proper mental function. "A judge has a position of power and prestige in a democratic society espousing justice for all persons under law. The role of the judge in the administration of justice requires adherence to the highest standard of personal and official conduct. Of those to whom much is committed, much is demanded. A judge, therefore, has the responsibility of conforming to a higher standard of conduct than is expected of lawyers or other persons in society. *** Our legal system can function only so long as the public, having confidence in the integrity of its judges, accepts and abides by judicial decisions." In re Winton, 350 N.W. 2d 337,340 (Minn. 1984).

Our main concern in determining the appropriate sanction is to protect the public by ensuring the integrity of the judicial system. Our goal is to maintain public confidence in our court system and its judicial officers. The Commission finds that the respondent suffers from a mental disability that persistently interfered with the performance of her judicial duties.

The Courts Commission removed Judge Brim from office.

Kristal Rivers appointed to the Cook County Circuit Court; to replace Peter Vilkelis in Connors vacancy

The Illinois Supreme Court today terminated Peter J. Vilkelis's appointment to the Connors vacancy on the Cook County Circuit Court. His tenure in that vacancy ends on Monday, May 12.

Judge Vilkelis sought election to the Connors vacancy in the March primary, but he was defeated by Assistant Attorney General Kristal Rivers. Rivers (like all but one Cook County judicial nominee) is unopposed in November and would have taken office on December 1. Today, however, the Supreme Court appointed Rivers to the Connors vacancy, effective June 2.

But please note that the Illinois Supreme Court has not turned Judge Vilkelis out into the cold: He was elected Associate Judge by his fellow Cook County jurists (and on a write-in basis, no less). He will be sworn into that office, along with the other 12 new Associate Judges, on May 12.

Steven G. Watkins today appointed to the vacancy to which he will soon be elected

Steven G. Watkins won the Democratic nomination for the O'Neal vacancy in the 2nd Subcircuit this past March. As with almost all this year's Cook County judicial primary winners (there is only one exception), Watkins will face no opponent in November.

In the ordinary course, Watkins would have taken office on the first Monday in December. However, the Illinois Supreme Court today appointed Watkins to the O'Neal vacancy, effective June 16.

FWIW among award winners at yesterday's CBA Kogan Awards Luncheon

The Chicago Bar Association's 25th Annual Kogan Awards Luncheon was held yesterday at the Standard Club. The Kogan Awards are given to Chicago-area journalists covering the legal system, the courts, the government, judges, law firms or the justice system.

Cynthia Dizikes and Todd Lighty of the Tribune won the Kogan Award in the Print/Legal Beat Reporting category for "The Failure of Cook County's Court System." The CBA Kogan Awards Committee also presented a Meritorious Achievement award to Marc Karlinsky of the Law Bulletin for "Daley Center/Statehouse Coverage."

Roy Strom won a Kogan Award in the Print/Features or Series category for his article in Chicago Lawyer Magazine, "Too Big to Stop," about a woman who saw the mortgage fraud crisis coming a decade before the bubble burst but who was apparently treated like Cassandras everywhere, vindicated only by events. Chris Fusco and Tim Novak of the Sun-Times received Meritorious Achievement awards for "Tarnished Badges."

In the Broadcast category, Cate Cahan, Ken Davis & Linda Paul won Kogan Awards for their WBEZ/Chicago Public Radio series, "Arrests at School," detailing how disciplinary matters that used to be handled by a trip to the principal's office are now often referred to the police. Even if no charges are ever brought, an arrest for a quickly forgotten incident at school can have life-altering effect years later. A Meritorious Achievement award was also presented to Anna Davlantes and Tasha E. Ransom of WFLD-TV for their series on a shaken baby syndrome case, "Ex-Sitter Fights to Get Conviction in Infant Death Overturned."

The winners of the Kogan Awards in the Online category were Robert Herguth, Patrick McCraney, Dane Placko and Patrick Rehkamp for the BGA series "Disorder in the Bureaucracy of the Courts." (Other entries in the BGA series are here and here.) The CBA presented yours truly with a Meritorious Achievement award for my series on last summer's judicial slating.

NBC5 Political Editor and Sun-Times columnist Carol Marin was the keynote speaker at the ceremony.

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.

Herman Kogan's son, broadcaster Rick Kogan, helped present yesterday's awards.

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Updated 5/10/14 to add in additional links to the BGA series.

John Michael Allegretti gets an early start on his judicial career

John Michael Allegretti won his Democratic primary race for the Mulhern vacancy in the 4th Subcircuit in March. Like nearly all of the primary winners (all but one, in fact) Allegretti faces no opponent in November.

But Allegretti will not have to wait until the first Monday in December to assume his new duties. Yesterday, the Illinois Supreme Court appointed Allegretti to the Mulhern vacancy. The appointment is effective tomorrow; it expires on December 1, the day on which Allegretti would otherwise have been sworn in.

If you've had trouble recently with email to Yahoo! or AOL addresses, perhaps I can explain

Just over a week ago, on April 23, I found these two emails in my Yahoo! inbox (I've deleted links and images for obvious reasons, but here are the texts):

Dear Customer,

Access to e-mail is about to expire,
We recommend that you upgrade your account to avoid suspension.
Please open the attachment to update your account.

Thank You.
Yahoo Inc

While you may think the wording of this email a trifle awkward, it was a masterpiece compared with this gem:

Dear Valued user,

Your email account will be blocked in response to a complaint received by the administration.
According to provision 13.3 of Terms and Conditions, Yahoo may at any time, terminate its
Services for your account and all your data will be lost.
You have to upgrade now to the newest Yahoo! Mail to avoid this termination process.
Once your account is upgraded, we will restore your account to its normal state.Click here
[address deleted]

Kindly note that you have to perform this upgrade as soon as possible to avoid loosing your account data.

Thank You for Being A Loyal Yahoo! Mail User

We hope you enjoy the newest version of Yahoo! Mail.

Yahoo Mail Team
Copyright © 2014 Mail! Inc
Yahoo! Mail

I mean, seriously, who wants loose account data? Keep your data tight; that's what I say!

I dutifully marked these beauties as spam and consigned them to oblivion.

Other things weighed more heavily on my mind that Wednesday. I was in Indianapolis, with my wife and my daughter Brigid, because my other daughter Katie had just given birth to our second grandchild.

(Thank you.)

My wife and Brigid were the front-line troops, assisting Katie. I was either providing logistical support or a camp follower, depending on whether I had an assignment at any given time. Either way, back in the rear echelons, I had some time to remain at least in tenuous communication with pending matters via email on my smart phone.

My efforts met with decidedly mixed results.

Several emails bounced back, marked "undeliverable." I was not then inclined to investigate the causes; I was willing to accept any number of excuses.

I was willing, for example, to put it down to some fault of my own in emailing from a smart phone. (I'm still a smart phone newbie. I was reluctant, for many years, to acquire an inanimate object that was demonstrably smarter than me. I may or may not have gotten angry when I was told that, if this was indeed my objection, I should also give up my tables and chairs.)

I speculated that the wireless connection might be shaky in the hospital. (I seem to recall a time when using mobile phones in hospitals was strictly verboten, supposedly because it might possibly make Mr. Jones' pacemaker in Room 319 do the St. Vitus' dance. It was only after every doctor, then every nurse, then every technician, food server, and maintenance person, began using their phones in an open and notorious manner in every corner of every hospital -- flouting their telephony in front of patients and visitors alike -- all without any apparent harm to Mr. Jones -- that the signs forbidding cellphone use were finally, and perhaps somewhat sheepishly, retired.)

I was even willing to accept that my problem was that I was in a foreign city, and that things would improve when I returned to Sweet Home Chicago.

And it seemed, at first, that this was the case. Another matter had jumped to the top of the priority list in my absence and all my email traffic on that matter successfully traversed the highways and byways of the Intertubes.

But when that crisis subsided, at least for the time being, I had an urgent need to return to the other matter -- and all my email problems returned. Even though I was safely back in Chicago. In my office or at home, not in a hospital. Using a desktop, not a smartphone.

It was time to stop making excuses and start investigating the problem.

Humans are supposed to be adept at pattern recognition.  I'm supposed to be human.  So I did my best: I eventually realized that I was having problems sending to Yahoo! Mail addresses. A lot of solo practitioners use Yahoo! Mail: It's free, it's easy to use, it's been around for awhile. I use a Yahoo! address for email to this blog. Oddly enough, I was getting email at that address even while I found it impossible to send emails to Yahoo! addresses.

In one case, the person I was trying to email had a personal AOL address; I tried sending to that address as well, but it also bounced back.

I know about AOL addresses. Yes, I'm old. I'm so old I remember when America On Line was state-of-the-art. I've used an AOL address for business emails for decades. It's been sort of a constant for me: I've had several offices since 1998, and every time I've moved I've had to change phone numbers (one time I moved literally across the street and around the corner and the phone company still decreed that this was somehow 'too far' to take my phone number). Every time I've changed phone numbers -- even with paying the extra fee for call forwarding the from the old number -- I feel as though I've lost business. But the AOL address has remained the same.

But I have changed, somewhat, with the times. Back in 2007, when my oldest son John was about to graduate from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in computer engineering, he decided to set me up in Gmail. Email would still go to my AOL address but be 'swept' into the shiny, new Gmail account. When I sent mail it would appear to come from my trusty AOL account.

This system has worked well for me for seven years. Until last week.

In calling colleagues to set up work-arounds with attorneys having Yahoo! addresses, I discovered that many of my fellow lawyers were having troubles, too -- not necessarily in sending emails out, but in opening attachments that they did receive.

Frustrated, I reached out again to my son John, now a technical architect (whatever that is) with Accenture. It took him less than five minutes to find and send me an April 25 article posted on ZDNet, "AOL, Yahoo email problems show limits of email security." I read the author's explanation of "DMARC" several times with little or no comprehension. The part that I think I understand is reproduced below:

Perhaps out of frustration with all the phishing and other abuse using their domains, both AOL and Yahoo have recently published DMARC policies to reject email purportedly from: their domains which fails DMARC tests. The problem with this is that lots of legitimate email fails DMARC tests, the most prominent example being mailing lists. Lists commonly modify various headers in when sending content out, so when a message from: an AOL or Yahoo user goes to a mailing list, and the mail server for recipients of the message checks DMARC, it will reject the message and send a bounce.

* * * The policy blocks a lot of spam, but a lot of legit mail in the process. AOL and Yahoo so far are suggesting that everyone change the way they have always done things in order to work within the new restrictions.

John tried to explain to me that -- after seven years -- Yahoo! and AOL had suddenly decided that email sent from my AOL address, via my Gmail account, to any Yahoo! or AOL address, would now be marked for rejection as likely spam. Sure enough, a couple of days later, I received a lengthy email from AOL which read, in pertinent part,

Recently, our systems alerted us to an increased incidence of email users receiving spam emails from "spoofed" AOL email addresses. AOL's security team immediately began investigating the cause of the spoofed emails. Spoofing is a tactic used by spammers to make it appear that the message is from you in order to trick the recipient into opening it. These emails do not originate from the AOL Mail system – the addresses are just edited to make them appear that way.

So because my business emails don't "originate from the AOL Mail system," but only "appear that way," I am now a "spoofer."

So here is how matters now stand: AOL and Yahoo! have invented an email system that eliminates all the business email and lets through only the spam.

Too harsh?

Here's an email I found in my Yahoo! inbox just this morning (not in the spam filter, in the inbox):

Yahoo Mail©
To Me

Account Information

ACCOUNT ALERT,

Your Account is about to expire

Click here to renew

Thank you for helping us protect you.

Yahoo! Membership Service

Daniel P. Duffy appointed to Cook County Circuit Court

Daniel P. Duffy was recently appointed by the Illinois Supreme Court to the countywide vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Susan Ruscitti-Grussel.

Duffy assumed his judicial duties on April 3; his appointment expires on December 5, 2016.

At the time of his appointment, Duffy was a shareholder in the Chicago office of Peterson, Johnson & Murray, S.C. According to his firm biography, Duffy took his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Notre Dame, in 1987 and 1993 respectively. In between he earned an M.B.A. from Vanderbilt University (graduating in 1989).

Licensed in both Wisconsin and (since 1995) in Illinois, Duffy has served, according to the Peterson website, as a member of the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission’s Review Board; as a Hearing Officer for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District; and, since 2002, pursuant to Circuit Court appointment, as Cook County Special State’s Attorney, defending various civil rights suits brought against the Cook County Sheriff’s Office and current and former officials associated with the office.

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A personal aside: Yes, this post is late -- inasmuch Judge Duffy is already on the bench -- but somehow I missed the appointment order when it was entered. Fortunately for me, I have smart, attentive readers, one of whom called my attention to my omission and got me looking into this. I am grateful.

BREAKING -- 13 new Associate Judges are named in Cook County

Twelve of them were on the "short list."

There is, as yet, no confirmation from the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts of the identities of the 13 new Cook County Associate Judges but a list provided to FWIW earlier today has been subsequently confirmed by Scott Cisek, Executive Director of the Cook County Democratic Party (Mr. Cisek was not willing to go on the record as to how he confirmed the list, but he expressed a high degree of confidence in the list's accuracy).

Therefore, congratulations to the apparent winners:

• Judge Gregory Emmett Ahern, Jr.,
• Shauna L. Boliker,
• Karen J. Bowes,
• Matthew James Carmody,
• James Robert Carroll,
• Melissa Ann Durkin,
• Michael James Hood,
• Kevin Thomas Lee,
• Alfredo Maldonado,
• Judge Michael Francis Otto,
• Linda Johanna Pauel,
• Steven Jay Rosenblum, and
• Judge Peter J. Vilkelis.

Did you notice yet?

Only two currently sitting judges, Judge Ahern and Judge Otto, made the short list promulgated by the Circuit Court Nominating Committee. But three -- Ahern, Otto, and Judge Peter J. Vilkelis -- were apparently selected by their colleagues on the bench.

In other words, Judge Vilkelis apparently won as a "write in" candidate.

Now, as noted, I've reached out to the AOIC for confirmation here and also to Judge Vilkelis and I'm awaiting confirmation and comment and I'll amend this post or add a new one as necessary, but that's where matters stand at the moment.

UPDATE: It's official now; the press release has been posted.

Corruption and civility; polls and the practice of law in Illinois

A number of recent polls have put Illinois in the news, and not in a good way.

Illinois fared poorly in a recent Gallup poll of state residents' trust in their own state governments. A bare 28% of Illinois survey respondents "trust their state government 'a great deal' or 'a fair amount.' In contrast, at least 75% of North Dakota, Wyoming, and Utah residents trust their state governments." The next worst state was Rhode Island; in Rhode Island, according to the Gallup poll, only 40% of residents have a great deal or fair amount of trust in their state government. (The results table is reproduced in this post on page two.)

Illinois and Rhode Island are also teamed in an even more recently released Gallup poll where state residents advise whether theirs is a good state in which to live. Only 18% of Rhode Island residents thought their state was the best, or one of the best states, in which to live. But Illinoisans can not be smug: Only 19% of our residents thought that Illinois was at least one of the best states in which to live. On the other hand, only 17% of Rhode Island residents thought their state was the worst state in which to live; one in four Illinois residents -- 25% -- thought ours is the worst. (Montana topped this poll, with 77% of Big Sky State residents thinking theirs is the best state, or at least one of the best states, in which to live. The results table from this poll is reproduced in this post on page two.)

Lest the reader think that it's just that Gallup has something against our fair state, the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University recently published survey results revealing that "[o]verwhelming majorities of Illinois voters believe political corruption is the norm for both federal and state governments." The good news, sort of, is that, while 89% of Illinois residents "feel corruption is somewhat common in the state" (with 53% believing that corruption is very common) and 79% "say corruption at the federal level is at least somewhat common" (with 45% saying federal corruption is very common), a comparatively smaller group of 'only' 62% Illinois residents "believe county or city political corruption is at least somewhat common" (with 35% believing local corruption to be very common).

This merely moderately cynical view of local corruption did not apply to survey respondents from Chicago. Eighty-five percent of Chicagoans "believe county or city political corruption is at least somewhat common" -- and a staggering 55% believe local corruption to be very common. Nearly 30% (29.5%) of Chicagoans think that local corruption has an impact on our daily lives, while an equal number believe that local corruption has "a good amount" of impact on our daily activity. Another 31.5% of Chicagoans believe that local corruption has some, although not much, impact on daily life.

It is this toxic environment in which lawyers and judges function in Cook County. Read Second City Cop sometime. If you slog through the comments to almost any post you may come away thinking that most cops believe that all judges are corrupt or incompetent and that all lawyers are "bottom feeders" (especially those who pursue civil rights claims against police officers). But, then, you won't have to go far on the Internet to find sites where cops are dismissed as incorrigible liars or jack-booted thugs.

It is easy to affect an attitude of brittle, knowing cynicism in this climate, to let on that we know the game is rigged, the players juiced, the outcomes preordained. Indeed, to assert otherwise, to state that things are generally on the up-and-up, that most lawyers zealously represent their clients within the constraints of legal ethics, that judges typically try diligently to ascertain and apply the law, that witnesses (even police officers!) generally take their oaths seriously, puts one at risk of being branded a hopelessly Panglossian naif. Or perhaps a Machine Mouthpiece or Useful Idiot.

It is a dangerous balancing act: As Chicago lawyers we can not uncritically accept the status quo -- there is all too much truth in the public's perception of pervasive public corruption -- but neither can we contribute unfairly to that perception.

As Law Day approaches this week, therefore, lawyers should keep in mind Justice Michael Hyman's statements from his concurring opinion in Talamine v. Apartment Finders, Inc., 2013 IL App (1st) 121201, ¶17-18, "Every ad hominem smear, insult, and innuendo, every speculative accusation, every potshot leveled at members of the judiciary has the capacity of weakening confidence in the judiciary as a whole, confidence which is essential to the vitality of our legal system. * * * [E]very personal attack on the impartiality and integrity of judges diminishes the client's (and the public's) already limited trust in the fairness of the legal system. Until lawyers restrain their bashing of judges, the public's confidence in the judicial process will remain fragile."

Justice Hyman is right, of course. But public confidence will not be restored simply because we lawyers refrain from personal criticisms of judges. Nor is it enough to be 'civil' to one another, as the Supreme Court (rightly) encourages us.

Illinois (and particularly Cook County) lawyers have to deal with -- and work to reverse -- the public's negative perceptions. We can't do that wearing blinders or rose-colored glasses; we have to begin by being proudly beyond reproach ourselves and intolerant of sloth and corruption in the system we serve. We have to become reformers ourselves; we have to become goo-goos. We have to help fix our broken system, changing perceptions by changing reality. We just have to factually illuminate how things work, and how things are supposed to work, to our clients, to our friends, to our neighbors; that alone will bring positive change. As Justice Louis Brandeis said a century ago, "Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants."

Service tax again being floated for lawyers -- beware!

Fran Spielman reports in this morning's Chicago Sun-Times that aldermen are looking for alternatives to property tax hikes proposed recently to help bail out underfunded Chicago employee pensions. Among the alternatives floated, according to Spielman's article, is a tax on certain professional services, such as legal fees. Among the proponents of this tax is Ald. Will Burns (4th):

Burns envisions a Chicago-only sales tax on services that would be considerably lower than the general sales tax and confined to “high-end” professional services like attorneys, accountants, lawn care and computer services.

“I would draw the line on services like haircuts and hairdressers. You want to avoid taxing everyday people. We have to keep the city affordable,” Burns said.

In larger firms, it would presumably be fairly easy to rewrite billing software to include the tax. Heck, even in a one-horse operation like my own, I have a calculator on my computer. I can figure out a 5% or 6% tax easily enough.

But that's just the beginning.

When (and if) the bill is paid, where does the tax money go? Can it be deposited in the firm account? We're lucky to get clients to write one check for fees; we can't possibly expect a fee check and tax check, too. Must every check be washed through an IOLTA account? For the anxious solo looking to cover the phone bill or the mollify the landlord, that extra delay could be problematic in the extreme.

Assuming that the fee checks still can be deposited in the firm account, hasn't the City just acquired some sort of right to access to our books and records, to make certain that we are levying and collecting the tax? What sort of ethical obligations would that trigger? What sort of documentation will be required to establish compliance to the City's satisfaction? And how often will we have to show compliance? Weekly? Monthly? Quarterly? Solo practitioners like myself will have to demonstrate compliance by ourselves. It would be just another unproductive task added to our workday.

And what if the fee bill isn't paid?

Even the silk-stocking firms have occasional issues with collections. Every solo I know has stories of sending out bills that they knew would never get paid. The tax would be payable only upon receipt, wouldn't it Ald. Burns?

And what about the client that "negotiates" his or her bill after the fact? That $2,000 bill? (Maybe it's $2,100 with the service tax.) I'll give you $750, and you should think it's Christmas, the client says. Maybe you get the client to eventually pay $1,000. The service tax would be payable pro rata, right Ald. Burns?

The City's pension shortfall is real. Money is going to have to be found somewhere. But a "service tax" on lawyers' fees is not going to be simple to implement or easy to collect. And there will be costs on the City's part for enforcement and regulation (someone is going to have to draft and, eventually, read the compliance forms, for example). The old expression, "the devil is in the details," seems particularly apt here. We don't yet know the details. Right now, though, I think that devil is grinning.

Marc William Martin appointed to 11th Subcircuit vacancy

The Illinois Supreme Court has appointed criminal defense attorney Marc William Martin to an 11th Subcircuit vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Carol A. Kelly.

Martin's appointment is effective May 1 and terminates on December 5, 2016.

Martin has been an attorney in Illinois since 1987. Martin was most recently in the news as one of the attorneys for Richard Vanecko, a nephew of former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, accused of involuntary manslaughter in the death of David Koschman.

Updated to correct typo.

There will be no recount in the race for the 15th Subcircuit Sterba vacancy

It's official now: Judge Chris Lawler's 15-vote lead has held up. The Cook County Clerk has certified Judge Lawler the winner, with 4,210, 15 more than the 4,195 received by his nearest challenger, Michael B. Barrett.

The Law Bulletin carries the story in its April 10 edition (subscription required). Quoting from Marc Kalinsky's story:

Barrett, a partner at Barrett & Sramek in Palos Heights, conceded after the certified results were published on Tuesday.

“I called Chris to let him know we would not be challenging any of the results or processes or anything like that,” Barrett said.

Lawler said the phone call, much like the race, did not change the positive relationship the two candidates have had for many years.

“He called to say he was not going to file a challenge and wished me well, and I wished him well and we’ll move on,” Lawler said. “I’ve known Mr. Barrett for 20 years. I’ve tried cases against him and his brother.”

Another lesson from last month's judicial primary: Lawyers needed to serve on Judicial Evaluation Committees

For bar association judicial evaluation committees, the March primary followed hard on the heels of associate judge season.

Over 270 judicial hopefuls filed for associate judge in February 2013. The bar associations JECs began sending out and sifting through questionnaires shortly thereafter. Meanwhile, the primary season was getting underway. There was, of course, some overlap between those filing for associate judge and those entering the primaries, but the primaries brought still more candidates for the already-taxed JECs to evaluate.

To cope with the volume of work, busy JECs have developed some shortcuts. For example, candidates who have sought judicial office before, and who have already been evaluated, are not automatically subject to the full evaluation process each time they reapply. Both the Alliance and CBA send short-form questionnaires to returning candidates; generally, the responses to these questionnaires are sufficient to allow the bar associations to continue to stand by the existing recommendations for these candidates. Still, these credentials have to be 'refreshed' after a period of time. In my own case, I had to go through the full CBA evaluation when I applied for the associate judge class seated in 2012. I had to submit the Alliance long-form evaluation when I applied for the current associate judge process.

An easy shortcut is to automatically "just say no" to any candidate who won't participate by completing an initial questionnaire.

Another, perhaps more controversial, shortcut is to set minimum guidelines for approval. Legally, one can seek judicial office as soon as he or she passes the bar exam. Most of the bar associations, however, will not consider giving positive ratings to a judicial hopeful who has not practiced law for at least 12 years.

Mind you, at my age and station in life, I am increasingly inclined to the view that the best judicial candidates should have some significant experience of life before attaining judicial office. One glance at my picture will explain why I have come around to these views. (When I first ran for judge, in 1994, I thought the ideal judicial candidate should exhibit considerably more youth and vigor. Go figure.)

But the would-be judge who has not yet practiced law for 12 years is not automatically incapable of doing a good job in judicial office. Illinois Supreme Court Chief Justice Rita B. Garman graduated from law school in 1968. She was an associate judge by 1974. Former Chief Justice Robert R. Thomas graduated from Loyola Law School in 1981 -- and was elected to the circuit bench in DuPage County in 1988. Supreme Court Justice Mary Jane Theis was an Assistant Public Defender in Cook County for nine years, graduating from law school in 1974 -- and becoming an associate judge in 1983.

Thus, minimum practice guidelines may eliminate from consideration persons who, despite their relative youth and inexperience, would be fine judges. It certainly discourages younger judicial hopefuls (or those who have taken up the law as a second career) from participating in the evaluation process -- and that's unfortunate.

And even with these shortcuts to help move the evaluation process along, every primary season, the bar association JECs are stretched to the limit trying to complete their investigations in time for start of early voting. The Chicago Bar Association got its results out on February 19; the Chicago Council of Lawyers followed on February 26. But some Alliance members were still releasing results well after the start of early voting this year. First-time candidates, the ones are most anxious to find out whether they are deemed qualified or recommended by their peers, are often the last to be evaluated: Their evaluations are the most involved.

It's a numbers game.

And we need to increase the numbers of lawyers willing to serve on JECs.

So here comes the commercial. The Chicago Bar Association is actively recruiting new members for its Judicial Evaluation Committee. CBA members should visit the CBA home page and find and complete a membership application. Completed applications should be returned to tkurth@chicagobar.org by April 25. If you're not a CBA member, consider joining the CBA.

No Alliance member has specifically asked me to plug membership on their JECs at this time -- but I am virtually certain that new recruits (and new members) will likewise be welcomed with open arms.

Service on a JEC (or two or three) is one way in which lawyers can contribute measurably to the maintenance and even the improvement of the the quality of the Cook County bench. If you go to court and appear before judges, that should interest you. If you're thinking of running for judge yourself someday -- not in 2016 -- but in 2018 or later -- JEC service would be a good way for you to learn about the evaluation process first-hand. I think I can promise you that you'll come away with a greater appreciation for the quality of the men and women who seek judicial office.

And -- who knows? -- if the bar association JECs are sufficiently beefed up, perhaps they can investigate and report on the credentials of all persons who file for judicial office, whether they cooperate or not, or whether they have only six or seven or nine years' of practice in before making a first stab at judicial office.

Judge Lyle's "Qualified" rating resinstated by the CBA

The Executive Committee of the Chicago Bar Association Judicial Evaluation Committee has reinstated the "Qualified" rating previously bestowed on Circuit Court Judge Freddrenna M. Lyle, who fell short in her bid for the Gordon vacancy on the Appellate Court in last month's primary.

FWIW readers may recall that the CBA JEC pulled Judge Lyle's rating just days before the primary because campaign commercials being played in heavy rotation on certain radio stations appeared to indicate that the Chicago Bar Association had endorsed Judge Lyle's candidacy.

Neither the CBA nor any of the member bar associations of the Alliance of Bar Associations for Judicial Screening issues endorsements in judicial races; instead, these bar associations issue ratings as to whether they believe the candidate Qualified or Recommended for judicial office (different bar groups use one word or the other).

The withdrawal of the "Qualified" rating did not mean that the CBA had decided Judge Lyle was not qualified; rather, under the rules of the JEC, it meant that further investigation would be required before a final rating would be issued.

Of course, with the rating being pulled on the Friday evening before the Tuesday primary, there was virtually no chance to conduct that investigation before the polls opened, and closed, on March 18.

But the CBA investigation is complete now, and JEC Chair John P. Jacoby's April 3 letter to Judge Lyle confirms that the Qualified rating has been reinstated and thanks Judge Lyle for her cooperation with the JEC's additional investigation.

Jacoby told FWIW this morning that the investigation revealed that the objectionable language in the commercial was not in either the original or revised script for the commercial. Moreover, Jacoby said, when Judge Lyle learned of the problem she took steps to try and have the commercial pulled. The commercial was not pulled, Jacoby said, because it turns out to be "very difficult in this digital age" to edit or remove commercials that have already been slotted for airing. On the other hand, Jacoby said, Judge Lyle was able to revise the robocalls used in her election day get out the vote strategy to eliminate any mention of the CBA.

Analyzing the results of the 2014 judicial primary

What if they gave a primary and nobody voted?

The March 18 Democratic Primary wasn't quite that bad -- but the turnout was abysmally low. Cynthia Dizikes reported in the March 20 editions of the Chicago Tribune,

The turnout was well below the last lowest turnout in modern Chicago history, which occurred during the 2012 primary when roughly 24 percent of registered voters ended up participating. * * *

In Cook County outside Chicago, about 230,000 people -- or roughly 16 percent of registered voters -- made it to the ballot box Tuesday. New Trier Township had the highest showing with about 23 percent turnout, while Hanover Township posted the lowest with about 11 percent.

The last lowest turnout for a nonpresidential primary election was in 1998, when a little less than 24 percent of registered voters weighed in on the races. Two years later, when there was a presidential race to be decided, only 23 percent of voters showed up, the lowest presidential primary turnout in Cook in the past 24 years.

And, not only was the turnout low overall, the bitter Republican gubernatorial primary sucked what little life there was out of the Democratic primary where the only real contested races were for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District and for the judiciary (no, I'm not counting Quinn v. Hardiman or Tom Dart v. three challengers -- the outcomes there were never in doubt). There is anecdotal evidence for the proposition that several Democratic ward and township organizations encouraged reliable persons to cross over to the Republican primary and vote against Bruce Rauner. Cook County Clerk David Orr's office has data which, at least for the suburbs, supports those anecdotes: "Republican ballots were cast by 55 percent of voters in suburban Cook County. In the last Gubernatorial Primary (2010) Republican ballots accounted for 35 percent of all ballots cast." Conversely, "Democratic ballots were cast by 44.5 percent of suburban Cook County voters. This is down from 65 percent in the 2010 primary."

Now the conventional wisdom is that a low-turnout race favors an established political organization.

But the Cook County Democratic Party carried five of six contested countywide Circuit Court races, and one of the two contested races for the Appellate Court. Now, don't get me wrong: Six out of eight is not a bad percentage in any league. But if low turnout is supposed to favor the established political organization, one might have thought that this slate should have had the best possible chance for unanimous success. It's possible that unions and local organizations 'peeling off' some of their voters to try and derail Rauner may have have hurt the chances of the Party's slated candidate for the Gordon vacancy on the Appellate Court, Judge Freddrenna M. Lyle. That race wound up fairly close.

But in the race for the countywide Arnold vacancy, the Party's slated candidate lost to Bridget Anne Mitchell by 63,518 votes, 63.7% to 36.3%, a margin that was pretty consistent in city and suburbs both. There were some local variations, certainly: Mitchell got over 80% of the vote in her home ward, the 19th. But it wasn't a situation where the Party 'dumped' their candidate -- or where a lot of committeemen dumped their nominal candidate -- but, even so, the Party carried only one Chicago ward for their candidate in this race (Michael Madigan's 13th Ward -- and only by a margin of 51-49 there).

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that -- at least in this election -- the greatest service provided by the Cook County Democratic Party for its slate was, in several cases, clearing the field -- driving out a number of candidates before the election, allowing five countywide Circuit Court candidates and one Appellate Court candidate to run unopposed.

Not far enough out on the limb for you?

Well, here's another modest proposal: This may have been an election in which the majority of judicial voters (the tiny group that they may have been) were making informed choices.

I can offer only the following fact in evidence: While many well qualified judicial candidates did not win their races, no candidate deemed unqualified or not recommended by all, or even the majority, of the evaluating bar associations won any judicial race, countywide or subcircuit. Now, you may counter that, in many races, there were only well qualified candidates on the ballot. And you may say that the highest rated candidates (at least in the collective estimation of the bar associations) did not always win their races. I can't argue that. And, if you want to argue that voters favored female candidates over males in judicial races, I can't argue that either. (The Party's slate may be said to have benefited from the fact that four of its six candidates in countywide Circuit Court races were female. The slated male candidate who won his race, William B. Raines, had three female opponents.)

Nevertheless, I'm still going to suggest that this may have been an election in which informed voters made an impact.

There is one other lesson I think we can draw from this primary just past and that concerns the need for more lawyers to step up and serve on bar association judicial evaluation committees. But this is an issue I want to devote an entire post to, and I intend to do so soon.

More on the 26 Associate Judge finalists

Acknowledgment: Marc Karlinsky's article in last evening's Chicago Daily Law Bulletin (subscription required) was very helpful in the preparation of this post.

Some of the names in the list of the 26 finalists for the 13 current Cook County Associate Judge vacancies are certainly familiar to FWIW readers; a number of the finalists have previously run for judicial office. However, many of the finalists may not be as well known. Herewith, then, brief sketches on each of the 26 finalists:

Gregory Emmett Ahern, Jr. is one of the two current Circuit Court judges on the finalists list. After an unsuccessful run for a 6th Subcircuit race in the 2012 primary, the Illinois Supreme Court appointed Ahern to a countywide vacancy at the end of that year. Although Ahern initially announced plans to seek election, he eventually chose not to file after he was passed over by Democratic slatemakers. His current appointment will expire in December 2014. Ahern was an Assistant State's Attorney before his elevation to the bench. According to the website he put up in anticipation of the 2014 primary, as an ASA, Ahern prosecuted more than 50 felony trials, including more than 25 first degree murder cases.

Julie B. Aimen is a solo practitioner with an office in the Loop. According to her firm website, Aimen focuses her current practice on criminal defense, family law, and civil rights matters. Licensed in Illinois since 1984, Aimen is a former member of the Board of Governors of the Chicago Council of Lawyers, a former chair of the Criminal Law of the Chicago Bar Association, a past president of the Illinois Attorneys for Criminal Justice, and a former member of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. According to bar ratings released by Chief Judge Evans and the Nominating Committee, Aimen is one of several finalists to have received a Well Qualified rating from the Chicago Council of Lawyers.

Shauna L. Boliker is the First Assistant State's Attorney of Cook County. Prior to her 2011 appointment as First Assistant, Boliker served as Chief of the Criminal Prosecutions Bureau, the largest criminal trial division in the State’s Attorney’s Office, and, before that, as Chief of the Sex Crimes Division. A career prosecutor, Boliker has been licensed in Illinois since 1989. Bolliker was also rated Well Qualified by the Chicago Council of Lawyers.

Karen J. Bowes is a family law practitioner. She currently practices with her own firm, Bowes Law, but she was formerly a partner at Rinella & Rinella, Ltd. She has been licensed in Illinois (and Mississippi) since 1980. She has also served as a hearing officer for the Illinois Department of Mental Health & Developmental Disabilities and the City of Chicago. Bowes received the 2009 Distinguished Service Award from Chicago Volunteer Legal Services.

Matthew James Carmody practices from an office in Chicago Ridge. His practice includes both criminal and civil matters. Licensed as an attorney in Illinois since 1982, Carmody is the brother of the late Thomas F. Carmody Jr., former Presiding Judge of the 5th Municipal District.

James Robert Carroll practices with the firm of Much Shelist as a commercial litigator. Before joining Much Shelist, Carroll was an Illinois Assistant Attorney General for 15 years, including a stint as First Assistant Attorney General. He has also worked as a Cook County Assistant State's Attorney. The Illinois Supreme Court appointed Carroll to the Illinois Board of Admissions to the Bar; according to the Much Shelist website, he is the Board's current Vice President. He previously served nine years as a member of the Illinois Supreme Court's Character & Fitness Committee and acted as its Vice Chair and Chair for three years. Carroll has also been active with Chicago Volunteer Legal Services. Carroll was rated Well Qualified by the Chicago Council of Lawyers.

Geraldine Ann D’Souza is an Assistant State's Attorney. She has been licensed as an attorney in Illinois since 1992.

Melissa Ann Durkin is chief attorney for the torts office of the Chicago Transit Authority Law Department. She has been licensed in Illinois since 1995.

Tiffany Mary Ferguson is a litigation partner with Pugh, Jones & Johnson P.C.. Ferguson has served as a Hearing Board member for Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission and on the boards of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago, and Girls in the Game. In June 2012, Ferguson was appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to serve on the Chicago Commission on Human Relations. Ferguson was licensed in Illinois in 1996; she was rated Well Qualified by the Chicago Council of Lawyers.

Rossana Patricia Fernandez is the owner of Rossana P. Fernandez & Associates LLC. A former partner with Sanchez, Daniels & Hoffman, LLP, Fernandez was a finalist for Associate Judge in 2012. She has been licensed as an attorney in Illinois since 1997.

Michael Angelo Forti is Chief Counsel for the Illinois Department of Transportation. Before joining IDOT, Forti was Deputy Corporation Counsel in the Constitutional and Commercial Litigation Section. He has been a lawyer since 1980. From 1980-1994 Forti was an associate and later a partner at Bell Boyd and Lloyd, now K&L Gates. Forti was the Democratic Party's candidate for a countywide judicial vacancy in 2012 (he lost to Jessica A. O'Brien).

Aleksandra Nikolich Gillespie is an Assistant State's Attorney, based in Skokie. She has been licensed in Illinois since 1993.

Michael James Hood was named chief of Investigations and Intelligence of the Illinois Department of Corrections in January 2013. He was licensed as an attorney in 1990 and previously served as deputy attorney general for Criminal Justice from the Office of the Illinois Attorney General. Before that, Hood was an Assistant State's Attorney, serving variously as supervisor of the 2nd Municipal District, deputy supervisor of the Traffic Division, and as an assistant in the Cold Case Homicide Unit and the Felony Trial Division. Hood has also served in the United States Marine Corps, rising to the rank of Major. Hood received a Well Qualified rating from the Chicago Council of Lawyers.

Kevin Thomas Lee is a partner with Greene and Letts. Before joining that firm, Lee was a partner in his own firm, Wilson, Lee and Davis. Before setting up his own firm, Lee worked for Jones, Ware & Grenard. He has also worked as an Assistant Corporation Counsel in the mid-1980s. Lee has served as a hearing officer for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District and the City of Chicago and as a Special Assistant Attorney General. Licensed in Illinois since 1980, Lee is a former President of the Cook County Bar Association.

Myron Franklin Mackoff is a partner in the firm of Richardson & Mackoff. He's been licensed as a lawyer in Illinois since 1994.

Alfredo Maldonado is an Assistant Public Defender. He was a finalist for Associate Judge in 2012 also and, this year, he was the second alternate, or back-up, choice of the Cook County Democratic Party for any late-opening countywide judicial vacancies. He has been licensed as an attorney in Illinois since 1996.

Adrienne Denise Mebane is a solo practitioner. Licensed in Illinois since 1984, Mebane spent much of her career in the Cook County State's Attorney's Office, leaving the office in 1998 to serve as deputy general counsel for the CTA before returning in 2003 to serve as Chief of Staff under former State's Attorney Dick Devine. When Anita Alvarez was elected Cook County State's Attorney, Mebane was appointed Alvarez's First Assistant State's Attorney. Mebane received a Well Qualified rating from the Chicago Council of Lawyers.

Mary Terese Nicolau is a name partner in the firm of Smith Nicolau, P.C. A former Commissioner for the Illinois Court of Claims, Nicolau concentrates her practice in the area of real estate taxation. Nicolau previously worked for the Cook County State's Attorney's Office as Supervisor of the Tax Unit, responsible for management of the Real Estate Tax Unit and supervision of fifteen attorneys and support staff for all aspects of real estate tax litigation and indemnity fund actions, representing and working closely with the Cook County Assessor, Clerk and Treasurer in resolving real estate tax issues and assisted in proposing and implementing legislation. Licensed as an attorney in Illinois since 1985, Nicolau is an active Member of the IIT Chicago-Kent Alumni Board. She received a Well Qualified rating from the Chicago Council of Lawyers.

Sanju David Oommen is an Assistant State's Attorney. An attorney since 2000, Oommen received a Well Qualified rating from the Chicago Council of Lawyers.

Michael Francis Otto is the other current sitting judge on the short list. Otto was appointed to a countywide vacancy early in 2012; he ran unsuccessfully for a 9th Subcircuit vacancy in the recent primary. Otto was first licensed in Missouri in 1995, becoming an Illinois attorney in 1998. Otto served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Charles E. Freeman (from 1999-2007). Before that, Otto was a clerk to Appellate Court Justice Joseph Gordon. At the time of his appointment to the bench, Otto was working for Jenner & Block.

Linda Johanna Pauel was the Democratic Party's candidate for a countywide vacancy in 2010, losing to Susan Kennedy Sullivan. Pauel filed for the 10th Subcircuit vacancy this year, but withdrew after Judge Anthony C. "Tony" Kyriakopoulos was slated. Licensed in Illinois since 1991, Pauel is employed as senior counsel for the city of Chicago Law Department.

Edward N. Robles is employed as assistant general counsel for the Chicago Housing Authority. He has been licensed in Illinois since 1988.

Steven Jay Rosenblum is an Assistant State's Attorney. He has been licensed in Illinois since 1989.

Devlin Joseph Schoop is a partner with the firm of Laner Muchin, a firm that represents management interests in labor and employment matters. Schoop has been licensed in Illinois since 1997, beginning his legal career as a law clerk to U.S. District Court Judge Blanche M. Manning. Schoop also received a Well Qualified rating from the Chicago Council of Lawyers.

Debra Ann Seaton is a supervisor in the Public Defender's office. Seaton filed for a countywide vacancy for the 2012 primary, but withdrew from the race. She also ran for judge in 1998. Seaton has been licensed in Illinois since 1986.

Stephen Stern practices law from the Law Office of Stephen Stern. He ran for a 5th Subcircuit vacancy in 2008, losing in a very close race. He also ran for a 5th Subcircuit vacancy in 2006. He has been licensed to practice law in Illinois since 1977. From 1999 to 2004 Stern was Litigation Director for the Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities. For six years prior to that he was Chief of the Civil Rights Bureau of the Illinois Attorney General. From 1986 until 1993, he was a race relations attorney at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago. Stern is a former President of the Cook County Bar Association.