Trial practice is a fast-moving endeavor; practitioners must make frequent decisions, often without access to all the facts. At the end of all that preparation and hard work, a judge or jury inevitably anoints a winner and a loser. But the trial outcome need not be the final word on the matter. In her May 2019 Illinois Bar Journal article, “(Why) I Object!,” Ruth Masters, who has practiced appellate law for the past 20 years and is the principle attorney at MastersLaw, provides 10 tips to preserve some commonly occurring issues for appeal in Illinois courts. One takeaway: Parties often get into trouble on appeal because they didn't specify the basis of an objection during trial or they raise new arguments for exclusion on appeal.

Read more in the May issue of the Illinois Bar Journal.