Chicago Area

[caption id="attachment_14425" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Don Schwartz"][/caption] In a surprise move less than a month after his retirement from Latham & Watkins, finance law heavyweight Donald L. Schwartz announced he is coming out of retirement to lead a market expansion effort at Chicago’s Ungaretti & Harris. Schwartz played key roles in the explosive growth of the finance practices at Sidley & Austin and Latham & Watkins. He plans to draw on that experience at Ungaretti, a mid-sized firm based in Chicago. “Sidley’s creditors’ rights group was only six lawyers when I arrived there as a young associate in 1974, and Latham didn’t even have a finance department or any lending clients on their top 100 client list back in 1988,” Schwartz said. “Our practice at Ungaretti already represents major financial institutions as well as smaller banks. The firm clearly understands the huge opportunity that is developing in middle market lending, and its commitment to building a leading-edge practice in that area was a critical factor in my decision to join Ungaretti.” Schwartz chairs Ungaretti’s newly formed Finance and Restructuring practice.

The Illinois Supreme Court has appointed Kane County State’s Attorney John A. Barsanti as a Circuit Court Judge in the 16th Judicial Circuit to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Michael J. Colwell. The appointment is effective December 1, 2010 and terminates December 3, 2012. Mr. Barsanti, elected as state’s attorney in 2004 and re-elected in 2008, has a total of 27 years as a prosecutor dating to 1979, two years after law school, when he first joined the office. Mr. Barsanti received his Bachelor of Science degree from Carroll College and his juris doctorate from Kent College of Law in Chicago in 1977. He worked for two years in the Illinois Department of Labor before joining the state’s attorneys office. He also worked for the Illinois Appellate Prosecutor’s Office from 2000 to 2004. Mr. Barsanti is a member of the Capital Litigation Bar -- qualified to try death penalty cases --and was appointed to the Capital Litigation Screening Committee by the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts. He is a member of the Kane County Bar Association, and has been a criminal law instructor at Waubonsee Community College and has served as a faculty member at training seminars for the State Appellate Prosecutor’s Office. He was born and raised in Cicero, and has been a resident of Kane County since 1972. He is married, and the couple has four children.

Chicago area

• Longtime judge announces retirement, Daily Chronicle
• Kane County State's Attorney eyes judgeship, Daily Herald
• Lawsuit filed over emergency landing at O'Hare, Chicago Tribune

Nation

• Court: University of Wis. must fund prayer activities, Chicago Tribune

This post is updated with breaking news throughout the day. More Daily Legal News available at www.isba.org/dailylegalnews

RtI – Response to Intervention and Basics of Special Education Law, two half-hour programs presented by the Illinois State Bar Association (ISBA), will air on Chicago Access Network Television, Channel 21 in Chicago, during the month of September. Response to Intervention will air on Tuesdays, Sept. 7 and 21 at 10 p.m., and Basics of Special Education Law will air on Tuesdays, Sept. 14 and 28 at 10 p.m. Appearing on the shows are (from left) John A. Dively, Jr., J.D., Ed.D., associate professor and chair of educational leadership at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston; program moderator Nancy Z. Hablutzel, a Chicago lawyer; Deborah E. Decker, an attorney at Tabet DiVito & Rothstein, LLC, in Chicago; and Mary Kay Klimesh, an attorney at Seyfarth Shaw in Chicago. “Illinois Law” is a cable production of the ISBA, and can now be viewed online at www.illinoislawyernow.com/tag/illinois-law-video.