Helen Gunnarsson reports in the July Illinois Bar Journal about SB 0189, which amends the Open Meetings Act, the Freedom of Information Act, and the Attorney General Act. "Though its supporters hail the bill as transparency legislation that will make it easier for citizens to gain access to records that are supposed to be public, critics wonder whether the new system will have its own shortcomings," she writes. Read the article.
Illinois Bar Journal
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July 10, 2009 |
Practice News
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July 9, 2009 |
Practice News
If you do any estate-planning work and have at least one client of means – a small-business owner, say, or a farmer or other landowner – you’ll want to familiarize yourself with Senate Bill 2115, Illinois’ spanking new QTIP legislation. “[The Illinois QTIP law] allows married couples with estates of more than $2 million to set up a QTIP trust (“qualified terminable-interest property trust”) to use marital tax deductions to defer estate taxes until both spouses are deceased,” writes ISBA Director of Legislative Affairs Jim Covington in the upcoming (August) issue of the Illinois Bar Journal. The law, which will take effect as soon as the governor signs it, started life as HB 255 only to end up as a senate bill. It’s a response to the "decoupling" of the federal and Illinois inheritance tax. The federal and Illinois tax used to kick in at the same dollar amount, but last January the federal exclusion went up to $3.5 million while the Illinois tax continues to apply to estates of $2 million or more.
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July 8, 2009 |
Practice News
As Helen Gunnarsson will report in more detail in the August Illinois Bar Journal, a fresh burden for lawyers is on the horizon, and the ABA, ISBA, and other bar associations are objecting on their members’ behalf. Effective August 1, a new FTC rule will oblige most lawyers to develop written protocols to detect and address the “red flags” of identity theft. As the ABA says in its statement about the rule, applying it to lawyers “would impose an undue burden on law firms, especially solo practitioners, and would accomplish very little.” Rockford lawyer J. Joseph McCoy summarizes the rule and its implications for lawyers nicely in his article “FACTA’s ‘Red Flags’ Rule May Apply To Law Firms,” which appears in the June 2009 issue of the ABA’s GP/Solo Technology eReport. The general FTC site has a helpful page consolidating its Red Flags Rule resources.
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July 7, 2009 |
Practice News
As Helen Gunnarsson reports in the July Ilinois Bar Journal, "lawyers with file drawers or boxes of original wills for long-lost clients may rejoice: there’s finally a way to get them out of the office. Assuming a new bill is signed into law, the Illinois Secretary of State will take them off lawyers’ hands – for a small fee, of course." The law was drafted by ISBA Trusts and Estates Section Council member Ray Koenig.
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June 10, 2009 |
Practice News
... or the deputy, for that matter. But the Illinois Supreme Court did make employment law a little claimant-friendlier with its recent ruling in Sangamon County Sheriff's Department v Illinois Human Rights Commission. The justices held that employers are liable for sexual harassment by supervisors whether or not the employer knew about it and even though the employee-victim doesn't work under the supervisor. Read about it in the June Illinois Bar Journal and the June Labor and Employment Law newsletter.