The Illinois State Bar Association invites Young Lawyers Division (YLD) attorney members to establish yourselves as experts in your practice area and compete for your share of $5,000 in prize money by entering the Annual Lincoln Award Legal Writing Contest.

Submissions should be useful, practical articles on topics important to practicing lawyers. Submissions will be considered for publication in the Illinois Bar Journal.

Until recently, former trial judge and Illinois Appellate Court Justice Gino DiVito had served on the Illinois Supreme Court Committee on Illinois Evidence since its inception. In his June Illinois Bar Journal article, “In Defense of Rejected Proposals,” the former justice documents rejected proposals from 2013, the source of certain evidence rules, and why some rules have been reserved or are otherwise absent.

As Bryan Lesser notes in his June Illinois Bar Journal article, “A Tender You Can’t Refuse,” federal courts in the U.S. Seventh Circuit have raised the bar on standing requirements and will continue to bring more consumer class actions to Illinois state courts. All the more reason, Lesser suggests, to be aware of some procedural quirks when bringing class actions in Illinois state court.

Unless you’re a linchpin of a major multinational corporation or have access to top secret government information, you’re most likely not going to be the target of sophisticated hacking measures. But then again, most hackers aren’t running sophisticated schemes; instead, they’re looking over your shoulder (literally or metaphorically) to steal your password or login information. Adopting a few simple defensive measures will allow you to fend off these kinds of intrusions.