[caption id="attachment_14321" align="alignright" width="211" caption="Courtney Cox is stepping down from his post as a U.S. Attorney. Photo credit: Steve Jahnke/The Southern"][/caption]
Note: This story is reprinted with permisson of The Southern Illinoisan
By Becky Malkovich, The Southern
BENTON - When A. Courtney Cox got the call to serve as one of only 93 U.S. attorneys, he wasn't sure answering it was the right thing to do.
"I wasn't sure it was something I would be able to do," he said. "As I thought about what I was being asked to do, I realized it was a job that was important and in the nature of service to country and that I did want."
But the Benton native was still skeptical. He called a trusted friend who assured him he could and should do the job.
Still, there was the four-day-a-week drive from Benton to Fairview Heights to consider.
"I talked to my wife, who said, ‘Your brother, Jon, is going to Afghanistan to serve the country. I think you can drive to Fairview Heights,' " he said with a laugh. "So I accepted."
Appointed by the judges of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, Cox became the district's top prosecutor in November 2007. His last day in office was Friday, when Stephen Wigginton was sworn in as the new U.S. attorney for the southern district.
Entering the office after a long career in private practice was a learning experience, Cox said.
"When I became U.S. attorney, I was naive about child exploitation," Cox said. "I very quickly learned of the magnitude of the problem of child pornography and exploitation. It has changed the way I look at the Internet and how I view people in general. There are 50,000 predators online looking to molest children and it's not talked about enough or dealt with enough by parents and educators. We vigorously prosecuted many but there are many, many more.
"I think a society is judged by how it treats its children and elderly and I think we can do more to protect our children from this epidemic, because that's what it is ... an epidemic."
Practice News
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August 31, 2010 |
Practice News
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August 31, 2010 |
Practice News
High status, fascinating issues, great money and perks, no practice-management headaches -- what lawyer wouldn't want to be a judge? What lawyer indeed, which is why it isn't an easy gig to get. Supreme court justices and others tell Helen Gunnarsson how you can improve your odds of donning the robe in the September Illinois Bar Journal.
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August 31, 2010 |
Practice News
The Illinois Supreme Court has appointed Lorna E. Propes as a Circuit Judge of Cook County, Seventh Subcircuit. This appointment is effective Sept. 10, 2010, and terminates on Dec. 3, 2012. This fills the vacancy created by the retirement of the Hon. Lawrence W. Terrell.
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August 30, 2010 |
Practice News
Several of the jurors in the Blagojevich trial were interviewed by Chicago Tribune reporters Bob Secter and Stacy St. Clair in last week's Tribune. The title of the piece says it all: "Blagojevich jury's advice: Keep it simple. Panel says prosecution's case, judge's jury instructions were too complicated." I'm not taking a poke at the prosecution or judge here. I'm sure that this was a hard case to organize and present, and I couldn't have done any better. But the article does a nice job of reminding us that as advocates we're not going to persuade anybody of anything unless the information is organized in such a way that the reader or listener can easily grasp it.
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August 27, 2010 |
Practice News
Illinois Supreme Court Justice Rita B. Garman announced Friday the formation of a judicial screening committee to help fill a vacancy in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit. Justice Garman established the screening committee to assess the qualifications of those persons who have applied for appointment to the Circuit Court vacancy created by the upcoming retirement of Judge G. Michael Prall on Nov. 2, 2010. Under the Illinois Constitution, the vacancy will be filled by Supreme Court appointment. After the committee has received public input, gathered information and interviewed each of the applicants, it will report its findings to Justice Garman, who will make a recommendation to the Supreme Court from among those applicants submitting their credentials to the committee. The person appointed will serve until the position is filled by General Election in November 2012.
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August 26, 2010 |
Practice News
The Illinois Supreme Court has released its Call of the Docket for the September term. The schedule for oral arguments is slated to begin on Sept. 14 and close on Sept. 22. The court is scheduled to hear 24 cases this term. The cases are listed below. September Term 2010
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August 26, 2010 |
Practice News
You're in a pinch and you need a continuance. Happens to every litigator now and then. But there's a right way and a wrong way to seek one, Judge E. Kenneth Wright, Jr. explains in the latest ISBA Bench and Bar newsletter. "A common misconception is that courts grant continuances at will," he writes. Not true. Instead, "bases for continuances exist in statutes and court rules," and you need to understand them to properly frame your request. In his article, Judge Wright reviews the procedures for seeking a continuance and describes steps courts can take to ensure their decisions are upheld on review.
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August 25, 2010 |
Practice News
Your client is arrested for DUI based on his performance on some of the standard "walk a straight line" field sobriety tests conducted by the arresting officer, including a horizontal gaze nystagmus test. At the hearing on your motion to quash, the officer testifies that yes, she was trained how to do the tests, but no, her training wasn't based on the field training manual used by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That's not an uncommon response. And it's your opening to challenge the reliability of the results, Rachel J. Hess writes in the most recent ISBA Traffic Laws and Courts newsletter. "Defendant should argue that the field sobriety test results, particularly that of the HGN test, should be excluded because the officer was not properly trained in accordance with the [NHTSA's] standardized field training manual," she writes. Read her helpful primer.
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August 25, 2010 |
Practice News
Asked and Answered By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC Q. My partner and I just started our firm two years ago. We have one associate attorney and one staff member. As we grow our firm what should we keep in mind so we don't repeat some of the mistakes that I have seen in other firms that have not been successful? A. I often refer to what I call the Basic Building Blocks of Successful Law Firms which are:
- Partner Relations
- Leadership
- Firm Management
- Partner Compensation
- Planning
- Client Service
- Marketing
- Partner Defections
- Firm Splits and Break-ups
- Personal Fiefdoms
- Maverick Partners
- Hoarding Work
- Lone Rangers
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August 20, 2010 |
Practice News
By Shamla Naidoo Remember this rule: A lawyer must act competently to safeguard information relating to the representation of a client against inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure by the lawyer or other persons who are participating in the representation of the client or who are subject to the lawyer's supervision. This month, a Houston attorney's client allegedly found files relating to her legal matters dumped in a parking lot. According to an investigative reporter, the files were held in a storage facility but when the attorney failed to pay the bill, stored materials were auctioned off to a stranger. Among the many issues in this matter, the ethical question is whether the attorney acted competently to safeguard the client’s files. It makes business sense for attorneys to outsource various services to third parties, but we remain responsible for meeting our ethical obligations as well as to manage related and foreseeable risks related to these services. Practically, what are some of the risks related to off-site storage of legal documents and what should an attorney do about these?
- Have you done due diligence in selecting a document storage provider?
- Who has access to your physical storage space and are they authorized to have access to your files?
- Do you have contingency plans for access/transfer of your files if you are no longer capable of making decisions?
- Do you have plans for your files at contract expiration/termination?
- Does your contract with the service provider allocate consequential damages?
- Have you disclosed the foreseeable risks to your client?