First District Illinois Appellate Court Justice Michael B. Hyman says this about the passive voice in his Judging Your Writing column in the May Illinois Bar Journal: “An abundance of passive sentences tends to force the reader to work harder to understand what is being said. Think statutes, rules, and regulations. They usually read as if composed by a committee of theoretical physicists whose native tongue is German. Yet, while junior to active, passive has an indispensable role in writing that essentially goes unnoticed.”

The bar admission ceremony for the 309 new attorneys who passed the February 2023 Bar Exam and three other admittees will be held online on Monday, May 8, at 1:30 p.m.

Join us for an in-depth look at Kennedy v. Bremerton and how the U.S. Supreme Court decision has impacted First Amendment rights, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Establishment Clause, and public schools.

In the Illinois Bar Journal’s May cover story, “Creating and Managing Your Firm’s Budget,” Jeffrey Krause, attorney and senior consultant with Affinity Consulting Group, says “too many firms—too many households for that matter—they create a budget as this thing that they want to do, and then never follow through on it. They don’t actually make it a working document that they have to use in their business. You have to refer to it all the time—and stick to it. If you’re not looking at it to see whether you’re on track, you’re probably off track. It sounds so common sense, but if you don’t look at it until next year, that doesn’t accomplish anything.”