The Illinois Bar Foundation (IBF), the charitable arm of the Illinois State Bar Association, has awarded its 2016 Post Graduate Legal Fellowship Program grants to law school clinics at DePaul University College of Law, Loyola University Chicago School of Law and Northern Illinois University College of Law.

Each law school has selected a 2016 graduate for the one-year fellowship, designed to increase access to civil legal aid, help new attorneys develop practical legal skills and build a network, and encourage the participants to use their skills to serve those in need throughout their career through public interest jobs or pro bono work.

The 2016 participants are Patricia Zimmerman, a graduate of Northern Illinois University College of Law; Caitlin M. Duane, DePaul University College of Law; and Victoria E. Dempsey, Loyola University Chicago School of Law. The IBF and law schools share the cost of the Fellowships which have been awarded annually since 2014.

Zimmerman will serve at NIU Law’s Zeke Giorgi Clinic in Rockford; Duane will work at DePaul’s Poverty Law Clinic; and Dempsey will be located at the Community Law Center Clinic at Loyola University Chicago.

The Illinois Supreme Court has appointed Associate Judge Bradley T. Paisley as the resident circuit judge of Christian County in the Fourth Judicial Circuit.

Judge Paisley was appointed Wednesday to fill the vacancy created by the December 31, 2015, retirement of resident Circuit Judge Ronald D. Spears. The appointment takes effect July 11, 2016.

Asked and Answered

By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC

Q. I am the owner of a 14-attorney firm in the western suburbs of Chicago. I am 45 years old and I started my practice as a solo 10 years ago. The firm focuses on business litigation exclusively. Like many law firms the name of the firm is My Name, LLC. The firm has grown rapidly and we have been successful. However, I am concerned that I should be building more of a "firm brand" and the firm is too much about me. I would appreciate your thoughts?

Illinois Supreme Court Justice Thomas L. Kilbride has announced an application process for appointment to a resident Circuit Court vacancy in Fulton County in the Ninth Judicial Circuit.

The vacancy will be created upon Circuit Judge William C. Davis' retirement, effective September 5, 2016. Judge Davis was elected in 2006 and is the resident judge at the Fulton County Courthouse in Lewistown.

Join the Board of Governors of the Illinois State Bar Association and the Board of Directors of the Illinois Bar Foundation for a President’s Reception, honoring Umberto S. Davi, ISBA President from 2015 to 2016.

• Thursday, July 28, 2016
• 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm
• Maggiano’s Little Italy
• 1847 Freedom Drive, Naperville, IL, 60563

Longtime Chicago Daily Law Bulletin reporter John Flynn Rooney has died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Mr. Rooney was a longtime resident of Chicago's Beverly neighborhood. He graduated from Marist High School and Loyola before attending the University of Illinois at Springfield’s graduate program in public affairs reporting,

Survivors include his wife Meg and sons Jack, Ned and Dan.

Read the full obituary in the Chicago Sun-Times.

Thank you for being an ISBA member - 2016-2017 bar association dues are due by June 30, 2016. An invoice has been mailed or you can also pay online here.

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ISBA Director of Legislative Affairs Jim Covington reviews legislation in Springfield of interest to ISBA members. This week he covers Common Interest Community Association Act and the Condominium Property Act (Senate Bill 2354), Property crimes (Senate Bill 2907), IDVA electronic filing pilot program. (House Bill 6109), Common Interest Community Association Act and the Condominium Property Act (Senate Bill 2358), Condominium Property Act (Senate Bill 2359) and Common Interest Community Association Act (Senate Bill 2741).

More information on each bill is available below the video.

Chicago lawyer Meghan VanLeuwen won this year's Poetry Slam with an elegant remembrance of her father's pre-digital law office. Find out more about the competition in the July Illinois Bar Journal.

Quo Ante

By Meghan VanLeuwen

When I was a young girl
we would sometimes visit my Father
at his law office
in the center of the small town where we lived.

Shag carpet, dark wood, legal tomes -
air thick and serious as Church.
We ran our fingers across file cabinets, typewriters, rolodexes.
Great stacks of briefs, like Corinthian columns, adorned every surface.

There were no computers in my Father's practice.
There were no emails either, but sometimes at night he would speak softly into a Dictaphone,
a staccato rhythm accompanying soft scratches of lead on legal pad.

There was no constant connection then.
When my Father left the office,
he was truly gone.

Avid cyclists might be shocked to learn that they are not necessarily intended users of public ways, including popular riding paths and trails. Given the growing popularity of cycling, and the major improvements some municipalities have undertaken to protect and encourage bike ridership, this notion seems counterintuitive to say the least. But an 18-year-old Illinois Supreme Court ruling sets precisely that precedent.

In Boub v. Township of Wayne, 183 Ill. 2d 520 (1998), the court held that a cyclist is only a permitted user of a roadway, not an intended user. It pointed to past precedents indicating that while intended users are also permitted users, permitted users are not necessarily intended users. Making an analogy to crosswalks, the court found that, absent signs or other markings specifically indicating that bicycle use was intended, cyclists are not intended users of a roadway.

Justice Heipel's dissent in Boub notes that the majority's holding is "both irrational and dangerous as a principle of public policy." Id. at 539. Quite simply, the majority holding in Boub "discourage[s] municipalities from taking any measures to make roads safer and more hospitable for bicyclists." Id.